rex quondam, rexque futurus
Sunday, 8 December 2013 17:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
December posting meme, part the third! netgirl_y2k asked "your very favourite book in the world?"
...just one?
I'm sure most people reading this are on the same page re the agony of having to pick just one favourite, from all the multitudinous book shaped wonderfulness that exists in the world. I mean, I read two books last month that could easily qualify for favourite status - Bitterblue and Guardian of the Dead - and there are plenty more of that calibre in my reading history. And then there's Middlemarch, which I read three times in as many years and feel would always reward revisiting, even if it did ruin me for all the rest of George Eliot's work. And there's a substantial number of authors where almost everything they've written could be on the list: Terry Pratchett (for sheer rereadability if nothing else), Lois McMaster Bujold, Sarah Rees Brennan, Diana Wynne Jones, Arthur Ransome... and speaking of him, there's piles of childhood favourites that I could add too (the whole Dark Is Rising sequence, for a start). And then there's that one DS9 book I have read a ridiculous number of times for reasons I cannot adequately explain.
But in the end, there are two books that I knew I had to take with me when I went to university, and when I moved here, in case of emergency. One was Quotable Star Trek, a Christmas present from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_catharine_ nearly fourteen years ago, which I find tremendously soothing, and which has allowed me to quote episodes I haven't even seen.
And the other, the one that might actually qualify as my favourite book ever status, was The Once and Future King. (Anyone who points out that this is in fact four books, or five, depending on your edition, will be Looked At until they stop doing so.) It's not perfect, but oh, I love it. The first volume, The Sword of the Stone, is a sheer delight, and seeing how the final three (...or four) books turn it into epic tragedy is heartbreaking, in the best possible way. It makes me cry, but it's cathartic crying, which sometimes is just what I want. It's wonderful, and if I have a favourite book, The Once and Future King is it.
(Still space left, if anyone else wants to play!)
netgirl_y2k asked "your very favourite book in the world?"...just one?
I'm sure most people reading this are on the same page re the agony of having to pick just one favourite, from all the multitudinous book shaped wonderfulness that exists in the world. I mean, I read two books last month that could easily qualify for favourite status - Bitterblue and Guardian of the Dead - and there are plenty more of that calibre in my reading history. And then there's Middlemarch, which I read three times in as many years and feel would always reward revisiting, even if it did ruin me for all the rest of George Eliot's work. And there's a substantial number of authors where almost everything they've written could be on the list: Terry Pratchett (for sheer rereadability if nothing else), Lois McMaster Bujold, Sarah Rees Brennan, Diana Wynne Jones, Arthur Ransome... and speaking of him, there's piles of childhood favourites that I could add too (the whole Dark Is Rising sequence, for a start). And then there's that one DS9 book I have read a ridiculous number of times for reasons I cannot adequately explain.
But in the end, there are two books that I knew I had to take with me when I went to university, and when I moved here, in case of emergency. One was Quotable Star Trek, a Christmas present from
_catharine_ nearly fourteen years ago, which I find tremendously soothing, and which has allowed me to quote episodes I haven't even seen.And the other, the one that might actually qualify as my favourite book ever status, was The Once and Future King. (Anyone who points out that this is in fact four books, or five, depending on your edition, will be Looked At until they stop doing so.) It's not perfect, but oh, I love it. The first volume, The Sword of the Stone, is a sheer delight, and seeing how the final three (...or four) books turn it into epic tragedy is heartbreaking, in the best possible way. It makes me cry, but it's cathartic crying, which sometimes is just what I want. It's wonderful, and if I have a favourite book, The Once and Future King is it.
(Still space left, if anyone else wants to play!)