My Favorite Book...?

I don't think I've ever really had a favorite book.

It's a weird and embarrassing thing to admit. I've had favorite rock 'n' roll albums, favorite songs, favorite performers, favorite movies, TV shows, comic books, plays, Playboy Playmates, what have you. The choices have occasionally shifted over time: Sgt. Pepper or Pet Sounds? "Rain" or "September Gurls?" The Beatles or The Ramones, or (briefly) The Rolling Stones? That Thing You Do! or A Hard Day's Night or It's A Wonderful Life? Batman or The Monkees? Blackhawk or Love And Rockets? Carnival or Our Town? Lorrie Menconi or...no, just Lorrie. I've had favorite writers. But a favorite book? I don't recall ever having just one I could honestly name as the top choice.

In high school, when the favorite book question was asked in some class or another, I picked Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled, an anthology of short stories written by my favorite author, Harlan Ellison. But I don't think I had any reason to specify that one over Paingod And Other Delusions or No Doors, No Windows or Gentleman Junkie or any other Ellison collection; maybe it was the one I'd read most recently.

If pressed to name a favorite novel, I might say John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath. Or I might say Mickey Spillane's I, The Jury, though I probably wouldn't mean it (its definitive pulp fiction climax notwithstanding). I went through a period of reading John Irving compulsively, so maybe The Hotel New Hampshire? Same could be said for Max Allan Collins, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton. Alan Brennert, too. Tough to pick a single work. Fiction. Nonfiction. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Steranko's History Of The Comics. Mark Shipper's fab and funny rock 'n' roll novel Paperback Writer. Slaughterhouse Five. The Stand. Woody Allen's Without Feathers. The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay. All of the Harry Potter books. The Big Sleep.

It's easy with music and other pop culture delights. There is ample time to have shifting fave raves, in the moment, of the moment. The seemingly ephemeral can be timeless. A favorite book seems like a commitment.

Maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe it's okay to pledge equally starry-eyed allegiance to The Maltese Falcon and Flowers For Algernon, to The Great Gatsby and The Million-Dollar Wound (or Dying In The Post-War World), The Pigman and The Cider House Rules, just as I love both Revolver and The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. It's not a reflection of a short attention span, at least not only that. It's enthusiasm. It's a delight in the written word. It's a love that will not be limited to just one book. If I like 'em, file them all under FAVORITE.



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