10 books.

I've never been able to pick favorites. It's not for lack of strong opinions (go on, ask me whether nuts belong in brownie sundaes: they don't); it's that I'm reluctant to declare one thing unquestionably "better" than another without any context. My favorites are circumstantial: favorite food can depend on the season, its availability, whether or not I have to cook it myself, the last thing I ate, and how hungry I am at any given moment; favorite band can depend on the definition of "band," what mood I'm in, who's asking, and whether or not I'm trying to impress them; favorite scarf depends on the weather; favorite book is impossible. To a reader, being asked to choose a single favorite book is an outrage akin to being asked to choose a favorite...well, nothing else, really. Film fans might disagree, but books are arguably a category unto their own, so infinitely diverse and carrying such a range of implications about the readers who choose them that being asked to decide on just one feels like an insult.

When well-meaning and/or nosy adults asked bookish little me what my "favorite book of all" was, I used to lie and name the last thing I'd finished simply to get them to leave me to whatever current thing I was reading, or if I was feeling particularly annoyed at the intrusion, I would name a great classic that I knew would both impress them and get them to abruptly end the conversation themselves. It was particularly effective if the title sounded bleak: Crime and Punishment and The Plague worked well. As I've gotten older and even more impatient with the impertinence of the favorite book question, I've resorted to bluntness: "I don't have a favorite book." It's true enough that I don't make many friends with that answer, but then I wouldn't be likely to enjoy the company of anyone who asked me that anyway.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I was horrified to see that my friend Molly had tagged me in one of those "answer these questions and pass it on to someone else" posts about books. I felt betrayed, because Molly is one of those people who I believed would know better, would understand that a person can't simply list their 10 favorite books at the drop of a hat and move on as if the decision were final. Sorry I doubted you, Molly, because the "rules" of this game turned out to be more nuanced than that:

List ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

Oh. Okay. I can do that.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
3. The Catcher in the Rye/Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
4. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
6. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere by Anna Gavalda
8. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
9. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen
10. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

My list skews heavily towards books I first read years ago, some of which are considered children's/young adult titles. I did think twice about publicly laying claim to some of them, but what is more touching than the book that all my friends passed around to each other when boyfriends were nothing more than fictional devices, or the ones whose screen adaptations lured us to midnight premieres where we clutched each other's hands when our emotions got to be too much? What has stayed with me more than the book I packed first of all when I left for college, or the one I read alone in bed after I'd arrived at school when no other words made sense? I don't even feel the need to justify the three that made me seriously consider my own mortality.

If you want to ask me about books, don't ask me about favorites. Ask me which ones made me feel a certain way; which ones changed my mind or shaped my beliefs; which ones I'd recommend to a friend and which ones a friend recommended to me; ask me what I was doing when I read a book and what I did after. Then tell me about your books.

My matching set of Salingers.