A Timely Read: How a Book Becomes a Favourite
I have a confession to make. I’m currently attempting to read Little Women, and it’s not going very well. It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for many years, as so many women I genuinely like and respect would list it amongst their favourite books. The trouble is, I think I may have missed the boat.
As much as I’ve tried, I just cannot get behind the story of Jo and her gentile, yet appropriately sassy, sisters. It feels dated and irrelevant, and with so many things vying for my attention I just can’t bring myself to sit down and finish.
Now, I’m sure this is a major oversight on my part – the book is undeniably a classic – but it’s just not resonating with me in the same way it has with others. Which led me think… just how important is when you read a book?
Perhaps if I’d read Little Women at a more receptive (and patient) age, I would be enjoying it much more. Or even as an older woman, with some perspective under my belt. If I’d read Little Women at a different point in my life, could it have even held a place on the list of my favourite books of all time?
Whenever I ask friends or family to tell me their favourite book of all time, it’s a question that’s often hard for them to answer. A common response is “I have many, but if I had to choose one…”
Though favourites often change, there tends to be one book we deem The Best Book Ever, and it is to this book that we return to when forced to rank and qualify. For many, this book will be one that was read during childhood or as a teenager.
For others still, a book is just picked up at the very moment in which it will make the most impact. We are more likely to hold a book up on a pedestal if we read it as a child, or during an important time in our lives. Indeed, the books we stumble upon at the most impressionable moments in our lives are the books we befriend for life.
Those novels we read as children and teenagers definitely do tend to make a large impact. There’s a tendency to romanticise those stories we encounter as young people, during a time when we are learning and experiencing the world for the first time.
In fact, it’s fairly typical for Young Adult novels to garner fanatical attention (see: Twilight, Harry Potter, Forever, etc). When I asked friends about their favourite book, I had more than a few people answer with books like Bridge To Teribithia and A Little Princess.
I imagine the popularity of To Kill A Mockingbird and The Catcher In The Rye also owe a lot to fanatical teenage readership. As a child we have a limited understanding of what is out there in the big bad world, and we often use novels and stories to paint a picture of what to expect. It seems only natural that we would hold these experiences dear to our hearts.
Similarly, I’ve found that people hastily attach the ‘favourite’ label to books they read during major life changes. Events such as graduations, deaths, and births can provide a virtual hotbed of activity on our Favourite Book of All Time lists.
Personally, I read The Bell Jar immediately following graduation from university, and it still holds the coveted favourite spot on my list. If I attempted to read The Bell Jar now, in my late twenties, would I experience what I’m now calling “The Little Women Effect”? Most likely.
There are times in our lives when our minds are just open and ready for stories, particularly stories that reflect the feelings of anxiety, excitement, or fear that we may be experiencing in our own lives. Change can spark all of these emotions, and in turn we tend to be much more sensitive to novels that elicit these feelings. We are attracted to what we know.
So, as we move through life there will be ample opportunities to edit and rearrange our list of favourite books. There will be marriages, children, job changes, and grief – as well as a plenitude of novels to read in the interim.
At some point, you’ll read a book that has the just the right qualities to catapult it to the top of your favourites list, and you’ll read it at the just the right moment. Or you can just stick with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Gemma Waterston
Nostalgia through books – such a lovely article! The book which does it for me is Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier. It was magical when I was given it to read for A’ Level and it still has that spark, after all of those poignant life landmarks you mention. If you want a summary (of the book, not my life) you can read one here: http://t.co/agmRTHU via @guardian
@drawnandwatered I actually had a lot of people tell me that their favourite book was one that they studied during exams, or for some sort of analysis later on in their school years. I held We Were The Mulvaneys high up on the list until I read The Bell Jar, mostly because I read and studied it right before I left high school. Funny how we cling to these stories!
Fantastic article. Although, I must say, reading The Bell Jar as a soon-to-graduate English student with fear for her bank and mental balance, was rather more traumatic than enjoyable.
You are quite right. You mention one of my all time favorites above, which I read when I was in elementary school. The other book I would deem an all time favorite is one I read after graduating college. Your insights make me wonder whether my subconscious knew when I was ready to challenge certain world views as I chose to read certain books at such vulnerable stages of my life.
What A Fabulous Article! So Thoughtful & Spot On
Yes, I still remember reading The Hobbit to my father when I was little and practicing my reading. I loved it for so long, but had a harder time getting into the rest of The Lord of The Rings (which I love, now). It will always be one of my favo(u)rites.
This post struck a chord with me, as I find it difficult to choose ‘favourites’ precisely because so many of the books I’ve most enjoyed are tied to different moments in my life. There’s one I read as a teenager called Escardy Gap by Peter Crowther and James Lovegrove; I had no expectation beyond a general one from reading positive reviews (hadn’t even read Something Wicked This Way Comes, to which it’s partly a homage), but it blew me away because (without wishing to give spoilers) it did something I’d never seen a novel do before — something I didn’t know a novel could do.
I’ve never re-read Escardy Gap, and I’m not sure I want to; I don’t know if I’d feel the same about the book second time around, or if I want to risk spoiling the memory of it to find out. And that makes me wary of calling the book a favourite, because I can’t separate my opinion of it from the time of reading it.
I absolutely know the feeling of not wanting to broach a book twice. I’ve done that with quite a few books, specifically because I’m worried it somehow won’t live up to my memory of it. I do a similar thing with movies.
Books are so much like lovers or friends, aren’t they? They shouldn’t just be good, you also have to be ready for them. It’s all in the timing. Great article, Gemma!
I agree with all the above! There are certain books that stick out for me, in which the memory of the book will forever be intertwined with the setting in which I read it. The Poisonwood Bible comes to mind: I was on a trip to Mexico, in a somewhat jungle-y setting, and the foreign-ness of it all was just enough to make the stranger-in-a-strange-land feeling of the book really resonate with me. I always name it as one of my favorites, but I couldn’t be sure it would have the same effect were I to read it now.
Lovely article!
Great piece! I do have many favorites, but few I’ve reread at a different stage of life. I always have a hard time identifying my “favorite” book, movie, song, etc. Maybe I am too aware of why I was drawn to the piece at a particular time.
This is so interesting. I’m thinking about the books that I consider my favourite. The first Harry Potter books I read when I was a kid. When the sixth book came out my friends and I went straight from the pub at midnight to buy it. It’s all very sentimental.
I read All Families are Psychotic when I was about seventeen, and my best friend recommended it to me. It was so damn rock n roll, so NOT small town Kent.
And Kavalier and Clay I read when I was at uni studying creative writing, and the skill of the narrative just blew my mind.
So yeah, I would say that timing has had a lot to do with how much I love these books.
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One of my favourite books ever is Pursuasion. I first read it as a teenager, and since then have re-read it ever couple of years or so.
Next year I’m going to be 27, after that I’ll be too old to be an Austen heroine, and I’m going to re-read Pursuasion and do a blog post on how my reading of it has changed depending on how old I am- from hopeful ‘Its OK I’ll be married with kids by then’ of my teens to ‘I’m single by choice I don’t want a partner’ of my mid twenties to what I suspect will be a very bitter ‘and where the fuck is Captain Wentworth???’ next year…
Great post xx
I like this very much
Another good point- how books monitor our expectations.
The Woman in Black. I read it at A level and it still makes me shiver. There’s something so wonderful about a book you sit down and really study. I even look back with fondness on The Heart of Darkness, though I doubt I would have enjoyed it if it wasn’t a set text