Book Meme - Day 14

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? One author? One genre?

I don't know if I could handle reading only one book for the rest of my life. I hesitate to pick one of my favorites like The Name of the Wind or The Night Circus because, honestly, who knows if I'll still feel the same way about them in 20 or 30 years? I might try and cheat by picking The Complete Works of Shakespeare (which is sitting on my book shelf in a single volume) or The Wheel of Time (which PBS at least agrees counts as one book). They're both long and rich and lend themselves to multiple re-readings. Or I might pick something like The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Stories, which release a new volume every year and would let me stay up to date with the goings-on in the industry, even though that's technically cheating, too.

If it came to it, I'd probably pick an epic classic, like Les Miserables or The Count of Monte Cristo or something. Something that would take me a while to get through and which tackles themes that are evergreen.

Honestly, though, if I had to restrict myself to a single book for the rest of my life, I might as well give up reading completely and focus on other activities. The point of reading, for me, is to read widely.

Picking a single author is a little easier. It would have to be someone prolific who likes to experiment. Someone like Brandon Sanderson or Seanan McGuire, who publishes multiple books a year and builds up intricate worlds that can easily be revisited.

For a single genre, it's a no brainer - SFF. It's almost an effort to read other stuff as it is, and I would happily just fall into this genre forever if I had an excuse. Especially because I can argue that just about anything is fantasy.