Today I saw a post by S J Watson, the author of ‘Before I go to sleep’, on his newsletter with the question: “What’s your favourite book?”

I always cringe when people ask me that question. Any question asking about favourites makes me react that way, by the way! Food, movies, music… I don’t like to pinpoint myself to one simple thing in life, when there’s so much beauty and taste floating around!

When I was younger (ah the good old eighties and nineties), and I started reading novels, the first author I got to know was Stephen King. I didn’t know the name but I knew some of his works because they were adapted in wonderful movies. To name one, Christine by John Carpenter, was one I kept watching over and over again. I had (have) a fascination for classic cars and that car just gave me the (good) chills! (So you might say that when I was younger, Christine stood high up on my favourite movies list!)

The first book I read by Stephen King was lend to me by a friend from school, I was thirteen at the time, and it was the Dutch translation of Skeleton Crew, which was divided in two parts for its translation. (Duistere Krachten) And immediately I was sold by the man’ writing. So yeah at that time he was my favourite author!

I also remember that in the back of the Dutch pocketbooks there was a list of books by different authors that the publisher had already printed in paperback. I saw names I had never heard of at that time. Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz, Larry Niven, Michael Crichton, Eric Van Lustbader… to name a few… and then I saw titles that rung a bell… Suddenly I knew some of these books by its movie adaptation… ‘oh wow Jurassic Park by Crichton, I need that!’ And before I knew it, I was starting to collect books. I bought one book by a writer and wanted all his books…

Thus collecting a bunch of wonderful books by several authors and all kinds of genres. My room suddenly became too small for all the novels I bought (and never got the chance to read all of them) – by now I lost count of how many books I actually have but it’s well in the thousands! And I can assure you all, I’ll never live long enough to read them all…

Collecting all those books and reading a lot of them means you get to know a lot of writers and, as mentioned, a wide range of genres. So when I was younger I might have answered that particular question: ‘what’s your favourite author/book?’, I would have said without a doubt: Stephen King (by then I already couldn’t answer which book I loved the most!)

But now…

He still is ONE of my favourites (although I have to admit, unfortunately, his earlier works are his best… his recent work is good but does not have the same punch of what he wrote a few decades ago. I guess getting older changes a man: whether it be him as a writer or me as the reader, I’m not able to say! And yes, I still read his books!) but I have read so many other works by so many different authors that I just cannot and will not answer that question anymore…

Even.. even among the books I read in one year… It is so hard to pick one each year that had such an effect on me that it would be considered to be my favourite of that particular year…

So to conclude this little rant of mine…

It’s no use asking me what my favourite book is… I mean it… don’t even ask me for my favourite author… there are so many, so many great ones out there with such great writing spread all over the world… why choose one when you get so many? It all started with King for me but that escalated quickly into a huuuuuge collection of books… I’d need a thousand lives to read it all!

Oh and btw, this rant… goes for movies as well ☺️🤭 (although there I might answer Jurassic Park, for that’s my go-to-movie, the one I watch every single year!)

A little P.S.:

Of course I reread books once in a while (not often as said before, I just don’t have time due to the amount of books waiting to be read a first time) and it ultimately comes down to… Stephen King again… yes, I have reread his books more than any other author, so far… I originally read them in a mixed order depending on when I bought what… but at a certain point in my life I wanted to reread them in chronological order… I try to read one or two each year (not an easy feat, I can assure you all)… this year I should pick up The Tommyknockers again… (this Summer!!!

And then there’s Clive Barker’s novels… I read a few of his as well but never all of them so a few years back I restarted chronologically so I might pick that up again as well this year…

And I plan to do the same with Preston & Child’s novels… and with Crichton’s books…

Yeah I’m a bit obsessed I know!!!

P.S.S. Thank you S J Watson for the inspiration for this (little ranting) post…