Every reader, certainly every writer, has their book. Your book is not simply your favorite story, but your source of literary inspiration, your measure of what can be achieved by a writer. Reading it for the first time is something as remembered as when you lost your travel virginity.
My Book is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. This novel influenced the course of world literature and my life. Reading it moved something within me that no other book has. It knuckled me up for a fight and got my fingers flying. It gave me a context for the great literary tradition of social action, and it planted the seed within me to try to flesh out a few words of my own.
When unsure about my writing, my life, I go back to my book. What is your book? Where were you when you read it? What happened? Please tell us about it in the comments below. What is it about your book that keeps it numero uno?