What's the best book you've ever read and why? about ama HOT 1 CLOSED

This is hard. Insanely hard.

I reread books, all of the time. Some of my favourite books don't stand up, ten years later, or to a third reread. Some books are really important at certain points in my life, but don't resonate later. Right now, Practice of the Wild wouldn't do much for me, because I'm not focused on ecology and wild community as much as I am thinking about writing and family. I'm reading My Struggle right now, and it is changing a lot of how I think and what I think is possible in prose, but it is so depressing and pertinent to my life right now that I don't know if it will stand up to a reread, at all. I am currently on my 13th read through The Two Towers - and it's not as good as it was the first time I read it, although it opened my up to fantasy literature, as a whole, and let me think that there are beautiful things out there that can be written.

I think the best book I've ever read has to be answered by a following question: what book best suited me? What book was right for me at the time, or showed me that certain things are possible? I think I am going to have to go with The Book of the New Sun. Because this book, above all other books, allows me to read it for fun, for pleasure, for a search for meaning, for it's writing style, for love (a friend suggested it to me, and I read it often to remember him). It appeals to my sci-fi side, my philosophy side, but doesn't have the mental challenge of reading better writers, like Collected Fictions of Borges, or the slapstick fantasy feel of something like American Gods. It holds up well to a reread, and every time I start, I can't stop. So I'll say that book. It's for me.

from ama.