Tuesday Thingers: Favorite Books

Tuesday Thingers is hosted by Wendi of Wendi's Book Corner. This week, she has a bunch of questions about favorite books:

What is your favorite book (yes - this may be a hard one!!)? Is your favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? Have you looked to see if you can add any information to the Common Knowledge? AND a little off topic, do you find that your 5-starred books are consistent with your favorites, and is your favorite a 5-star rated book in your library? How have others rated your favorite book?

Picking one favorite book is nearly impossible for someone with my eclectic tastes. So I'll give it the "Fahrenheit 451" test. I suppose if I had to save one volume from the flames and commit it to memory, it would be Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-glass (I love Alice in Wonderland, too, but that fantasy of going through the glass into a mirror world has always enthralled me).
Early in my blogging days, I actually wrote a post about my favorite books. If you're feeling adventurous, you can take a look at it here. Yes, it's a little long. But brilliant, of course.

Moving on.

I think most if not all of my favorites are listed in my LT library. If I really love a book, I usually end up buying my own copy even if I've started out with a library book or friend's loaner. I have a bunch of different copies of the Alice books, and some of them do have special tags or comments, generally about illustrations or various editions, formats, etc. No, I haven't really checked out the Common Knowledge section, although I assume that most editions of the Alice books will have quite a lot of info already filled in.

And about book ratings. Well, there aren't that many 5-starred books in my library listing. I'm pretty stingy with those stars; even most of my "favorites" would probably only get four stars. Five-star books would be a very small, select group.

As I was setting up my LT library list, in general I didn't add ratings as I went along. The books with starred ratings are mostly books I've read in the last couple of years – basically, those I've read since I started blogging about books and doing reviews. Whenever I add a review, I always include a rating. I've gone back and added star-ratings to a few books I read earlier, but not many. None of my Lewis Carroll books include star-ratings. My favorite edition of Through the Looking-glass is the one from the 1946 boxed set issued by Random House, with the Tenniel drawings "colorized" by artist Fritz Kredel. That one doesn't seem to be quite so popular with the general LT population: Although it's owned by 1,604 members, it only gets a 4-star rating (4.19). But it's definitely a 5-star book in my rating system.