‘Stop lying about your favourite book.’

The jig is up.

We know your favourite book isn’t Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. You possibly don’t even own a copy, and if you do, it’s earmarked at around page 98, where you gave up. At a stretch, you’ve seen Keira Knightly in the film. Same goes for The Odyssey, Moby Dick, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

As for your favourite movie? It’s not Citizen Kane; don’t even try to say it’s Citizen Kane; everyone says Citizen Kane.

Watch the trailer for Citizen Kane below. Post continues after video.

Secretly, shamefully, you probably love Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. And Love Actually.

AND THERE IS NO SHAME IN THAT.

You might have seen one of your friends post a status that reads a little something like this:

“List 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take more than a few minutes, and don’t think too hard. They do not have to be the ‘right’ books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way.”

AND YET. Just about everyone takes the opportunity to rattle off a list of classics they think they ‘should’ have read. In other words, they lie. What should be a delightful literary chat about the words that give us joy…. turns into A PACK OF LIES. That, to me, is incredibly sad.

In fact, two clever women called collated all the data from all the ‘Likes’ on Facebook and here’s the truth: Harry Goddamn Potter is most people’s favourite book. Yeah, a full 21% of all FB users list the Harry Potter series among their favourite books. Which is accurate because JK Rowling’s 7-book-long series is a magical adventure unlike any other and we should never forget that.

Books should make you feel like this:

And like this:

Does it matter which book gives you joy? NO. JUST READ THEM.

I once told a Film Studies class at uni that my favourite movie was Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. If I can do that — and brave the judgment from a pack of hipsters who all said Fellini or Citizen Kane — then we all can.

Your turn.

What’s your REAL favourite book and favourite movie?

Here are the comments

blestpickle

Favourite film? easy. To Kill a Mockingbird
Favourite book? much, much harder. Maybe Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion. Maybe Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets in. Or maybe Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Or maybe C S Lewis’s Till we have faces
guest63

Favourite book: Wheel of Time by Susan Howatch. Saga meets history – loads of fun.
Fovourite movie: The Fugitive. The one with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Honourable mentions to Gone With the Wind and Jurassic Park…
KP

Favorite Book: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Favorite Movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
http://cargocollective.com/tessconnellan/ Tess Connellan

Favourite book, honestly? Atonement by Ian McEwan. Favourite film, honestly? Bright Star by Jane Campion. Just picking one for both categories is agony.
And can I tell you, I’m studying film at university and I can really tell when someone says Citizen Kane (or something like it) for their favourite. Come on, just be honest. The number of “supposedly amazing” films that you’re ‘supposed’ to like (as a regular person and ESPECIALLY as a film student) that I have seen and hated continue to pile up. And trust me, I understood them and tried to give them a chance, you have to when you’re being made to write essays about them. And no, I still hated them. The Conversation, Vertigo, Chinatown, The Godfather – hate hate hate.
People who genuinely think you’re crazy or stupid for disliking these kinds of ‘classics’ and can’t get their head around the fact that some people just don’t like them are the bane of my life. In a classroom and in everyday life. Rude and close minded.
- guest63
  
  The Godfather was great! Worth the price of a ticket to see Al Pacino when he was young and … (sigh).
Helen

NOT Harry Potter. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, actually. Have read it so many times I can almost recite it. And my guilty pleasure is any of the Phillipa Gregory historical novels about English kings and queens – she writes so well you’d think she had been there to hear their conversations in person. Good stuff!