What's Your Favorite Book?

I just read this in Publishers Lunch and had to share:

Poll Asks, Name Your Favorite Book

Harris Interactive surveyed American adults to find out "What is your favorite book of all time?" The answers:

1. The Bible
2. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
3. Lord of the Rings (series), by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
5. The Stand, by Stephen King
6. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
7. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
8. Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
9. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
10. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

I've got to say, I love and hate these polls. I love seeing what other people's favorite books are, but I lose all memory when it comes to me. I blurt out the obvious - the Lord of the Rings series and The Hobbit - but I know I've got so many more bouncing around in my head. For someone who loves books as much as I do, it's almost panic-inducing when I'm asked that question.

So am I going to try and answer it? Of course I am.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Yeah, I think I've got to say that one. I return to it every now and then just for the sheer love of the book. It's honestly the most dysfunctional love story of all time.

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier. Come on, girl meets boy, girl marries boy, girl has to contend with crazy housekeeper who loved boy's first wife and finds out that boy shot first wife and dumped her body at sea. And then finds out that first wife was a slut who wanted to die because she had cancer so she taunted boy until he did the deed. What's not to love? Daytime television had nothing on Du Maurier.

Bridget Jones' Diary, by Helen Fielding. The original chick-lit book. Hilarious and just enough girly stuff to make me happy. And big girl panties will never be the same again.

The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice. For a while there, I was insane for Anne Rice. (Until she went berserker and started believing her own hype. But I digress.) Interview with the Vampire was amazing; The Vampire Lestat ratcheted it up a couple of notches. While Mike rolls his eyes at Rice's vampires, snarling "Eurotrash" every time I mentioned them, I love this vision of the vampire - the tortured, immortal Louis, the devil-may-care, eff 'em if they can't take a joke Lestat - it's all good. The original three Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice will always be aces in my book, but if I had to pick just one, this is the one I'd take to my desert island.

Okay, I've got more, but I hear Alex having a fit so I think Mike is washing his hair 'wrong' again.