My favorite book

Over in The Corner, John Podhoretz and John Derbyshire and Rick Brookhiser have been discussing the question "what's your favorite book" and asking it of presidential candidates.

My problem with the whole "what's your favorite book" question is that a real reader doesn't have one. If you love to read, you've had a thousand favorite books, because every great book you've read was your favorite while you were reading it. Did I love Les Miserables more than David Copperfield? A Tale of Two Cities more than Prince Caspian? Any Nero Wolfe more than any Brother Cadfael? Summer Lightning or The Code of the Woosters more than Atlas Shrugged or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant? Witness more than The Grapes of Wrath or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? Each of those (and each of 200 others) has been my favorite at one time or another. It's a pointless and un-answerable question...