There's
a facebook trendy-whatsit at the moment which asks people to list ten
books which have had a profound influence on them. The rejoinder is
to “not think too much about it”, and the unstated claim here is
I think that 'overthinking' such a list would be potentially
dishonest. Books, like music, are very easily thought of as
spiritual, cultural and political indicators of some sort. If I list
a Stephen King novel, that sends out a very different message from
listing Proust, for example. So far, no one has nominated me to make
my list. If they did, I can honestly say that I would find it very
difficult to live up to the “not think too much about it”
requirement: I read a lot, I think quite a lot about how my tastes
have changed over time, and I tend to reflect critically on books
that I have enjoyed. All this thinking I already do – and I am
almost certainly guilty of 'overthinking' at least sometimes, but
this isn't necessarily a bad thing always – means that I would find
it pretty much impossible to spontaneously make a list of ten such
books.
