I've not read that many books in my time. Maybe fifty or so out of my twenty-five years of walking around? But to be honest, what I have read... it's a very hard choice to pick a single book, but the first which comes to mind is "Moby Dick" and "A Christmas Carol". I loved the character Captain Ahab more than anything. He was the perfect antagonist in my eyes. He had the mindset of pure vengeance, his heart eroded by the sea, a mind turned away from the light of the world and ambition unmatched. Never have I wished to first hand witness a fictional character more in the flesh and bone, bearing witness to such madness. Truly Herman Melville captured insanity and madness in its prime through the depiction of Captain Ahab.
As for a Christmas Carol, I can't help but enjoy the tale of suffering instilled upon a man who payed no attention to those he considered those lesser than him a commodity. His visits from ghostly specters, particularly Bob Marley, revealed just how deep of an abyss Scrooge lingered upon between damnation and redemption. Through his journey which seemed to last for more than a single night one could feel every bit of the past he'd carried for so long had weight beyond what he could have ever conceived; links of chains tugging at his soul from decades before which only led to a cold heart which lay trapped in ice during a season where man and woman, brother and sister, lesser and greater would express love for one another and the love that connects so many through this weary world of ours. He is shown life and death, as if in the eyes of eternity it was but a trickle of small stones to small to be noticed, but in his finite mortality, it dawned upon this man who he was, rather than just redemption; shown how much a random act of kindness can move through the years just as the chains attached to his tired soul would reach through time.
To boot, this is coming from a guy who has seen... countless versions of "A Christmas Carol" and even its parodies just for the sake of it. But there will only be one book which defines the story as it was, as it should be and always will be. Its just that Dickens books is also a reflection of times and observations in his life and speaks from the soul.
I apologize, I seem to have lost myself.
And Windsong, I understand you there. Loved the movie, I really did, but it seems more people are concerned over visual moving media than the power of words these days.
More disgusted by the fact I had to use "Book" in my image search to get this.
