Want to see a writer flounder?
Ask them to pick just one favorite book.

It’s a nonsense question; as easy to pick as a favorite breath of air.

Far more fun to ask about their least favorites!

Let them rip into some sanctimonious tract by a dead white guy,
or a pile of disconnected words from an alleged intellectual giant,
Or that fucking magical realist thing with that damned goose.

But then there are the books between; not worthy of love or hate.
The stories that fade and blend, authors and titles forgotten.
Like that one about Neo-nazis by Clancy (or a ghostwriter),
or the unwieldy fantasy tome where the halflings were deadly archers.

But their ghosts remain with us, fragments of plot or detail,
phrases or images unmoored from their narratives.
Digested, like so many workaday meals; and made part of us.
Enriching our work with shades and flourishes learned
not from some great master or college class,
but from a book we can barely recall.
By someone with the courage to write it.