Answering this question …

What is your best book?

That’s a ques­tion this writer and oth­er long-lived writ­ers are often asked. Giv­en that I’ve pub­lished sev­en­ty-three books it seems a rea­son­able query. In fact, it’s hard to answer. Since some of my books were writ­ten forty, thir­ty, twen­ty years ago, I am aware of them, but they are not part of my every­day think­ing. Indeed, one of the strug­gles for the pro­lif­ic writer is to get read­ers to pay atten­tion to new­er work. Some­times cer­tain works in a writer’s canon get estab­lished to the detri­ment of what is new­er and, hope­ful­ly, bet­ter. I had a col­league who duti­ful­ly read all my books. No mat­ter what she read (and enjoyed) she always would say, “But I still like your first book best.” In writ­ers’ obit­u­ar­ies, one often finds the phrase, “Though a volu­mi­nous writer, his best remem­bered work is …“ and some­thing ear­ly on is men­tioned. The way I answer the ques­tion, “What is your best book?” is by say­ing (and want­i­ng it to be so), “I haven’t writ­ten it yet.”