Weird Facebook "Challenges"

            Last week a friend of mine tagged me on Facebook “challenging” me to compile a list of ten books that have stuck with me after I finished reading them. My first (obvious) thought was that that was a ridiculous number—how could any reader only pick ten books?! I've read thousands of books in my life, and even the ones I despised stuck with me in some way or another (I’m talking to you, Nick Hornby!), so I went the route of just listing the first ten books that came to mind that had some kind of positive effect or experience. There was some fiction—both classic and contemporary—plus a bit of poetry, and a smattering of memoir. There was something particularly weird that I noticed about my list the moment I hit the enter button: none of the titles were creative nonfiction.

            The lack of creative nonfiction on my list was unsettling because it tends to be the genre I gravitate towards and read the most of. It also happens to be the genre I feel the most comfortable writing, so it takes up a large portion of my experience with the written word. How is it that none of those books came to mind when I was thinking of stories that stuck? Especially considering I fangirl every time David Sedaris, Bill Bryson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Mary Roach, Sarah Vowell, or Dave Eggers release a new book. I can’t say that their works didn't stick with me; I think about Nickle and Dimed all the time, and I feel constantly influenced by the humor of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, and wallow in the fact that I struggle to be simultaneously cynical, hilarious, and persuasive in my writing.

            The answer I've come to is that this isn't some latent crisis revealing that I secretly cherish fiction more than nonfiction; I think I approached this list from a primitive spot, instead of intellectualizing my feels. Looking at the list a second time makes me realize that the books I listed produced the most visceral reactions from me, and that coupled with an uncomfortably-high level of empathy towards suffering and the human condition, is what caused me to pull those books to the top of that list. Ironically, it was rationalizing my feels that brought me to that conclusion, so it appears that that kind of intellectualization is still kicking and clawing its way through my thoughts. Take that, potentially-nonfiction-doubting-fear!