BTT (#42) ~ favorite

Today's prompt from Booking Through Thursday asks:

"Do you have a favorite book?  What do you say when people ask you?   (This question always flummoxes me because how can you pick just one, so I’m eager to hear what you folks have to say.)  And, has your favorite book changed over the years?"

Once upon a time, I loved Uncle Wiggily stories by Howard R. Garis. Uncle Wiggily Longears was an elderly rabbit who first appeared in a story in 1910, thirty years before I was born.  Wikipedia says, "Garis penned an Uncle Wiggily story every day (except Sundays) for more than 30 years."  I think I had more than one book of his stories when I was little.

I remember the story of Jackie and Peety Bow Wow who wanted to sled, but there was no snow.  I remember when Uncle Wiggily played tag with Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl — she flew over the bush with sticky, red berries, but he ran into it.  At dinner time, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy saw the red spots and called Dr. Possum to come because Uncle Wiggily was breaking out with measles.  I could identify, since I had measles, mumps, and chickenpox in my first three years of school.  Children wouldn't understand some of these stories now, and you adults can't imagine a doctor coming to a person's home, right?

I don't have my original Uncle Wiggily books, but a few years ago I found one at a used book store called Uncle Wiggily and His Friends, copyright MCMLV, MCMXXXIX.  Did you know publishers regularly "hid" the copyright dates by using Latin numerals?  MCMLV would be 1955, and MCMXXIX would be 1939.  (Yes, I studied Latin, back in the Dark Ages.)

But that was my favorite about 70 years ago.  I can't begin to tell you what my favorites have been over seven decades, though it would be fun to try to remember someday when I'm not busy reading a new book.  Here are my current favorites, one nonfiction and one fiction.

The Heart of Christianity ~ by Marcus J. Borg, 2003, religion

Time and Again ~ by Jack Finney, 1970, science fiction (time travel)