"What's your favourite..." can be such an irritating question, but for me, for books, there's an instant answer - 'A Prayer For Owen Meany.' I could tell you about angels and armadillos, armless Indians and the headless Mary Magdalene, the lethal baseball, what the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come saw and exactly how it connects with the corpse of a helicopter pilot burned and blistered in Vietnam, and, of course, THE VOICE - and I'd still not manage to get you to the heart of this novel. And the heart is the key to it; like his beloved Dickens, Irving sets out to speak to your emotions, to make you laugh and - ultimately - bring you to tears. It is a masterpiece both of virtuoso plotting and of creating heartbreakingly involving characters. A friend of mine, after finishing the book, said 'For a few days I missed Owen Meany as if I'd known him.' If you do nothing else today, take a recommendation and read this book. Just think of it as my litle gift to you...
