What's your favorite book? and why?

Question:

What's your favorite book? and why?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

It's about a boy and, throughout the book, he grows older. I can't remember how old he grows in that book, if it's just a teenager or earlier twenties, but the sequel starts up when he's around his forties.
Anyway, Asher Lev is the son of very religious Jews. He's taught the Jewish law very strictly, but Asher has a passion for drawing. His parents leave it alone when he's younger, thinking it's just a phase.
It's not. Asher lives through his drawings and is very talented. His parents, father especially, warn him that it is against the Jewish law to do such creative things: drawing is a devilish creation.
And so Asher has to choose, the most improtant decision in his life, and at such a young age: Does he please his family and community and give up his painting, or does he continue painting and endure being shunned from his community?

I think I love this book so much because I can relate to it. I'm not an artist of paint, but words, and I can identify with the great struggle for one or the other, that defines Asher's life in the book.

And the sequel is equally as good. I never thought Chaim Potok ever meant to paint sad words to depress the heart, but just to inform. But I've read many book by him and most of them have made me cry at the end; I believe the sequel, actually, got the most tears.