Hmmm, that is a good question - hard to answer since I mainly read fantasy which typically comes in series as opposed to one individual book, y’know, so. Hm.
My initial temptation is to say ‘The Blade Itself’ by Joe Abercrombie, first book in The First Law series. But to call it my favourite seems like a misnomer, bc there are other books later on in that same series that I think are better - but I would certainly call The First Law my favourite modern series
Similarly, tempted to shout out ‘The Lies Of Locke Lamora’ by Scott Lynch; read that last year and loved it, had an absolute blast with that one
Very hard to pick just one singular favourite lmao, but I suppose those two are definitely in the top-tiers of my favourite modern books
(assuming we allow 2006 to still fall into the definition of modern lmao)
13. how do you arrange your bookshelves
Oof, I don’t 😂 you caught me. Ok no, so. The thing is I have more books than I have a available shelf space, so here’s the actual answer
I have a ‘display shelf’ which is for like, all time favourites, that’s the shelf I have behind me in my YT vids, containing LOTR, The First Law, Gentleman Bastards, Farseer etc. Books that have earned ‘pride of place’ to go on that shelf. I keep each series together, but the actual arrangement is more whatever is most aesthetically pleasing/logistically reasonable to fill the shelf space:
^This is the shelf I’m actually quite proud of
Also I’ve tried to put certain series with similar vibes next to each other - hence First Law being next to ‘The Band’ and Jurassic Park being paired with the Collin’s Gem book of Dinosaurs (coincidentally that’s also the only book I had that would fit in the middle of that shelf like that)
My other two shelves have just become an incoherent mess at this point, despite my efforts to prevent that - I still keep each series together, A Song Of Ice And Fire has its own shelf since it’s long enough to do see, I keep my graphic novel* collection on its own separate shelf, and anything that’s on my TBR I have in stacked towers just kinda dotted around the place. But it’s become mixed with DVDs, CDs, Board Games, various trinkets and notebooks, miscellaneous mess all cluttering up the joint 😂
*the comics I actually do have organised, they go Marvel A-Z, DC A-Z, Valiant A-Z, other/independent