A FEW DAYS AGO, I was asked by a magazine to weigh in about my favorite book of 2006. Actually, I was asked twice, not because my recommendation was in such demand but because I'd ignored the first e-mail after realizing, with no small degree of shame, that I couldn't recall the last book I'd read, at least not all the way through.

Besides, I write books, so of course I read them. My house is crammed with books, so much so that they've exhausted the shelves and migrated to the bedroom floor and even the kitchen, where they collect grease stains and, like the baking pans I also neither use nor have figured out how to store properly, taunt me with daily reminders of my failure to lead a full, rich life (the kind in which you read books and bake — ideally Proust in the original French and puff pastry made from scratch).

But as is painfully clear, owning books isn't the same as reading them. And by the time I received the second e-mail, I was so afraid of blowing the lid off my benightedness, I actually grabbed the nearest novel and started reading, in the hope that, to quote the magazine editor, it would "delight, surprise or move" me enough to recommend it.

As it happened, it was a book I had already read. I'd reviewed it — not particularly favorably — and the reason it was close at hand was because the publication for which I'd reviewed it had sent me the newly published hardcover, a customary treat because reviewing books pays about as much as manicuring the nails of pets, and not necessarily all four paws.

I was greatly relieved. See, I had read books published in 2006! I'd even finished some of them. They just didn't fall strictly into the "pleasure" category. Instead, I'd read them to review, or for blurbing or, in most cases, to incorporate an aspect of them into this column or some other writing assignment. I'd also, come to think of it, read a great many unpublished manuscripts by friends, students and, in an act of grave misjudgment, someone I was seated next to on an airplane (it was a long flight, though not as long as it felt).

But none of that meant I could lay claim to having a favorite book of 2006.