So, it's day 3, you've got your mixtape, you've scavenged for supplies, and you've ruminated over all the things you will and won't miss...and now it's time to curl up with a good book. Fortunately for you, you always travel with your 5 favorites, just in case something like this happened. Now, we all want to know what your picks would be. The same rules apply: these are the 5 books you would most want with you on a desert island...so, if survival's your thing, maybe a survival guide would be great. Or a cook book. Or some plain old good literature. The choices are yours.
One caveat: you don't need a Bible. The Gideons who were stranded there before you left one.
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Other than the cheap answer of just having a Kindle and hundreds of books (although, I suppose batteries would run out eventually), here are my five.
ReplyDelete1. Lord of the Rings - Tolkien - One of my absolute favorites, something that I can read over and over again...which I assume I'll be doing.
2. The Norton Anthology of British Literature (single volume edition) - 1000 years of great literature...something new to read everyday. Or, a whole heck of a lot of kindling.
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke - Not the best book ever, but this is a world I really enjoy escaping to. It seems to me that escapism would be an essential requirement for a desert island book.
4. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco - Ah, to meditate upon the labyrinth in the peaceful environs of a desert island...Or, something like that.
5. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide - Douglas Adams - Perhaps a stretch of time on a desert island is just what I'll need to come up with the ultimate question... Or maybe, I'll simply follow Arthur Dent's example and go mad for a little while.
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude / Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's my all-time favorite book and one that I can see myself reading again and again. Also: natch title, yeah?
ReplyDelete2. The Magus / John Fowles. Not quite as good of a book, but a long book that reads very quickly without being reductive or simplistic. A pretty awesome and engaging story. And, supposedly, one of the main literary influences for "Lost."
3. Blood Meridian / Cormac McCarthy. Best. Book. Ever. Also, I think it would be fun to read a book about how evil men are to other men whilst all alone on a desert island. Kill each other, suckers! I'll be chillin' with the monkeys.
4. Paterson / William Carlos Williams. It would take me ten years to get every piece of this book the way I want to. So, why not spend some solid island time with it?
5. The Complete Short Stories / Ernest Hemingway. My favorite art form, mastered by my favorite writer. Also, the margins in this collection are really big, so I shouldn't have any problem scribbling a handful of my favorite Eliot poems in before I leave.
I wish I could bring 7 books...
ReplyDelete1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
All by J.K. Rowling. I've already proven that I can re-read these books from start to finish over and over again and love them every time. Reading these will give me hope as I waste away on this island that Hagrid will come and rescue me and my pet lemur and take us to Hogwarts.
Well, this is a tough decision since I haven't really read anything but fluff or school type books in the last few years.
ReplyDelete1. I guess some sort of botanical guide about what plants are safe to eat. (self-explanatory)
2. Can I bring a journal? I might go crazy if I can't do that. Plus, maybe being stranded on a desert island will give me something interesting enough to write about that someone would finally want to publish my memoirs.
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is one of my all-time favorites.
4. This is tough, there aren't many books that I like to read over and over. Probably a book of common prayer, or meditations.
5. And, maybe a complete Spanish grammar book so I could finally master the subjunctive and other problematic areas of the Spanish language. (I know that's dorky, but at least I was never a Mathlete.)
1. Bleak House--it's lovely: exciting, funny, poignant, and really, really long. And because I can almost recite Jane Eyre (it would be my second Victorian novel to select).
ReplyDelete2. The Cay--This book I had to read in fourth grade. It's about a kid who gets shipwrecked and blinded but he's saved. The first book to ever make me cry, and its subject matter seems apropos.
3. A Prayer for Owen Meaney--Irving at his finest and most Victorian. Written so tenderly and hilariously.
4. Brideshead Revisted--Waugh's most Catholic and most sardonically hopeful. The first time I finished reading this I wanted to immediately begin again.
5. A Book of Lists--I love reading lists and I enjoy these books of compiled ones. It'd need to be a big fat general collection.
The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond. My first copy of this book was an antique that we found in upstate New York. This book changed my life. Since then I have collected many copies and I share them with others as often as possible.
ReplyDeleteAngela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. A miserable story of his life with the only comic relief coming from his view of the Irish Catholics. So, I laughed and I cried.
Every night, Josephine by Jaqueline Susann. The first big girl book that my mother gave me to read. It was about a poodle.
Barbara Bush, A Memoir. She is very funny. Mrs. Bush shares her journal entries from before and during the White House years. She usual begins each entry with the recount of the delicious meal that was served. After those memorable moments,she wittingly shares her stories about spending time with world leaders and their wives. She of course tells about events with her family. Great book,even better on audio, hearing her tell her own stories is a laught riot.
Shanna by Kathleen Woodiweiss. Every girl remembers her first nasty novel. I will admit in my twenties, Dexatrim(no longer on the market) and nasty novels were the secret behind my girlish figure and jean sizes in the single digits.