Desert Island books

[Feanorcurufinwe]

If you had only 5 books to last the rest of your life, which 5 would they be?


My list in no particular order:

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maughm
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison

[SarahB]

1. You know....

With the right man, all I'd need is a copy of the Kama Sutra, a survival guide and I'd probably be all set for quite awhile. :D

[Guy_Montag]

3. & you look like such a sweet, innocent girl in the gallery n/t

[SarahB]

17. I'm not a girl

I'm a definite woman (30-something).

[achtung_circus]

14. the right man would have the books memorized nt

on edit both books

[SarahB]

18. So true

on both books

[HawkerHurricane]

2. Desert Island book joke...

They asked three men at a college: If you could only have one book with you on a desert island, what would it be?

The Humanities Professor said "The Complete Works of W. Shakespear"

The Theology Professor said "The Bible"

The Engineering Professor said "The Home Guide to Practical Shipbuilding"

[Donkeyboy75]

4. Tough call

I would say 1984, but one doesn't really need cautionary tales if you are stranded on an island :)

Watership Down - Richard Adams
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I have it bound in one book, so it
counts as one :P) - J.R.R. Tolkien
A Sale of Two Titties - Charles Dickens

[m-jean03]

6. Hey, uh, Shannon? You got that last tit

le wrong... ;)

[Donkeyboy75]

8. You are quite the clever one.

It's funny, but that's from a Monty Python skit. I got so used to saying it that way that I have to be VERY careful when speaking the title now. A local theatre here did a production of it, and when I ordered tickets I actually ordered them for "A Sale of Two Titties." Yep, I was embarrassed.

[m-jean03]

10. What kind of reaction didya get?

A slap on the face? ;-)

[Donkeyboy75]

11. Nope. It was over the phone.

I didn't really get a reaction. I also didn't bother to correct myself. Who knows? Maybe they didn't even notice...although I'd probably notice if I took a call from someone wishing to witness the auctioning of a pair of mammary glands. But that's just me.

[m-jean03]

5. Wouldn't that be a good name for a publisher?

Bet it's already been taken, though.

[flowomo]

7. The Oxford English Dictionary (with the big print!).....

and four other books I haven't thought of yet

[BrotherBuzz]

13. Hmmm, and it's companion book

"The Madman and the Professor" so you can really appreciate the OED.

[Donkeyboy75]

9. I'm surprised, Feanor

With a name like that you don't have The Silmarillon on your list. I'm also surprised this thread doesn't have more responses.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. Well I considered it

but I went with the Eddison, which is denser, and which I am less familiar with.

[politicat]

15. Call me a geek, but...

Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel (so I can appreciate how to to survive on my empty island)

The Collected works of Jane Austen (I have them in one book)

The Homesteader's toolkit (everything on how to build a bike type generator to getting water out of a cactus to how to catch a rabbit)

the biggest collection of Heinlein I have (probably Expanded Universe, but if I had time to prepare a tome, I would get all of the short stories rebound into one volume.)

Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, because I'm only going to get through that monster if I'm on a desert island....


This of course supposes I can't take my Clie, where I have a great deal of my books (everything I can get electronic, at least). And it would be smaller. And I can attach that to a bike powered generator.

Pcat

[flowomo]

16. geek

:)