Three books and a desert island

Ok, since Andrew seems in need of some more post so he doesn’t close down the site I’ll ask a question.

If you were stranded on a desert island, but could have three books (and not need them for fuel or such things) what three books would you take?

Personally, I am having trouble with this.  I think I would have to take the lord of the rings series bound in a single volume.  Then I pretty sure that I woudl take a nice thick book on european history.  Not necessarily a history text-book, or the general history of Europe, but a book on history.  This is because even though I usually do not enjoy “lititure”, I do have a special place in my heart for histories.  This leaves one space open and I am not sure what to fill it with

6 Responses to “Three books and a desert island”

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Assuming we’re not going for “Survival Techniques on a Desert Island”?
Lesseee…
The Encyclopedia Britannica. Keep me busy for a long, long time.
Robinson Crusoe, just for the irony of it all.
And the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy”.

Owen - August 19th, 2004 at 9:49 am

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Avoiding the practical route, that’s a really hard question.
Hmmm. How about:
The Tao Te Ching.
The Encyclopedia (I used to read it endlessly as a kid).
The Riverside Anthology of literature (perhaps my favorite collection of short stories, poems, etc).

Paradoxdruid - August 19th, 2004 at 11:52 am

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les miserables (unabridged)b/c that’s the only way i’ll ever finsh it. but this is assuming that i’ve got enough food and water to last about 100 yrs. cause it’ll still take that long.

how bout romance and sci-fi/fantasy books though? since they’re not real literature, i think there should be a 5 to 1 ratio…5 sci-fi novels to make one real book? sounds fair 🙂

mallorn - August 20th, 2004 at 10:46 am

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Hey, if we get a 5/1 scfi-fi fantasy ratio, I’d replace the Literature Anthology with:
* _The Illuminatus Trilogy_, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
* _Dark is the Sun_, Phillip Jose Farmer
* _Playgrounds of the Mind_, Larry Niven
* _Eon_, Greg Bear
* _The first Uplift Trilogy_, David Brin

So there!

Paradoxdruid - August 20th, 2004 at 11:01 am

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1) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. (Sweet love of random chance, read the book if you haven’t already. It’s like a drug!)
2) My Bible. AKA Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et. al (lovingly called “Alberts” by all in my department). I love biological theory. And would love to read that thing all the way through. But 1500 pages of pure biological theory isn’t going to happen if I’m not stranded.
3) A really, really, really thick book and instructional on how to speak a foreign language. That would keep me busy for a long ass time. -OR- Life of Pi by Yann Martel, for the irony of it all as Owen mentioned.

ShortSpeedFreak - August 20th, 2004 at 11:20 pm

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OO OO my turn

I like the idea of an encyclopedia since it definitely would keep me busy for a long time, though I think that should count as multiple books. But hey if you guys included it first I’ll go with it.

Number two is Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I just started reading it and it so cool. First it’s interesting philosophy, but also it’s cool how it was pretty much his journal. When I read something like a section that starts off basically saying “I shouldn’t let stupid people annoy me since they are probably too ignorant to know what they’re doing” it makes me wonder what must have happened that day to bring up the thought.

For my third I think I need something more light, I was thinking either go along with other people in say Hitchhiker’s guide or maybe somethings by Terry Pratchett.

mcmillan - August 23rd, 2004 at 9:20 am

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