Just finished an intensive read of "How to Read a Book" by Adler and Doren. In it the authors bring up an old exercise where people imagined they were to be stranded on an island with no modern entertainment gadgets (television, radio, computer, iPod and so on), but could take any ten books with them. The idea is to select ten books that would be challenging to read over and over again, books that would keep your brain alive and growing.

So I thought it might be fun to do here.

My list includes:

Collected Works of Twain
Collected Works of Hesse
The Bible by various
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (must have illustrations)
The Odyssey by Homer
Don Quixote by Cervantes
Anthology of modern poetry, don't care what edition
Anthology of older poetry, don't care what edition
Two blank books, thick and well-bound, plus a box of pencils and penknife

Keep in mind that you'll have everything you need to survive comfortably. It'll be boredom that gets to you.

I'm not sure if a companion is allowed. Let's assume not. Gonna have to make friends with an iguana.

1) US Army Survival Manual
2) The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract........Bill James
3) Total Baseball, Completely Revised and Updated: The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia (Total Baseball) by John Thorn, Phil Birnbaum, Bill Deane, and Rob Neyer
4) The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball 2006 (Sports Encyclopedia Baseball) (Paperback)....David Neft. Michael Neft and Richard M Cohen
5) Congress And Its Members by Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Olesze
6) The Star Trek Encylopedia
7) Astronomy Today (5th Edition) by Eric Chaisson, Steve McMillan
8) The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (Paperback) by Edward Gibbon. The huge single edition copy that has like 1500 pages that I see at Barnes and Noble.
9) The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch
10) Sirens of Titan: Kurt Vonnegut

The Survival Guide for obvious reasons.

Those 3 baseball books would allow me to configure, research, simulate, compare players, era's, ball parks, teams etc,etc for months if not years. I do not even need the other 7 for entertainment. I could create mock players insert them in periods and run mock hall standards. Create all state teams. With those book I could build off for years. So many players to view. I can literally do anything or learn anything from those books.

5 and 6 exist as springboards as well. I would use those heavily to create mock civilizations and governments( I am not a trekkie)...8,9 and 10 would help in this project as well. I would use these to create my own civilization on paper like a modern Thomas More...if Thomas Moore had no skill that is. Still it would keep my mind occupied for months.

Book 7 would be to pass the nights.

8 and 9 would stand alone as interesting and informative histories of topics I find interesting. They would also add heavily to the way in which I structure my mock civilizations. I have never read a page of the Gibbons book, but its reputation and sheer size I think make it a great island book.

Book 10? I love Vonnegut and this would be his most useful book on an island prison I think.



I would take the Shelby Foote series on the American Civil War, but that would be 3 books. Not efficient

Wow, only 10, huh? OK, I'll go with these.

1) The Portable Steinbeck
2) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
3) The Iliad and the Odyssey – Homer
4) On the Road – Jack Kerouac
5) The Agony and the Ecstasy – Leon Uris
6) The Complete Works of Michelangelo
7) Collected Works of William Shakespeare
8) The Drifters – James Michener
9) Hanta Yo – Ruth Beebe Hill
10) Double Whammy – Carl Hiaasen

1 because I love Steinbeck's earthy stories, and it would remind me of California. 2 because it's an awesome story, funny and sad at the same time. 3 because it's big and meaty and a damn good story to boot. 4 because Kerouac defines the counterculture and it's a great adventure story. 5 because it's a fairly accurate, though fictionalized story of the life of the greatest artist of all time. 6 because this huge, heavy volume has many gorgeous plates of Michelangelo's works, both sculptures and paintings. It's a feast for the eyes and the soul. 7 just because. 8 because it's the life I wish I'd led. 9 because it's a beautiful, moving story of Native Americans, full of pathos. And 10 just because every once in a while you need some comic relief, and Hiaasen always delivers...and because this is the first Hiaasen book I ever read.

No wimpy collected works for me.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain
Candide by Voltaire
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Le Morte D' Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
Foundation by Isaac Asmiov
The Bible by assorted authors
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Slouching Toward Betlehem by Joan Didion

but I did end up with 11 maybe the Gideon's could be so kind to leave me a bible.

1) SAS Survival Handbook [John Wiseman]
2) Desert Survival Skills [David Alloway] [just in case it is a desert island]
3) The Elegant Universe [Brian Greene]
4) The Guide For The Perplexed [Moses Maimonides]
5) Hiroshima [John Hersey]
6) Gray's Anatomy
7) The Jewish Publication Society's Torah Commentary Series: The Complete Five Volume Set [okay, so I cheated]
8) The Pocket Interlinear New Testament [Jay P. Green, Sr., ed.]
9) Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon
10) Thayer's Greek Lexicon

Arf!

Once had Ender's Game on tape, Lydia was listening to it, and somehow the last tape was missing. Don't think she ever really forgave me for that.

The Gideon's? They do seem to show up everywhere, so what the heck.

I did wimp out with Collected Works, but then again, these are new releases that I saw in a B&N about a month ago. Maybe the idea is that if you can buy it and it only has two covers, you get to take it along. No library books as the overdue fines will destroy someone's economy.

No Greatest Books collections either. Have to draw the line somewhere.

There is an odd reference that "How to Read a Book" brings up, the Syntopicon, in three volumes. I might drop the two Collected Works and Bible for that. Or maybe drop the Collected Works for more poetry.

So make it Browning and Frost instead of Twain and Hesse. I think my iguana friend will like verse better.

Maybe it would be okay to take one ball with you: baseball, soccer, foot, basket, golf . . . consider that part of the things to make survival comfortable. A permanent marker to draw faces of Wilson on them too.

My little fantasy island has a cabin, an oversized chair, and a magic reading lamp that works off the Earth's gravity. There's a little writing table in the corner and a big window that faces the dawn. Fruit and veggies grow wild all year round, and a deluxe pizza shows up piping hot every now and then, thin crust, sliced into squares, liter of Coke.

Sorry for the late night mini-attack. It's your list AM you pick any darn books you want to.

Fun topic, hope you didn't get too snowed in their in Colorado.