Which books for your Desert Island

[Overread]

So you're about to leap into the life-raft as the ship sinks and likely find yourself either floating in the sea or washed up on some isolated island far from civilization. Being the smart Chronner that you are you're already prepared for this eventuality and have even stocked the raft, in advance, with a book or two to help you while away the hours and days as you wait for rescue.


However there's a twist, by whatever strange fortunes of the universe, your choice was limited at the time when stocking, to books that are NOT best-sellers of today; not bad just not well known.


So there we are - what would you take! Or in other words lets hear of your favoured books that are far less well known in today's world (but which could have been big in their day).

 

[nixie]

Can you include classics?

I assume I'd have to exclude authors like Erikson, Esslemont, King, Hobb, Donaldson, Feist, Brookes, Gemmell, Pratchet, Gamain etc but could include authors like Kate Elliott, James Barclay, Greg Keyes etc.
Now classics, Poul Anderson, Lord Dunsay, Gene Wolfe, Hope Myrle, Zelaney, La Guin etc would be allowed ?

 

[Harpo]

I will always choose "Gargantua & Pantagruel" by François Rabelais, in the translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Definitely Byzantium by Stephen Lawhead - a superb adventure story, set throughout the early Mediaeval world.

 

[Extollager]

Harpo, did you ever hear Hilton Edwards' LP record of passages from P & G? He uses the Urquhart version. This recording made quite an impression on me forty-odd years or so ago.

 

[Harpo]

I heard of it, but never heard it.

 

[Venusian Broon]

"How to survive on a desert island"

It exists, although I have no idea if it's good. Proof would be in the pudding, I suppose. I'm just hedging my bets on that rescue actually arriving.

 

[Overread]

Nixie - I'd say classics like you list should appear; many are at risk of falling into obscurity and are nowhere near as strong as, say Lord of the Rings (even if some like Earthsea have hung on pretty well over the years). Plus a good few of those authors only have one or two that have lasted the test of time (eg Pern has lasted well and is remembered but Crystal Singers is almost totally forgotten about)

 

[nixie]

In that case

*ducks, before being hit with something*

I've never read Earthsea, Pern or Crystal Singers, I'll take them.

 

[Cathbad]

Classics, new sci-fi and fantasy, and loads of cozy mysteries!!

Can I just bring a library?

 

[merritt]

1 book only: Starmaker - Olaf Stapledon

Long and loaded.

 

[WarriorMouse]

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
The Puzzle Palace - Bamford
almost anything by Dickens or Austen

 

[Alan Aspie]

"If one book had to be recommended or chosen for life of exile on the proverbial island, I think the Bible would be the unquestioned choice.

I know of no other book that could be read and reread and continue to be a challenge as could the Old and New Testaments.

This, then, makes the Bible the answer to you question..."

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Sticking with the premise, I think I would be safe in taking The Complete Works of Shakespeare and The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Otherwise, I think I would take a couple of blank books, because this sounds like a perfect time for writing.

 

[Vince W]

Anything by Wodehouse, John Mortimer, Waugh, Dunsany, or Alan Dean Foster. Plus Fritz Leiber, The Illuminatus Trilogy by Wilson and Shea, and a stack of early Pocket Star Trek novels. Oh, and The Three Muskateers, Twenty Years After, and Tarzan of the Apes. Then there's....

 

[BAYLOR]

A desert Island Survival guide.

 

[Anthoney]

The Odor of Sanctity by Frank Yerby and The Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen. Frank Yerby in general is a wonder history fiction writer. Like Diana Gabaldon, he sometimes went a little heavy on romance. This often got his books mis-characterized. The Empire of the East always seems to be one of Saberhagen's least remembered books.

 

[hitmouse]

"If one book had to be recommended or chosen for life of exile on the proverbial island, I think the Bible would be the unquestioned choice.

I know of no other book that could be read and reread and continue to be a challenge as could the Old and New Testaments.

This, then, makes the Bible the answer to you question..."

The standard desert island premise is "what single book would you take, in addition to The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare?"

 

[Extollager]

I'd like to have a good dictionary, and probably not a really recent one; i.e. I'd rather have a dictionary with lots of botanical and zoological words than one with a lot of current tech terms and slang. It should include "obsolete" definitions and some etymology (but I am assuming it is a one-volume dictionary, not an OED). It should be illustrated with small photos or engravings. I imagine it would have some maps. I hope it would have some illustrative quotations from noted authors. I'd always find something new when I browsed in it, and I'd be reminded of things I might otherwise forget in my insular exile.