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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 22:41:37 GMT
Name five books that you love, that you would put in a package for somebody in prison, on a desert island, just arriving from another planet without reading material... just name five books that you would like other people to read and appreciate.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 23:32:25 GMT
The Religion - Tim Willocks Cannery Row - John Steinbeck Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck Nightmares and Geezenstacks - Fredric BrownLes Misérables - Victor Hugo
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Post by cristina on Dec 11, 2009 3:36:57 GMT
Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
Sophie’s Choice – William Styron
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith (the first real novel that I ever read, at about 12 years old. And I loved it.)
Roughing It – Mark Twain (less meaningful if you didn’t grow up in the US, but absolutely wonderful if you did and understand the history)
I would like to cheat and add a sixth: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Oh! And a 7th: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
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Post by cristina on Dec 11, 2009 5:24:56 GMT
Well crap, I think I'll just continue to break the rules since I went over 5 in my first post. The BFG - by Roald Dahl (I love anything written by Dahl, but this is my favorite) If You Give A Mouse A Cookie - by Laura Joffe Numeroff (I can recite this book from memory) The Jungle - by Upton Sinclair (Just, wow) So, I have submitted 2 top-5 lists in aggregate, technically.  I had to include a few more kids books. Because... And The Jungle was a turning point read for me when I was around 17 or 18. |
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 11, 2009 5:48:09 GMT
Cristina ~~ you could always go back to the thread where we figuring out how to produce an anyport home library list. Once it gets going, we can all submit multiple groups of five or six, or whatever number is ultimately decided upon by the group.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2009 5:48:44 GMT
I am very slow to reply to questions, even when I am the one asking. So I'm still thinking.
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 11, 2009 8:24:19 GMT
The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Mark Twain In Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel), Ernst Juenger Faserland, Christian Kracht Yes, I think that would be it. Hold it, maybe that's the list I'd take on a desert island  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2009 11:10:12 GMT
I have to remember what the OP says and not list books I would take.Still pondering this one...
(HW,I believe you snuck in an extra one there.Those Twain books? :oTWO?...)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2009 11:39:03 GMT
They're often available in a double volume.  (Anyway, I would count any limited 'series' as one book -- Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or, er, Twilight...  ) |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2009 11:50:30 GMT
forgot the emoticon HW |
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Post by lola on Dec 11, 2009 15:43:00 GMT
Will give it a nondefinitive shot, preference given to collected works type books that give the castaway more to chew on.
1. The Code of the Woosters PG Wodehouse, or if there's a collected Jeeves and Wooster volume, so much the better.
2. We have a book on our shelves called The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works Annotated. I would direct the alien to Hamlet first probably, then the sonnets.
3. Ditto The Works of Jane Austen, which contains her four best. Start with Pride and Prej, young alien.
4. Light in August, Faulkner. Or better still a collection of the Yoknapatwpha County novels.
5. The Aubrey/Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian. Must start with the first book, Master and Commander.
The Wodehouse books especially would give a prisoner something to live for.
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Post by lola on Dec 11, 2009 15:56:46 GMT
List for children castaways, from a former girl's perspective:
1. The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace
2. The Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
4. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5. Dang. Too much competition for this spot. For a combination of volume and imaginative value, let's say the Narnia series
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2009 17:26:37 GMT
I'm making progress. I have two books in mind. Still working on the rest.
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Post by traveler63 on Dec 11, 2009 23:28:44 GMT
My list:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Chocolat
One Hundred Years of Solitude
To Kill a Mockinbird
Letters from Earth
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 12, 2009 3:57:22 GMT
I'm with Lola on the P.G. Wodehouse, you need something to chuckle on without anybody hearing.
I also thought of 'All Quiet...' but decided the ending was too sad.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2009 12:16:09 GMT
Is the list limited to fiction? OP says "books" but all the lists thus far are novels.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 12, 2009 13:50:40 GMT
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(Anyway, I would count any limited 'series' as one book -- Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or, er, Twilight... 
)