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March 06, 2007
Your Desert Island Books
As Russell has, in the following item, raised the idea of the five books you'd want to have with you on a desert island, I thought it would be fun to ask you all what five you would choose. Having thought this, I saw that some of you have already started in your responses to his post, so I'll transfer your answers here, so anyone interested will have all your answers all in one place.
From Ethan Cordray: 1. The Bible; 2. The Lord of the Rings; 3. Beowulf; 4. The Gormenghast Trilogy; 5. The Divine Comedy (maybe on the island I'd finally have time to finish the Paradiso!). Robinson Crusoe might be a good choice, too, for practical advice as well as art.
From Bobby Winters:1. Genesis; 2. John; 3. The Name of the Rose; 4. Dune; 5. Knots and Links (by Dale Rolfson). Since some might combine 1 and 2 within the Bible let me add: 6. A Canticle for Leibowitz.
From Annie: 1. The Bible (73 books); 2. The Divine Comedy; 3. The Chronicles of Narnia; 4. 1984; 5. The Phantom Tollbooth.
The Barefoot Bum mentioned How to Escape a Desert Island and Bobby Winters noted Chesterton's choice A Practical Guide to Shipmaking.
Please go to it.
Posted by David Mills at 07:04 PM | Permalink
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1. The Bible (Apocrypha included); 2. Confessions of St. Augustine; 3. The City of God; 4. C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy; 5. Mere Christianity.
Posted by: William | Mar 6, 2007 7:52:18 PM
David, I thought you'd never ask!
Not counting the Bible (in a class all by itself, I hope!)If we are thinking of literary works:
1. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
2. The Brothers Karamazov
3. Three Conversations-Vladimir Solovyov
4. The Complete Poems of William Butler Yeats
5. The Odyssey
6. The Dialogues of Plato (I know, but they don't read like philosophy)
7. Meditations on Hunting-Ortega y Gasset
I'm sure I forgot a few dozen, but these are the ones I go back to again and again.
Posted by: Michael Martin | Mar 6, 2007 7:52:51 PM
1) The Bible
2) "On the Incarnation" by St. Athanasius
3) "We Shall See Him As He Is" by Fr. Sophrony of Blessed Memory
4) The Philokalia Volume 4
5) "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
Posted by: Athanasia | Mar 6, 2007 8:03:30 PM
1. The Bible
2. Plutarch: On Sparta
3. Musashi: The Book of Five Rings
4. St. Augustine: Confessions
5. Escriva: The Forge
Posted by: Anthony | Mar 6, 2007 8:47:06 PM
Well, if we're all gonna say the Bible, then I feel entitled to one more:
The Odyssey. Why Bloom would think a marooned man would rather read about warfare than about a man lost at sea, I cannot say.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 6, 2007 9:16:22 PM
1. The Bible
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Death on a Friday Afternoon (Neuhaus)
4. Mary Oliver's collected works
5. my complete Pelican Shakespeare
and if I can have an extra because of everyone's assuming the Bible,
6. a good old-fashioned hymnal
Posted by: Beth | Mar 6, 2007 9:25:11 PM
Okay, is the #1 default choice The Bible? I'll go with that. My Five in additon to the Bible:
1) Riverside Shakespeare
2) Lenten Triodion
3) Dante's Comedia
4) Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
5) New Oxford Book of English Verse
Posted by: S.K. Davis | Mar 6, 2007 10:26:35 PM
1. Oxford KJV Gospels and Psalms
2. Back Where I Came From by A.J. Liebling
3. Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Alphabetical Collection) translated by Benedicta Ward
4. The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
5. Spiritual Psalter of St. Ephraim compiled by St. Theophan the Recluse
Posted by: Joe | Mar 6, 2007 10:37:06 PM
Fascinating! Everyone seems to get the Holy Scriptures as a "freebie," so here goes with 2.-6.
2. The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
3. The History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff
4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. The Perelanda Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
6. The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton
Since there is no stipulation that I'm on the desert island ALONE, I'll borrow Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton from the rest of you!
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 6, 2007 11:05:07 PM
The Bible as a freebie? That seems like a nice idea. So does the idea that multi-volume works (series) are counted as one, 'cause it means I get all the more books to read:
1) The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2) Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
3) Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (the relational "spiritual autobiography" to Chesterton's polemic "spiritual autobiography")
4) The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis
5) Star Wars: The New Jedi Order, a series by various authors
Sadly, I don't think I could spend life on a dester island without some science fantasy from the Galaxy Far, Far Away...
I once got an altogether better question on a blog meme: what philosophers and/or theologians would you want on a desert island? More brain fodder that way, me thinks...
Posted by: Michael | Mar 7, 2007 2:56:01 AM
After the Bible (with Apocrypha):
2. The Book of Common Prayer (1662 edition)
3. The Gulag Archipelago (Solzhenitsyn)
4. Complete Shakespeare (are we "cheating" by allowing collections to count as a single book?)
5. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
6. Summa Theologica (Aquinas)
Now, to make trouble with my good friend Bill -- I vote to ban Calvin from the island. . . .(but not Calvin & Hobbes!)
Now, to make more trouble -- how about five favorite pieces of music for the desert island? Here are mine:
1. St. Matthew Passion (Bach)
2. Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)
3. Parsifal (Wagner)
4. Symphony #8 (Bruckner)
5. Op. 116-119 piano pieces (Brahms)
(It hurts too much to think of what I'm leaving out -- Spem in Alium by Tallis, the All-Night Vigil of Rachmaninov, Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky, symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, and Sibelius. . . .)
Posted by: James A. Altena | Mar 7, 2007 6:50:14 AM
1. Devi Mahatmyam
2. Dhammapada
3. Bhagavad Gita
4. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
5. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Posted by: NewTrollObserver | Mar 7, 2007 7:39:01 AM
Close your italics.
The Cleaning Lady
Posted by: The Cleaning Lady | Mar 7, 2007 7:48:12 AM
Since the Bible is a given, I would like to add Plato's Republic to my list.
Posted by: William | Mar 7, 2007 7:49:55 AM
1. Bible
2. Complete Works of Shakespeare
3. The Divine Comedy (w/ original Italian)
4. Norton Anthology of poetry (Not all that great, but it has all the essentials)
5. Les Miserables
Sorely missed: The Brothers Karamazov, The Name of the Rose, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Annotated Alice, For the Life of the World (Alexander Schmemann), Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Courage to Be (Tillich), Lilith.
Music:
Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water
The Mission soundtrack
Eric Clapton – Pilgrim
Andi and I – Harder (husband and wife band out of Chicago)
Chris Rice – Run the Earth, Watch the Sky
Posted by: Daniel Propson | Mar 7, 2007 7:54:11 AM
I don't have a list but if I did, Pride and Prejudice would be on it.
Posted by: The Cleaning Lady | Mar 7, 2007 8:14:08 AM
Way to game the system, Bill. Just what I'd expect from a lawyer! :-)
The whole "desert island" concept complicates things. Should I just pick my five favorite books, or should I pick ones that would speak especially to me in my state of isolation? My list generally represents the former approach.
For the latter (Bible taken for granted):
1. Still Beowulf, but only if I could find an edition that also included the Anglo-Saxon poems "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer"
2. Sayings of the Desert Fathers
3. The Divine Comedy
4. St. Athanasius' Life of St. Anthony
5. The Odyssey
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 7, 2007 8:45:05 AM
Anthony - how are you going to get any good out of the "Book of Five Rings" in isolation?! Stranded on an island with a mutinous crew, yes - but by yourself, a taiji classic might have to do.
1 - my Bible would include the Scottish Psalter
2. Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse"
3. "Lee's Lieutenants" (finally, time to finish it)
4. An astronomy textbook
5. A really good seafood cookbook
Posted by: Joe Long | Mar 7, 2007 8:55:44 AM
Personally, I'd be more than willing to sacrifice one of my five books for a pen and a notebook. Or a gun.
Posted by: Daniel Propson | Mar 7, 2007 9:34:15 AM
If we're adding music...
1. Mozart's "Requiem"
2. Bach's Brandenburg #5
3. Durufle's "Requiem" (two requiems, does that make me morbid?)
4. Derek and the Dominos' "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs"
5. Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love"
I love Parsifal as well; but every time I listen to Wagner, I can't help but think what Mark Twain said about his music:
"It's better than it sounds."
Posted by: Michael M | Mar 7, 2007 9:50:50 AM
Music, then:
1. Mozart's "Requiem"
2. Loreena McKinnett's "Book of Secrets"
3. Beethoven's 6th Symphony (though if I could also get 5 and 3 on the album, I'd go that route)
4. The Tannahill Weavers' "Capurnaum"
5. The finest CD of Gregorian Chant that I can find
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 7, 2007 10:07:24 AM
The Bible - God
The Silmarillion - Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
The Book of Common Prayer
The Army Survival Handbook
Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl
Chaucer's guide on how to use the astrolabe
Teach Yourself Polynesian
And, like everyone else
How To Build a Boat and
Sailing for Beginners
Complete Atlas of the Worlds Oceans with Currents
Posted by: Labrialumn | Mar 7, 2007 10:54:51 AM
1. The Holy Bible (with ‘Apocrypha’), King James Version
2. Works, William Shakespeare
3. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
5. The Aeneid
6. A generous, single-volume collection of Samuel Johnson’s works
Posted by: D. Ian Dalrymple | Mar 7, 2007 11:04:13 AM
Ethan - Gormenghast!?!?! And Loreena McKennitt? Can we share?
My list(s):
1)The Bible (with Apocrypha)
2) Complete Shakespeare
3) Ackroyd's London: A Biography (I'm a city girl and in love with London)
4) Grey is the Colour of Hope by Irina Ratushinskaya (I will need to learn how to keep my sanity amidst horrible circumstances)
5) Kreeft's Summa of the Summa (sorry, I just don't think Summa counts as one volume if it's not bound as one!)
The 5 Works of fiction:
1) Douglas Adams' poorly named Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy - because it always makes me laugh
2) The Great Gatsby
3) P.D. James's Children of Men - I can spend my time pondering the irony of having that on a desert island and, in my mind, create a much better script than that mess of a movie they recently released!
4) Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur
5) Dorothy L. Sayer's Gaudy Night - it's the longest and my favorite.
5 Discs:
1) Arvo Part's Passio
2) U2's All that You Can't Leave Behind (their best yet)
3) Dmitry Hvorostovsky's Credo
4) Any "Best of" Jimmy Buffest album that has, "What if the Hokey Pokey is all it really is about?"
5) Handel's Messiah, Sir Colin Davis Conducting
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Mar 7, 2007 11:13:34 AM
Gaudy Night! I'll share that one with you, Kamilla.
Posted by: Judy Warner | Mar 7, 2007 11:26:39 AM
1. Bible
2. The Silmarillion
3. Jane Eyre
4. The Complete Works of Christina Rossetti
5. City of God (if I'm stranded a long time, I'll actually have time to finish it)
6. a good bird book- I love bird watching, but hate not knowing what I'm looking at
Posted by: RMC | Mar 7, 2007 11:44:36 AM
Dear Ethan (and others),
For the finest in Gregorian chant, seek out Konrad Ruhland on various labels (Sony, Philips, Teldec, etc.) His is verily a name with which to conjure in this field!
Posted by: James A. Altena | Mar 7, 2007 12:26:50 PM
The Principle of the Discussion Books:
1.) The Bible - God
2.) The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
3.) Dune - Herbert
4.) The Everlasting Man - Chesterton
5.) Narnia - Lewis
6.) An old collection of '50 and '60's short sci-fi given by my father the title of which I forget...I'm not even sure if it has a cover anymore...
The Broken Principle Items:
1.) Army Survival Guide
2.) Something on navigation by starlight
3.) Something on boatmaking
The Music:
1.) Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
2.) Galore - The Cure
3.) Freak City Soundtrack - Material Issue
4.) A Bach collection
5.) A baroque collection
And Anothony, the Five Rings? That's not even good Japanese literature. Musashi was a first class jerk who didn't bathe and cheated in duels. He avoided the only opponent that ever mattered and ran for his life. I'm convinced the thing is only read by those that are caught up in a pseudo-Japanese mystique. As far as I'm aware he didn't rate much in Japan until fairly recently under Western influence.
Posted by: Nick | Mar 7, 2007 1:00:35 PM
The Principle of the Discussion Books:
1.) The Bible - God
2.) The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
3.) Dune - Herbert
4.) The Everlasting Man - Chesterton
5.) Narnia - Lewis
6.) An old collection of '50 and '60's short sci-fi given by my father the title of which I forget...I'm not even sure if it has a cover anymore...
The Broken Principle Items:
1.) Army Survival Guide
2.) Something on navigation by starlight
3.) Something on boatmaking
The Music:
1.) Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
2.) Galore - The Cure
3.) Freak City Soundtrack - Material Issue
4.) A Bach collection
5.) A baroque collection
And Anothony, the Five Rings? That's not even good Japanese literature. Musashi was a first class jerk who didn't bathe and cheated in duels. He avoided the only opponent that ever mattered and ran for his life. I'm convinced the thing is only read by those that are caught up in a pseudo-Japanese mystique. As far as I'm aware he didn't rate much in Japan until fairly recently under Western influence.
Posted by: Nick | Mar 7, 2007 1:01:24 PM
"Now, to make trouble with my good friend Bill -- I vote to ban Calvin from the island. . . .(but not Calvin & Hobbes!)"
James, ban Hobbes but not Calvin. I mean, how depressed to you want to get: nasty, poor, brutish & short--but a great name for a law firm!
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2007 1:03:06 PM
And as to music, I'll just wander over to James Altena's stack (since Calvin didn't write music, so far as I know ;-))and see how he gets his CD player to work on a desert island without electricity. Should be interesting!
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2007 1:05:55 PM
One of things that hit me as I finished my list and went back to my growing iTunes library...
The truth is *none* of these lists would be enough. As humans we'd want to experience more. Forever. The island is a curse because it limits our experience in the same way the Fall does.
Posted by: Nick | Mar 7, 2007 1:16:20 PM
This talk about "sharing" from Kamilla and Bill has got me thinking: my list of five is a whole lot different depending on whether I'm alone (as a "desert" island would imply) or with others.
If I had to pick five books plus the Bible with which to reconstitute a civilization:
1. Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
2. Augustine's The City of God
3. The Book of Common Prayer
4. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (nope, I don't consider this cheating)
5. Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 7, 2007 1:57:49 PM
Nick,
Ooooh, never thought of the island in that way. Have to go meditate on that now.
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Mar 7, 2007 1:58:02 PM
"...(as a "desert" island would imply)..."
No, Ethan, "desert," not "deserted." That's why I get to cheat! (Don't you just love lawyers?)
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2007 2:07:45 PM
Books (assuming the Bible is included)
1. Pensees by Blaise Pascal
2. The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis (or just Perelandra if I have to pick one)
3. A volume of John Chrysostom's homilies (say Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 10, the homilies on Matthew's Gospel)
4. My old German Kirchengesangbuch (hymnal)
5. The Weight of Glory by C.S.Lewis
Music
1. "Mass in (I forget the key)" by Ralph Vaughn Williams
2. "Canticum Trium Puerorum" by Michael Praetorius
3. Handel's "Messiah"
4. "Jubilate Deo" by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
5. "Missa Secundum" by Hans Leo Hassler
Posted by: Reid | Mar 7, 2007 2:18:22 PM
Reading these lists reminds me that I have a lot of catching up to do in the "great books" category. Maybe I should see about finding my own desert island...
Posted by: JB | Mar 7, 2007 2:38:29 PM
OK, Ethan, I'll grant you the entire Summa if you make the BCP Cranmer's and not the 1662.
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Mar 7, 2007 2:49:03 PM
Kamilla,
It's a deal. But what's wrong with the BCP 1662? (Warning! Potential thread hijacking in progress!)
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 7, 2007 2:56:49 PM
1. Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
2. Catholic Christianity, by Peter Kreeft
3. The Orthodox Way, by Kallistos Ware
4. City of God, by St. Augustine
5. Healing the Original Wound, by Benedict Groeschel
How's that for ecumenical?
Posted by: Darrel.Hoerle | Mar 7, 2007 3:12:59 PM
Our homeschooling group had a discussion of "what are the minimal things you would need on a desert island, with no electricity, to give your children a decent education." Since I'm assuming my kids would be with me in this hypothetical (otherwise I'd be too busy crying to read), here's my final list:
Equipment:
pens & pencils (lots)
paper (lots; blank, ruled, and graph)
straight-edge and compass
chess board and pieces
husband (to handle the Greek and math)
Books:
Complete Milton
Complete Shakespeare
Norton Anthology of English Poetry
Oxford English Dictionary
Wheelock's Latin
Hansen & Quinn's Greek
Bible (King James or Douay-Rheims version)
Atlas
Oxford World History
Euclid's Elements
I'd have listed some sort of musical instrument, but I'd have to be marooned with someone who could play one.
Posted by: o.h. | Mar 7, 2007 3:28:42 PM
>>husband (to handle the Greek and math)<<
So that's what we're good for. I'd always wondered! :-)
Good list there. But why teach Greek if you're not going to bring a Greek New Testament? Are you figuring that one day the kids will escape the island?
I might add a dictionary. It might also help me spell "Nicomachean."
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Mar 7, 2007 3:41:23 PM
James, I agree with you about the Spem in Alium and the Rachmaninov Vespers. I might put the Spem in Alium in my list except that I don't know Latin and the text is unfamiliar to me so my aesthetic senses enjoy it but my mind remains unfruitful. Also my wife teases me mercilessly about a piece of music whose title sounds so much like a way of serving Spam.
Posted by: Reid | Mar 7, 2007 4:07:16 PM
"nasty, poor, brutish & short" -- excepting that I'm 6'1", a perfect description of me!
I second Ethan's question on the BCP, Kamilla -- or, more to the point, why don't you consider the 1662 BCP to be Cranmer's as much as either the 1549 or 1552 editions (or even 1559)? The changes in Cranmer's own work are quite small, but there are additional offices included in the 1662.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Mar 7, 2007 5:04:42 PM
Hurray for Gaudy Night (although I like The Nine Tailors as well...) Must add somehing by George Macdonald and another something by (a) Tolkien: Christopher T.'s edition of LotR with all his father's notes and edits.
Posted by: Hannah | Mar 7, 2007 6:08:49 PM
Ethan,
I did list the OED; though I might swap that for Bulfinch's Mythology, on reflection. Though the OED, if it were the full edition (rather than our household eyestrain compact edition), could be additionally useful for building a raft out of. Another thing a husband would be good for! Oh, and I'd need him for dealing with the particularly icky bugs and other island wildlife.
Posted by: o.h. | Mar 7, 2007 6:47:16 PM
Hmmm, is it possible none of us thought to include Daniel DeFoe's "Robinson Crusoe"?
Posted by: Bill R | Mar 7, 2007 6:54:47 PM
Regarding the BCP, it's pure historical snobbery. I have copies of Edward's first and second prayer books (a single volume PBS reprint) and a used 1559 that I picked up for 5 pounds at
SPCK in London shortly before I got lost for the first time in that wonderful city. I don't even have a copy of the 1662.
But I am still a neophyte with prayer books and could use an instruction manual!
Kamilla
Posted by: Kamilla | Mar 7, 2007 7:09:29 PM
lost for the first and only time, I should add!
K
Posted by: Kamilla | Mar 7, 2007 7:11:30 PM
lost for the first and only time, I should add!
No, no, that's no good at all. I absolutely love getting lost in London, and try to do it every time I go! There's nothing quite like wandering around with not a clue where you're going or what you're going to bump into next. My first trip to London I got thoroughly turned around and suddenly found myself in front of the British museum. I had intended to go there but somehow stumbling across it seemed more joyful! It's not really 'getting lost' anyways, one's bound to hit a tube station before too long.
Posted by: Dave | Mar 7, 2007 8:56:52 PM
