If you could only have five books...

[Adam Phillips]

An old friend of mine used to tell me I'm part vampire, because my biorhythms are so messed up I'm often awake in the wee hours of the morning. I have an e-friend who's a member here, and she's often up at those hours as well, and we'll chat often during those hours, and more than occasionally we play "list" games. ("Name your five favorite actors. Five favorite Beatles tunes. Five favorite rock bands today. Five favorite varieties of apples." Etc.)

 

She came up with a good one the other night. "If you were marooned on a tropical island and could only have five books with you, what would those five be?"

 

So I'm inviting you to play the game with me! It can be any sort of book, including, say, books containing works that weren't originally made for "book" format, like, for example, Hamlet. Also, doesn't have to be fiction.

 

There's one giant "cheat" allowed: In lieu of a book--and you can do this five times, if you want--you're allowed to pick a book series.

 

Here are mine, in no special order:

 

• Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
• Stephen King, The Stand
• J. D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
• Shakespeare, Hamlet

 

I had a fair amount of pain having to leave off J. G. Hayes' A Map of the Harbor Islands and Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy. Map in particular is near and dear to my heart. But she said "five."

 

Anybody else wanna play?

 

[Graeme]

That's tough. I usually prefer reading new books to re-reading old books, but if you're only allowed five, then that means re-reading....

 

One fairly light series that I keep re-reading (just because I don't have to think while reading) is John Campbell's Lost Fleet series.

Another, more involving series, would be L.E.Modesitt Jr's Imager Portfolio series.

 

Since the above covers around twenty books, I might stop at this point. I'm having trouble thinks of books that I would like to keep re-reading. There are some that I do enjoy re-reading from time to time, but not enough to want to re-read a lot (which is what this request is asking).

Edited August 31, 2014 by Graeme

[Sasha Distan]

• Jamie O'Neill, At Swim, Two Boys

 

We have a commonality.

 

Also, I find this question very easy. My top five sit together on one shelf. In case of fire, flood or invasion by zombies, grab and run.

 

• The God Eaters (Jesse Hajicek)
• Now Is The Hour (John Spanbauer)
• At Swim, Two Boys (Jamie O'Neill)
• The Swimming Pool Library (Alan Hollinghurst)
• Pyramids (Terry Pratchett)

[faxity]

Hmm... I'm with Graeme about not being big on re-reading, but if I had to re-read any book/series endlessly, I think I'd choose (not in any particular order):

The Kingslayer Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss*

The Demon Cycle by Peter V Brett*

The Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks*

The Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks

And...

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (because I could waste a lot of time reading that XD)

The ones with asterisks are unfinished, so I'd probably be going crazy after a little while of reading those, but they're such good series I had to pick them anyway lol.

Edit: damn I hit my 'like' quota again already XD

Edited August 31, 2014 by faxity

[zaf89]

Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials trilogy

Anne Sexton: The Complete Poems

Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna

Carolyn Parkhurst - The Dogs of Babel

Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights

 

Wow. That was a lot harder than I thought it'd be . Also, from reading lists here and googling some of the titles I wasn't familiar with, there are so many books that sound wonderful that I need to read ASAP. Thanks for this! 

Edited September 3, 2014 by zaf89

[Bill W]

If I'm going to stuck on an island, I want books that will entertain me, so here are my choices.  

 

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Adventures of Huckleberry by Mark Twain

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein 

[Palantir]

I find that some books can be enjoyed greatly on the first read but do absolutely nothing for me with a reread.

Luckily my best books are timeless and rereading them at varying intervals still gives the special experience that took me the first time.

 

Here are some of my choices. 

 

The Lord Of The Rings. - J. R. R. Tolkein.

The Dark Is Rising series. - Susan Cooper.

Songmaster. - Orson Scott Card.

Earthsea series. - Ursula K LeGuin.

The Song of Wirrun. - Patricia Wrightson.

[Celethiel]

Then i wouldn't have any, because i could never just have five, i'd never be able to make up my mind on which Only five i could have...

although The Hobbit would be in the titles.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Celethiel

[Celethiel]

That's tough. I usually prefer reading new books to re-reading old books, but if you're only allowed five, then that means re-reading....

 

One fairly light series that I keep re-reading (just because I don't have to think while reading) is John Campbell's Lost Fleet series.

Another, more involving series, would be L.E.Modesitt Jr's Imager Portfolio series.

 

Since the above covers around twenty books, I might stop at this point. I'm having trouble thinks of books that I would like to keep re-reading. There are some that I do enjoy re-reading from time to time, but not enough to want to re-read a lot (which is what this request is asking).

I like Imager Portfolio too i've never read john campbell's stuff though i don't think.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Celethiel

[Graeme]

Oops.... It's Jack Campbell, which is the pen-name for John G Henry. I got the first names mixed up.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Fleet

 

It's not serious fiction. It's essentially an extended space opera, but I find it an easy, fun read. Of course, since I've read them a few times, I skip over the boring parts

[Andy78]

The easy three are:

 

Stephen King, It (never leave home without it)

Terry Pratchett, Discworld series

Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

 

Then it get's difficult.

 

I guess I should include The Canterbury Tales.  I do enjoy reading them, and I guess should at least include something that makes me sound cultured

Most likely include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

 

But what do I do with Stephen King's Needful Things?

[myself_i_must_remake]

Nabokov's Pale Fire

Coetzee's Disgrace

Foucault's History of Madness

Joyce's Dubliners

Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

[Toast]

I guess I can't have a Ereader with 1500 books in storage with a solar battery thing ?

 

ATM, the one book I know I would want, I believe, would be the best encyclopedia dictionary available.  

[Sasha Distan]

It's not serious fiction.

 

I never make this distinction. It's like the one between academic and creative subjects... strange and judgmental. I think some of the best work this universe had brought forth has not been serious fiction.

I also commend your choices. when stuck of a dessert island - spaceships will certainly be a goof foil for the heatstroke! 

 

 

"Is it hot in space?"

"Of course it is. Where do you think we get pineapples from?"

 

^ If I could take only one set of DVD's somewhere, it would be that series.

[scotty94]

my five will be:

 

Harry Potter 1 to 7 by J.K Rowling

lord of the rings by J.R.R Tolkien

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

and all of the tom sawyer books by Mark Twain especially Tom Sawyer Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

[Kitt]

Ok - when one says a serious cheat and a series counts as one book, would that mean David Eddings'  Belgariad and Malorean series are one set or two?  Each is a five book set all involving the life and times of the same set of characters. And would the support books he later published be included in the "set"?  That would make the difference between 5 actual physical books and 12 listed as Eddings.

 

Assuming all books involving the same characters are "one":

 

                 Belgariad/Mallorian                    David Eddings

                 Wheel of Time series                Robert Jordan

                 The Dragons of Pern series       Ann McCafferty

                 The Dirk Pitt series                    Clive Cussler

                 The Sword of Truth series         Terry Goodkind

 

 

 

 

Edit to include:  Does anyone else note a thread of escapism in the book lists?

Edited September 1, 2014 by Kitt

[K.C.]

Only 5? That is so hard!!

 

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

 

The Stand by Stephen King

 

Now it gets hard cause I'd have to duct-tape all the series together to make 1 book: 

 

Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris

 

Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien

 

Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare

[Adam Phillips]

Nabokov's Pale Fire

Coetzee's Disgrace

Foucault's History of Madness

Joyce's Dubliners

Rushdie's The Satanic Verses

 

Okay, your choices have influenced me to read your stuff, lol.

 

Although if you're stranded on a tropical island, the Foucault seems kind of beside the point to me, right? It's a brilliant work nonetheless.

 

I know and like all the books on your list except for Disgrace, which I've not read and keep meaning to.

 

Dubliners is probably the one on the list I'd be most likely to steal from you if we were stranded on the same tropical island.

[Adam Phillips]

I never make this distinction. It's like the one between academic and creative subjects... strange and judgmental. I think some of the best work this universe had brought forth has not been serious fiction.

 

 

Yeah. I'm of divided mind on that distinction. I agree with you, sort of. Music is the art I know best, and we make a distinction between various popular and folk styles on the one hand, and "serious" music on the other. And you know, there's no way even to make the distinction verbally without being pejorative (or incorrect; some people call the latter category "classical," which is just plain inaccurate). And it's a distinction the vast majority of the "serious" composers themselves never entertained conceptually. I enjoy all styles of music and don't have a lot of use for "snooty music folk" who claim never to listen to the likes of either The Beatles or The Black Keys. The key is whether or not the composer's product has life and vitality to it, in my opinion, regardless of style. I can't define that, actually, but I know it when I hear it. So, along with Sasha, I think the distinction between "serious" arts and "non-serious" is more than a little patronizing.

 

Be that as it may, I get the point, even if the boundaries defining the two are a little fuzzy. Dubliners transcends in every way imaginable A Map of the Harbor Islands, and I've enjoyed both. Dubliners, in fact, gives a reader much more to chew on. Yet it's not going to the island with me, and Map is.

 

That whole subject is worth a thread of its own at some time. At least I'm intrigued by it. Sorry to have hijacked my theme a little bit. I just got intrigued by a couple of sentences and thoughts Sasha threw down.

I guess I can't have a Ereader with 1500 books in storage with a solar battery thing ?

 

ATM, the one book I know I would want, I believe, would be the best encyclopedia dictionary available.

 

Yeah, I already proposed that to my gaming partner, and the idea was struck down, lol.

Edit to include:  Does anyone else note a thread of escapism in the book lists?

 

Ooh. Intriguing oberservation! What does that say about GA members? 

Edited September 1, 2014 by Adam Phillips

[Red_A]

Here is my five

 

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein 

Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov

Terry Pratchett, Discworld series

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris

Sliderule by Nevil Shute "Norway"

 

although War and Peace was near the top, only to be read once or twice,.

Hitchiker Guide to the Galaxy, was also near but which one the radio series(the first one I came across), the books or the television series?

[carringtonrj]

It would be different every day, except Shakespeare - always there.

Today would be:

Shakespeare - Complete Works

Henry James - The Tragic Muse

James Joyce - Ulysses

Georges Perec - Life a User's Manual

Ingeborg Bachmann - Malina

[Palantir]

  Does anyone else note a thread of escapism in the book lists?

 

lol - if you're marooned on an island then escapism might be an appropriate frame of mind.

 

[myself_i_must_remake]

 

Edit to include:  Does anyone else note a thread of escapism in the book lists?

 

Haha. So some of the book lists should really include: Hut-building for Dummies and A Field Guild to Plants that Can Kill You.

[Slytherin]

J.R.R Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

E.M Forster - Maurice

Stieg Larsson - Millenium trilogy

Sigrid Undset - Kristin Lavransdatter

 

I didn't know if The Bible is allowed so I left that one out of my list

[Graeme]

I didn't mean to use the phrase "It's not serious fiction" in a derogative way. To my thinking, there are stories that require a lot of concentration because they are complex, and there are stories that are simply light-hearted enjoyable reads (with a whole spectrum between those two), and that series falls more into the latter group. In my defence, it was one of the series I picked to take on the desert island Essentially, I picked one complex series and one light-hearted series, so I have I choice to read, depending on my mood.

 

I find it interesting that Lord of The Rings is on so many lists. I quite like the story, but it's not a story that I want to keep re-reading. That's true of many of the books listed by others that I've read. There are many great reads...but they're not stories that I would go back and start reading again when I'm finished.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Graeme