Desert Island Challenge - You Get One Book. What is it?
Mates,
Staggering to the end of OT season, with fall creeping closer than I realized with a weather change due here up north and us harvesting livestock and hay right now. I have a question for the mgoglitteratti. As well read of a group as I can imagine you'd find on the interweb I will guess there is a very wide spread on what you all have read.
Assume the following: You are ship wrecked on a desert island with enough food/water to live. Also assume for those of any particular faith, that you get that book (Bible, Torah, bhagavad gita, etc.) so don't include that one in your answer. And no, you can't download it or use your Kindel.
Question: You get one book. Which one do you pick?
XM
Probably "The Worst Case Scenario Handbook" because there's at least a handy reference to certain situations then. Otherwise, I will rely on my own engineering mettle to somehow get an electric distribution system going on the island and at least make life semi-comfortable.
Best of Penthouse book....the only book you could read 100 times on an island w/o it getting old
Oh...and most of you fuckers haven't read a book in, what, years?
Complete works of Shakespeare. Or complete Far Side.
of William Shakespeare, a lot of variety there. I do like the complete Calvin and Hobbes as a good alternate though.
Worth a more or less constant re-read
I take it you've never seen a Torah. No Jew on Earth would want one on a desert island. Not only can few of us even read the thing (it's in ancient hebrew with the vowels removed) but keeping it stored correctly would be a nightmare.
I'd take the Voynich Manuscript. If I'm going to be on a desert island I might as well crack that sonovabitch. It'll keep me occupied and when I get off the island it'll make me rich and famous.
Or insane!
i'll put a special torah humidor on the island so you can keep the scrolls properly.
good luck with the manuscript. since it's my island, you'll have to share the secret with me to get off the island.
August 4th, 2017 at 12:04 AM ^
This little page turner. How to survive on a deserted island.
I'm a dad.
20s... Didn't begin to understand it. So I'll give it a shot on the island. Runners up? Huck Finn, Franny and Zooey, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Nick Adams Stories, or the Complete Works of Joseph Conrad. Scratch that. Give me the Conrad.
no 'trout magic' or 'danny and the boys'?
when is that yellowstone trip? post fish pics.
I had a similar experience at about age 20 or 21. If that was the only book I had though it could go one of two ways- I would finally learn to understand and appreciate it, or I might just decide to end it all.
Not my favorite book, but it's up there. Plus it's long, as others pointed out, that would be a big benefit. Plus, I'd end up singing the songs from the musical a lot, which would probably be good to pass the time.
Another vote for Shakespeare.
Second place the Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.
But really if I knew ahead of time, I'd exploit the wonders of modern technology and make my own print-on-demand book of both of the above, plus the Feynman Lectures, plus about a million other things.
It really moved me as a teen.
enjoyed 100 years of solitude.
August 3rd, 2017 at 10:03 PM ^
The Art of War. I am going to spend my time on the island learning how to defeat my enemies.
August 3rd, 2017 at 10:10 PM ^
August 3rd, 2017 at 10:38 PM ^
by Bo Schembechler (and Mitch Albom).
August 3rd, 2017 at 11:15 PM ^
I read A Christmas Carol every year at the appropriate time. So, that.
August 3rd, 2017 at 11:16 PM ^
I have read it 3 times in my life and will likely read it 3 more.