Ironically, I am on my way to a desert island today for two weeks! Well, okay, maybe more of a tropical island, but you get the idea.
In England, there’s a program called Desert Island Disks on the radio. Every week, a celebrity or cultural figure is interviewed, and asked for a playlist of albums they would take to a desert island. Then, at the end of the program, they’re asked which book they would take after The King James Bible and The Collected Works of Shakespeare. It’s a great program.
Anyway, here are my book choices, after the Bible and Shakespeare, which, of course, you’d have to have:
1.The Diary of Sameul Pepys. It’s long, it will keep you entertained.
2. Middlemarch. The perfectly balanced novel.
3. My book (just kidding)
4. The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany–please don’t make me choose
5. How To Cook Everything. Because if you’re on a desert island, chances are you’re going to need this book.
6. A book of survival skills. I’d want to know how to cut down trees and build myself some stuff. Like a boat, maybe. Unless I had my husband along. Then I’d just give him this book while I whipped us up some grilled fish and coconut beer.
7. The Happy Book, written by my eldest daughter, age seven, and dedicated to me. I couldn’t be prouder.
8. All of the Greek myths, plus Oedipus the King and Antigone
9. Jane Eyre. Reader, she marries him.
10. Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. Who knew Woolf was so funny?
I hope you all are having good summers, whether on islands or no. Enjoy the last remnents of vacation and read something good!
Awwww, the Happy Book! My own “young author” writes me books, too (and signs them!) but his tend to be more Star Wars themed. Fanfic, I guess they would call it…
Thanks, Kris. The books kids come up with are like little Rorsharch tests aren’t they? I love getting that glimpse into my kids’ minds.
Wait, we’re allowed to take survival manuals? I could have my handyman and Winston’s dogsitter read that while Winston and I watch BBC movies in the yurt. Maybe we won’t starve after all!