Pajiba

1. The complete works of Archie and Jughead

2. Penthouse, December, 1982

3. The Joy of Cooking

4. Beowulf

5. Learn to Speak Swedish

frail, young, and pale english teacher will inevitably die, but until then:

1) walden by henry david thoreau
2) jesus' son by denis johnson
3) where i'm calling from by raymond carver
4) the royal tenenbaums screenplay by wes anderson and owen wilson
5) metamorphosis by franz kafka

1. Lamb - Christopher Moore...If you need to ask me why I'd want to be stuck on a deserted island with Biff entertaining me then you seriously need to read this one already.

2. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore...Sensing a trend? I love Moore to bits as a writer and just picturing an American Simon Peg as Charlie makes me happy.

3. Shampoo Planet - Douglas Coupland...The first of his novels I ever read and the only time assigned reading in High School wasn't an overwhelming chore.

4. Any of the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris - My inner teenaged goth girl loves these books which are often as funny to read as they are entertaining.

5. My Journal - Me...No I'm not being self centred here. Ever since I was able to hold a crayon my mom has bought me a new journal every single year (Note: I still have most of them.) I'm a scribbler and a doodler and I process things in my life by writing about them. I don't think I could handle a deserted island without being able to write down what was going on around me or how I was feeling about it all

1) Good Omens -- Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett
2) Adventures of Kavalier and Clay -- Michael Chabon
3) Me Talk Pretty One Day -- David Sedaris
4) Y The Last Man -- Brian K. Vaughan
5) Calvin & Hobbes... the big compendium -- Bill Watterson.

Time Enough for Love
Catch 22
Moo
Promiscuities
Gone With the Wind.

(Infinite Jest? really? ugh. Go read The Illuminatus Trilogy, that's where he stole the whole idea from and it is a far superior book.)

William Shakespeare: the Complete Works- Screw you. Have you ever met an English teacher who only read like four of his plays? Maybe this way I'd actually read them.

The Bible- The whole thing.

The Complete Oxford dictionary- this will definitely keep me occupied for a while.

Something by Hunter S. Thompson (not Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, though).

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn- eh, I'm sort of a history nut too.

... and then she read the criteria in detail. Well, in that case, I'll go with the 10th Anniversary Calvin and Hobbes (but I still maintain that since the compendium should qualify since the comics came out one by one in their original forms, and would take the two books over just about anything else) and Book four of Sandman instead of the whole "Y" series. Dammit though, I'm an English major -- this won't sustain me!

"I'm sticking with the funny."

To Kill a Mockingbird excluded. Heh.

I'm a moron. Scratch Jonathan Strange and replace with A Song of Ice and Fire.

1.) Catch 22, Joseph Heller (to help me laugh at the absurd futility of my situation)

2.) Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen (because it's damn near perfect)

3.) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare (is that cheating?)

4.) Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (hearty laughs, genuine tugs at the ol' heartstrings, and a robust tie to civiliation as I know it)

5.) Amsterdam, Ian McEwan (my first and very recent foray into McEwan's oeuvre, and the passages about composition are transcendent).

Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
Evelina (Frances Burney)
any of Margaret Atwood's novels... whichever one I quickly grab as they're dragging me away

1. The Fall - Albert Camus
2. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
3. Animal Farm - George Orwell
4. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
5. The complete works of Jane Austen - screw your fascism; I am my own woman and I will have my Jane Austen, Mr. Rowles.

Yay, for me I made it early again to an ACD.

1. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
2. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
3. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
4. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Any giant Calvin & Hobbes collection will do

1. The Fall - Albert Camus
2. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
3. Animal Farm - George Orwell
4. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff
5. The complete works of Jane Austen - screw your fascism; I am my own woman and I will have my Jane Austen, Mr. Rowles.

Yay for me I made it early again to an ACD.

I'm curious what everyone's thinking for these lists is. I'm getting a vibe that everyone's putting down a combination of Books I Love and Books I Want To Read But Haven't. So in that spirit:

1. The Corrections: Hefty page count, amazing writing, wouldn't mind reading it multiple times.
2. The Hours: One of not my favorite book. Have read it multiple times and wouldn't mind doing it again.
3. Complete Calvin and Hobbes: Best comic strip ever. Whomever suggested this originally gets a tip of the hat.
4. The Oxford History of World Cinema: Because when the hell else would I read it? And I'm a Film major, so I'd feel some sort of obligation to keep up with that.
5. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: I've got this sitting on my ever-growing "to read" pile and I keep hearing nothing but praise for it. So onto the island it comes.

Not only did I make it early to an ACD I apparently made it twice.
Sorry for the double posting.
I've been drinking again which is obviously a favorite pastime around here, no?

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
2. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
3. The Gormenghast Novels - Mervyn Peake
4. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
5. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

Carnival Desires, Mark Lindquist

Gravity`s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon (maybe im gonnna understand it when i reread a few dozen times, plus its 1000+ pages)

My diary, me (Maybe it will be found sometime. I hope i will have a pen though)

Spanish dictionary, some guy (Might as well learn a new language)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adam Douglas
(It`s long AND funny)

Great pick of Flannery O'Connor, Alabamapink.
I love her work.

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

Watership Down - Richard Adams

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

The Blue Castle - L.M. Montgomery (as my designated 'embarrassing childhood favorite that makes me feel wonderful every time I browse through it')

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1. Pride and Prejudice- It's my favorite book. I would put down complete works; however, some horrible rule stipulates that I can't.

2. Breakfast of Champions- Vonnegut rules! Again, I would say complete works because everyday is a Vonnegut day; however, fuck the fucking rules. I really hate the fact that complete works are banned. Some authors aren't fully understood without reading their complete works.

3. American Psycho- It feeds the macabre aspects of my life.

4. The Prince- I'll be the ruler of my island.

5. Optimal Control and Estimation- Since I'll be on some lone island, I'll have a lot of time to think. I've always wanted to create some grand economic theory and this book will help solidify my grand economic theory with practical math magic. Of course, I'll have to figure out a way to make a slide rule or calculator. Hmmm...

1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
2. Anything from Terry Pratchett (especially if it includes Rincewind the Wizard-- he's been stranded on a strange beach a time or two so it would be pertinent although I would be without the Luggage)
3. The Bible (ditto those above)
4. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
5. Rumo: and his Miraculous Adventures- Walter Moers

1. "Eveything's Eventual"
2. "Night Shift" (both of these are Stephen King short story collections, and I've read through them a TON of times. A few more go-arounds wouldn't hurt.)
3. "The Alphabet of Manliness" (anything you need to know about anything Maddox can teach you.)
4. "Starting Out with C++: Early Object" (...what? I've laways wanted to learn programing)
5. "Webster's Dictionary" (how many people do you know can say that they've read the entire dictionary? I'd like to be the first one.)

1. Don Quixote. Miguel Cervantes
2. The Bible
3. La Peste / The Plague. Albert Camus
4. Le Petit Prince / The Little Prince. Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry
5. Guns, Germs & Steel. Diamond

I'm sorry my first two were already taken, but they are (arguably) 2 of the 5 most important books ever written, right?

I'm making the assumption that I don't need the Boy Scout manual or Foxfire guides...

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Great Starship Race by Diane Carey
Vigilent by James Alan Gardner
Volume 5 of Naomi Novik's Dragon series which isn't due until July, but...

No Shakespeare (I have never once said to myself, hmm, great day to spend some time reading - I think I'll crack open Two Gentlemen of Verona...), no bible.

On the same day, a drinking game is announced (who's genius creator I managed to horrify) I win a box-set, and read this list finding reasons to love you crazy Pajibblies even more. I'm experiencing so much love I think I might have a Pajigasm.

1. Catch 22, Joseph Heller. You can read it again, and again, and again and it never stops being funny.
2. A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor. If you don't know who Flannery O'Connor is, you best run your narrow ass to the nearest library and drink deep of her spiked sweet tea.
3. Different Seasons, Stephen King. It's got the novellas that inspired some of the best of the Stephen King movies. Though I might be tempted to swap it out for Skeleton Crew or The Bachman Books.
4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky. Why did you only write one book? Please write another one. I'll swim to shore on Spaudling if you will.
5. Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce. Maybe with all that time on the island I can figure out what in the pink and purple fuck it means.

And for all you Christopher Moore fans out there, read Tim Dorsey. He does a series about a history obsessed serial maniac that runs up and down the Florida coastline. Squee!

The Physicians' Desk Reference . . . hollowed out. Inside: Waterproof matches, iodine tables, beet seeds, protein bars, NASA blanket and, in case I get bored, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. No - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Sorry. Couldn't help myself there.

For serious now:
1. Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
2. Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell
3. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
4. The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende
5. Rememberance of Things Past by Marcel Proust--it would last months

charlottelightanddark -- I briefly considered, but couldn't remember which Harry Potter books... well played.

1. The Odyssey- Homer
2. How to Eat- Nigella Lawson
3. Any of the 'Jeeves' books- P.G. Wodehouse
4. Pride & Prejudice- Jane Austen (though I'd find it tough having to let 'Persuasion' go)
5. Gabriela, Cravo e Canela- Jorge Amado

1)Books by David Sedaris(But Which one?)
2)The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
3)Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4)To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5)His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman

Assuming I can live without my computer I'll have plenty of books to read on an island!

1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. The Illiad
3. Hamlet (I could hold a one-woman show!)
4. The Custom of the Country
5. A language text (probably Japanese or Galic. Something nearly useless but difficult)

^ er, Gaelic, rather

1. Checkmate - Dorothy Dunnett (unfortunately, book six of a series, but I can't imagine life without it)
2. Hamlet - Shakespeare (throw in something classic, plus I can act out all the parts in my spare time)
3. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins (for the funny)
4. Enders Game - Orson Scott Card (for my sci-fi fix)
5. King Hereafter - Dorothy Dunnett (a large mystery of a book that will hopefully take forever to unravel)

1. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by J.K. Toole
3. Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger
4. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb (shut up)
5. The World According to Garp by John Irving

5. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
4. The Stand - Stephen King
3. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
2. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
1. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

1. Good Omens- Pratchett/Gaiman
2. Cloud Atlas- David Mitchell
3. Holy Fools- Joanne Harris
4. im hoping The Dark Tower series- Stephen King counts as 1 book.
5. The Virgin Suicides- Jeffrey Eugenides

Gigi Worthington:

Regarding, House of Leaves. It totally has the same affect on me, no worries. If you're not unnerved by it, I don't think you're reading it correctly.

But this is only the beginning. If you get into it like I did, you'll read it another 12 times and find something new every time that you didn't think about before. It's a trip.

I love you. Marry me?

1. love is a dog from hell - buk
2. twenty love poems and a song of despair - neruda
3. me talk pretty one day - david sedaris
4. good omens - gaiman/pratchett
5. dry - augusten burroughs

1. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (one of the most consistently re-readable books in my arsenal)

2. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

3. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky

4. Something long by Mishima that I haven't read yet...

5. Damn! A tie between something previously unread by Turgenev, or same by Jose Saramago.

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
2. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
3. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
4. The Portable Dorothy Parker
5. Dracula, Bram Stoker

Joker- I didn't like Catcher in the Rye, either, and in fact, didn't finish it. I picked up the book for the first time when I was 21, and at that point, I felt I'd missed the boat. Dawson's Creek had already satisfied my quota for misunderstood teen angst (though Dawson's offered a laughable, and not in a good way, version of the stuff). Is this view reductionism to the extreme? Probably. Either way, I'm not spending another hour of my life finishing the thing.

Regarding compilations and complete works, I snuck Shakespeare's in there because it's so often sold that way, as opposed to, say, the complete works of Wallace Stegner or Richard Russo.

If I had to swap Shakespeare for something more by the book, awful pun intended, I'd go for something by Joyce or Faulkner, as I feel the deliriousness created by eternity on a deserted island would lend itself to the authors' prose.

(1) good omens
(2) interesting times
(3)American Gods
(4)cats eye- margaret atwood
(5)Anansi boys
(6) neverwhere

i guess im just obsessed with gaiman.

1. everything is illuminated - johnathan safran foer
2. any collection of p.g. wodehouse's jeeves and wooster stories
3. pride & prejudice - jane austen
4. catch 22 - johnathan heller
5. the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - douglas adams

1. The Oxford English Dictionary
2. Silverlock -by- John Myers Myers
3. Watership Down -by- Richard Adams
4. Slaughterhouse 5 -by- Kurt Vonnegut
5. Invisible Cities -by- Italo Calvino

1. Calvin and Hobbes - Attack of the Babysat
2. Andrew Dice Clay - The untold story
3. Men are from Mars, women should be staring at my Anus.
4. 50 things to do with a dead hooker.
5. Dinner with the Rowles'- Soy steaks and other shit that'll look better coming out then going in.

This ACD seems designed to make us sound either pretentious or frivolous. I guess I choose the former, if only because after I read these books I feel like reading them again to figure out what the hell it was I just read. Also they're all really long, except the last one (which was written in a language I don't read, so hopefully that'll take some time :)):

1) The Recognitions by William Gaddis

2) House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

3) Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

4) Mulligan Stew by Gilbert Sorrentino

5) Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel

1. Robison Crusoe - Danile De Foe (Am I crazy for being the only one to think of bringing a book about a man stranded on a deserted island to a deserted island? The irony of the whole situation alone would make it almost worth it)

2. Finnegan´s Wake - J. Joyce (Not only will I have plenty of time to finally read it, but all the time I will probably need to get to understand it as well)

3. War & Peace - L. Tolstoi (That´ll keep you busy for a few years. If not, It can always be used to crack open lobsters, crabs and coconuts. Also, it´s just a great read)

4. Foucault´s Pendulum - Umberto Eco (Just one of those books I can´t go more than a year without re-reading)

5. Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons (If You must bring at least on graphic novel with you(and if you´re like me, you do), bring the bible of the genre)

Three Men In A Boat, Not To Mention The Dog, by Jerome K. Jerome, because it's the funniest novel in the English language, and the only one where I consistently have to drop the book and clutch my sides in painful laughter no matter how many times I read it.

The Dictionary, because it's got all the other books in it. Well, actually, because it has all the dirty words in it. My job -- find them.

Pride and Predjudice, because it's perfect.

The Lord of the Rings, because I enjoy it every once in a while, for a long while.

The Harry Potter series, because I have to reread it now to find all the gay Dumbledore references she might have hidden in there.

1. hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - douglas adams
2. the shock doctrine - naomi klein
3. Shampoo plant - douglas coupland (it was my first coupland read and it made my life)
4. your mouth is lovely - nancy richler
5. Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

As well, insertclevernamehere, I absolutely love Tim Dorsey and almost no one I know had read his books. It makes me crazy happy when other people like books that I like.

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
Forever Amber Kathleen Winsor
The Stand Stephen King
The Light Years Elizabeth Jane Howard (under different rules I would say the whole Cazalet series)

These are all books I have read a million times and they never fail to keep me entertained.

Brit, Heqit, MO: You guys rock! I know one other person who's heard of Blue Castle too. Definitely coming on my deserted island...without guilt. As for the others:

4. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri--one of the nicest things about short stories is that you can pick them up and down at will. Perfect for fishing breaks, or before bedtime.

3. Middlemarch by George Eliot--because it's thick and will take me awhile to read, as well as highly enjoyable (well...for the ten of us who like Eliot)

2. The Riverside Shakespeare--because I can't not include it in good conscience. Though I'll probably never read Julius Caesar ever again.

1. The Complete Works of Jane Austen--because while P and P is my favorite I could not let the others just float away forever.

Honorable mention: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer--because I just adore that book.

I, for one, adore "The Catcher in the Rye." Got assigned it at 12 years of age and still love it today at 35. I always see something different in it every time I read it. It is hilarious and heartbreaking. I'm a huge, huge Salinger fan (especially his short stories).

1. Middlemarch (George Eliot)
2. The Bible

Actually, these two by themselves would probably do. But since I get three more:

3. Emma (Jane Austen)
4. The Deptford Trilogy (Robertson Davies)
5. Selected Short Stories (Alice Munro)

1. The Stand - Stephen King
2. Exodus - Leon Uris
3. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
4. It - Stephen King
5. The Bible (never got around to reading it before)

1. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
2. Milton's Paradise Lost
3. Every David Sedaris book/essay/piece of scrap paper with a scribble on it I could find
3. Every Tom Perotta novel

When they do Desert Island disks on the radio over in the UK, you get the Bible and Shakespeare for free. I'd pick those anyway on the value for pages count.
If I could only take ONE book then that would be Pride and Prejudice because (as mentioned) it's perfect, but particularly for sheer endless rereadability. When I started reading this ACD I was really surprised at how long it took to be mentioned, but I'm glad that it seems to be the number one choice now. (Will we get a list of top 10 choices?)
Picking anything else is too difficult, I've found a dozen things I'd love to read from above, but for a show-off/pretentious thick book, that I'd only have time for on a desert island: Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
And a random 5th book, The Witches of Wenshar by Barbara Hambly.

1,2&3 Discipline & Punish, the Order of Things, Madness & Civilization---Michel Foucault (because I might actually have the attention span on a desert island to track his sentences from beginning to end without having to read them over and over again).

4. the Pugilist At Rest---Thom Jones (no, not Tom Jones)

5. Cold Snap---Thom Jones (both of these short story collections would do the job making me completely forget myself and my predicament by putting me in the place of the stories' characters)

1. Shopgirl, by Steve Martin
2. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist-Fight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie
3. High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
4. World War Z, by Max Brooks
5. A Year at the Movies, by Kevin Murphy

I like the idea of getting the Bible and Shakespeare for free. But those ones aside.

1. Book Of Mormon. Yeah, I'm Mormon.

2. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay. Its long and enjoyable

3. The Power of One. Funny. And entertaining as all get out.

4. Lord of the Rings. It will take up a lot of time and I have always enjoyed reading it.

5. Mick Foley's first book. I used to watch Pro wrestling. No longer. But, I remember laughing so hard at this book.

1. A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin
2. I Love You, Beth Cooper, Larry Doyle
3. I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

1. A Confederacy of Dunces
2. Ragtime
3. Gravity's Rainbow
4. Welcome to the Monkey House
5. Double Indemnity

1. can i pretend that the harry potters are all in one gi-normous book?
2. catcher in the rye j.d. salinger
3. watership down richard adams
4. me talk pretty one day david sedaris... for those of you who have never read this, do so immediately (or at least just read "the rooster").
5. i am pretending that stephen king's dark tower series is contained in one gi-normous book as well.

No no! Big Boy will have anyone laughing out loud......sorry - from Me Talk Pretty One Day
Rooster is great too, Kelley.

I would bring my single volume Wikipedia,on my Book PC... thats not explicitly outlawed is it?

Brit, MO, Heqit, and Bonnie - Count me as one more long-time fan of "The Blue Castle." Although it wouldn't make my top five desert island list, I would consider changing my name to Valancy Stirling for awhile whilst on island.

1. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
3. The diary of Anne Frank (critical edition)
4. Lamb - Christopher Moore
5. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

1. Allen Ginsberg's Collected Poems

2. Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" (since I already re-read it constantly anyway and it still hasn't worn out for me)

3. "The Riverside Chaucer"

4. Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale"

5. Norton Anthology of Literature volume 1 (I'm a cheater!)

1) A Confederacy of Dunces, J.K. Toole
2) The Sun Also Rises, E. Hemingway
3) The Razor's Edge, W.S. Maugham
4) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, D. Brown
5) Tao Te Ching, L. Tzu

The Time Travellers Wife - just so beautiful, I can see myself reading it over and over.
1984 - still my favorite all time.
The Bell Jar - because at least I didn't put my head in the oven
What If? - my history nerd superbook
Learn German - so when I go truly mad and start having conversations with rocks/trees/self, they can feature 2 languages for double entertainment.

Alice, I totally understand bringing Catherine. Also, try Walk Two Moons by Caroline Creech, I usually read that one after Cathrine. Otherwise:

1.) Any Terry Pratchett
2.) Either Fluke or Lamb
3.) a text book or some foreign language
4.) Any one of His Dark Materials
5.) Any Orson Scott Card

Love all the Calvin and Hobbes love. The Pajiba readership seems to have very similar tastes.

This will be difficult.
1. The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (so beautiful and so very rich)
3. Cheaper by the Dozen - Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
4. David Sedaris - Complete Set (It would be impossible to decide)
5. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole

Beloved: Toni Morrison
Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte
The Witching Hour: Anne Rice
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Mommie Dearest: Chris Crawford

To Kill A Mockingbird-Lee

Tess of the D'urbervilles -Thomas Hardy

The Dark Tower in one big awesome epic book-S. King

Bible

I've read the books above and would want my fifth book to be something I've never read, preferably long and enjoyable, even though I'd read it anyway eventually.

Every Year I read Angels in America by Tony Kushner. So that has go to in.
Confederacy of Dunces.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Infinate Jest. Because that's the only way I'll finish that book.
and I know you said no survival guides, but you can never be too careful, so: "The Complete Zombie Survival Guide"

Oh, I love how it's so "in" nowadays to dis The Catcher in the Rye. You all are just so revolutionary.

Can we do a sub-diversion on who, having read their list of books, you would least like to find out is on your island?

I vote for the one with Toni, Charlotte, Anne and, of course, "X, the autobiography of Malcom X, 'X,' by Malcom X."

Barf.

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. After I read it again I will be well-occupied trying to replicate the kick-ass treehouse and other desert island amenities they devised.

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

If I wanted to go with a stranded-far-from-civilization theme I could choose Tunnel In The Sky, but I like this one better.

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I've read it at least a dozen times already, and will probably read it a dozen times more. So sue me. I need some crazy melodrama.

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

I could use the extra time to try to sort out who is who (and maybe sketch some helpful maps in the sand). Plus, it might make me feel a bit better about my own situation.

Last but not least, the Bible. Like others have said, it's a slow read and ought to keep me busy. Plus, I think there are some inspirational things in there whether one is a Christian or not.

Here's my list:

1. The Time Traveller's Wife
2. Harry Potter, the whole series because we're all cheating, damnit
3. Whatever Calvin and Hobbes book is thickest and most complete
4. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
5. The Foxfire series... gotta be practical

I would also marry Ms. Parker first so that I could take her and her books with me.

1. The complete Calvin and Hobbes. There is no way in hell I am leaving without my most valuable posession. Every strip ever printed. I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

2. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell. I am southern and have never read the book.

3. The Canterbury Tales.

4. America - the book. He he he

5. David Sedaris - pretty much anything.

This is using the theory that I can take the Bible and Shakespeare's collected plays.

taming the beast - emily maguire

100 strokes of the brush before bed - melissa p.

9 1/2 weeks

white oleander

disco bloodbath

David: When I begin to believe in marriage again, I will let you know; however, how do I know that your proposal is not a blatant attempt at inducing drinking (i.e. the great Pajiba drinking game)? In any case, I am flattered at the notion. Also, I already feel that the book will be one of those novels where I'll just be yearning to read a certain passage, but one passage won't be enough, causing me to reread the entire thing. It's just an entirely engrossing novel.

Socalled: Have you met my friend named Kettle? No? Well, let me introduce the two of you as I'm sure you have lots in common. Also, thanks for writing the booze piece. I've been wanting something like that on here for a long time seeing that alcohol is the thing that unifies my life.

On a side note, I am going to need three liver and kidney transplants in the next year thanks to this drinking game. I'm sure there's someone who is on dialysis drinking moonshine thinking,"Pansy! I was drinking before dialysis was even invented, and I only had half a kidney!" Why must I be so horrible at drinking? I used to be so good! Curse a year of sobriety.

Delurking to say thanks to all of you above - now I have an end of term reading list from all your great choices. I'm just really digging all the book love these days on the 'jiba...

So arbitrarily, and because its late, I chose from only what's on my nearby bookshelf. I like the idea of the freebie Bible and Shakespeare tho. Here goes:
- The Little Prince (yea Gabrielle! its the best book ever)
- The Essential Rumi (poetry for my soul)
- Skinny Legs and all - Tom Robbins (hilarious)
- The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley (epic and engrossing, and I didn't have a complete LOTR, so this is close enough)
- flip a coin for Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow (going for length here with the two fattest tomes on the shelf, neither I've finished, so spose now's my chance)

runners up: Nine Stories (where my name comes from) or anything by Thich Nhat Hanh...

see you on the beach!

I hate reading stand alone books and can't actually remember the last time i read one that wasn't written by terry pratchett (600 odd pages is way too short to have a decent story)
So..

1. Thud! -Terry Pratchett
2. The Song of the Tears -Ian Irvine
3. The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
4. The Soldier's Son Trilogy - Robin Hobb
5. The Axis Trilogy - Sara Douglass

A trilogy is basically one book split into volumes, still one story. So it's not really cheating right? riiiiight?

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Leaves of Grass - Whitman
Baseball Encyclopedia
War and Peace (haven't read yet)
America - The Book

I love, love The Blue Castle, fellow L.M. Montgomery fans, but I'm going to have to pick Pat of Silver Bush to go to the desert island with me. I love Silver Bush, Jingle, McGinty, and Happiness too much...

The other 4:

The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman (I love Lyra and her spunk, but the knife is just so cool...)

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck

Iron and Silk - Mark Salzman

1) Skeleton Crew -- Stephen King (entertaining read that never gets old)
2) A Winter's Tale -- Mark Helprin (powerful book that I can never get enough of)
3) Watchmen -- Alan Moore (haven't read it, always wanted to)
4) Meditation for Dummies -- ? (need something to pass the time between books)
5) The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld - Terry Pratchett (for a good laugh)

Unfortunately, I can't limit it to just 5 books, so these are my backups; in case I can't grab the above books ;)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
Complete Calvin and Hobbes
Alice in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Complete Works of Hercule Poiroit -- Agatha Christie

Ugh....this could get messy...

"BWeaves, I have no idea what it's about, but the title of Three Men in a Boat; to Say Nothing of the Dog was just far too intriguing to resist. I've already put in a request for it. Hopefully it will come in this week...

Posted by: pinkcheese at November 7, 2007 6:05 PM
"

Dear pinkcheese:

It's about 3 men in a boat, and a dog. Three Victorian fops with nothing better to do, decide they need a vacation, and they row up the Thames, with a dog. It was supposed to be a travelog, but it turned into THE funniest novel in the English language. It was made into a PBS TV movie back in the late 1970's starring Tim Curry (right after he did The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and Michael Palin (or Monty Python fame), and I can't find it on DVD for love or money. To be honest, the book is funnier, because the funny writing isn't always about the dialog, but about the descriptions of stuff. You'll love the bit about the cheese. No really.

Oh, I love how it's so "in" nowadays to dis The Catcher in the Rye. You all are just so revolutionary.

Posted by: Old Latrobe at November 7, 2007 10:05 PM

I don't think that anyone is dissing it just to be in the "In" crowd. Looking back at everyone who gave an opinion either way, it seems to be the kind of story that impacts you differently, depending on when you read it. Those who read it while still young found that it resonated with them, while those of us who didn't read it until they were considerably older simply didn't get that same visceral reaction.

I, for one, read it because of the continual references to it popping up in the programs I was watching and books I was reading over the last year. I'm glad that I did, since it was interesting, and I now understand where those references were coming from, but it is never going to be one of my top five.

Paragraph three: (Begin drinking heavily now.) I think an interesting diversion would be a list of books/films that impacted you enormously when you first read/viewed them, but when revisited later, something was lacking, and it wasn't nearly as great as you remember. Sorry if someone has already suggested this, but I really wanted to get to three paragraphs. ;-)

1 - "Valley of the Dolls" by Jackie Susann

2 - "Vox" by Nicholson Baker

3 - "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs

4 - "Fargo Rock City" by Chuck Klosterman

5 - "Naked" by David Sedaris

pinkcheese: "I think an interesting diversion would be a list of books/films that impacted you enormously when you first read/viewed them, but when revisited later, something was lacking, and it wasn't nearly as great as you remember."

that'd be fun...or vice versa. As for Catcher in the Rye, I read it when I was 18 in high school, but I grew up in Africa till I was 15, then moved to a tiny island in the north of Norway. Meaning, I couldn't identify with Holden in any way, I'd had different problems and a different view of life altogether. BUT that's not why I didn't like it, it just wasn't good.

Oh it's so heartwarming to see how many people here love Terry Pratchett. In "real life", whenever I mention him (which is all the time), people give me blank looks. Tragic.

1. The Stand- King
2. Persuasion (but only because I know P&P by heart)-Austen
3. The Lions of Al-Rassan-Kay
4. Time Enough for Love-Heinlein
5. The First Man in Rome-McCullough

Nothing in this list is new or good for me, but I love every one of them and never get tired of rereading them.

Very late, but that is becoming the norm for me. I agree that The Complete Works of Shakespeare and The Bible should be freebies. To those I would add: (1) To Kill a Mockingbird (I think I mentioned on another thread some time before that I read this book at least once a year); (2) Gone With the Wind (although I vacillate between GWTW and The Thornbirds, so I would just grab whichever one I was not reading at the time); (3) Complete Calvin and Hobbes (that should also be a freebie, if not a given); (4) Don Quixote (although I also vacillate between Don Q and Les Miserables); and (5) The Iliad (but only if I could grab the volume that also contains The Odessey). Lots of cheating on the rules here, but as a bonus, I included many drinking game trip points. Saludos ATO!

1. Ask the Dust - John Fante

2. On the Road - Jack Kerouac

3. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

4. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

5. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

1. 100 years of solitude-g.g. marquez
2. love in the time of cholera-g.g. marquez
3. clockwork orange-anthony burgess
4. brave new world-aldous huxley
5. history of the world-jm roberts

1. Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales - I am a complete sucker for Ray Bradbury, and as much as I love Fahrenheit 451, his short stories are really his best works.

2. Watchmen - Alan Moore. The comic book that should never be made into a movie. Dead serious about that. Every single time I read it I find something new.

3. American Gods - Neil Gaiman. It's my security blanket, everyoneknows there is something wrong in my life if I've got American Gods in my purse, it's one of those books that just transports you somewhere else when you need a break from reality.

4. I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb. It was an Oprah book, I know... but this is really quite good.

5. War and Peace - I might as well read it if I'm on an island with insane amounts of time on my hands.

Well the 5 books I would take to a desert island are:

1. Joy cometh in the morning - P. G. Wodehouse. Its my absolute favourite Jeeves book.

2. Malgudi Days - R. K. Narayan - No one can capture the heart of rural Indian the way Narayan has in his books. Malgudi was made into a TV series I used to watch as a kid and I still love watching the reruns till this day.

3. The Idiot - Dostovesky.

4. A collection of short stories by Borges.

5. Undecided about the last one. Either Jurisprudence by Salmond or Private International Law by Cheshire. Promised myself that I'd read them when I had the time but just can't bring myself to.

Am enjoying all the S. King love on this thread.

I think it's entirely unfair to cut out series BUT here goes, in no particular order.

1. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
I loved this book. I've read it three times and laughed every time. It could also be used as a survival guide of sorts but could possibly be depressing....

2. The Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
This counts since as one book right?? RIGHT?!?!

3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
Just started reading this and wouldn't clutch to it for dear life if I was being hauled off to a deserted island.

4. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
Just to keep my spirits up.

5. The most complete encylcopedia I can find, most likely on sea creatures/plants to help me find what's edible etc.

sorry for the typo in #3 -I WOULD clutch to it for dear life

1. In Watermelon Sugar - Richard Brautigan

2. Skinny Legs and All - Tom Robbins

3. Shane - Jack Schaefer

4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

5. The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway

late addition

1)100 Years of Solitude (in spanish)
2)A Spanish/English dictionary
3)God of Small Things
4)Catch 22
5)A Wrinkle in Time

Those of you choosing "Catcher" - I love it as much as the next girl... but is it really going to keep you warm on that desert island?

That said, my choices, which are predicated on the longest, most rewarding re-reads I can think of:

1. Moby Dick
2. Riverside Shakespeare
3. Pilgrim's Progress
4. The Complete T.S. Eliot (or any collection that has the Four Quartets, The Wasteland, and Prufrock all in one)
5. The Lord of the Rings

And a Handmaid's Tale... ok, I'm hopeless.

The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling - Fielding
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks - Davies
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bryson
A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle

If I could cheat and add compilations/series:

The Lymond Chronicles - Dunnett
Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries - Sayers
The Chronicles of Narnia - Lewis
The complete Charles Dickens
The complete Shakespeare

I'm echoing the love for Good Omens, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Phantom Tollbooth and Three Men in a Boat - speaking of which, you really have to read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis.

Have tried several times to read House of Leaves and so far have been too cowardly to finish it.

Okay, so far we have about a dozen sips, 4 shots, and 2 swigs. We're only mildy tipsy which is good. Anyways, do you think that the lists would have changed if we weren't taking the scenario to heart? I swapped some more serious books out of my list when I realized that they would probably encourage me to drown myself. Was anyone else thinking 'comfort books' when they compiled their list?

Kris, I was thinking "comfort" too. Playing strictly by the rules:
1. In a perfect world, there'd be one giant compendium of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels and I'd be happy with nothing but that. But limited to just one, maybe The Commodore.
2. Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers. It's a tough call between this and Gaudy Night, though.
3. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon.
4. How to Eat, Nigella Lawson. For the added bonus of hearing her voice in my head as I read.
5. Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices by Andrew Dalby.

Ovid - Metamorphoses,
Complete Chaucer,
Nick Hornby - High Fidelity,
Mitchell/Robinson - Guide to Old English (on the proviso i'm allowed a pencil..),
Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle.

1. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
2. The Eyre Affair or Lost In A Good Book - Jasper Fforde
3. A Song Of Ice And Fire (which I will personally bind into one massive volume.. hopefully the series is finished before I get stranded)
4. The Dark Descent - Ed. David G Hartwell (an amazing collection of horror short stories)
5. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Ha! I re-read this just recently because I found it at a thrift shop. It didn't match up to the epic proportions of my child's mind, but it was every bit as good as I remembered. Oh, Tock, I knew I would always have a dog as soon as I read The Phantom Tollbooth. What a fantastic book.

Was there an animated version of this on television at some point? I've always wondered how this escaped Hollywood bastardization. [oops!]

The autobiography of Malcolm X is actually a riveting, moving, highly entertaining book. I think reading it provides the reader with important insights into the current state of race relations in America.

* Gulliver's Travels - the ultimate shipwreck book without the preachiness of Robinson Crusoe

* Canterbury Tales - because it contains all of humanity

* Persuasion (Jane Austen) - her last and best

* The Oxford English Dictionary - so I can have a great vocabulary when I'm rescued

* A compilation of 18th century poetry

Unlike my choices for desert island movies or music, my reading choices are not old favorites. This means no Catch-22, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, People's History of the United States, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the oeuvres of Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, John Steinbeck, Noam Chomsky, Molly Ivins, et al. To borrow a term that Robert Heinlein fans will appreciate, I have "grokked" those; they are a part of me.

To a desert island, I will bring five books I haven't read, or have read only partially. In no particular order:

-- Ulysses, James Joyce. Satisfies the literature and poetry requirement in one go, and maybe I'll figure out some of those references the Firesign Theatre used to throw around on their comedy albums.
-- Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell. I've read Campbell, and I'm familiar with the paradigm he lays out here, but I've never actually read this essential one. Having to fend for myself on a desert island is one way to kick me onto the hero's journey detailed herein.
-- Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer. I've cherry-picked chapters and passages, but I've not gone cover-to-cover with this seminal document outlining the impetus for the most significant event of the 20th century, the Second World War.
-- The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought, Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Likewise, I've perused selections from this invaluable anthology, but there is so much more to read and ponder, from Nietzsche to William James to D.T. Suzuki.
-- A Concise Economic History of the World, Rondo Cameron. A tad Eurocentric, but it offers an outline of history viewed through the primary driver of human activity: economics.

A word concerning the debate over The Catcher in the Rye. I first read it as a 16-year-old over a long weekend at the boarding school from which I had been kicked out the year before. For those familiar with the novel, the circumstances might sound familiar. Naturally, I was hooked from page one. I continued to re-read Catcher periodically over the next several years. I agree that the further one gets from adolescence, the less resonance the novel is likely to have. In my experience, men are more likely to have enjoyed it than women. As for the question of whether it's cool to now "dis" Catcher, I'm recalling William Wyler's film The Collector, in which Terrence Stamp, obsessed with Samantha Eggar (who wouldn't be?), kidnaps her and holds her captive. In an attempt to understand the collegiate world Eggar had been in, Stamp, a lower-class young man, decides to read one of the books Eggar had been raving about--The Catcher in the Rye--and comes to a different conclusion: He dislikes the book. So, dissing Catcher is nothing new; controversy over it being considered as literature raged when it was first published in 1947.

Now, if somebody can tell me why that God-awful, self-conscious, amateur hack job A Confederacy of Dunces is on so many lists here . . . I had begun it with such high hopes because so many people had recommended it. Not everything you grok is good for you!

Almost any book I think of is only relevant in relation to the rest of the world.

I mean, why read Walden all alone on a deserrt island? What part of civilization am I going to eschew?

And writers like Philip K. Dick, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, and Steve Aylett get me psyched up to write about what the future will be like in terms of human physiology (sex, sustenance, life, death) emotion (love, hate, fear, awe), and spirituality (Is there any place for faith in the future? Where does our sense of right & wrong come from? Is there a god? Does he live inside my brain?)
I think that if I were never going to see other people again, what point is there? Unless I could also have paper and empty bottles with tight corks, so I could send out pages of my own writing. And ink made from berries or something. Maybe my own blood. But no, sharks would eat it.

Having said all that, I know that as a human being, I would crave the actual holding and reading of real words on real pages. So.

(1) Minn of the Mississippi, because it has good illustrations as well as a good, timeless story.

(2) The Bible. It just has everything in it and it's very long and varied. I could make up extra shit like Cecil B. DeMille. And, it has been a very important book for helping me thru some hard times.

(3) Ulysses. Fuck it, I'll finally read the damn thing. All the time in the world, y'know.

(4)Screaming Skulls, Ravenous Crocs, and Other Horrors of Island Life, by Dr. Olsen Archer

(5) Sketches of a Return Journey by Jamelah Earle.

sorry for accidentally posting twice.

The Big Lebowski - Joel and Ethan Coen
What's Up Doc? - Carole Smith
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Stand - Stephen King
My Point... and I Do Have One - Ellen Degeneres

Wonder Boys (because I love it)
Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (because I'm told I'll love it)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
To Kill a Mockingbird (geez, that's a popular one)
Everything is Illuminated