Desert Island Books

[WoadBlue]

In another effort to get people posting here, I suggest we all list books we would recommend to anyone sentenced to a year of solitary on a desert island with no technology of any kind.

How about we list no more than an even dozen.

My list begins with homage to UNC. Look Homeward, Angel by UNC grad Thomas Wolfe (and it features a fictionalized UNC - Pulpit Hill). Love in the Ruins by UNC alum Walker Percy.

The real starting point is the beginning of belletrictic literature, certainly in the West: The Iliad and the Odyssey.

Then the beginning of history writing as art and scholarly investigation: Herodotus' Histories and Thucydides' History of the Pelopponnesian War.

And on to Rome, with Livy's History of Rome from its Founding. Books 1-5 (always sold as a unit called something like The Legendary Founding of Rome) and Books 21-30 (another unit, usually called War with Hannibal).

Dante Divine Comedy.

Cervantes Don Quixote.

Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov

And to close it out: Flannery O'Connor Complete Works (Library of America)

 

[uncboy10]

Solitary confinement huh?...

Me thinks The Count of Monte Cristo or Robinson Crusoe would do nicely.

 

[TarHeelNation11]

Better hope this poor soul isn't "marooned" on this desert island.....

...because he'd use that single shot on himself halfway through your list of readings, Woad

 

[WoadBlue]

Originally posted by TarHeelNation11:
Better hope this poor soul isn't "marooned" on this desert island.....

...because he'd use that single shot on himself halfway through your list of readings, Woad

Of course he's marrooned.

Bored by the best war writings of all time?

Well, I did leave off War and Peace, and some sections of that also must be reckoned among the best war fiction of all time. But you can't beat the Trojan War, the Persian War, the Pelopponnesian War, and the War with Carthage.

 

[uncboy10]

Originally posted by WoadBlue:
In another effort to get people posting here, I suggest we all list books we would recommend to anyone sentenced to a year of solitary on a desert island with no technology of any kind.

How about we list no more than an even dozen.

My list begins with homage to UNC. Look Homeward, Angel by UNC grad Thomas Wolfe (and it features a fictionalized UNC - Pulpit Hill). Love in the Ruins by UNC alum Walker Percy.

The real starting point is the beginning of belletrictic literature, certainly in the West: The Iliad and the Odyssey.

Then the beginning of history writing as art and scholarly investigation: Herodotus' Histories and Thucydides' History of the Pelopponnesian War.

And on to Rome, with Livy's History of Rome from its Founding. Books 1-5 (always sold as a unit called something like The Legendary Founding of Rome) and Books 21-30 (another unit, usually called War with Hannibal).

Dante Divine Comedy.

Cervantes Don Quixote.

Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov

And to close it out: Flannery O'Connor Complete Works (Library of America)

Does rum count as technology?