Axis Mundi X discussion

Off the top of my head...

1. The Riverside Shakespeare...yes, it's probably cheating as the collection contains everything he's written, but it is one book...

2. Haruki Murakami-The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: You need a book you can read over and over again and get something new from every time.

3. Herodotus-Histories (Grene Translation)-Huge, sprawing, endlessly fascinating.

4. Borges-Collected Fiction-A total mindblower...I don't think I'll ever complete understand Borges' stories...but I love them nonetheless.

5. Cormac McCarthy-The Border Triology: Yes, I know it's cheating too, as the three books are together in one volume, but I don't care. If I'm going to be stuck on a desert island I'm going to cheat to my advantage.

Complete works of Poe
Complete works of Conan Doyle
Jane Eyre
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's guide
LotR (mine is in one book)
Jane Austin Collection

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild--because I'm a klutz and always injuring myself. I also have a food intolerance when it comes to seafood. So unless I want to be sick all the time I need to find some greens to eat.

Lord of the Flies

my girl scout guide--I was in the girl scout for 6 years but I'm still couldn't tell you how to start a fire.

1st Harry Potter book

Good in Bed

Edible and medicinal plants? Good choice, Jillian.

Let's see...

Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Riverside Shakespeare
New Oxford Annotated Bible
American Heritage Dictionary

I was a really crappy girl scout so I would eat something and die.

I forgot I meant to say the Boy Scout Handbook. I never got much from the Girl Scout one. Will there be Hershey bars and marshmallows on this island, Donald? I do make a mean s'more.

So I should take the boy scout one instead? Well if the girl scout manual sucks that probably explains why I was a shitty brownie/girl scout.

But then I wonder. My husband was in the Boy Scouts and made it all the way up to Order of the arrows or whatever it's called. He can't find his way out of a wet paper sack without me. And he's NEVER prepared for anything.

The American Boy's Handy Book
Gulliver's Travels
Mountainman Crafts and Skills
Count of Monte Cristo
Nightfall

I just hope I'm not stuck there for long... I have to be able to get off sooner than Gilligan and his friends.

1) The Oxford English Dictionary
2) e. e. cummings (complete works)
3) The Oxford New Concise World Atlas
4) The People's Almanac
5) A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky/Stubborn Light (collection of essays and stories from The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas) - the best literary magazine out there.

yay Tracy! Great minds think alike : )

Jillian: Maybe we just weren't good Girl Scout material. I was always waiting for the fun to start. It never did.

I got kicked out of Girl Scouts - and I was a patrol leader wench or some such thing.

Benchmark sharing for the "5 books" list:
"The Oxford English Dictionary"


"To Kill a Mockingbird" (because I read it annually, and I wouldn't want to skip a year if I'm on the island for a while.)

A Harry Potter - probably book 7 (maybe I could magic myself off the island)

"Time and Again" by Jack Finney(because maybe I could learn how to time travel off the island)

"Angle of Repose" Wallace Stegner

ok
Lord of the Flies-not for me but as a cautionary tale for any "others" who may be there with me
and i'd inscribe on the first page-"i will not be piggy" just so they know

A text on advanced mathematics, algerbra, geometry, calculus because it would take me so long to learn those things and be such a departure from concrete reality

A text on something else technical like teutonic plates or physics, string theory or the best probably astronomy for the same reason as the math text and because it would stir the imagination and get me thinking abstractlly and conceptually

The Bible for inspiration and poetry

If I couldn't take the a Norton type Anthology of Poetry-i'd probably take Whitman or Frost or Spencer or...

the latest issue of Vogue for opulent elegant surreal eye candy

Woo hoo! Tracy, I'm with ya baby. I would like my title to be "Grand Poobah'... how shall our minions name you?

Donald... don't worry... we'll be benevolent... mostly. : )

You know, Tracy has a great point here about reading dictionaries. I love reading dictionaries. On the desert island, however, I would need someone to whom I could shout out new words I thought were cool. Maybe I could do the volleyball "Wilson" thing Tom Hanks did in that movie a couple years ago. I would name mine...Vanessa.

Were you to name yourself "The Grand Poobah(s)", Tracy and Charissa, you would earn the snickers of middle school students everywhere. You might get cool scepters, though. And maybe muscled guys would carry you around on a platform supported by their shoulders. You could have auditions.

I'm always half afraid to open that 3 inch thick dictionary for fear of finding a couple dozen other great words and not being able to put it down. We used to play a game that involved a giant dictionary and bluffing about definitions. It usually involved beer too so I'm a little hazy on the rules.

I think Maureen's onto something with the technical books. Were you to survive and be rescued you could rejoin society with a whole new trade--like Ted Bundy teaching himself about law so he could defend himself. But not, because you're not sociopaths. Presumably. Hopefully.

So yeah, since I've always sucked at math it'd probably be a good idea to bring some 'Algebra for Dummies' or something along those lines.

I also think being stuck on a deserted island would be the perfect time/place to write. So along w/ some writing utensils and blank paper I'd bring a dictionary and a thesaurus.

Then, to steal another idea from you guys, a book on survival would be invaluable--one that told you which plants etc. to avoid and how to tell a poisonous frog from a non-poisonous one etc.

I was gonna say a Poe anthology but some of his stuff might scare me if I'm out there alone, so I guess I'd stick w/ Shakespeare. Then maybe some David Sedaris just to keep the mood light.??

muscled guys? can there be oil involved?

what do un-muscled guys look like? skeletons? Yeah, I guess I'd rather not be carried around on a litter by skeletons.

I read the dictionary all the time... started doing it when I was a kid. My older sister used to try and make fun of me for it... but it's hard to tease someone for being smarter than you. I also love atlases. I'm a total map geek. I could spend days at a time investigating places on the planet through maps. They totally fascinate me. So if I had those two things on a desert island I'd be well occupied.

Unlike Anthony I already have a committee in my head to shout new words to. Some of them will be thrilled and others of them will be disdainful. It's entertaining... but I'm fairly certain I would go mad as a hatter left alone for too long.

The SAS Survival Handbook

Complete Works of Shakespeare

The Sourcebook of Indian Philosophy

A giant Blank Notebook

Some collected essays book from 18th to 20th century

I love maps, too. My seven year old has followed me with that habit. I got him a huge Atlas at Borders for about fifteen bucks and he reads it over and over again.

I also would love to collect old maps but I'm afraid if I started I would go bankrupt within a year or so. The habit looks addicting.

My nephew and I get made fun of all of the time. For Christmas I asked for a giant map of the world for the wall above my bed and a dictionary (everyone said that was what dictionary.com was for), and Colton asked for a globe and a desk organizer (he's 7...I love that kid!)

I can't answer this question until all 7 Harry Potters are released in one volume (and that would be one long ass book).

But I'm gonna pretend it's possible.

1. The Bible
2. The Complete Harry Potter
3. The Complete Jane Austen
4. The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook
5. East of Eden