One of my favorite podcasts is the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
A celebrity from a wide range of fields is interviewed by the host Kirsty Young and
during the course of the interview the celebrity plays DJ and picks out their
top 8 tracks that mean the most to them that they would carry it along when
castaway to a desert island.
Although I don’t think I will ever be on a Desert Island
(not a real one or on the program) I recently asked myself which books would
I carry with me to a desert island. Then I realized that it was so hard to pick just 8 books so i cheated and said i will take the complete works of the following authors. So here is my list, not in any particular
order:
- P.G.Wodehouse (I will certainly need a laugh)
- Joseph Campbell (will take his lectures as audiobooks as i love his voice)
- Margaret Atwood (A dose of feminism will be a boost when i am the only person on the island)
- Jared Diamond (i can contemplate about our civilization as i will now have all the time in the world)
- Steinbeck (i will get every variety of emotion with his books, and i can fondly think of California my adopted homeland with so much pride)
- Harper Lee (she wrote just one, but that was enough and it will still teach me some life lessons)
- Kalki (he made Tamil literature so accessible to me, and his books will keep me connected to my native land)
- James Joyce (so i can finally claim to have finished Ulysses)
Would be great to hear from you about your Desert Island Books!
I love reading Desert Island Book lists.
ReplyDeleteI do have to chuckle at your choice of Joyce--so you can finish Ulysses. Even though I was an English major, I never even tried it. I loved his Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man so much, I just never tackled the lengthier tome.
My list--not finished, but it would have--
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (yes, that's cheating, but I do have it in one volume, so there...)
Barbara Kingsolver for sure--maybe Poisonwood Bible if I can only have one
Flannery O'Connor Collection
Gabriel Marcia Marques One Hundred Years of Solitude (appropriate title)
Something by Charles Dickens--maybe Great Expectations
OK--list isn't done and the contemplation of what else to take makes me...want to go read.
Now i feel better knowing that not even YOU've read Ulysses :) I've read Joseph Campbell's Mythic Worlds, Modern Words and since then have been meaning to read Ulysses. I am also listening to Frank Delaney's weekly podcast where he explains literally every sentence in Ulysses. So i hope someday i will finish it. From your list i've read 100years and Poisonwood Bible - both awesome books which would've made the next 8.
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