Writer's Block: More Island Time
You're packing your bag for that other desert island—the one with no electricity—what 5 books do you take with you?
Um.
The five I'd take if I left right this moment would be:
1) The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
2) Complete Poetry by Oscar Wilde (or the Wilde biography I'm reading)
3) The Bible (not as a religious text, but because I've never read it cover to cover and I'd have the time if I'm on a desert island)
4) The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll and edited by Martin Gardner
5) A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
But there are, in reality, a million books I'd take with me everywhere I went if I could.
I'd bring all of my Stephen Fry and Bill Bryson books. I'd have to bring Hugh's book if I brought Stephen's, lol. The Picture Of Dorian Gray would find its way in somehow. I'd bring Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and Barrie's Peter Pan. I'd bring all of Augusten Burroughs' books, too...Running out of room already! I'd bring Freakonomics and Reading Like A Writer. I'd have to bring What Jane Austen Ate And Charles Dickens Knew. I'd need to make room for all of the Harry Potter books, too. Oh, and my dictionary/thesaurus/word power guide would be the first thing I packed, along with my encyclopaedia.
I think it's pretty obvious that I couldn't choose just five books. I wouldn't be able to just pick ten or twenty books.
Of course, I'd have to bring a limitless supply of pens, pencils and paper, too, because what's reading without writing?