Title: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: JaseSF on June 24, 2009, 11:35:38 AM Hmm I was thinking about this TWILIGHT ZONE episode featuring Burgess Meredith last night and I began to wonder what if the library in the story had been severely damaged but a few (say around 20) books did remain, what would you most want those books to be if you suddenly found yourself faced with being all alone with "time enough at last"?? (plus you already had safely tucked away the necessary survival and medical texts although you can include those too if you want, assuming you miraculously survive the blast and the fall out)
My choices: 1) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare 2) The Holy Bible 3) Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Stories 4) Adventures in Time and Space 5) The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke 6) The Hitchhiker's Trilogy (Douglas Adams) 7) Dune by Frank Herbert 8) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 9) Moby Dick by Herman Melville 10) 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 11) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 12) Ray Bradbury Classic Stories 1(from The Golden Apples of the Sun and R is For Rocket) 13) The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Black Seas of Infinity 14) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells 15) The Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr (Asimov) 16) War and Peace by Tolstoy (hey you've got the time) 17) The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective 18) "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (although it would be painful) 19) The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury 20) Dangerous Visions (Edited by Harlan Ellison) Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: lester1/2jr on June 24, 2009, 12:20:20 PM I've been putting off reading "HUman Action" by ludwig von mises forever. I'ts like THE economics book but it's like 800 pages long and impossible to approach for me anyway
Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: Rev. Powell on June 24, 2009, 07:31:57 PM Tough one. First off, you'd want to maximize your reading time by picking the thickest books possible. I'd want to do some research first. But, if I had to pick off the top of my head:
1. The Bible 2. Shakespeare 3. Lolita 4. Ulysses 5. The Oxford companion to English poetry 6. The Lord of the Rings trilogy edition 7. The complete works of Plato 8. Plutarch's Lives 9. War and Peace 10. Anna Karenina 11. The Brothers Karamozov 12. Crime and Punishment 13. Selected works of Mark Twain 14. The Tao te Ching 15. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 16. Selected works of Nietzsche 17. Moby Dick 18. Collected Works of Franz Kafka 19. Collected Works of the Marquis De Sade 20. The Great Gatsby (21. The Best of Hustler Magazine) Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: Sister Grace on June 24, 2009, 10:24:46 PM I've been wanting to read:
The Big Head Thank you for smoking Dead Cats Bounce The Swan Song Also I'd like to read Earth Abides again Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: Doggett on June 25, 2009, 06:05:55 AM The Hellbound Heart is something I've been wanting to read for ages !!!!!!!
Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: The Burgomaster on June 25, 2009, 09:58:17 AM Last year, I signed up for the 100 Greatest Books collection from the Easton Press. They send me 1 book per month. I suppose I'd want all the books in that collection, plus their Greatest Books of the 20th Century collection (there are a few books that are in BOTH collections . . . so I wouldn't need the duplicates!) I'd also want:
* THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM * THE PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE * THE BRONX ZOO - The funniest baseball book I've ever read . . . in fact, one of the funniest books of any kind I've ever read. * PUBLIC ENEMIES - The movie is coming out next week, but it seems like they cut out most of what is in the book and just concentrated on Dillinger. The book is an extremely interesting chronical of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, the Barkers, Bonnie & Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin Karpis, Pretty Boy Floyd, and other criminals who were hunted by the FBI during the 1930s. This is a "must read." Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: ghouck on June 25, 2009, 10:24:22 AM Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy
Battlefield Earth Mission Earth Dekology LOTR Trilogy Huckleberry Finn Monyeywrench Gang The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler Moby Dick Alan Dean Foster's 'Spellsinger' series Naked Lunch John DeChancie's 'Castle' series Industrial Society and it's Future Jase, I surprised at your choice of '20,000 Leagues under the Sea', That was a painfully drawn out one for me, I had a hard time finishing it. Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: The Burgomaster on June 25, 2009, 10:59:12 AM I noticed a couple mentions of MOBY DICK. This is one of the books in the Easton Press 100 Greatest Books collection. I read it a few months ago and found it to be VERY dry. The book is more than 600 pages long, and I doubt there's more than 200 or 250 pages of plot. The rest is one chapter after another about the history of whales, physiology of whales, markets for whales, how to remove the blubber from whales, where whales can be found around the world, and on and on and on. Chapter after chapter I kept thinking, "Okay, already, let's get on with it!" As a text book, it's probably great (if you're really interested in whales). But I can't say I'd be interested in reading it again.
Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: Sister Grace on June 26, 2009, 10:04:22 AM Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy Battlefield Earth Mission Earth Dekology LOTR Trilogy Huckleberry Finn Monyeywrench Gang The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler Moby Dick Alan Dean Foster's 'Spellsinger' series Naked Lunch John DeChancie's 'Castle' series Industrial Society and it's Future Jase, I surprised at your choice of '20,000 Leagues under the Sea', That was a painfully drawn out one for me, I had a hard time finishing it. Naked Lunch is an awesome book. I'm obsessed with that book and even use is as a background on myspace. It has an honesty about it that is almost gruesome. It will change the way you think about people you love, habits, and paranoia... The Hellbound Heart is something I've been wanting to read for ages !!!!!!! I have a copy I'll loan you. Its way better than the movie series and way different too. We all make our own hells... Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: RCMerchant on June 27, 2009, 07:59:49 AM Gee...
1.the Haunting of Hill house by Shirley Jackson 2.the Lottery and other Tales by Shirley Jackson 3.The Books of Charles Fort 4.the Lurking Fear and Other Stories by HP LOVECRAFT 5.the Mothman Prophiecies by John Keel 6.Catch 22 by Joesph Heller 7.A Pictorial History of Horror Films by Denis Gifford 8.Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown 9.MAD about the 50's (MAD comics collection) 10.Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlien 11.the Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlen 12.the UFO Egnigma by Peter Sturrock 13.a History of Murder by Colin Wilson 14.To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee 15 Cheyenne Autumn by Mari Sandoz 16.the Rise and Fall of the Thrid Reich by William Shrier 17.Things by Ivan Sanderson 18.Of Time and Space and Other Things by Issac Assimov 19.Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin 20.Lugosi:Dreams and Nightmares by Gary Don Rhodes Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: lester1/2jr on June 27, 2009, 10:57:22 AM "Human Action" comes with a study guide! bad sign. maybe I'll just read that
Title: Re: "Time Enough At Last" - What Books Would You Hope to Find? Post by: Derf on June 27, 2009, 11:16:40 AM I noticed a couple mentions of MOBY DICK. This is one of the books in the Easton Press 100 Greatest Books collection. I read it a few months ago and found it to be VERY dry. The book is more than 600 pages long, and I doubt there's more than 200 or 250 pages of plot. The rest is one chapter after another about the history of whales, physiology of whales, markets for whales, how to remove the blubber from whales, where whales can be found around the world, and on and on and on. Chapter after chapter I kept thinking, "Okay, already, let's get on with it!" As a text book, it's probably great (if you're really interested in whales). But I can't say I'd be interested in reading it again. Yes, the middle 100 chapters of Moby Dick are indeed just whaling info. In grad school, I actually was assigned a 20-page paper over just those chapters. I was supposed to find a relevant literary theme in them and expound on it. I think that was the toughest paper I've ever had to write. On topic, I assume you mean that my personal library wouldn't survive, which would be a pity; I've got plenty of books that would pass my time quite nicely, and the way my memory is going, I'd have forgotten the first ones by the time I read the last, so I'd have, in effect, an endless supply of books. There are some good choices here. The only thing I'd add (if I can add a series) would be the complete works of Terry Pratchett. At least I could laugh until I croaked. |