To say that "Creative Writing" was my favorite subject in school would be an understatement. To this day I love the smell of a freshly-sharpened pencil and the sound of a new journal making that snap noise as I crack the spine for the first time.
I can't help myself.
My husband, darling man that he is, hates old book smell. I adore it like a distinct perfume. Just walking into a cozy bookstore, especially a musty one with narrow aisles and books up to the ceilings is a piece of heaven.
Speaking of that pungent old book fragrance, I have an important question for you:
If you were stranded on a deserted island
which three books would you want to have with you?
This is not including the Bible, encyclopedic compilations, anthologies by various authors or the complete works of Tolkein or anyone else in one volume.
And it does not include your "Ebook", your "ipad"
or your personal handheld computer/phone complete with kindle because
1) your battery would die before you enjoyed two days on that solitary gulag.
And
2) of course, as we all know, if you were so clever to have brought your ipad, you would be able to Google five hundred ways to make a raft out of coconut bark, a life vest from sea sponge, and how to craft a gps phone out of crab shells. For that matter, you would have texted the Coast Guard hours ago and been airlifted to Guam before you finished reading this post.
And that would take all the fun out of my game.
So what three books you would have with you
on a deserted island, and why?
Mine:
Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, because it involves being stranded on an island of sorts, and blows my mind a bit.
The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers, because it makes me want to be better.
The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie, because it's chock-full of mysteries told in different voices, and I think I would need a little mindless fun whilst contemplating a solitary sea-blown future.
If you are ever stranded on a deserted island, let's hope we're talking about the warm tropical kind of island, and not arctic freeze-your-fingers-off island.
Now, if you were stranded on Dessert Island...
Which dessert would you be ordering?
My dessert: Crust-less Coconut Cream Pie (would that just be pudding?)
Heck, let's just make it one of those chocolate donuts with oozy pudding inside.
I'm off to my own private deserted island for a week. Okay, not a real island; it's the Oregon coast, and will it be private? Nope, I'm dragging my little brood with me. But will there be an internet connection there? That's the big question. Until next week, my blog pals!!
6 comments:
My three books would be 'Spiritual Materialism' by Choygam Trungpa; 'Canterbury Tales' by Chaucer; and 'the Commedia' by Dante. The first because I need some dharma and everytime I read this wonderful book I find new things in it. The second because it is full of good stories and the third because it is complex enough for me to take a goodly amount of time going through it.
And for dessert island - chocolate jalopeno gelato with my mom's brownies. yep. lots of chocolate...
To kill a mockingbird
Last of the Mohicans
and you didn'y say anything about a hard bound sketch book- one of the really thick ones- wont even say a pencil because I can dip the tree bark in the charcoal and draw that way!
BTW- thanks for the awesome writers olympics prize and packaging- my eleven old daughter was impressed too!
First, thank you for my prize. I loved opening it to find it wrapped in a Thomas Guide page for my area! And the crayon hearts are so sweet.
I have trouble with choosing the books. I'd want to be content to read them again and again, so I'm going to pick two fantasy favorites, Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea and Diana Wynne Jones'Howl's Moving Castle. The third is a toss-up between Patricia McKillip's Riddle Master and Margaret Atwood's The Handmade's Tale. Of course, now I can think of countless others I want to take!
As for dessert: flourless chocolate cake with raspberries.
It is more difficult for me to choose one dessert than three books. It's not really a dessert but there is this coffee company up here that makes THE BEST hot chocolate in the world. It is like drinking liquid chocolate and with whip cream on top it is unfathomably delicious. I would probably take a life's supply of this chocolaty goodness. In fact, it's not unreasonable, despite not being on a deserted island at the present moment, to want a life's supply beginning now.
Onto books. Gift From the Sea, there is a tranquility about this book that I think would help calm me. Some very thick anthology of poetry because poetry makes you think and I would need something to do with my brain or risk personifying a volleyball. And lastly, I know it's cheating but I would have to bring Harry Potter (yes, all of them) for the sheer entertainment factor.
Treasure Island--so I could take notes on finding Ben Gunn's treasure, and on how to deal with pirates.
Robinson Crusoe, for survival tips.
Swiss Family Robinson; are we seeing a theme here? I take my survival seriously. I mean do you really want to know how Miss Marple unmasked the Dastardly Dilettante or outwitted the Doily Dowager, or would you rather learn how to skewer a wild boar and roast it with a rosemary/mango glaze?
As to dessert, those books would surely supply some options, like bamboo pie. But if we're dreamin' then apricot pie a lá mode or chocolate mousse.
Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink because it's about 2 little sisters who rescue 4 babies from a sinking ship and they all end up on a deserted island.
Surviving the Island of Grace by Leslie Fields, a memoir about surviving childhood and adulthood, it's a book that each sentence is a meal to me and i would finally be able to s-l-o-w-l-y devour it one delicious bite at a time.
the dummies guide to surviving and ultimately rescued from a deserted island
chocolate would melt so i would have to go with bananas foster for dessert, maybe the flame burst would send a smoke signal somewhere
desert - 1 "s" for sand
dessert - 2 "s" for strawberry shortcake
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