I don't know if this has been attempted before, but I think we should establish a long standing thread of what book each poster would memorize if they had to pick only one with which to restart a barren society.
Mine: THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis.
Does everyone need to memorize such serious books? I think a little levity is called for here....I would memorize A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
sharePygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
though this book is sort of written as a script at least the version I know is.
backseat, windows up...
The Foot Book by Doctor Suess, Elie Weisel's Night, Do androids dream of electric sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
share[deleted]
Good choices all, but you all are taking life WAY too seriously! In a new society - one without books - you'd need some levity, so my first pick would be The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Second and third choices? Any of the remaining four books in the Hitchhiker "trilogy."
If someone else beats me to any of the above, I'd gladly accept Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven. My copy is almost falling apart, I've read it that many times. Those who heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. - Chuang Tse
Yes, I know: it's a faulty translation and there were no lathes in ancient China, but the imagery is still very effective.
VogonCaptain (what a give-away!)
I'm rather surprised that no one has caught on to the fact that Blakely's "The House Where Time Stood Still" does not even exist. It's the name of a short story I wrote in high school, from the perspective of my "assumed" alter ego.
share"Shane" by Jack Schaefer. Great description of American pioneer life, and short enough that even I might be able to memorize it!
sharesomeone probably already mentioned a tale of two cities, but i'd be willing to memorize it. at least the final chapter or two, anyway. or any part with sydney carton in it, lol.
"ender's game" (orson scott card) is another one i would consider. books that resonate and that a lot of people could relate to and learn from.
I can't choose one. That's impossible!!!!!! I can suggest a few, if it came to the crunch, I'd take whichever was abandoned. How about,
"Songs of Innocence and Experience" by William Blake
"All My sons" Arthur Miller
"The Death of Ivan Ilych" Leo Tolstoy
"To Kill a Mockingbird" Harper Lee
Also, none of them are too long!
So many great books have been taken already (I'm very pleasantly surprised), so I'd offer to take The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, Steinbeck's To a God Unknown, or (surprisingly not taken yet) Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.
shareprzgzr!
If it's any consolation - I thought about "To A God Unknown", I'm amazed to see you came up with that one too!
As for those other books, they are fantastic choices! I'm sure there'll be more I've forgotten.
It's very difficult to choose one. A process of elimination would make the choice easier...
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Either the "Otherland" series or "The Dragonbone Chair" series by Tad Williams
since most of my favourites are taken (heck, I'm two years late on this thread!) - like Catcher.., 1984, To Kill a mocking bird etc. I'd have to settle for:
How green was my valley (Richard Lewellyn (spelling?)
The tale of two cities (Dickens)
One flew over the cuckoo's nest (Ken Keasey)
The unbearable lightness of being (Milan Kundera)
..in a more zany mood, I'd have settled for Hitchikers..but I can see that it's taken already
all the above are about society's changing...breaking up..re-emerging...in some way or the other
...it's alright, Ma, if I can't please himshare
Dante Alighieri's _Divine Comedy_ (all 3 parts- Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso) I'm surprised no one's taken that one yet.
shareI have two pretty mammoth ones I'd have to choose between:
"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov
"The First Circle" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
...but...I'd only be able to do the translations not the originals, so...in English...
...non-fiction maybe, there's a lack of it...
"Stasiland" by Anna Funder
I would have a go at Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac because it's beautiful and it rhymes! ;)
| ''But where's the ambiguity?... It's over there, in a box!'' |