Desert (Island) Books

I found a box of papers on the weekend that I handed over to the children's father as I thought they were all his. He brought back a few files which were mine. I didn't even know I still had them nor that I had transported them through three countries and eight house moves. One was full of letters from friends in Libya, a stack of the postcards I wrote about last month (including some snippets I had forgotten like No democracy without popular congresses and Partners not wage workers ) and a stamped form authorising me to remove personal property from the country on departure.

List of Educational Books, personal property of anyresemblance, English Dept, Faculty of Education, Al-Fatah University, to be taken out of Libya on exit, July 1984. Madhur Jaffrey, Eastern Vegetarian Cookery George Orwell, Decline of the English Murder Jane Austen, Persuasion Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food Anthony Hutt, Islamic Architecture ed. Elizabeth Hardwick, A Susan Sontag Reader Clifford Quick, Cystitis Greil Marcus, Mystery Train Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions John Buchan, Greenmantle

Susan Sontag! What was I thinking? I think I knew I would have limited reading material and I would be forced to read this but I don't think I got past the introduction. In fact, the first four were what sustained me, along with Agatha Christie mysteries from the British Council library - before it closed and I was forced to read censored copies of the Economist or Good Housekeeping. I read very quickly (yesterday, for example, I read Jenny Siler's Flashback and Nick Hornsby's 31 Songs - neither of which are hard going but are about 300 pages). But I do re-read a lot of my books. With the benefit of hindsight, this would be my revised desert island reading list. I'm assuming the rule that Shakespeare and the Bible (or spiritual text of your choice is already there). I'm also assuming rescue at some stage; I can't imagine a life where there are no new writers or books to discover. Jane Austen, Persuasion Alexander McCall Smith, The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency Elizabeth David, An omlette and a glass of wine PG Wodehouse, all the jeeves and wooster series Dorothy L Sayers, The Nine Tailors John Buchan, The 39 Steps Arthur Ransome, Pigeon Post Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong Charles Dickens, Hard Times Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials I'm not saying these are my favourite books in the whole world, but they are books which I read for a sense of the familiar. Now, what strikes me about this list is how very English it all is, and a kind of golden age Englishness, even Mma Ramotswe, rooted as she is in Botswana is resonant of those women sleuths of the 30s. Which is just what I want to sustain me on a desert island. Or when I'm stuck at home ill.

Comments

[anne]

OK I think this is really difficult but I'd choose

A Suitable Boy by Vikraim Seth (very long)
The Little White Horse by Elizabet Goudge (loved it as a child)
Persusion - Jane Austen
Any good poetry anthology
The Cazalet books - Elizabeth Jane Howard
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Quincunx by I can't remember at the moment but he taught you at university - Charles Palliser
Something Russian
The best of Myles - Flann O'Brien

Anne