I have been amusing myself making a list of books that I would take to a desert island (the reader’s version of the long-running BBC series Desert Island Discs, in which guests are asked to choose 8 records/CDs that they would take with them to a desert island). In no particular order, my choices would be:
- A blank notebook (and pen)
- My 1959 Chambers dictionary
- Barrayar (Lois McMaster Bujold)
- The Black Chalice (Marie Jakober)
- Red Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula Le Guin)
- The House Tibet (Georgia Savage)
- My own Legacies
Some of them would be on my list of ‘best books’. Others might not. But if I were going to be stuck on a desert island with just 8 books and my imagination to amuse me, they are the books with the greatest imaginative resonance for me.
When I used to listen to Desert Island Discs you were also allowed to take a luxury item. Mine was always going to be an immense hunk of paramasan cheese. I like parmasan cheese. And having regularly set the fire alarm off in my grad student apartment while grilling provencale topping, I know it smokes very well too. Which, if you’re stranded on a desert island, is a consideration.