The Bible and Shakespeare and?

[MissAustenMadeAQuilt]

Listening to the books people choose on Desert Island Discs. They get the Bible, the Collected Works of Shakespeare and one other.

If you had these, what would your choice of one other be? Collected works not allowed.

I think mine would be Bleak House because I could always find something new in it on each reading and it's long!

I will probably have a different choice tomorrow because I love so many.

OMG. Bleak House is so good. Good choice.

But the point of DID is not your favourite book ever. It is which one would you repeat read on an island.

Still going for Bleak House 😆

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Harry was a huge part of my childhood, and now I have the pleasure of reading it to my own children. So re-reading it would bring back many happy memories. It would have to be my own paperback copy.

Yes, there is a distinction, @WMW but putting that distinction aside, I would just like to know what book posters would take whether it is for re-reading, has special memories or they just love it.

I suppose a long book like Bleak House would be good for repeat reading because, in my own case, I would have forgotten chunks of it by the time I began it again! 😁

That's lovely! It would be special in different ways.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

Or maybe The Lord of the Rings.

Middlemarch for me. It’s long, of course, but also has several distinct stories with in it. Plus it’s just wonderful.

Only one @OttersMayHaveShifted ! 😁

Which one will it be?

Ooooh. I have never read it. DH loves it. Might start a listening version.

A Dance to the Music of Time. Or the Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit, so I could imagine all the combos, and get inspiration for my desert island meals.

Lord of the Rings.

Wuthering Heights . It's a different read every time. I love it.

Just to be clear, I really no longer "read". I listen. I did "read" loads when I was younger, and non-paper options did not exist.

But, commuting on the Tube, "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" was fab. Only got two thirds of the way through it. Loved the Swann's Way section.

Jane Eyre...but I'm reading a different Brontë rn so that may change 🙃

I don’t want the bible or Shakespeare. I’d like the whole of King’s Dark Tower series. If I’m not allowed a series, I’ll have Philip Larkin’s complete poems, please and thank you.

Oh yes to A Dance. If you like him, read some Henry Green too! And then discover how much Julian Fellowes copied...

Pride and Prejudice. It's so beautifully written I can open it anywhere in the book, read a few pages, and put it back down again, just for the pleasure of reading it.

You may have the poetry and you're welcome!😍

I've never read A Dance to The Music of Time...it just seems so overwhelming.

Also, on a technicality, can they all count as one book or are they a series?

I'm literally looking at them now, in a box set. They are a series of novels. The novels are not long. We are not talking Middlemarch here.

This is so true.

Id be torn between Pride and Prejudice and Vanity Fair. I pretty much know the former off by heart, so for that reason it would probably be Vanity Fair.

I love them both.

Great question. I often wish it was ‘desert island books’ instead.

It would be one of the following :

P. G. Collected Jeeves and Wooster novels
Evelyn Waugh The Sword of Honour trilogy
Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Patrick Fermor: A Time of Gifts

Or maybe it would be a long classic I have always meant to read, like Middlemarch or Bleak House or Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time.

Actually, I think I’d go for Wodehouse. I could read him out loud, doing the voices, etc. I’ll probably starve to death within a week, so might as well go out laughing.😜

Are we all the same age?!

Also love Wodehouse, obs, Molesworth, Waugh.

What would be the more modern books?

For me, Wolf Hall etc.