The ol’ desert island conundrum! Ten books is pretty lavish. If my husband and a dog were a given, here are the top 10 books I’d request that Charles Widmore send me on the island:
- The Bible. Naturally.
- In Search of Lost Time–all of it! You could read it for the rest of your life. (Marcel Proust)
- Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy).
- To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf). It will always be new to me.
- Complete short stories of Anton Chekhov. Meditations on the human spirit when I am isolated from humans?
- Complete works of Shakespeare. We could perform on the beach!
- Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace). I haven’t read it yet, but I know it’s a magnificent tome, so it suits the other members of this list.
- Middlemarch (George Eliot).
- The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen).
- East of Eden (John Steinbeck).
You?
Little Stories 
anna k! that’s my favorite book. also, i still have never read east of eden. . . i will one of these days. . .this summer in indo peut-etre?!
My top 5 at least:
1. How about a Norton Anthology of English Literature? Is that cheating?
2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
3. I’d agree with you on East of Eden by John Steinbeck
4. Probably something by Madeleine L’Engle — A Swiftly Tilting Planet, maybe?
5. Collected short stories of Flannery O’Connor
… at work so I’ll have to meditate more later 🙂
Love your list!
1. Complete Works of Shakespeare. My always and forever love.
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith. Lovelovelove. I read this book every year and have done so since the age of 12. I wouldn’t let a desert island get in the way of that!
3. Paradise Lost, John Milton. Just so awesome.
4. The Hunger Games Trilogy.
5. Girl Meets God, Lauren WInner. I have a major girlcrush on Lauren Winner, and this book is the reason. A creative autobiography, organized around the structure of the church calendar.
6. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien. The writing absolutely blows my mind.
7. Harry Potter. Cheating? Maybe. Do I care? No.
8. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. One of my all-time favorites. Chills and thrills me.
9. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott.
10. ‘Til We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis.
If I could have just one more, it would be To Kill A Mockingbird. It was a hard choice to leave itout.
Do you know what is so sad? I have only read 3 (three, III) of your top 10! Disgraceful…
You had a few of my favorites.
1. Freedom (Franzen)
2. Ender’s Game (Card)
3. A Clockwork Orange (Burgess)
4. Infinite Jest (Wallace)
5. East Of Eden (Steinbeck)
6. Macbeth (Shakespeare)
7. The complete collection of Ray Bradbury’s short stories.
8. Pulp (Bukowski)
9. The Corrections (Franzen)
10. Drive (Sallis)