For someone who lives in a tiny two-bedroom cottage, I have many more books than I ought. Walls of books, unsteady towers of books, a rubble of books on every surface.
I love them but they certainly cannot all come in the motorhome so I’ve sold a few, given others to charity or friends, and rather gleefully dumped several particularly tedious academic tomes in the bin. Most of the rest will go into storage. A few will come with me on the road. When I say ‘a few’, I mean about 40 …
Choosing which books to take isn’t all that hard, once you’ve convinced yourself of the need to be practical. So most of the Chosen Ones are non-fiction – books on fauna and flora, habitats, landscapes, local histories, nature writing, a fat A-Z of English towns and villages, a detailed road atlas. Then there are the books I can’t possibly live without for a year – Alan Garner’s Collected Folk Tales, The Owl Service, Thursbitch, Strandloper; Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian; Paul Bowles’ Collected Stories.
I’m also taking three books I loved as a child: BB’s Little Grey Men, Down the Bright Stream, and Brendon Chase. These are old books, first published decades before I was born. The first two are fantasy, relating the small adventures of three gnomes searching for their lost brother. The third is the story of two boys who run away from home and live in the wild for the best part of a year. If you want to know more about BB and The Little Grey Men, I recommend that you read Michael McCarthy’s lovely article ‘The debt I owe to Dodder, Baldmoney and Sneezewort’.
So there they are, my Desert Island books.
Plus the ever-expanding library in my Kindle, of course. Thank heavens for the Kindle.
What books would you take?
Good for you! Never give up your childhood books! I’m taking about two hundred fifty pounds of hardbound books to the library tomorrow. Great books, but the yard sale didn’t move many. My shelves are still stuffed, but at least I don’t have to shuffle them around on the road and add extra fuel to haul ‘em!
Re-reading childhood books is illuminating. They rarely disappoint, and I love how they bring back to you some of that wonderful, transporting intensity we have as children but lose quite a lot of as adults.
I’d have to have a bird book, and possibly a Lonely Planet for Britain (where I live). The some huge books I’d love to read again – A Suitable Boy, A Line of Beauty. (And kindle, which is cheating, I know.)
I’m cheating with my Kindle. It’s amazing to be able to take a whole library on something that fits into my pocket. But not all my favourite books are available for Kindle, and it’s not much good for things like illustrated wild flower books (iPad would be better, I guess, but it’s just not the same somehow).
I’d follow your example with Brendon Chase. I’d also pack H.V.Morton, Three Men in a Boat, some John Buchan and The Wind in the Willows. But I’d promise myself some good new 21st century books on my Kindle for on my way.
(hastily amended my misspelling of Brendon there, ahem …). Have you ever read Bevis by Richard Jeffries? It’s along the same lines as Brendon Chase and very good.
I did read Bevis, and although I got a bit bogged down in the Roman history, some passages were stunningly beautiful – and the dialogue between the boys very fresh. Have you read “After London/Wild England” – a bit of an oddity but extraordinary given the current vogue for dystopian novels?
I’ve so many books on my shelves, they’re beginning to sag (the shelves, not the books). At the moment I’m resisting a Kindle as I already spend far too much time staring at the computer screen or reading emails on my Android (which does have Kindle on it, but on far too small a screen for a relaxing experience).
Your post has made me think, though. Perhaps it would be a good idea to invest in practical survival books while I still have the chance – ones that tell you useful things such as which fungi and berries are edible, how to train a bird of prey to go and catch your dinner for you, how to cast a fishing line and not make a complete idiot of yourself, and how to build a treehouse that won’t fall down in the first gale
In terms of optics, reading a Kindle is more like reading a print book than reading a computer screen. It uses a mysterious substance called digital ink and has a matt screen. I have heard that it’s actually easier on the eyes than print. I was a bit Kindle averse at first but I love it now and it may have saved me from becoming the subject of one of those hoarder TV documentaries …
Best books on edible wild foods are the River Cottage Edible … series. I’ve got the Edible Seashore and the Edible Hedgerow and they’re coming with us on our travels. You never know where a motorhome might breakdown, or when a zombie apocalypse might erupt …
“…a rubble of books…” How evocative!
Yis. A toe-stubbing rubble, complete with nesting voles and straggling weeds.
The first four I would grab are: The age of wire and string (Ben Marcus), walking on bones (Richard Gwyn), espedair street (Ian Banks), and dogwalker (Arthur Bradford).
I’ve only read the Ian Banks one – I think I need to read the rest if they’re good enough to be your Desert Island books!