Marooned on a desert island.

[janesmith]

Which three books would you choose to take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?

Mine would have to be:

"Jude the Obscure" - Thomas Hardy
"Les Miserables" - Victor Hugo
"The Netherworld" - George Gissing

[dfloyd]

The Iliad
The Odyssey
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut

[The Comedian]

Walden
The Complete Shakespeare
The Complete Sandman series

[Veho]

Jane Eyre
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Crime and Punishment

[Travis_R]

Lolita
Catch 22
Slaughterhouse-5

[PeterL]

Only three!!! I'd be through them within a week, and I'd have them memorized within a couple of months. I would want books that might be useful like The Boyscout Manual, The Mysterious Island, and The Swiss Family Robinson. I wouldn't be planning on staying on the island for ever.

[violator]

Well, it is definitely a tough choice, but I'd probably go for:

War and Peace
The Brothers Karamazov
The Lord of the Rings

I've always wanted to read them, but their length stopped me. In the desert I'd have all the time in the world.

[The Rainmaker]

The Brothers Karamazov
OED
Maybe some kind of survival guide, if not, a huge Book of Famous (Favourite) Paintings

[cgrillo]

I could say Robinson Crusoe just to be clever, but here's my real list:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

[Zeniyama]

Ulysses
A Clockwork Orange
Sometimes a Great Notion

[Night_Lamp]

I wonder if stranded on an island, any of us would be bored enough to read Twilight? With no one around to snicker at you when they see the jacket.

[violator]

I wonder if stranded on an island, any of us would be bored enough to read Twilight? With no one around to snicker at you when they see the jacket.

I don't know about reading, but it would be very useful in the evening when it comes to lighting a fire.

[eric.bell]

1. The Complete Tolstoy;
2. The Complete Sandman series;
3. Complete Works of Faulkner.

[Katy North]

I'd bring three of those huge, cement block sized Anthologies I purchased for classes in college... one on literature, one on literary theory, and one on poetry.

[janesmith]

Like your way of thinking Katy. I've quite a few of them myself.

[mal4mac]

RSC Complete Shakespeare
War and Peace
Bleak House

"Complete Tolstoy"? Is there such a beast?

The cement block sized Anthologies are a good idea, I'd use the theory one as firewood...

[slipperyyoke]

The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway
Don Quixote - Cervantes
Walden - Thoreau