Noah's Bookshelf

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Flood's a-coming. Literally where I live. What 2 books from each genre are you taking with you?

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 19 December 2003 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Wackadoo Conspiracy Theory Novels:

Foucault's Pendulum - Eco
Illuminati Trilogy - Wilson & I forget the other guy's name, duh!

(Do triologys count if they are published in one volume?)

― HRH Queen Kate (kate), Friday, 19 December 2003 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Tough call. I bought Hermann Broch's 'The Sleepwalkers' in a 3 books in one vol edition yesterday. And you can get like 3 Chandler sin one (they iz all the same anyway, no?). I'm saying, 'why not, huh?'

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 19 December 2003 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a flood? Then THe Sixteen Pleasures. It's associative theme reading!

― Catty (Catty), Friday, 19 December 2003 12:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Three books that were written to go together as a cohesive work, such as LOTR, or Ghormenghast, or Hitchiker's Guide, can be counted as one book. Three any old books by the same author (even if they share characters, such as mystery novels by Agatha Christie or the Sherlock Holmes series) have to count separately.

Now enough with the rules, and more saving of book pairs!

― HRH Queen Kate (kate), Friday, 19 December 2003 12:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Penguin Greens (the crime novels)

The Missing Toyshop - author forgotten (great descriptions of Oxford)

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Friday, 19 December 2003 12:06 (twenty-one years ago)

MikeyG - Pardon the ignorance but what are the Penguin Greens? A small Penguin imprint that just publishes crime ?

― Berkeley Sackett (calstars), Friday, 19 December 2003 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmm -- old Penguin crime books (ie 50 years ago) were green, but not now, they don't really do colour-coding in quite the same way.

― English (Enrique), Friday, 19 December 2003 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

If I had to take two crime novels on my ark, maybe:

Strangers On A train-Patricia Highsmith
The Killer Inside Me-Jim Thompson

This is a tough hypothetical though.I just won't think about my choices too hard. Hey, male and female too. Which fits the spirit of the thing.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 19 December 2003 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmm. . . . Note arbitrary genre creation:

18th C. Capital L Literature

Tristram Shandy~Lawrence Sterne
Gulliver's Travels~Jonathon Swift

19th C. Capital L Literature

The Mill on the Floss~George Eliot
Wuthering Heights~Emily Bronte

20th C. Capital L Literature: Limey Division

The Rachel Papers~Martin Amis
Gormenghast~Mervyn Peake

20th C. Capital L Literature: Emerald Division

Ulysses~James Joyce
At Swim-Two-Birds~Flann O'Brien

20th C. Capital L Literature: Yank Division (pre-WWII)

The Sun Also Rises~Ernest Hemingway
Miss Lonelyhearts~Nathaneal West

20th C. Capital L Literature: Yank Division (post-WWII)

Invisible Man~Ralph Ellison
Gravity's Rainbow~Thomas Pynchon

Epic Fantasy

The Lord of the Rings~JRR Tolkien
The Dragonlance Chronicles~Margaret Weiss/Tracy Hickman

Sci Fi

Childhood's End~Arthur C. Clarke
The Forever War~Joe Haldeman

Metafiction

The Chimera~John Barth
60 Stories~Donald Barthelme

Weird/Horror

The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath~HP Lovecraft
It~Stephen King

― otto, Friday, 19 December 2003 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm taking two fucking huge books of folklore.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 19 December 2003 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Fic: Gravity's Rainbow + In The Skin of a Lion
Non-Fic: Moneyball + ~~Positively Fifth Street~~ Theory of Poker (for after the flood I will have mad poker skillz)

― Leee Marvin (Leee), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay I realised that I would definitely have to take Straight Man by Richard Russo. This book kills me. Every literature student should own a copy.
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0099376210.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
William Henry Devereaux Jr., is almost 50 and stuck forever as chair of English at West Central Pennsylvania University. It is April and fear of layoffs--even among the tenured--has reached mock-epic proportions; Hank has yet to receive his department budget and finds himself increasingly offering comments such as "Always understate necrophilia" to his writing students. Then there are his possible prostate problems and the prospect of his father's arrival. Devereaux Sr., "then and now, an academic opportunist," has always been a high-profile professor and a low-profile parent.
Though Hank tries to apply William of Occam's rational approach (choose simplicity) to each increasingly absurd situation, and even has a dog named after the philosopher, he does seem to cause most of his own enormous difficulties. Not least when he grabs a goose and threatens to off a duck (sic) a day until he gets his budget. The fact that he is also wearing a fake nose and glasses and doing so in front of a TV camera complicates matters even further. Hank tries to explain to one class that comedy and tragedy don't go together, but finds the argument "runs contrary to their experience. Indeed it may run contrary to my own."

― Catty (Catty), Monday, 22 December 2003 11:22 (twenty-one years ago)

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