The Deserted Island reading list

[pwalker8]

One of the classic discussion questions is what books would you want on a deserted island. I have a slightly different spin on this old question, what books do I keep on my Kindle paperwhite for backpacking trips.

I keep my entire library on my various iPads since Calibre and Calibre Companion/Marvin make it easy to search my library (around 3300 books and growing). On the other hand, I find that the paperwhite doesn't really do book organization well. So I have a list of about 200 or so books that I always keep on the paperwhite, organized in collections for individual series and types of books. For example, I have all my Tolkien books in a collection, all the biographies in another collection, history books in another, new books in a different collection and so on. The new books is the only collection that really changes much from trip to trip.

First, is the collection of first aid and backpacking tip books. (yes, I also carry a first aid kit that includes a paper first aid pamplet)

But on to the more interesting lists, my reading material for the evenings and early mornings.

- My Tolkien collection, which includes most of his books, because what screams hiking like LOTR and the Hobbit?

- The old classic fantasies i.e. pre LOTR. This includes Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros", Morris's "The Well at the World's End" and Lord Dunsany's "The King of Elfland's Daughter" and "The Sword of Welleran" as well as later books such as Pratt and de Camp's The Incomplete Enchanter series

- assorted favorite authors such as Eddings, Kurtz, Weber and Pournelle

- History books, mostly ancient history but also some American Civil War books

- Biographies - Mostly Chernow, Isaacson and McCullough, though Freeman's books on Caesar and Alexander as well as Goldsworthy's books are also in there


All in all, I don't expect to be without interesting reading.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the classic discussion questions is what books would you want on a deserted island. I have a slightly different spin on this old question, what books do I keep on my Kindle paperwhite for backpacking trips.

{. . . }

All in all, I don't expect to be without interesting reading.

Brits would think "Desert Island" because Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs

Each week a guest, called a 'castaway' during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, whilst discussing their lives and the reasons for their choices.

[theducks]

How To... books

How to build a boat/raft
How to Navigate the ocean
How to forage

Howto survive without a Internet connection (to MR)

[haertig]

Well, if you were on an uninhabited, unknown, deserted island, the LAST book you'd want to be reading might be "Fragment", by Warren Fahy. I just finished that one last night. The equivalent of a "popcorn flic" (a movie that is entertaining, fun to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon, if you can let yourself roll with it and not try to take it too seriously). If I were reading that book on a deserted island, I think I'd set the book down and start swimming. In no particular direction ... just "away from there".

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of the classic discussion questions is what books would you want on a deserted island. I have a slightly different spin on this old question, what books do I keep on my Kindle paperwhite for backpacking trips.

I keep my entire library on my various iPads since Calibre and Calibre Companion/Marvin make it easy to search my library (around 3300 books and growing). On the other hand, I find that the paperwhite doesn't really do book organization well. So I have a list of about 200 or so books that I always keep on the paperwhite, organized in collections for individual series and types of books. For example, I have all my Tolkien books in a collection, all the biographies in another collection, history books in another, new books in a different collection and so on. The new books is the only collection that really changes much from trip to trip.

First, is the collection of first aid and backpacking tip books. (yes, I also carry a first aid kit that includes a paper first aid pamplet)

But on to the more interesting lists, my reading material for the evenings and early mornings.

- My Tolkien collection, which includes most of his books, because what screams hiking like LOTR and the Hobbit?

- The old classic fantasies i.e. pre LOTR. This includes Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros", Morris's "The Well at the World's End" and Lord Dunsany's "The King of Elfland's Daughter" and "The Sword of Welleran" as well as later books such as Pratt and de Camp's The Incomplete Enchanter series

- assorted favorite authors such as Eddings, Kurtz, Weber and Pournelle

- History books, mostly ancient history but also some American Civil War books

- Biographies - Mostly Chernow, Isaacson and McCullough, though Freeman's books on Caesar and Alexander as well as Goldsworthy's books are also in there


All in all, I don't expect to be without interesting reading.

Perhaps a solar powered USB charger might be an important item to add to your desert island list -- all those books on your devices and no way to read them. Even on a backpacing trip where power sources may not be that easy to find, it can come in handy.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps a solar powered USB charger might be an important item to add to your desert island list -- all those books on your devices and no way to read them. Even on a backpacing trip where power sources may not be that easy to find, it can come in handy.

I actually have a couple. A larger one suited for car camping and a smaller one that is a lot smaller and lighter that could be used for backpacking, though I've never carried it. In both cases, you use the solar panel to charge a secondary battery during the day, then use that secondary battery to recharge your devices.

One of the reasons I got a paperwhite a couple of years ago (the other reason being Amazon stopped supporting the old original Kindle that I had) is that it will hold a charge for up to a month at a time. Before that, I carried one of the Sony ebook readers. Even on a two week backpacking trip, I never had issues with it running out of juice, but that was reading it maybe an hour a day tops. In general, when backpacking, you don't want to carry a lot of extra weight.

For a number of years, a group of my backpacking friends and I would spend 4 or 5 days at a primitive camp site on one of the Georgia barrier islands that you could only get to via ferry. Basically, you carry a pack and a cooler and they would drop you off at the camp site, so it's car camping without the car. Since I'm not a big sun person, I would stay in the shaded camp site during the heat of the day and read and roam the beach in the early morning and evening. I would usually get through 5 or 6 books. That was really the genesis of this thread. For a true deserted island, I would want a very different mix of books that included a lot more of the handy man and survival type books. I was thinking mostly of entertainment books.