A Few Desert Island Books

Nine dark works to get lost in on an otherwise sunny clime

Photo by Cdoncel on Unsplash

The challenge. Janice Harayda (one of the smartest writers on my blogroll — and everyone there is smart of course) has posted a challenge to which many others on my roll have responded: 7 Books I’d Take To A Desert Island. We’re readers here, aren’t we, at least on a desert island without phone service?

My own choices reflect my own prejudices (“dead white male writers from a soon-to-be-dead white male writer”). But I would suggest that even if you’re not an aging white male reader, you may find something of value in this list. And of course, you are encouraged to augment / correct these biases with books you know.

The books:

• The Tao te Ching. Because.
• Electra by Euripides. If this classical tragedian has a mantra, it’s “Question everything” — and on a desert island you have plenty of time for questioning. Electra is the story of a sister and brother who are charged by the gods with avenging their father’s murder by killing his murderer — their mother and her lover. Unfortunately, the horrific act of matricide results in their exile and separation from each other (which is the ultimate punishment). Their divine cousins, the Dioscuri, who like most of the gods in Euripides’ plays may (at best)…