I’d bring Ramon Saizarbitoria’s Martutene, Vargas Llosa’s The War of the End of the World, and Miau by Benito Pérez Galdós. I could spend years rereading them. Plus, they are long. I wish the question included a fourth book so I could add Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.
When people say “the Bible” in response to this kind of question, I feel like they are virtue signaling.
It’s worse when they say War and Peace. Are you really going to read that crap? How many times?
I think I would bring the Bible, not because I’m exceptionally virtuous but because it is long
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“When people say “the Bible” in response to this kind of question, I feel like they are virtue signaling.”
Not necessarily. A LOT of people don’t do much/actually any book-level reading, so when asked to name books, titles don’t immediately come to mind.
Everybody is familiar with the Bible, so they simply say that first.
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I can’t help homing in on the “desert island” part of that question because I’m a pedant, which means that of course I’d want Primitive Technology by David Wescott, a decent guide to the island’s flora and fauna, and a robust copy of the Psalms (I’d go for the whole OSB, but the pages are so thin! If you stick with just the Psalms, you can probably get one printed on heavier paper…).
Unless this desert island has a well-appointed house and regular grocery deliveries?
I’ve read at least ten chapters of the Bible pretty much every single day for the past several decades. Even when life gets out of control and I have to abbreviate my reading time, I still cram in as much as I possibly can. I don’t say that to virtue signal or sound sanctimonious. It’s simply the habit in my life that I cultivated on purpose and get the most benefit out of. I would absolutely take my Bible. It’s one of the very few things I can read over and over and always get more out of each time.
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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