Desert Island Challenge - You Get One Book. What is it?
Mates,
Staggering to the end of OT season, with fall creeping closer than I realized with a weather change due here up north and us harvesting livestock and hay right now. I have a question for the mgoglitteratti. As well read of a group as I can imagine you'd find on the interweb I will guess there is a very wide spread on what you all have read.
Assume the following: You are ship wrecked on a desert island with enough food/water to live. Also assume for those of any particular faith, that you get that book (Bible, Torah, bhagavad gita, etc.) so don't include that one in your answer. And no, you can't download it or use your Kindel.
Question: You get one book. Which one do you pick?
XM
Doesn't march itself into your improvised larder. Water is always sketchy, water storage is further problematic. You will be tasked working all of the time except when sleeping, and you'd best dream about improving your haul of food and water as well as shelter when you're not collapsed. It's harder than it seems.
On a tropical island, the thing you want most is bamboo in varying diameters. On an arctic island, you want animals both for food and water. Unless of course there are manmade objects available, then that can improve your odds provided you get them to work for you the first time.
Now the garden of eden scenario, well, good luck being stranded there. Hint: don't listen to the serpent.
Either the dictionary or the yellow pages...
with the 2 daughters and dear, long-time friends who live there. too much to post, it'd be all that humble-brag jazz anyway so i'll skip it. suffice it to say there were fish and crusteceans slain and eaten, and a whole lot more.
25+ yrs ago. we were single then and had some very fun, sometimes extreme adventures. now we're all married with kids. they are not only exceptional outdoorsmen, but they are the kind of guys that can fix the turbo charger on the boat with a toothpick and some bubblegum, and once its running will navigate us through the susitna slough like a scene out of red october (on my mark, rurning 151 degrees. turning now, turning now, turning now).
this year was a father-daughters trip. next year hopefully father-sons trip.
did not take any game though there were some great chances if we'd wanted to. i did however have my gun drawn at one point when griz were coming into our fishing hole. tougher to hold the line when you have daughters present. less risk taking.
Beluga Air if near Homer AK in the future. http://www.belugaair.com/ WesCo is my former skydiving buddy for many years, ex-Army Ranger circa invasion of Panama (a Carl G operator) inter alia at Skydive Chicago. Dude's one of the finest pilots and human beings on the planet ever and if he says he'll get you in there, you'll get flown in there. Great outfit to hire.
and the 'about us' part. would be fun to meet him, though if i said that 'esterhaus told me to come say hello', i bet he'd look at me funny. have been to homer a number of times over the years and still have my old 'salty dawg' saloon hat around here somewhere.
one of my buddies is a pilot and that is part of some of the fun adventures we've had over the years. and a sea captain; both are engineers, one is ski patrol, i could go on. two great guys to go out in the bush with.
HTTV.
Easy, IT. My all time favorite book.
... but it's really dirty and has a lot of pictures
A titty magazine, preferably with no words. Just ass and tits.
All that hate's gonna burn you up, kid.
Keeps me warm.
Real answer, the best of Bill Bryson's books: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
That's some catch, that Catch-22.
Ann Pennington Playmate; Bruce Springsteen interview.
Do you have a Playboy SuperGuide?!
Something long...either IJ (which I've ready before) or Gravity's Rainbow (which I have not).
I'll surely die of thirst, sunburn, and bug bites. But at least I'll die laughing.
August 3rd, 2017 at 10:16 PM ^
It'll take forever to finish.
I think it might take a full desert island amount of time for me to completely understand that glorified "for dummies" book. What I do understand is fascinating though!
second choice would be The Complete Sherlock Holmes.
I read it when I was a kid. It's about a kid who runs away from his family. And lives in a hollowed out tree on his grandfather's farm.
I would love to have a book or books talking about long term survival . . . making tools, shelter, hunting, fishing, growing, recipes, clothes, medicines, knowing plants, animals, etc. I loved reading "The Hatchet," and thinking through what it would take to survive. There are so many things we have lost the ability to do, particularly without tools.
by Jim Harbaugh and David Turnley...
Infinite Jest. Probably wouldn't read it on the island, either, just like everyone else.
1500ish pages.
"How to survive on a desert island"
By David Lindsay. Check it out. A favorite of C.S. Lewis and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Is that from a Twilight Zone episode? He loves to read, has shattered his glasses and he's the last person on earth? Or something like that?
Seems fitting
Whatever book the professor had on Gilligan's Island.
Volume 1.
How to Build a Teleportation Device from Sand and Coconut Shells - A Companion Guide to How to Build a Time Machine Using Old Car Parts by Future Me.