Is there a book you can't live without?

One series – the FoxFire books. I couldn’t pick just one.

My chequebook…

As for other books, once I have read them, I have no further use for them unless they are reference books. I still keep them, but I never re-read any of them. Other people borrow them.

I love me some Sedaris.

But, I just picked this up. A great read/guide.

I never was able to make it through Naked Lunch by W F Burroughs. Don’t care to.

I have never read a book again, only once, and the books I love mostly always have something to do with sex. and pregnancy

The latest edition of the BNF.

Is a dictionary considered a book?

Lord of the Rings.

@liminal Yes, dictionaires are books.

Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History.”

@hawaii_jake So, ya, I can’t live without a dictionary, now I just need to remember to use them ;)

@hawaii_jake Those are two of my favorites as well. In fact, I have them both on my bookshelf right here! Curious.

Anyhow, said bookshelf only hold about 25 books, so the books I keep there are the select few that I most want to readily available for referencing or rereading. I’m pretty sure I’d be incapable of picking just one of those as “the book I couldn’t live without.” But I’m equally sure that if they ceased to exist, I’d eventually move on and find some other works to fill the gap.

I have a collection of Mark Twain’s stories that you would have to pry from my cold,dead hands ;)

@Akiora Curiouser and curiouser. :)

ok, i’m about to start something here, but hey (pardon the cliche saying “it is what it is, but)...

the Bible.

ok i said it. see you guys tomorrow.

I thought it said “can” live without. Duh.
The Prophet.

@Trillian : lol. I was wondering about your first response. That explains it.

The book that I read over and over is Beauty by Robin McKinley. It’s like visiting a best friend.

@DarkScribe vote for that one!

ok, but yes, i do understand your question. i know what you are trying to ask. i would have to say george orwell’s “animal farm.”

Maybe Shell Seekers to be a keeper but I could really live without any particular book as long as there were some around.

Julie Of The Wolves—Jean Craighead George,
Island Of The Blue Dolphins—Scott O’Dell,
Stowaway—Karen Hesse,
The Last Dragon Chronicles series—Chris d’Lacey,
The Dragonriders Of Pern series—Ane McCaffrey,
The Vampire Chronicles series—Anne Rice,
Star Dragon—Mike Brotherton.
Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys Of Jason & Gareth—Lloyd Alexander,
Aliens In The Family—Margaret Mahy.

Any of these will work..especially “Huck Finn!”

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

Middlemarch by George Eliot

The Snowman by R. L. Stine.

I have a book of poetry that is about 2,000+ pages. I don’t know what I’d do without it.
Also, The Perks of Being a Wallflower & Icy Sparks are two amazing books that I couldn’t do with out.

I love Jack Karawak’s “On the Road”, its full of some of the most wonderful poetic dialog I’ve ever read. It really goes out to me, inspires me, and shocks me. This is one of my favorite quotations from the book: Sal Paradise- “They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

SH-BOOM! The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953 – 1968)
– Clay Cole

Not anymore, they’re all on the computer – Thesaurus, Cook Books, check book, encyclopedia, National Geographic

One book? The Joy of Cooking. Not the newer edition, the old one. If I ever forget how to make a perfect hard boiled egg or how to blanch something (pg. 132) or need to know how to skin a rabbit or make the perfect roux or fondue and cook a racoon and make _ Christmas cookies from scratch and need a lovely brunch menu for my bridge club, it’s all there in one book. Plus my grandmother’s recipe for fruitcake is taped into the back.

And, in case your interested, this is the Blessed Mother Rombauer’s recipe for raccoon:

RACOON

Skin, clean and soak overnight:

1 raccoon

in:

Salt water

Scrap off all the fat inside and out. Blanch, page 132, for 45 minutes.

Add 2 tablespoons baking soda

and continue to cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Drain and wash in warm water. Put in cold water and bring to a boil. > Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes.
Preheat over to 350

Stuff raccoon with:

Bread Dressing, page 456

Bake covered, about 45 minutes > uncover and bake 15 minutes longer before serving.

The novels, stories, essays I love are too numerous to mention.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I first read it when I was 15 and have read it every 10 years since and found the book peels back new layers of perspective over what is truly important that you never really thought was important in the first place. A great great book.

Pride and Prejudice would have to be number one on the list.

There’s no book I couldn’t live without. If all books but one were to be taken from me, I would make it a blank book. And a supply of pencils. But the next two in line would be the Bible, which, though not a believer, I regard as the pinnacle of achievement of the English language, and the OED.

Science of Survival, by Hubbard. Not an easy read but unique in some of his ideas. I know it’s Scientology but fuck, it’s a powerful book.

I love books, but there arent any I can’t, absolutely cannot live without… except for Ragnar Benson’s mantrapping and survival guides. Just kidding ^ ^

@Jeruba Yes, I always say that any personal library should contain at least or if only 3 books: The OED, The Bible and The Complete Works of Shakespeare, for the same reasons. I am not a believer either, but the bible is one of the greatest works of literature in the history of the world. And since you say “the pinnacle of achievement of the English language” I am assuming you are a King James Version girl. :). But now I will have to add a 4th book. A blank book. I like that idea.

Well this probably is not for everyone but a book that would make that list for me would be the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Just about covers it all.

I read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ once a year

@nocountry2 I read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ once a year

Why? Do you think that it will be different in some way to the last time you read it?

@lillycoyote, absolutely, yes, KJV, and shame on me for failing to mention that. It’s the language I’m referring to when I speak of its place in literature. Shakespeare would be the third entry of those three, of course.

I wonder what in the world would be fourth.

@DarkScribe, rereading a book that has a lot of meaning for you is like visiting a place that’s important in your personal history. It’s like a mirror. Many people have the experience of finding that they read a book differently from the way they read it before, and that is a measure of how they themselves have changed. It can also be a deepening experience to revisit a book that has a strong emotional or psychic impact on you, Many books do not yield up all their treasures on first exposure, any more than all movies do, or all symphonies or operas or paintings.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings,and The Dark Angel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce.

@Jeruba The fourth? The Joy of Cooking, revised first edition, of course. :)

@Jeruba I know exactly what you mean, it is like a mirror of sorts, just for you mind, and your inner person. It feels good to re-read certain books

@Jeruba DarkScribe, rereading a book that has a lot of meaning for you is like visiting a place that’s important in your personal history.

I usually agree with your POV, but in this case – no. Once I have read it it has nothing more to offer – there is no “visiting”. The only exceptions are books that I read as a young child, a very young child. Perhaps it has to do with my eidetic memory – what some refer to as total recall or a photographic memory. I can find no pleasure in re-reading something – only boredom.

@DarkScribe You mean you get no different results when you re-read some literature? You don’t see it in any other light or tone, no deeper meaning?

@DarkScribe, that must be a very special case. With eidetic memory you can’t come back to it as if anew. There are no fresh secrets to be revealed. It isn’t a reprocessing of the content. Isn’t that so? So no wonder.

Does your total recall extend only to the written word, or is it the same thing for movies, etc.? And what about actual physical environments?

@Jeruba Does your total recall extend only to the written word, or is it the same thing for movies, etc.? And what about actual physical environments?

It has to do with the final impression. I often find that when I read something and then see a movie based on it, my reading leaves a more vivid impression. BTW, I am very absent minded. It sounds contradictory, but is often the case with people like me. I met a few others in my teens when I was part of a test program.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

@DarkScribe …govenment test program?!...X-men!

@WolfFang You don’t see it in any other light or tone, no deeper meaning?

As experience and understanding grows you can often see things in a different light. I don’t need to re-read to have that happen, just reassess what I have already learned.

oh ok I see…eidetic memory it’s called? quite interesting

@WolfFang DarkScribe …govenment test program?!...X-men!

I have not seen or read anything related to X-Men so aside being aware that it is a teenage movie or TV series I know very little.

The program was run by the Department of Education in the late sixties, looking at “gifted” (read different) kids. It didn’t amount to anything that affected me. I spent my entire school experience getting “A“s and never once doing homework. I had a liberal mother who saw about as much value in homework as I did. It brought me to the attention of the Department of Education – them battling my mother. School was a long and extraordinarily boring experience so I enjoyed the few months in the test programs. (There were several.)

@janbb Agreed that is the best book I ever read. Read it 3 times and watched 5 different variations of the story on tv.

I tend to collect them more then read them. When working in Hollywood I came across a book on one of the sets. It is an accumulation of poems and sonnets. I had to “borrow” it.

Light for Many Lamps – Edited by Lillian Eichler Watson
An older book 1951. It’s where I discovered Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

My favorite and oldest book.

@DarkScribe it would be impossible to get an A in any of the kind of classes I take in school without doing homework

@WolfFang The only way that would work is if the instructor insists on using homework grades as part of the overall grade. For many of us, reading the textbook once is enough for us to learn the material contained in it, and answer correctly on the tests.

@YARNLADY, wouldn’t that be a matter of the difference between content knowledge and process knowledge? You might be able to pick up content just from reading a textbook once, but what if the homework is practicing a skill or technique?

@Jeruba I sit corrected, especially if it was performing a medical procedure or such.

Or maybe playing the piano or making a souffle.

Not that getting the content on one fast read isn’t a great advantage!

I think I’m still looking for mine. I like collecting old editions of various books. Anything before 1960, really. If I had to pick one right now though it’d be The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

@Jeruba – couldn’t have said it better. As I age, my understanding and perception of the world changes, and I either read new meanings/deeper understandings into my favorite book, or reaffirm my original inspirations. It is a book that has profoundly motivated my sense of self.

I have two, is that cheating? One is a collection of poetry by Emily Dickinson and the other is Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Then, of course, there is always whichever moleskine I am in the process of filling at the time.

Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, I would just die without it, ha. No its pretty kick ass literature.

@truecomedian : I actually have Spring Snow on my bookshelf. It’s a good one.

@hawaii_jake
Really? Yeah it’s awesome isn’t it, almost haunts you after you read it.

@DarkScribe – do you not watch the same film twice or more? In the same way as when I watch a film another time, you get something different out of a book if ever you read it again. Try it :)