Ok serious question time, and if you can read this question then you should feel obliged to answer it! – preferably from your instincts as opposed to your intellect/google etc…. So you’re heading off to spend a couple of weeks on a desert island (ie Samoa for me) and if you have travelled at all you will know there is one essential rule of travel: take a good book. A good book turns a delayed flight into a flight of imagination and a welcome break. A good book feeds your imagination.
In preparation for Samoa I seriously thought I would take my iPad with me, just incase. Just incase I got stuck somewhere and need 200 hours of music and 73 books to read. But I saw the following image on one of my favourite blogs and laughed at how ridiculous that idea was:
Stupid future indeed! But in many ways I did not need to see this image. When I headed off to the South Island for Xmas holidays I took my iPad with me. But this shows how much I use iBook to read books with; I randomnly went to see what books I had installed and guess what? I got an error, “iBook needs an update” and it would not let me open even a single book until I had updated it. But where do you find wifi in the middle of nowhere? (Answer: nowhere) At first I thought what kind of a stupid app is this that I need an update just to read a freaking book!? It worked last time I used it, how exactly did the functionality of reading a book need an update FFS?? Then I remembered I had all the books I want to read available in another app (Good Reader) but it also made me think: what books have I actually read on this thing since I got it? The answer? None! I haven’t read single book! But by ‘read’ I mean from start to finish, which after all is the primary purpose of a books existence. The same way watching a movie doesn’t mean channel grazing across it, it means watching it from start to finish & engaging with it. I’ve skim read plenty of books, the same way I’ve skim read plenty of websites, but the actual books I love? I have read them from front to back…. Huston we have a problem….
Anyway, battery life & lame-ass software updates aside, back to the original question: you are off for two weeks to a desert island. What two books would you take with you?
Great article and so true! To be honest, I think we read completely differently when using a computer/laptop/iPad/eReader than when we have an actual physical book in front of us. We have been conditioned to skim read / read for gist and will generally find it hard to do this whenever reading a piece of digital text. The eReaders do kind of help to re-create the book feel and I think it is more possible to read a book from start to finish using one of these.
Anyway, that ramble aside I’d take Awkward Situations by Danny Wallace (always good to have a funny book when isolated on desert islands). And I’d also take This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin.
two weeks?
‘Journey to the East’ by Hermann Hesse
‘The Colossus of Maroussi’ by Henry Miller
You would actually be able to get through both during two weeks. Both are about some kind of journey – one that of mind, another.. of mind as well but connected with actual travel to an old world we all got roots in. And, last but not least, both are extremely inspiring, setting your mind on the frequency of beauty, opening mind for the experience of another world.
Yeah I saw that to I cracked up! I reckon something doesn’t feel right reading books of a screen, not sure what it is hey. I reckon I would take a religious book like a bible or kuran I gotta know what all those people are so worked up about. And bram stokers dracula, it’s hard to get into but once you do it’s awesome!!!
I’d take my Kindle..
No stupid updates to block access and a battery life of a month with Wi-Fi turned off. You can’t really complain about that
I really don’t understand why anyone would want to read a book on an iPad anyway!? Surely it must destroy your eyes after the tenth page. I mean, I really don’t blame you for not reading a whole book on your iPad, it takes me long enough to read a whole article on my computer — not because I have difficulties reading, but simply due to the fact that the LED backlight is in no way suitable for reading, it’s the same with iPad.
However, Kindle’s eInk is an absolute dream to read. I can read for hours with no problems, it never hurts and it looks just like a real book. It’s not trying to be all iPad ‘flashy.
I’ve read a few books on my Kindle so far (only had it for less than a month) and they were easy to get through. With an iPad, I think I’d be in the same boat as you – skim reading.
Down to the point article. I would always prefer to have a book than read it on a computer screen. In regards to the question I would have to choose two good Thriller/Crime novels
.
‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran (most probably his collected works)
‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ by Carl Jung
I’d fully indulge by reading books which provide ample room for pondering things. I don’t do that enough in the city.
1. One Hundred Years Of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Until I read this book (and since) only music could make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Read it once and went straight back to the start.
2. Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
Just read it
For that kind of self-dislocating weirdness that always seems to go well with travel, I recommend Ian McDonald’s River of Gods along with Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
The first is an interlocking set of lurching and jolting fast-forward tales of near future India; the second is a series of floating, hallucinatory conversations that might (or might not) be between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the brief chapters of which gloriously repay re-reading over and over in any order.
1. Too Loud a Solitude – Bohumil Hrabel
2. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
Both books are exquisite. They are not long or arduous and get richer on second, third, and fourth reads, which I think makes them perfect for a work trip. You can read them if you get stuck in an airport and read them in the gaps of intense work.
The Laws Of Simplicity by John Maeda
The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke
The first was given to me by a close friend, and upon reading it I instantly knew it was something that I’d have to keep re-reading until the laws became second nature.
The second is a title I’ve had on my mind for some time now and have simply never gotten around to picking up.
@Steve – The Laws of Simplicity looks awesome.I’m definitely gonna try to pick up a copy of that!
Pingback: Tweets that mention Music of Sound » Two books. Only -- Topsy.com
get a kindle. the power lasts much much longer. I just finished reading “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (a great book if you haven’t read it already) and still have half the battery life left.
Jealous of your trip!
I wouldn’t be able to read a thing from any digital screen and, beside that, would get awfully distracted from such things. Good ol’ paper looks great in your room too.
Anyway, the first would be ‘Life: A User’s Manual’ by Georges Perec which is a hilarious, thoughtful, smart and brilliantly constructed book that has layers enough to keep you entertained for your first week and 6 days.
On the last day I suggest ‘The Manual’ by the Timelords. Because it’s such a hilarious read on how to score a number 1 hit in the UK, and how the Klaxons used it to score their hits. And how the scene worked in the 80s and all. (: You can get it for free on your ereader too.
My Sister, who has an exceptionally large “hard-copy” book library at home… got an iPad for christmas, specifically to use as an e-Reader.
How many e-books (dang I hate that select assemblage of the alphabet) has she downloaded and read on it? Zero.
Why? When she saw how much an “electronic” version of a book was going to cost her, she went out and bought the hard-copy.
Not a new angle but still.. there you go.
Desert Island books?
“Player of Games” or “Use of Weapons” by Iain M.Banks (Actually any of his early Culture novels will do)
Eiger:Wall of Death by Arthur Roth
No big existential whys and wherefores… I’d take those simply because I can disappear in them for days on end and they have nothing to do with music, audio or any thing else that consumes my daily life. If eating coconuts, lacerating my feet on coral or building smoke signal fires becomes tiresome, then I will dive into one of the above.. no boot time, update time or recharge time to allow for.
Tom.
Read “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson. Required reading for any geek. Historical fiction, WW2 intrigue, codebreaking, treasure hunting, computer tech, it’s got it all. And it’s hilariously funny and well-written to boot.
(P.S. I have an epub version if you want it)
Have a good trip.
The “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” / Millennium trilogy is truly a page-turner. I also continue to enjoy “A Confederacy of Dunces” upon each successive reading…
N.B. I do have a Kindle (a 2009 birthday/holiday present from my father), bestowed on me when I was pretty religious about borrowing library books. I must say that I read the Millennium trilogy on it (it’s great for instant gratification!), but now I find myself reading a James Ellroy mystery on my iPhone (via the Kindle app) simply because I cannot find my Kindle charger. Balls!!!!
“40 Stories” by Donald Barthelme. I can re-read this one endlessly; it’s funny and I’ll discover something new every time. The second one would be tougher. A detective novel would be nice but they last typically for two hours only so one wouldn’t help much. Hm…
One Non-fiction
Insectopedia by Hugh Raffles (Extraordinary, and has some good stuff on bio-acoustics)
One Fiction
Don Quixote by Cervantes
I stumbled on your blog this evening. Very inspiring. Keep up the good work.
Oh yes…I forgot
Both of those in hardback. They will survive the journey and still be legible in 100 years.
Marc
Right now, I’d take these:
A Helmet for my Pillow – by Robert Leckie
and
Mission Earth. All 10 volumes of it.
Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud by Sun Shuyun
- that was the first inspiration for wanted to go and see the world outside my little ghetto.
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
- it’s a beautiful history lesson in both music and consequently, western society.
In electronic reader news; I don’t think I’d ever like to use one.
I read books to get away from my little rectangle glowing screens, an escape.