25 Books on a Desert Island

One of our clever readers called my bluff. After reading that some books I recommended on the "Adults Read" page would be among the 25 I'd take to a desert island, she asked me for that list!

Well, hokay! as Hyman Kaplan would say. Here's that list. Would you like to send us YOUR list of 25 books?? Wouldn't that be fun--seeing lists from lots of people? If you send a list, we'll post it right here. Books you recommend should be appropriate for the fine taste and sensibilities of our audience. After all, teenagers may want to read them, too.

[The Bible appeared on SO many lists. Please imagine it on all the lists that follow. Thanks.]

From Kim in PA., with some editing to eliminate books listed earlier.
"Some of my earliest, fondest memories of childhood are those of my Mom reading to me while sitting on her lap in the rocking chair. For some reason, the read-alouds stopped once I could read longer books on my own. I am now the mom of two DS, 9 and 5, and my DH and I read aloud to them, separately, every night - it makes for some real special one-on-one time with each of them. Through these read-athons, I've read some older classics I never read when I was younger, and I've become completely absorbed in some of today's juvenile fiction. As an adult I enjoy them as much as the kids. I wish I had kept a journal of all the books we've read aloud over the last 9 1/2 years. I think it would make for a thick tome, vying for space on the shelves with some of the lengthier books we've read recently! I hope my kids never tire of our reading aloud time :)"

1. The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman (and other Pullman books)
2. 20th Century Children's Book Treasury--Read-aloud stories by various authors
3. Around The World In 80 Days, by Jules Verne
4. The Night Before Christmas, pop-up book by Robert Sabuda, story by Clement Clarke Moore
5. Tailchaser's Song, by Tad Williams
6. Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander
7. The Book of Dragons, by E. Nesbit
8. Giggler Treatment, by Roddy Doyle
9. Forever, by Judy Blume
10. Christmas In Camelot, by Mary Pope Osborne

From GJ--edited to omit repeaters.

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
2. One Thousand White Women
3. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
4. Bel Canto
5. The Chosen
6. Samari's Garden

From AK, edited to omit repeaters.

1. Anna Karenina--Tolstoy
2. East of Eden--Steinbeck
3. Madame Bovary--Flaubert
4. The Two Mrs. Grenvilles
5. Under the Banner of Heaven
6. Runaway Jury
7. The Corrections
8. Blind Faith
9. Miss Marple mysteries--any and all--Agatha Christie
10.Natural Health and Healing Solutions
11.The Power of a Positive Mom
12.How Should We Then Live?
13. Mere Christianity
14. The Great Divorce
15. The French Lieutenant's Woman
16. Something along the lines of How to Build a Boat with Practically Anything

From TS, lots of our favorite repeaters, plus this interesting short list:

1. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer
2. The Enchanted Wood, Enid Blyton
3. The Faraway series (3 books), Enid Blyton
4. The Time Traveller's Wife, Audry Niffenegger
5. Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand

From VK, with editing to omit repeats. "This was fun!" she says.

1. My Antonia and O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
2. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
3. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
4. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
5. And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer
6. Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons
7. Assassini by Thomas Gifford
8. The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley
9. Outlander by Diana Galbaldon
10. One for the Money by Janet Evanvitch
11. Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik
12. Islands in the Stream by Hemingway
13. Dakota, a Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
14. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
15. The Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon
16. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
17. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

From C in Ohio, some great ideas--edited to avoid repeats.

1. My Side of the Mountain by Jean George (good survival story)
2. Norton Anthology of Poetry
3. Strong's Bible Concordance and Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic dictionary
4. & 5. The two volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary (the one that comes with a magnifying glass)
6. Anthology of philosophical writings through the ages (the kind of thing you read in a college philosophy class)
7. Edible wild plants (might be useful on an island)
8. Ancient Greek text book
9. Ancient Hebrew text book
10. Chaucer--I never got around to reading this as I should
(I assume you mean The Canterbury Tales.)
11. Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster
12. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
13. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
14. Complete poems of Robert Frost
15. World history (text book type survey)
16. White Mountains/City of Gold and Lead/Pool of Fire by John Christopher
"I'm looking forward to the other lists."

From W and A in Salt Lake City--

I'd add three to the list Joan put together--classics I read as a child and enjoy reading over and over again as an adult.
1. The Little Prince by Antoine St. Exupery
2. From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
3. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls

From SC:

1. Atlas Shrugged; The Fountainhead, both by Ayn Rand
2. Moon Spinners (Mary Stewart)
3. Nine Coaches Waiting (Mary Stewart)
4. Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
5. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
6. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson)
7. Where the Red Fern Grows (Wilson Rawls)
8. Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy (Crystal Cave, etc.)
9. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
10. Charm School (Nelson DeMille)
11. Evening Class (Maeve Binchy)

Flybaby from Ohio:

1. The Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins "Left Behind" series novels are fabulous - you have to have the next one ready as you finish one...
2. I spent one summer savoring Elizabeth Berg novels - don't read them too fast as they are so delightfully rich. I hated to have them end.

From JC in Michigan, a good suggestion:

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series are great reads and lots of laughs.

From Amy in GA: (edited to avoid repeats, such as all the Harry P books :>)

1. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
2. The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; and That Hideous Strength) by C. S. Lewis
3. The Chronicles of Narnia [again, much beloved] by C. S. Lewis
4. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
5. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
6. Diligently Seeking God by Gary Henry
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Collected Novels
8. Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Alfred Kazin
("Young Goodman Brown" is one of the passages I asked my husband to read and discuss with me before we got married.)
9. Norton Anthology Volume One
10. Norton Anthology Volume Two
11. The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett
12. SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea by John 'Lofty' Wiseman
13. The Mom Factor by John Townsend and Henry Cloud

14. Boundaries by John Townsend and Henry Cloud
Thanks for all your great suggestions and for encouraging us and our children to read.

From a Flybaby in PA: [edited to avoid repeats]

1. The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough
2. A Woman of Substance - Barbara Taylor Bradford
3. Earth's Children (Series of 5) - Jean M. Auel
4. Mitford Years (Series of 7) - Jan Karon
5. His Dark Materials (Series of 3) - Philip Pullman
6. The Elvis Cole Mysteries (Series of 10) - Robert Crais

From TA, an interesting, "mysterious" list. [Edited to remove duplicates.]

1. The Bride; Saving Grace; and For the Roses, all by Julie Garwood
2. Harper Hall of Pern - Anne McCaffery
3. Anything by James Patterson
4. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
5. Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens
6. Anything by Agatha Christie, esp. Ten Little Indians and Murder on the Orient Express
7. Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
8. Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poetry, including Murders in The Rue Morgue & The Raven
9. The Seedling Stars - James Blish
10. Daughter of Fire; Merlin's Legacy - Quinn Taylor Evans
11. Daughter of the Mist (Merlin's Legacy)
12. Daughter of Light (Merlin's Legacy) - Quinn Taylor Evans
13. Shadows of Camelot, (Merlin's Legacy) - Quinn Taylor Evans
14. The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
15. The Dune series by Frank Herbert Herbert

From KC in MN. [Fascinating list! JC]

1. BetsyTacy by Maud Hart Lovelace
2. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
3. Angry Housewives Eating BonBons by Lorna Ladnvik
4. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
5. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
6. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
7. Caravan by Dorothy Gilman
8. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
9. The Maul & the Pear Tree by P D James
10. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
11. Past Forgetting by Kay Summersby Morgan
12. I Still Miss My Man, But My Aim Is Getting Better by Sarah Shankman

13. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
14. The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love by Jill Conner Browne
15. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

16. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
17. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
18. Dumbth by Steve Allen
19. Mrs. Sharp's Traditions by Sarah Ban Breathnach
20. The Betty Crocker Cookbook by Betty Crocker
[Think about this. Where are the ingredients going to come from?]
21. The Artist's Way by Julia Camerson
22. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
23. The Age of Fable, by Bulfinch
24. Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner
25. Suzu and the Bride Doll by Patricia Martin
P.S. I can't wait to read some of these that I didn't know about!

Joan

From KTN:

Oh, fun! Books are my biggest downfall. Here's my list, with occasional comments:
[Edited to remove repeaters. JC]

1. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
2. Villette by Charlotte Bronte
3. The Maggie B. by Irene Haas (one of my favorite picture books)
4. Ma'am Jones of the Pecos by Eve Ball (my family knew the family in

this book; personal interest)
5. The Fairy Doll by Rumer Godden
6. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
7. The Iliad by Homer
8. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (help & humor for writers)
9. Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie
10. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
11. All Hallows' Eve by Charles Williams (It was hard for me to choose which of his books to list.)
12. Telling the Truth by Frederick Buechner

13. Staggerford by Jon Hassler
14. The Norton Anthology of Poetry
15. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
16. Harper Hall of Pern Trilogy: Dragonsong, Dragonsinger,and Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey (some of my favorite frothy fun)
17. The Smith of Wooton Major by J.R.R. Tolkien
18. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
19. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

From DBB --edited to avoid repeats:

1. The World According To Garp by John Irving
2. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
3. Gift From The Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg
4. I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn (set on a desert island!)
5. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelman
6. The Little Prince by Antoine de St.Exupery
7. The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
8. Mary Poppins by P L Travers
9. The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende
10. A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux
11. The Secrets Of Pistoulet by Jana Kolpen
12. Dancing With The Moon (sequel) by Jana Kolpen
13. The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
14. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
15. Winnie the Pooh by A A Milne
16. The Poetry of E. E Cummings
17. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
18. The Worst Case Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven
19. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegutt
20. Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
21. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
22. Revolution From Within:A Book on Self-Esteem by Gloria Steinem
23. Heartburn by Nora Ephron

From Flybaby Robin:
1. Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard
2. Mountains of Spices by Hannah Hurnard (or any of her books, she is my favorite!)
3. Any book by Ann McCaffrey (especially the dragon ones)
4. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
5. Daughter of Destiny by Jamie Buckingham
6. Joan of Arc ( French to English translation)
7. Six by Seuss ( A collection of six of Dr Seuss's popular stories.)
8. Living Lean the North Way by Larry North
9. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
10. God Chasers by Tommy Tenney ( and the journal that goes with it)
11. Dream Journal
12. Readers Digest book of Fun and Laughter
13. All I know about Animal Behavior I Learned in Lohmans' Dressing Room, or any book by Erma Bombeck ( she makes me laugh)
14. This Present Darkness; Piercing the Darkness; The Final Battle, all by Hal Lindsey
15. Mother Theresa, a Simple Path by Lucinda Vardey

From Diane in Colorado: (list edited to omit repeats)
"If I could slip in a couple more, I'd include a survival book and a cookbook!"

The Amelia Peabody Series, by Elizabeth Peters

--Crocodile on the Sandbank
--The Curse of the Pharoahs
--The Mummy Case
-- Lion in the Valley
--The Deeds of the Disturber
--The Last Camel Died at Noon
--The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog
--The Hippopotamus Pool
--Seeing a Large Cat
--The Ape Who Guards the Balance
--The Falcon at the Portal
--He Shall Thunder in the Sky
---Lord of the Silent
--The Golden One
--Children of the Storm
-- Amelia Peabody's Egypt
---Guardian of the Horizon

[These books are tremendous fun, packed with information about Egypt past and present. They're so tongue-in-cheek that you wonder why the author's tongue hasn't poked through her cheek. Read them with some other books interspersed or you may overdose. JC]

From GW in NY--{A wonderfully interesting list! JC]

For children, I recommend Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot. I read part of this to my daughter when she was seven -- she still remembers it..

2. The Liar's Club, by Mary Carr
3. Good Times, Lucille Clifton
4. Drinking, A Love Story, Caroline Knapp
5. By Her Own Hand, Signe Hammer
6. Strategies, Dennis Scott
7. Caucasia, Danzy Senna
8. Black Boy, Richard Wright
9. Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Ann Burns
10. This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff
11. Stop Time, Frank Conroy
12. Warrior Woman, Maxine Hong Kingston
13. Given Ground, Ann Pancake
14. The Measure of Our Success, Marian Wright Edelman
15. Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott
16. Dave Barry's Guide to Guys, Dave Barry
17. Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
18. I Stand Here Ironing,Tillie Olson
19. Girl, Jamaica Kincaid
20. Only the Dance, Judith Kitchen

From Sheila, in Canada: Oh this was fun - I did it as my reward for having my shoes on my feet!
[Edited to avoid repeats. JC]
1. The Power Of One    - Bryce Courtney
2. The Oxford Annotated Bible
3. The Koran
4. A Brief History Of Time    - Stephen Hawking
5. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold    - John LeCarre
6. Goodbye Darkness    - William Manchester
7. Kim    - Rudyard Kipling
8. Roots    - Alex Haley
9. The Yellow Jersey    - Ralph Hurne
10. The Game    - Ken Dryden
11. The Rituals Of Dinner    - Margaret Visser
12. The Essential Calvin And Hobbes    - Bill Waterson
13. A History Of The English Speaking Peoples Volumes 1, 2, 3 & 4 by    Winston S Churchill
14. The Dictionary Of Newfoundland English
15. London    - Edward Rutherfurd
16. The Boat    - Lothar Gunther Bucheim
17. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch    - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
18. Original Sin    - PD James
19. The Pullet Surprise    - Michael Kluckner

From DN, edited to avoid repeats.

1. The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire

2. No-No Boy, John Okada
3. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
4. Bridget Jones (both books), Helen Fielding
5. Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter
6. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
7. Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
8. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
9. The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
10. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
11. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
12. Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
13. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
14. A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich
15. Woman Hollering Creek: And Other Stories, Sandra Cisneros
16. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
17. Ramona Series, Beverly Cleary

18. The Odyssey, Homer

From an anonymous flybaby, "Here are some of my favorites:"

1. Circles Of Stone by Joan Dahr Lambert
2. Years by Lavyrle Spencer
3. A Light To My Path by Lynn Austin
4. Comes The Blind Fury by John Saul
5. Heaven by V.C.Andrews (Part one of five books)
6. All Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books
7. A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer (Part one of three books)

From Flybaby S, in PA. (Edited to omit duplicates.)

1. A Soprano on Her Head, Eloise Ristad
2. Born To Trot, Marguerite Henry
3. King of the Wind, Marguerite Henry
4. Penny's Worth, Nancy Caffrey
5. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg
6. Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein
7. Katherine, Anya Seton
8. A Good Horse is Never a Bad Color, Mark Rashid
9. Considering the Horse, Mark Rashid
10. Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
11. Smokey The Cow Horse

From AW: This was such a hard list to put together, and I know I left off some of my favorites.
[Note: Edited to remove duplicates. JC]

1. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats
2. The Divine Comedy by Dante
3. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft
4. The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny
5. The Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
6. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
7. Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
8. Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton
9. Three Plums in One by Janet Evanovich
10. Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
11. Rhapsody: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Hayden
12. Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by Evan Marshall
13. The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer Translator � Samuel Butler
14. Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs by John Lindow
15. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
16. Dracula by Bram Stoker
17. Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
18. The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
19. The Stand by Steven King

From Ann. "Oh boy. Just off the top of my head..."

1. Crossing To Safety, by Wallace Stegner (How could this not be in the top 25 of

Joan's list??)

2. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

3. Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

4. John Adams, by David McCullough

5. Truman, by David McCullough

6. The Brothers K., by James David Duncan

From Elle S--Here's my list!
(Edited to avoid repeats, JC.)

1. Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott
2. The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris
3. Room With a View, by E.M. Forster
4. 100 Love Sonnets (Cien Sonetos de Amor), by Pablo Neruda
5. Waking the Dead,(or Sacred Romance, or Journey of Desire) by John

Eldredge
6. My Antonia, by Willa Cather
7. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
8. The Genuine, Ingenious, Thrift Shop Genie, Clarissa Mae Bean & Me,

by Beverly Keller
9. Skinnybones, by Barbara Park
10. At Home in Mitford (the whole Mitford series!) by Jan Karon
11. Letters to a Young Poet, by Ranier Maria Rilke
12. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

From SS, a highschool American lit teacher:

1. The Good Old Boys, by Elmer Kelton

2. Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

3. Sloppy Firsts, by Megan McCafferty

4. Master of the Game, by Sidney Sheldon

5. The Ralph Mouse collection, by Beverly Cleary

6. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

7. The Bar Sinister, by Linda Berdoll

8. Out of Control, by Mark Lowry

9. The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, by Joshua Borgenicht and Davis Piven

There are a few books that have to do with war in this list (fiction and nonfiction). I believe that if we educate ourselves about the mistakes of the past, then we, as a global community, are not doomed to repeat them.
[Boy, would I like to believe this!

Joan
P.S. Great list here! ]

1. Illusions, by Richard Bach
2. Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Tumbo
3. Moonheart, by Charles de Lint
4. The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein
5. The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
6. Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie
7. Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
8. A Mid-Summer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare
9. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
10. Hiroshima, by John Hersey
11. Red Badge of Courage, by Steven Crane
12. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
13. Hope For The Flowers, by Trina Paulus
14. This World, This Place, and Me, by Kathy Sass (poetry)
15. Mega Tokyo (menga),by Fred Gallagher (just for fun)
16. Winnie The Pooh, by A.A. Milne
17. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
18. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
19. The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz
20. As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen
21. Sula, by Toni Morrison
22. Old Possum's book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Elliot
23. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
24. Harry Potter and (pick one) J.K. Rowling
25. 1001 Ways to be Romantic, by Gregory Godek

From C in North Dakota (list edited to avoid repeats)

1.   Pleasures Evermore, by Sam Storms
2.   Come to Papa, by Gary Wiens
3.   Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
4.   Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
5.  Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, by Dr. Seuss
6. The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein
7. The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom
8. The Great Gilly Hopkins
9. Anna and the King of Siam, by Margaret Landon
10. Deep Unto Deep, by Dana Candler
11. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
12. The Divine Romance, by Gene Edwards
13. One Thing, by Sam Storms
14. The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss
15. Gulliver's Travels, by Johnathan Swift

I found this to be an exercise in self-control. I could have listed a hundred, easily!From a 34-year-old avidly-reading FLYbaby in Wisconsin.
1. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
2. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
4. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
5. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
6. Dandelion Wine and any other stories by Ray Bradbury
7. The Steppe (or any other story by Anton Chekhov)
8 & 9. Angela's Ashes and 'Tis by Frank McCourt
10. Common Sense by Thomas Paine (essays from Revolutionary days)
11. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
12. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
13. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
14. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
15. The Idiot, (plus any other story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
16 & 17. The Pit and the Pendulum or The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe (VERY scary!)
18. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
19. The Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts
20. Murder on the Nile or ANYTHING by Agatha Christie

(VERY fun summer reads!)
21. Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
22. The Doors of Perception or Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley(non-fiction)
23. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren (This choice might bother some, but I found it to be life changing.)

From DC in CA:
1. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
2. Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
4. All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot
5. The Samurai's Garden, by Gail Tsukiyama
6. Snow Falling on Cedars, by Guderson
7. anything by Jan Karon
8. A Place of Execution, by Val McDermid
9. Discord In Harmony, by Alicia Copeland
10. The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
11. Raising Demons, by Shirley Jackson
12. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
13. Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll
14. Peter Pan, by James Barrie
15. The Wizard of Oz, by Frank Baum
16. Wooden, by John Wooden (bio)
17. The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffery
18. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
19. Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales
20. Bold Spirit, by Linda Lawrence Hunt (non-fiction)
21. Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom
22. Below the Salt, by Thomas Costain
23. Compulsion, by Meyer Levin
24. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
25. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

From the New Me:

What a FUN challenge! This would be my DREAM! BUT it reminds me of

the Twilight Zone episode where squirrely man just wants to be alone to

read. He gets his wish when an earthquake hits and he's utterly alone.

He spends the next several days stacking and cataloging the books that

he wants to read, at the demolished library. He's in his glory! Then,

he looks down, his very thick glasses slip from his nose and shatter on

the stone steps. THAT would be my luck!! lol

1. All the Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
     (yes, this is cheating! It's 11 books!)
2. Gone With the Wind (This was on nearly everyone's list.)
3. Make Way for Ducklings
4. Beverly Lewis's Daughters of Abraham Series (3 books)
5. Ramona the Pest; and The Mouse and the Motorcycle, both by Beverly  Cleary
6. In The Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
7. The Poky Little Puppy
8. Harold and His Purple Crayon
9. Endurance: The Edward Shackleton Story
10. Hungry Ocean, a Swordboat Captain's Journey by Linda Greenlaw
11. The Merck Manual of Medical Information : Home Edition
12. When God Doesn't Make Sense, James Dobson
13. Anything by Frank Perretti
14. Little House on the Prairie (entire series) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
15. Anne of Green Gables (series) by L.M. Montgomery
16. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
17. My Wedding and my children's baby albums

From MSW in MD:

1-6. Canadian West Series (6 books), by Janette Oke
7-18. Love Comes Softly (12 books), by Janette Oke
19. The Virginian, by Owen Wister
20. The Light and the Glory (nonfiction), by Peter Marshall and David Manuel

From K in AL:

You have hit upon my passion! I love books and the places they take me! I dont have 25 because I only wanted to include timeless classics that I felt would be appropriate for any age reader to enjoy.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
4. Love Comes Softly (entire series) by Janette Oke
5. Anne of Green Gables (entire series) by L.M. Montgomery
6. Little Women; Good Wives; and Little Men, all by Louisa May Alcott
7. Christy by Catherine Marshall
8. John Adams by David McCullough
9. Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis
I also never grow too old for the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I hope all girls have read her books at some point.

From H in Michigan, more intriguing titles!

1. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2. My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
3. The Blue Sword; and The Hero and The Crown, both by Robin McKinley
4. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
5. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
6. The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende
7. Gray's Manual of Botany
8. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (couldn't decide which one)
9. The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint
10. Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce
11. Exile's Honor by Mercedes Lackey
12. Treasure at the Heart of Tanglewood by Meredith Pierce
13. Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip
14. Unicorns by Robert Vavra
15. The Far Side of Forever by Sharon Green
16. Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
17. House of Echoes by Barbara Erskine
18. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
19. The House at Pellham Falls by Brenda Weathers
20. The Possibility of Being by Ranier Maria Rilke
21. The Right to Write by Julia Cameron
22. Roget's Thesarus
23. The Dancing Floor by Barbara Michaels
24. Tom Brown's the Tracker

From J.O.:
1. Thorn In My Flesh; Fair Is The Rose; and Whence Came a Prince, all by by Liz Curtis Higgs. (These are a 3 book series and are amazing! Found at Christian book stores and possibly at other book stores.)
2. Mark of The Lion series (3 books) by Francine Rivers
3. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
4. Plus any of Karen Kingsbury's books (there are many)

From A: (A list with good variety and some new titles! Joan)

1. Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy
2. East of Eden-John Steinbeck
3. Love Medicine-Louise Erdrich
4. Giants in the Earth-O.E. Rolvaag
5. Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson-Emily Dickinson
6. My Antonia-Willa Cather
7,8,9. The Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy-Sigrid Undset
10. The Dollmaker-Harriette Arnow
12. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant-Anne Tyler
13. I know why the Caged Bird Sings-Maya Angelou
14. The Secret Garden-Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. Charlotte's Web-E.B. White
16. The Eye of the Amaryllis-Natalie Babbitt
17. The Joy Luck Club-Amy Tan
18. The Language of Thread-Gail Tsukiyama
19. Women of the Silk-Gail Tsukiyama
20. The Samurai's Garden-Gail Tsukiyama
21. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn-Betty Smith
22. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
23. The Cat's Eye-Margaret Atwood
P.S. Edited to remove repeats. Joan

From J in northern Michigan: This really made me think!! Looking back over my list, I think most of them came from Ophrah's Book Club selections! Sorry, I don't know all the authors!

1. East of Eden; and Of Mice and Men, both by John Steinbeck
2. The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve
3. The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
4. Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
5. The Green Mile, by Stephen King
6. The Essential Catechism of the Catholic Church
7. Tara Road, Maeve Binchy
8. She's come Undone, and I know This Much is True, both by Wally Lamb

9. The Velveteen Rabbit
10. The Corrections
11. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
12. The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss
13. Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
P.S. List edited to avoid repeats with prior lists. Joan

From RS: I have very diverse tastes, but good literature is good literature regardless of the genre! Here is my list of favorites that would keep me sane if stranded on an island!

1,2,3 & 4. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers & Return of the King) by J.R.R.Tolkien
5,6,7,8,9,10. All of Jane Austen's novels: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion.
11. The Magna Carta by the English barons of Britain in 1215
12, 13, 14. The Dune trilogy (just the first 3 books) by Frank Herbert
15 & 16. A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (really, all Dickens' novels would be good!)
17- 24. The entire Systematic Theology collection by Louis Sperry Chafer
25. A collection of Shakespeare's plays

From AS: Here's my list of 25 books to take to an island.

1. Beginning of Was, by Ania Szado
2. Dog Years, by Gunter Grass
3. Saint-Exupery, by Stacy Schiff (non-fiction)
4. Shorter Oxford Dictionary (non-fiction)
5. Lives of the Saints, by Nino Ricci
6. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
7. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields
8. The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote
10. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott (non-fiction)
11. The Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds (non-fiction)
12. In the Skin of a Lion, by Michael Ondaatje
13. Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces, by Sister Wendy Beckett (non-fiction)
14. The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (non-fiction)
15. No Need for Speed, by John Bingham (non-fiction)
16. Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater
17. The Courage to Write, by Ralph Keyes (non-fiction)
18. The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
19. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
20. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
21. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
22. Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
23. any Kinsey Millhone mystery by Sue Grafton
24. any "Amsterdam police" thriller by Jan Willem van de Wetering
25. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

P.S. Another dynamite list! JC

From Upstate in SC:

First, how about a few obvious ones..

1. The Mayo Clinic Family Healthbook
2. Walking Softly in the Wilderness - the Sierra Club Guide to Backpacking
And then...

3. An Incomplete Education (Judy Jones and William Wilson)
4. Sophie's World (Jostein Gaardner)
5. Three by Flannery O'Connor
6. Short stories by Roald Dahl
7. The Gulag Archipelago, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
8. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
9. The Age of Reason by Sartre
10. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
11. Eyes of the Dragon by Steven King
12. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
13. Letters from Earth by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
14. Robinson Crusoe, Defoe
15. The Star, short story by A. Clarke
16. Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
17. Short Stories by Ephraim Kishon
18. King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz
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I couldn't respond to this one quick enough. Thank you so much for all that you(Flylady) do for us SHEs. Enjoy my list.
---Trying to Fly in Upstate SC
--[Edited to avoid repeats.]

1. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
2. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
3. The Lion's Lady by Julie Garwood (may be too racy for some but what a story)
4. The Red Tent by Anita Diamont
5. The Duke and I, by Julia Quinn ( a little racy as well)
6. The Sneetches and other stories by Dr. Seuss
7. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume
8. The Ballad of the Harp Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay
9. The King's Equal by Katherine Patterson

From D in JC, MO:

1. Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (and others by NDW)

2. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan

3. All Creatures Great and Small (etc) by James Herriot

4. Love Comes Softly (series) by Janette Oke

5. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

6. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

1. The Witch of Blackbird Pond

2. Island of the Blue Dolphins

3. All Trixie Belden mysteries

4. The Mists of Avalon

5. Anything by PG Wodehouse

6. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

7. The Thomas Black mysteries by Earl Emerson

8. The Thursday Next mysteries by Jasper Fforde

9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

10. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

11. A Room with a View, and Howard's End by EM Forster

12. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

1. Contract with an Angel, by Andrew Greeley
2. Endless Universe, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
3. Pegasus in Flight, by Anne McCaffrey
4. Paradise Lost, by John Milton
5. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
6. 101 Dalmations, by Dodie Smith
7. The Two Faces of Tomorrow, by James P. Hogan
8. Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
9. The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss
10. Dune, by Frank Herbert
11. Tim, by Colleen McCullough
12. Another Fine Myth, by Robert Asprin
13. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
14. Job, by Robert Heinlein
15. Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank
16. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, by Robert C. O'Brien
17. Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian
18. Tea With the Black Dragon, by R. A. MacAvoy
19. The Ladies of Missalonghi, by Colleen McCullough
20. Flight of the Old Dog, by Dale Brown

Twenty-Five Books For a Desert Island

AN INVITATION...