Blast. I'm completely stumped with 'Wordspace'. It's going to need some serious pen, diagram, rambling and sketching to make some sense of it all. In the meantime, in the event of disaster, which books would make it onto the horse drawn wagon to sanctuary? It's a good question. There are so many which are almost good enough to be saved no matter what the circumstance, but only a few which make the golden standard. What an oddly eclectic gang of novels they would surely be. Hopefully they won't be too psychologically revealing, and lead to a lengthy stay in a rubber room. Not that there's anything wrong with a rubber room, but I doubt that they would let me finish season six of 'The Avengers'. Yes, that's a fifty year old cultural reference. Hoorah! Finally becoming contemporary!
What would be saved? The obvious thing to say first is 'Sherlock Holmes', even though I've not read a story in what seems like forever. It's good to have him up there on the shelf though, in those two nostalgic illustrated collections. Next, in a much more recent reading discovery, Robert E Howard's 'Conan' stories would be indispensable. Yes, they have made an instant impression. It's ridiculous that they're not mentioned with some of the other iconic genre tales.
What else? What else? John Dickson Carr's 'The Hollow Man' springs to mind, although it is then immediately dwarfed by Douglas Adams's 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' and 'So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish'. Those are excellent novels, and totally unexpected if you have read his other works. The second is such a lovely romance, but it is best to not digress too much. Romances are deeply underrated. 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' (Connie Willis) would definitely make the pile, and for some reason 'Manalive' (GK Chesterton) has that feeling about it too, after only minimal exposure. It might be uplifting in the middle of an emergency or when stuck on a desert island?
Oh! Oh! Of course, 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'! What was I thinking?! And what about the collected prose of Woody Allen? That's essential! Things are popping into mind now. 'Three Men In A Boat' would have to pushed into the now beginning to bulge book bag. 'A Tale Of Two Cities' would be good too, adding some classical depth to proceedings, as would Wilkie Collins' 'No Name', despite the very divisive ending. Also, of course, 'The Three Musketeers' should be in there too. It's madness to not have 'The Three Musketeers' at all, in any of its varying translations.
It's time to finish, but also going into the book bag would be: 'Three Hearts And Three Lions' (Poul Anderson), 'Gateway' (Frederik Pohl), 'Journey To The Centre Of The Earth' (Jules Verne), 'Leave It To Psmith' (PG Wodehouse) and maybe 'The Master And Margarita' (Bulgakov). And non-fiction? 'One Hit Wonderland' and 'Yes Man', perhaps? And a few others...
It's a grandly mixed up set, isn't it? Why not throw in the Ron Goulart 'Groucho Marx' detective stories too, just to confuse it even further...
O.
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