3 books

[rwsmith]

These aren't my COMPLETELY favorite books...

... but they are among my favorites and ones that I go back to and read part or in whole a good bit.

Moby Dick - Melville

Islands in the Stream - Hemingway

Phantom Over Vietnam - Trotti

I can only take three but I can WISH for a lot more.

Certainly the Bible in a good translation with lots and lots of footnotes and commentary. Be nice if it were a 'parallel' version with the King James because the beauty of it is outstanding.

Collection of Shakespeare Tragedies

All the King's Men - Warren

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams

Tao Te Ching - Laozi

The Art of War - Sun Tzu

I'm just not a 'Lord of the Rings' fan. I'll take a collection of science fiction instead.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Since Wells was telling a story, he probably didn't consider that 800,000 years from now they might not be speaking English as we now it. I have seen videos on Youtube asking "If you speak English, how far back can you go and still be understood ?" In my youth I found the language of the KJV confusing, one English teacher acknowledged that Shakespeare is hard for modern kids to understand. How much of our current terminology of computers and electronics could be understood 60 years ago ?

 

[Kitgun]

The Fox Fire books.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

"If you speak English, how far back can you go and still be understood ?"

I know that some "New Englanders" and some the "Southerners" couldn't understanders in the Civil War. And was still true as late as 1970!

The advent of Television and the syndication of re-runs has brought the English-speaking world back to a more common dialect. (Hollywood/Midwest)

In 45 years ASL (American Sign Language) has changed so much that my "Dictionaries" from the early 70's are almost worthless! That language is based on concepts and ideas, not English words. But in 1978 I had two friends, one from Central Ohio and the other from Southern California that had great difficulty communicating.

The Portuguese of Brazil and of Lisbon are currently getting closer, due to both government's intervention.

Lastly, The Science Fiction writers (US, England, & from Spain) of the 1960's thought that all of humans would be speaking Esperanto by the year 2025. Yet most people today have never heard of that language!

Ivan

 

[mtgianni]

Since Wells was telling a story, he probably didn't consider that 800,000 years from now they might not be speaking English as we now it. I have seen videos on Youtube asking "If you speak English, how far back can you go and still be understood ?" In my youth I found the language of the KJV confusing, one English teacher acknowledged that Shakespeare is hard for modern kids to understand. How much of our current terminology of computers and electronics could be understood 60 years ago ?

Chaucer [Canterbury Tales] is generally published with a modern English translation. He predated Shakespeare about 150 years if memory serves me well. We can generally understand Shakespeare because of the King James Bible. It might not be modern but it has been the glue that has kept English current for centuries.

 

[16thVACav]

The Whole Earth Catalog might be handy.

 

[two-bit cowboy]

The problem with a dictionary is that the stories are so short.

They're terrific for folks with a short attention span.

 

[robvious]

one would be our family Bible... it goes back a bit...
two, maybe the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson (current edition)...
three... probably my grandmother's church cookbook...

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Wells described the Eloi and the Morlocks as post-human species, wrote the
Eloi had "sub-human" intelligence, and apathetic, when Weena falls into the
river their reaction is one of indifference.

 

[soFlaNative]

Some Thomas Paine, Nico Machiavelli and my old Revised Standard Edition of the Word.

 

[TX-Dennis]

1. NASB 1995 edition (New American Standard Bible)

2. Don Quixote (in my mind one of the funniest books of all time - yes, it's also sad)

3. Strictly Speaking by Edwin Newman - another book I find endlessly amusing.

These three could keep me edified and entertained for the rest of my natural life.

 

[WR Moore]

Down in a desk drawer are a couple of old Pocket Calculator books. They're a precursor to the new fangled gadgets we have today. One might come in handy.