Papal Bookshelf

One of the great things about having a blog with over 500 posts on it is that it's likely I've already talked about anything someone might ask. This is almost one of those cases - I was asked about favorite pieces of literature just recently, and I had already commented on my favorite pieces of Buddhist literature back in 2004.

At that time, I listed my choices and asked the blogisphere to do the same. It got a lot of great responses, but thanks to the unrelenting suckitude of the HaloScan comment system, those responses are lost to us now. Thankfully, we are on Blogger's resident comment system these days, and those last effectively forever and ever, in the name of the Google, the Blogger, and the Gmail, amen.

So - please put forth a list of your essential bookshelf. Let's limit it to a half dozen or so, and they can be spiritual books, but anything else is fine too - erotica, cookbooks, erotic cookbooks... how to manuals, self-help books, pictorial histories of labial modification, apple butter retrospectives, graphic novels, coloring books, etc.

Ten extra credit points if you can identify the location of the quite famous bookshelves in the upper photo.

12 comments:

Claytonian said...

Why that would be the Trinity College in Dublin Ireland, unless someone set up me the trap cause they knew I was clever enough to mouse-over.

Professor Noob said...

Trinity College? That was the first college I toured. I would've gone if they'd offered scholarships. I do think, though, that those bookshelves look a lot like the ones in the British Museum.

Um...I'm an English major. You expect me to pick SIX? Fine, here they are.

1) Tao te Ching
2) Harry Potter (not the greatest literature ever, but pretty essential to understanding my generation)
3)Wind in the Willows
4)Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
5)Walden
6)The Tao of Pooh

I'll think of something else as soon as I sign off, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

Flynn said...

In no real order:
-Dune. All of them, except perhaps Brian's, those are optional.
-Hitch Hikers Guide.
-DOOM series (not the best, but fun)
-Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (Hardcover)
-Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence
-Tales from the Tech-Side
-2600
-Hacking Reveled (current version)
-LOTR
-Ad Age (OK I know it's a mag, but still)
-Windows Inside and Out
-The Art of Deception
-The Art of Intrusion

Iono, it's hard to list them all... My library is search-able via the TiVo, have a look for yourself...

~ Flynn out.

MightyMightyMax said...

Probably some of the most influential books in my life are as follows, in no particular order:

1. Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey
2. A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold
3. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter S. Thompson
4. A World of Ideas - Chris Rohmann
5. Howl - Allen Ginsberg
6. The Hindu Way of Awakening - Swami Kriyananda

Although I also have to give mad props to Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, and Shakespeare's Henry series.

Linus said...

Clay is absolutely right - the bookshelf is from "the Long Room" the very famous library at Trinity College, Dublin.

Your book lists are fascinating so far. Please, continue!

Unknown said...

1. The Fountainhead
2. Does Anybody Give A Damn
3. Siddhartha
4. The Bluest Eye
5. The Celestial Jukebox
6. Their Eyes Were Watching God

That is my essentials list. No- it does not make any more sense if you actually live inside my head.

Tessa K. said...

This is so hard!!!

1- Pride and Prejudice
2- Kitchen Confidential
3- Lord of the Rings
4- Yeats
5- Tennyson
6- Shakespeare

I know that is not all - i had about 10 boxes when i moved into flock hall - and that is not all of them, i have more in riverton... but in keeping with the assignment, there you go

it would be interesting to compare this to the original list i would have posted in the haloscan comments

Modig said...

My list has a graphic novel slant to it. I can't help it, I like the pretty pictures.

In no particular order (even though they are numbered)...

1. Pride of Baghdad (highly recommend)
2. Preacher
3. Y: The Last Man
4. Gone With the Wind
5. Gates of Fire
6. Lamb

Claytonian said...

Um, I'm thinking...
The works of Clark Ashton Smith.
other Cthulhu mythos guys' stuff.
The damapanda (just cause I can't spell it...)
Many of my books are in Japanese or about studying Japanese these days.
Three hearts and three lions.
Shakespeare.

Mayren said...

My Essential Booklist Top 7
In Order of what i would grab
if the house were on fire.
(Baker's half dozen HA!)

1. The Secret Garden
2. A Wrinkle in Time
3. The Boy Who Reversed Himself
4. The Dragonlance Series
5. 2nd Edition AD&D Monster Manual
6. Harry Potter
7. The Quantum World: Quantum
Physics for Everyone

It's hard to condense my library.
If the place was on fire I know
somehow I'd get my 2nd edition
Shakespeare collected works in there too.
Fleur already stole my second fave
poet Yeats. (pout)Brown Penny is my fave.

Claytonian said...

Mayren: officially having of good taste.

Emily said...

this question is totally hard, given my bibliophile-ness. also, i like nerd books. so, in no particular order:

1. on the road, kerouac
2. molly katzen cookbooks (THE best vegetarian recipes!)
3. the history of sexuality, foucault
4. tantric sex for women (this book actually got me back into studying buddhism).
5. the handmaid's tale, atwood
6. the bell jar, plath

also, everything ever written by coetzee. i'm also kind of a fan of some of freud's writing (i say that with a giant footnote), only because it helps me understand people and their ridiculousness.

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