So You're Stranded Alone on an Island...

[Sem]

What five books would you want with you, if you were stranded alone on an island?

[Mrs. S]

The hardest question any English teacher can answer!

--A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
--Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
--Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
--Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins
--The Riverside Shakespeare

The first two are the books I re-read at least yearly throughout my childhood, and periodically as an adult. Together with Pride and Prejudice, those are my ultimate comfort reads! Billy Collins is my favorite poet, and Picnic, Lightning is the book that made me fall in love with his poetry. I think the Shakespeare is self-explanatory, and the Riverside happens to be the version I grew up with so it's my sentimental favorite.

[Ben]

House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Magus, by John Fowles
Haunted, by Joyce Carol Oates (or maybe Foxfire)
World Tales, by Idris Shah
Shakespeare's Sonnets