The Love, Blood, and Rhetoric School

Was on the phone with Jenn for about two hours, most of which was spent figuring out which ten books we would each take to the hypothetical desert island. I dared her to actually come up with an entire list after she referred to something as "one of my ten". So I had to do a list too.

My List, in no particular order:
* Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey
* Persuasion - Jane Austen
* Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
* Knight's Castle - Edward Eager
* Paladin of Souls - Lois Bujold
* The House on the Strand - Daphne du Maurier
* Sorcery and Cecelia - Caroline Stevermer and Pat Wrede
* Scout's Progress - Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
* Brat Farrar - Josephine Tey
* The Riverside Shakespeare

The whole exercise was great fun, and really thought-provoking. It's funny how you re-evaluate things once the criteria is "Can I live without this book?"  Some things that I would have said I really loved I decided I can live without, and I surprised myself with some of the books that are really indispensable to me.

I also now have quite a list of necessary rereads. You start thinking "I really can't go to the island without reading the Company books again."