Putting Together Your Post-Y2K Library

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The givens: Bible, Iliad/Odyessy, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Anselm, Aquinas, Bacon, Descartes, Cervantes (Don Quixote), Shakespeare, Newton and more (I'm getting winded).

Lucifer's Hammer and related (come on, guys).

Art of the Rifle and related (more, pls).

... books on self-reliance and "country living" (beginning to pant)

Dilbert (the guide to Y2K remediation, always classic)

Your turn ....

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 09, 1999

Answers

Adam Smith, Mark Twain.

-- Vic (Rdrunner@internetwork.net), July 09, 1999.

Plenty of magazines too, especially Countryside. Got a "Book of Knowledge" encyclopedia set for $1 and a set of "Handyman's Encyclopedia" for $1.

The Book of Games would be a good one for a group of people with time on their hands and no money in their pocket.

The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening is excellent.

Reader's Digest "How to Fix Just About Anything" is good. (I think that's the title, I've got it loaned out.)

If I expected a "10" I'd stock books for barter before I'd stock precious metals.

We have an extra Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening and in a "10" scenario wouldn't part with it cheaply.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), July 09, 1999.


Ralph Waldo Emerson - Selected Works

Thomas Merton - Seven Storey Mountain & others

Maya Angelou - too many to list

Aldous Huxley - Doors of Perception; Brave new World

J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings; The Hobbit

Isaac Asimov - too many to list

Robert Heinlein - too many to list

Philip Jose` Farmer - Riverworld Series

Stephen R. Donaldson - Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Lots of Star Trek novels

Andrew Weil - Marriage of the Sun & Moon; Natural Mind; Health & Healing

Carla Emery - Encyclopedia of Country Living

Rodale Press - Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

Werner - Where There Is No Doctor

Dickson - Where There Is No Dentist

Mother Earth News - Pre-Yuppie

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), July 09, 1999.


Ayn Rand, Robert Ringer, Leonard Peikoff, Jerry Pournelle, Desmond Morris, Clifford Stoll, P. Sorokin, Adam Smith, J. Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler, Fred Schwartz (approx. spelling), Sun Tzu, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rudyard Kipling, Isaac Asimov, pre-1960 Robert Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, Christina Hoff Sommers, John Pugsley, Rich Zubaty, Allan Bloom, and anything on the skills below (are 2nd half of item #4 in the article "Finding Y2K Prep Time" on my website):

small engine repair, first aid/other (nonquack) medical, some chemistry courses, computer programming, public health, local wild plants, electrician/plumber/masonry apprenticeships, vegetable gardening/horticulture/practical agronomy classes, welding, firearm repair, locksmithing, Spanish, English (if you don't speak it well now), local entomology/pest control, animal husbandry, millwright, process control technician, mechanic, logging/rough carpentry, hydraulic/chemical/electrical engineer, food safety, marksmanship, martial arts, fence construction, blacksmithing, farrier, bowmaker/fletcher/archery, candlemaking, butchering, nonelectric sewing/clothes mending... you get the idea.

-- www.y2ksafeminnesota.com (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), July 09, 1999.


Deliverance by James Dickey? I read it is on some of the 100 best of the century.

BSA Field Manual

Carla Emery"s Encyclopedia of Country Living

-- rb (ronbanks_2000@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.



Thoreau - Walden (putting things in perspective)

Living the Good Life - Helen and Scott Nearing

Anything about gardening

ALL of Stephen King!!! :)

-- dakota (none@thistime.com), July 09, 1999.


If it does go Milne and some younguns come along (they do have this funny way of poping up from time to time) how you gonna educate them?

Think McGuffie's Readers, basic math books, an encyclopedia wouldn't hurt, maybe an atlas, the list to too big for details.

-Greybear

-- Got Grandkids? Ever expect any in the future?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), July 09, 1999.


It occurs to me to beat one of you wags to the punch and suggest a speller. And also the suggestion that I could use a few lesson from it now.

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), July 09, 1999.

Music and songbooks and extra supplies for your instruments.

-- Mommacares (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), July 09, 1999.

Golden Books, for grandkids. Wood Heating Handbook by Charles Self. The Ship's Medicine Chest and Medical Aid at Sea US Dept of Health. The Complete Book Of Composting Rodale Books.

-- && (&&@&&.&), July 09, 1999.


Fiction: . Lord of the Rings trilogy . The Hobbit . Several Mitchner books . Several W.E.B. Griffin books . Collected works of John Steinbeck . Collected works of Ernest Hemmingway

Non-Fiction: . Boy Scout field book . My collection of sailboat maintenance books (including sailmaking, engine repair, etc.) . Chiltons (or similar) auto repair manual for all vehicles in the household. . Spiritual tomes (Jack Hayford, Bill McCartney, Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.) . Bridge manuals (bidding systems, play, strategy, directing, etc.) . Tropical plants volumes (Bamboo, etc.) . First aid manual(s), a good (sailing) cruiser's medical manual . Fish identification book(s) . PADI Diving manuals . "Azimuth Hooks & Latitude Rings", which tells how to make navigation instruments. . Books on puppetry (construction and plays, mostly) . Gunsmithing manual . Good book on chicken raising . Book on dog and cat medicine . Reference on celestial navigation

You know, the usual 1000-2000 volumes that I keep after I clean the "monestary" each year.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), July 09, 1999.


Differential Diagnosis of Common Complaints by Seller ( how to tell if its this disease or that one.) Nursing Drug handbook

Ditch Medicine

Homeopathic first Aid

The Philokalia

-- seraphima (seraphima@aol.com), July 09, 1999.


Our local Red Cross now teaches a class in pet first aid, and have an excellent book to go along with it. It's more advanced than the basic version for us two-leggeds, because they say you are the first responder when it comes to your pets.

-- flora (***@__._), July 09, 1999.

I have been buying crossword puzzle books, coloring books, books of mazes, how do draw books, and song books. I do have a very extensive library of serious books for adults and young readers. My daugher is a RN and I have all her medical books. And I kept all of the books my children used in college.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), July 10, 1999.

Farnham's Freehold, Robert A. Heinlein. Edible Wild Plants, Lee Allen Peterson. How To Stay Alive In The Woods, Bradford Algier. How To Survive On Land And Sea, Naval Institute Press (no author). The Well-Fed Backpacker, June Fleming. A Hiker's Companion, Cindy Ross & Todd Gladfelter. Library of Universal Knowledge, Franklin J. Meine. Basic Electonics Theory, Delton T. Horn. Cosomos, Carl Sagan. Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Isaac Asimov. How To Sh*t In The Woods, Kathleen Meyer. The Garden Primer, Barbara Damrosch. The New Victory Garden, Bob Thomson. Etc.,

-- Spindoc' (spindoc_99_2000@yahoo.com), July 10, 1999.


Sorry,

Someday, I hope to learn the secret of formatting posts to this forum. But not today.

-- Spindoc' (spindoc-99_2000@yahoo.com), July 10, 1999.


The Way things Work I and II

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), July 10, 1999.


Just a thought. Something we are doing. Keep the books you NEVER want to be without seperate on the shelves. Keep them in milk crates laid on their sides in the shelves. If you ever have to move stuff quickly they are already cased and ready to go.

Just a thought.

-- Art Welling (artw@lancnews.infi.net), July 10, 1999.


THE BIBLE AND OTHER RELIGIOUS LITERATURE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Guns, Grub & Gold (The End@the World.com), July 10, 1999.

C.S. Lewis...don't deprive your children/grandchildren of Narnia! Also by Lewis...Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, and The Screwtape Letters. More classics...Little Women by Louisa May Alcott...anything by Charles Dickens, but especially Tale of Two Cities. A collection of Jane Austen...Hans Christian Andersen... Don't forget Poetry and Prose!...Whitman...Tennyson...and some good compiliations. Black Beauty by Sewell...Big Red...any animal lovers out there? Biographies of great men and women... Some popcorn mysteries (think no videos)...anything by Christie, Anne Perry, Doyle... A Wrinkle in Time... L'Engle... um...sorry...I need to take a break and read now. Got a rainy day, tea, comfy chair and a good book?

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), July 10, 1999.

Mumsie....A Wrinkle In Time was my absolute favorite when I was about 10. Also, for children Charlotte's Web (besides Black Beauty). Who is that depressing chick (forgot her name I can not retrieve it no- how!! Lots of bittersweet poetry) Also, Kafka is always interesting. Nobody said Freud...good old Siggie!!

And speaking of serious literature, for a simple mind-numbing no- brainer what about some juicy Jackie Collins (or Danielle Steele for "romance")..sorry, I had to get that in there.

-- NSmith (nitnat3@aol.com), July 10, 1999.


Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, which takes a couple of months to read. In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky.

G. Miki Hayden's Pacific Empire, an alternate history of the war in the Pacfic.

Antything secondhand that looks entertaining.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWAyne@aol.com), July 10, 1999.


All of the above suggestions are great! For the last thirty years, I've been reading off and on from Will & Ariel Durrant's A History of Civilization. I didn't notice if anybody mentioned history, but this is certainly a good one. They also wrote a History of Philosophy which is very good. Here's what I've put together as suggestions for "rebuilding" books. (can anybody please privately give me a clue why the spacing is screwed up on that page?)

-- Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California (minddancr@aol.com), July 11, 1999.

Whoops. Make that Rebuilding Books

...and while I'm here, again, don't forget: A Brief History of Time by Steven B. Hawking!

-- Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California (minddancr@aol.com), July 11, 1999.


In addition to all the wonderful suggestions above, I thought of adding Wolf and Iron, Gordon R. Dickson's fine SF novel set in a world which has experienced massive financial and social breakdown (called "The Collapse" in the book). Then I realized that we all might be a bit too busy living that plotline to enjoy reading about it very much...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), July 12, 1999.

The Durants also wrote a great book called "The Lessons of History" distilled into 102 pages.

-- flora (***@__._), July 12, 1999.

Dakota, if you like S. King, try H.P. Lovecraft, Dunsany, and (of course) E.A. Poe.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), July 13, 1999.


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