Okay, you’ve been recruited to go off to an isolated island for the forseeable future, probably years, and you’ll be more or less cut off from mainstream society - like the Dharma Initiative on Lost. They provide everything you need, Dharma brand beans, clothes, automobiles - the works.
However, in order to keep everybody at maximum happiness, they’d like you to suggest / order up to five suggestions for each of the major entertainment genres (TV series, Books, Music, Movies, Video games etc.,) for use in the rotating Dharma library, and playing over the local DTV network.
What are your picks?
*This part of the scenario is so that you don’t need to bring ‘The complete works of Dickens’ on the grounds that it’ll double for toilet paper, and you can take shelter under it.
The Island in the Sea of Time trilogy and the Dies the Fire series by SM Stirling
Robert Heinlein’s “juvenile” novels
The library of Dean Koontz novels. Sure, a lot of them suck, but there are enough of them that I can enjoy re-reading over and over that they could keep me busy for a long time.
The library of Larry Niven novels.
The books of Carl Sagan.
TV Shows:
The complete first and only season of Firefly (along with the Serenity movie).
The complete series of Life, the NBC detective show.
The complete series of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
The miniseries Band of Brothers
The miniseries Generation Kill.
Movies:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Jaws
Casablanca
Groundhog Day
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Music:
The complete collections of the albums of-
Led Zepplin
The Police
Van Halen
Dire Straits
38 Special
Books: The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant The Golden Bough, Second Edition by James G. Frazer Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu
*Preacher *by Garth Ennis The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov --if I’m really stuck on a desert island, maybe I can figure the damn thing out
Movies: The Usual Suspects Apocalypse Now Caddyshack The Searchers The Seventh Seal
CDs: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis with John Coltrane The Essential Bruce Springsteen The London Years by The Rolling Stones Horowitz Plays Rachmaninoff The Chess Box by Willie Dixon
TV Series: MASH* Dexter True Blood Dr. Who – the Tom Baker years The L-Word
Remember, there are going to be lots of people on the island, and we’re assembling a library, so you don’t necessarily have to pick, for example: The Complete Miles Davis over a gem like ***Kind of Blue. ***.
Funny, I hadn’t read StuBlue’s music choices when I wrote the above.
Yes, but considering that the good people at Columbia went to the trouble of putting the above together, it would be a shame to leave it off
I’ve done this sort of thing before, and it’s usually assumed that certain books are already there, such as the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. However, I honestly cannot see myself bringing either if I had to cut my list to five. Go figure.
Yup. I just didn’t want anyone to feel they had to go for a massive ‘collected edition’ thing if there were other, more specific things they’d like. For instance, I’d want Moby Dick, but I can live without Billy Budd.
Take Five - Dave Brubeck Quartet (if the Island kills me, “40 Days” is the last thing I want to hear.) Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen Symphony 9 - Beethoven - Berlin Philharmonic, von Karajan conducting, Deutsche Grammaphon recording 1973 Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
Books
Nightwatch - Terry Pratchett (in fact, add on the omnibus editions that include all the Watch books and all the Witches books) 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Previous posters have covered my essentials for the library already
