Okay another hypothetical- you are gonna be in a cabin or desert island or something for a year. No TV, no internet, a sat phone to check on home but limited, but you do get books.
But only three authors.
Obviously you want to choose favorite authors- books you can re-read. But also prolific ones.
I choose- Rex Stout- Nero wolfe mysteries and a few others.
Ben Aaronovitch- Rivers of London, and the associated graphic novels.
Isaac Asimov- lots of good stuff, interesting non fiction (I might learn a few things) and some great SF. Very prolific.
Insufficiently precise. What is a “book?” Is it one bound volume, or is it what the author called a book (e.g. there are six of those in Lord of the Rings)? While we’re in this neighborhood, does Christopher Tolkien count as a different author from JRR Tolkien?
I think Anthony Trollope would be a good choice, he wrote, by precise count, a zillion books, that each take quite a long time to read.
Related question: can I have them on an e-reader like a Kindle, with a little generator to keep it going?
In any case, the number of books would not be an issue for me, by the time I had read all of them, I would have forgotten the earlier ones and could read them again.
I’ve never read either author but I suspect Barbara Cartland’s works are really repetitive. I remember reading Robert Ludlum novels and they seemed a bit repetitive.
In any case, the number of books would not be an issue for me, by the time I had read all of them, I would have forgotten the earlier ones and could read them again.
already there…did the entire Neville Shute opus last year. Remembered very little about them 40 years+ on.
I might sub in the Alexandria Quartet to keep my vocabulary sharp but then would need dictionary or Google.
Forgetting works helps. My favorite author was rather prolific but i never get bored reading his fiction because by the time I’ve finished reading all 40 books, I’ve forgotten the first one almost completely.
I assume that I get everything - novels, short story collections and non-fiction? Each of them wrote books about writing so perhaps I could use them as inspiration if I also have a pad and a few pens.
I’ve been thinking about this, and while picking authors I like is obviously the way to go, I’m not so sure they have to be prolific. Some authors have written few works, but these have stirred my imagination for decades, while others wrote a lot of stuff that’s good-read-it-but-that’s-it.
Reginald Hill - the Dalziel and Pascoe series of detective procedurals
Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy - I’ve heard very polarised opinions, so its a single book challenge entry
Mark Lewisohn - Beatles (unfinished) Trilogy - glorious ultra-fat biography, hoping he gets more than Vol. 1 [1700+ pages - and still in Hamburg] out before the ship sets sail.
