if you could only possess one book... (1 Viewer)

d gray

tried to do his best but could not
Founding member
what would it be.

dumb, unfair question but don't let that stop you.

i'd have to go with the Egon Schiele catalogue raisonne.
 
Moby Dick with illustrations by Rockwell Kent.

kent-moby.jpg kent2.jpg
Rockwell+Kent+-+Moby+Dick+-+The+Chase.jpg moby7.jpg

first edition, near fine would be nice. ;)
 
The Brothers Karamazov. Or are you talking collectible?

i was thinking of spiritual value but that could apply to collectible as well.

if i was going for collectible it would have to be a 1st of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe illustrated by Arthur Rackham
 


You know, all other things being equal . . . just saying.


Unless this is a desert island scenario or something, in which case I would want something more substantial and less snarky.

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Oh...spiritual value...now I have to reconsider...
 
i was thinking of spiritual value but that could apply to collectible as well.

if i was going for collectible it would have to be a 1st of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Gotcha. Your collectible pick is a damn good one.
 
not to be too gloaty (okay, maybe a liiiiitle bit gloaty), but i own pretty much all of the books i've been DESPERATE for:

a signed raymond carver book
a signed ray caesar art book
a signed first of tobias wolff's in the garden of north american martyrs
 
If I could only have one book, the edition or dust jacket wouldn't matter, it would have to be something worth going back to over and over again. I guess I'd choose the I Ching. But not one of those fucking new age versions, translated by some goat-cheese eating twat with beads; the translation by Richard Wilhelm (1924) as rendered into English by Cary Baynes (1950) would do nicely. I'll take my 22nd printing from 1987.
 
If I could only possess one... I think I'd sell them all, and all the music, movies, and everything... and just not have any of them. Why not? I've read them, you know. If I have a desire for one - I'll go to a library I haven't been kicked out of for not returning things. Use the money to make bets with.

"Sell the bed if you want to, make bets with it, because I'll be passing out on the floor from now on." - Terri Garr, Let it Ride.
 
Even though I have read the good book more often and I refer to it still quite often if not too often it is getting to be a bit old news now and IF and IF and IF I was down to one I guess it WOULD have to be George Orwell`s 1984 for all the lessons unlearned from it to this day where more and more politicians are playing Big Brother, inventing and creating Goldsteins one after another and are spinning us in quite a new form of limiting NewSpeak a la Harrison Bergeron where Idiofuckingcracy rules.
 
What a cliche :p. Why not just choose Slaughterhouse Five ;).

Upon further thinking about this - I would salvage one. Before she died, my grandmother bought me a copy of Dr. Zhivago. I'd keep that one. Out of pure sentiment for her, and the love story in pre & post revolution Russia. A wonderful euphemism.
 
^ "And if an epitaph be my story, I'd have a short one ready for my own: I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

Brilliant stuff, love.
 

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