Your house is on fire: which 5 books would you save?

[emelee]

Obviously, most books can be replaced by buying new copies, but SOME books are really irreplaceable for one or another reason.

 

So, your house is on fire -- which 5 books would you save?

 

 

For me;

 

1. A children's song book that I got from my grandmother

2. Child 312 by Hans-Ulrich Horster -- no longer in production, an old-time favorite

3. Riotous Assembly by Tom Sharpe (Swedish version) -- as above, no longer in production

4. Barnen i Bullerbyn by Astrid Lindgren -- got it as a kid, have some old notes in it I made looong ago

5. One of the other childrens books I have, don't know which one. Huge sentimental value for me.

[Kreader]

None,

 

I can always replace books, I only have one life.

[Talisman]

This is a difficult one for me. The first I would save would of course be a copy of my own book, then the Conversations with God trilogy. The final book I will have to think about, but probably either Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth or a copy of The Bible. It goes without saying that I would also grab my Kindle.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Talisman

[Kafka]

Bible

The Hobbit

Where the Wild Things Are

Raging Bull

 

Those are the only books I own that have sentimental value in their physical copies.

[bookmonkey]

For sentimental value I think there are only two:

Wizard of Oz that my aunt and uncle gave me when I was 8 and Alice In Wonderland. I can't remember where I got it, but I have very fond memories of reading it with my son before lost interest in reading.

I don't think I'd risk it for any others.

[bobblybear]

I don't actually think I have any books that hold sentimental value, so I would just grab my Kindle and run.

[Ruth]

I would want to save my special edition of To Kill A Mockingbird, because my husband bought it for me, knowing it was one of my very favourite books.

 

Other than that, I would probably just grab armfuls of books, and hope to rescue as many as I could.

[chesilbeach]

I don't think I'd save any books - nothing is irreplaceable, even the signed copies I have that I consider precious, wouldn't tempt me to stop and pick them up.

[wordsgood]

Much as I love my books, I doubt I'd try to save any, my arms would be too full of squirming kitties!

[Nocturnal]

Is bringing Kindle with me called cheating?

 

Well, the ones on paper:

 

The Little Prince

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Deadhouse Gates

Kokoro

The Silmarillion

[Alexander the Great]

1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
   I had a very hard time finding an edition I liked, in English, at a reasonable price.
   
2. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
   It'd be easy to purchase them again, but I'd save the Dutch paperback versions because they have sentimental value to me. I've had them for years, and book 5 to 7 were books we waited for in the early morning hours.
   
3. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, & Through The Looking-Glass (And What Alice Found There) by Lewis Carroll.
   This is a unique edition. It's small, but the cover is made of (hopefully and for that price probably fake) leather, and it's generally an older edition that also has that feel to it. I'm sure I'd never find it anywhere else.
   
4. A book with Yeats poems, because it was given to me by my very best friend in the world and she'd had the copy for years herself and it was very dear to her.
   
5. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
   Similar reason as #3 - it's a unique edition and quite old, and I got it cheap. I wouldn't find a version like it elsewhere, especially for that price.