Kevin's Watch

I watched The Time Machine(the old one, you know... the one that is good). Long story short, the future(80,000 years) is in a mess and George(main character) makes it more of a mess. He returns to the past but then goes back(or forward) to help them and takes with him 3 books but he doesn't say which three books.
So I was wondering, if you had to rebuilt civilisation in the future which three books would you take with you? Over to you.

Interesting question! I would take the Analects of Confucius, which would provide a framework for the ideal government and society; then the The Sutta Pitaka (discourses of The Buddha), and the Collected Works of William Shakespeare.

A survival book, a First Aid book and my own journal; any other books wouldn't help, so I'd just have to wing it.

btw, if you haven't read the original book by HG Wells, I highly recommend it. It's short and better than the movies; and rather different, too.

A first aid/medical book, some big reference manual that explains how to build generators, engines and the like, and a collection of all the US's founding documents.

By the way if you want to read about a scenario involving the rebuilding of human society, read A Canticle for Leibowitz, where Earth is in a new Dark Ages after a nuclear apocalypse, and it is Roman Catholic monasteries that have "ancient" documents like blueprints and shopping lists that rebuild human society. That book kind of shows that with a little help, humanity gets right back to where it was before, and beyond.

I've heard of that. Gotta pick it up.

Some of Bach's sheet music, The Illearth War, and a book by Dean Koontz (for firewood).

A book on chemistry, the Necronomicon, and.. uh... oh wait, forward in time... hmmm...

Probably the most comprehensive text books I could find on electronics, machinery/metalworking, and medicine.

My liberal ass would take:Walden,The Hobbit,and Horton Hears a Who.Gotta try to start things off on the right foot.

the Bible
orig. obs. : by dennis r wood
the Wastelands : TS Eliot

Lord Mhoram wrote:By the way if you want to read about a scenario involving the rebuilding of human society, read A Canticle for Leibowitz, where Earth is in a new Dark Ages after a nuclear apocalypse, and it is Roman Catholic monasteries that have "ancient" documents like blueprints and shopping lists that rebuild human society. That book kind of shows that with a little help, humanity gets right back to where it was before, and beyond.

Yep, yep, yep. Excellent book. I think it's time to have Beorn reread it. A lot of it went over his head in 6th grade. And I culd use a reread as well.

No idea on which three books I would bring. I haven't seen the movie in years, but if I recall correctly, the humans in the future had basically no education or communication skills at all. So Horton Hears a Who is a great choice, although I think to try to circumvent a reemerging society from damaging Mother Earth, I wuld go with The Lorax instead.

I would probably make my other two choices more advanced in education, but I am unsure what to choose. Although I am thinking The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran would be one of them...

Rather than bring just three books back, I'd try and prevent the fire of the library at Alexandria...you know, fit it with smoke alarms and fire extinguishers? Who knows how much REAL truth was burned (and was it arson perchance?)

Yeah, I gotta go with a big fat technical manual for getting power back on etc, a serious medical book, (not just first aid), and, I dunno, a book about natural psychadelics maybe.

Canticle is awesome. And The Prophet is one of my all time favourites alongside Illusions and Zen Without Zen Masters.

I wouldn't need to take The Prophet though...I'm well on the way to memorizing it.

--A

I'd take a big book which is just instructional books piled together, the bible, and all SRD books.

Avatar wrote:I wouldn't need to take The Prophet though...I'm well on the way to memorizing it.

So you would begin a storyteller tradition of The Prophet with the future humans, Av? I wouldn't trust my own ability to teach the book from memory without coloring it with my own perceptions.

Or are you saying once in the future, you would write out The Prophet from memory for prosperity?