If you could only save one Book which would it be?

Bible, no doubt there. Not sure which version, I like the KJV but also the IV

2018! It's a good thread to keep going though Kate1949.

I've narrowed my choice down to:
- Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck,
- The Colour of Magic by Sir Terry Pratchett or
- The Thought Fox: Collected Animal Poems by Ted Hughes.

I've lost my copy of Grapes of Wrath and lent Colour of Magic to my GD so I'd better hold onto the poems. I discovered my love of poetry, especially 20th century poets, in my 30s. For me Ted Hughes' poems are both dark and beautiful.

“Great Expectations” by Dickens or Oswald Wynd’s “The Ginger Tree”. I’m another fan of “A Town Like Alice”.

Many tests ago , I was about 17 I did save a Bible from being thrown on a bonfire. I was not particularly religious but simply could not stand by and watch the Bible burn .
Eloethan, Black Like Me was given to me by a South African boyfriend I had many years ago, really took me back to my late teens.

A history of the English speaking peoples (unabridged) by W. S Churchill. Four volumes in one! Guess I'm cheating too!!

I'm not sure I could choose just one - if I absolutely had to, I think I'd either go for the collected poems of Sylvia Plath, or The Bell Jar.
And while I don't ever condone the burning of books, if I had to choose one to throw on the fire, my first choice would be the one mentioned by many on here - and I don't mind offending those who chose it, The Bible!

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management - contains everything one needs to survive.

Oops just realised this is an old thread!

To Kill a Mockingbird for me.

I have read so many of the books listed, others I am going to search out for future reading. My 'one' book choice would be Mila 18 by Leon Uris, read as a teenager and never forgotten. But really I am going to cheat and grab my Kindle, it would give me several weeks reading, it is always loaded as I am often tempted by the Kindle unlimited special offers.

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That's a very hefty book, all in one volume, watermeadow.

The Lord of the Rings. One of many books I’ve read many times. I’m currently on the journey again with my 8 year old grandson.

Hi guilia - I have a problem with re-reading "Lark Rise to Candleford" because, at the moment, I can't find it! Too many books stored in too many places but when I find it...................I will read it!!

Interesting that one of the choices, by more than one person, is one I would definitely take time to throw into the fire on my way out! Not going to offend anyone by saying which one. Thank you Humbert for this lovely book list. I've already made a note of some to take to the library with me. I thought about Les Liaisons Dangereuses - I remember being astounded at school at how cleverly it was constructed, or Lorna Doone, a wonderful book with a happily contrived ending. And I definitely would like to read more Dickens. In the end I think I'd plump for the complete works of Jane Austen, to keep me going for a very long time. And the photograph album of when my DC were small. Sorry, another cheat.

"Cider With Rosie" by Laurie Lee, surely the most beautiful book in the English language?

The book Thief..... Marcus Zusak.

Just remembered - "How Green Was My Valley" by Richard Llewelyn. Some lovely homely descriptions in soft Welsh dialect. The narrator, a boy, at one point describes the sheer bliss of sinking his teeth into a blackberry pie. Made my mouth water just reading. It was a big seller in the sixties but seems to have disappeared off the shelves.

DanniRae I'll join you and re-read mine again too.

giulia - Maybe I'm getting confused and it's in another book! I'm looking forward to re-reading it anyway.

An impossible task but if I’ve got to choose, I’m going to cheat and choose two - The ragged trousered philanthropists by Robert Tressell , the story of how working people were ripped off by everyone would be the first and Red Dust Road by Jacqui Kaye - a biography with great resonance for me, my sneaked in second choice.

DanniRae I don't remember that phrase but the book is so full of a dreamy- rural- bees-buzzing feel, I just wish I had lived in that period.

PS. I loved "Cider with Rosie" too!
"A Child in the Forest" and "Back to the Forest" by Winifred Foley are excellent too.

Hi giulia - I am planning on re-reading "Lark Rise to Candleford" as soon as I finish my current book. I haven't read it for a long time but I think it says somewhere in it that someone was "dabbing out a bit of washing" - I love that way of describing wash day!

Clematisa: When I was teaching lower juniors I always read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the class in the run up to Easter.