Put these in your pack

We asked CC folks, past and present, “What book would you most want if you were stranded on a desert island?” Almost half of them said, “Well, the Bible, but if you mean other than the Bible, then . . .” So no particular order, here’s what we’d recommend putting in your pack if you ever plan to spend a lot of time alone somewhere desolate:

When I lived in Korea with my missionary parents, we spent part of our holiday in a cottage close to the Yellow Sea. I think I was around 11 years old when I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee within that cottage sanctuary. There was much I didn’t understand about the novel or society, but, even as I felt safe and secure, I learned that there is grave injustice in the world and there are righteous people who stand up for what is just.  

– Sonya Vanderveen Feddema, reviewer

If I can’t take a loaded Kindle with lots of words stored electronically let me take Bill Watterson’s The Complete Calvin & Hobbes collection of cartoons that reminds me why I might not miss society.

– Roelof (Rudy) Eikelboom, columnist

Well, in order to survive on this island I think it would be essential to have a book on native edible plants!  And where to find drinking water if it was an island in the ocean. A book such as Eat and Drink – on a Deserted Island by Jenn Tile Seek.

– Louisa Bruinsma, reviewer

I’ve yet to read a book that has illumined my faith and consoled my soul as profoundly as Frederick Buechner’s Godric. But it’s so brief! Perhaps a more unusual choice — the Blue Psalter Hymnal of my youth, whose psalms and hymns still bubble up unbidden while I’m riding my bike in the summertime. I’ll be in good company with Fleming Rutledge who tweeted in June: “I don’t seem to be able to quote much Scripture from memory. What I can remember is the words of hymns. I’d be in a bad way without them.” 

– Cathy Smith, former features editor and columnist

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. While it’s a novel, it’s composed as short stories from eight different women’s perspectives, four mother-daughter pairs. There is so much depth, symbolism and meaning packed into this book. 

– Melissa Kuipers, reviewer and former columnist

If I knew I would be stranded on an island, I would take a blank journal and finally write down the book pieces that float in my mind because “there should be a book about this.”  If found after my demise, I hope it would be testimony to the never-ending love of learning new ideas and stories. 

– Kathy Vandergrift, columnist and reviewer

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Any Cormac McCarthy novel redeems a desert island – or a frivolous sermon. Lapsed Catholic McCarthy wrote like a dour Calvinist, heavy on human depravity, always, finally glimpsing Grace. All evoke biblical allusions. The Road’s Christ-like dying father leads his son eastward through devastated America to a new adoptive family.

– James Dekker, board member and reviewer

The first book that came to mind for me is A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout. I first read that book during the early months of the pandemic and even though isolation with a baby isn’t near as bad as being held captive in Somalia, I still found great solace and companionship in her story. If I was stuck on a desert island, I can imagine trying to build a world in my mind, like she does in the book.

– Meghan Kort, assistant editor

My pick is Richard J. Foster’s Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. It could be considered a modern classic since it draws on ancient themes and sources. I read this book ten years ago; being on a desert island seems like a good setting to reread and further reflect on its contents. 

– Harriette Mostert, reviewer

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – a book I keep returning to. I first read it on a work trip to Sri Lanka, a country freshly emerging from civil war, and found it comforting company when I felt anxious or homesick. I think I’d be fortified by the tender, grounded wisdom of Rev. John Ames’ ponderings as rendered in Robinson’s gently roaming prose. 

– Adele Gallogly, review editor

Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I would choose this one (I’d want to choose more!) because it would encourage me that even in apparent hopelessness God is able to do the impossible. That might not mean rescue (it didn’t for Bonhoeffer) but it might mean my own transformation into a disciple of Jesus.

– Michael Wagenman, reviewer

Stranded on a desert island, with little vegetation, no human and little animal company, I would want to have Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer. The loneliness, barrenness and limited fertility of the desert landscape would meet the rich fecundity and wonderfully redemptive relationality of humans, animals, plants and landscape in Kingsolver’s sensual tale.

– Brian Walsh, reviewer

My desert island book is The Complete Works of Hadewijch, translated by Mother Columba Hart. Hadewijch was a thirteenth century Christian mystic from the Low Countries, who is only known by her writings. She probably led a spiritual community of lay women. Her visions, poems, and letters explore the soul’s journey to conquer and be conquered by the Love which is the Triune God. 

          “They who are filled with high Love

          Shall complain little,

          Whatever pain befalls them.

               They shall be like the wise—

               Always in deep humility,

          Ready for high Love

          Whatever Love commands, be it far, be it nigh,

          In dying, in living, whatever it is,

          In liberty without fear:

     So it is that high Love is first revealed to us.“

– John C. Medendorp

The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton. I don’t recall how this book came to me. But there it was on my shelf one day, like some literary manna. Merton’s recollection and translation of the Desert Fathers – those Christian mystics, sages, and oddballs of the 4th century Egyptian desert – offers much sustenance and savvy for the soul as it stands alone before God.

– Brian Bork, former review editor

I first read it on a work trip to Sri Lanka and found it comforting company when anxious or homesick. I think I’d be fortified by the tender, grounded wisdom of Rev. John Ames’ ponderings as rendered in Robinson’s
gently roaming prose.

– Adele Gallogly, review editor

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The writing style is so good that I would read it slowly. The story of Liesel Meminger in Nazi Germany during WWII is powerful, and I don’t think would get easily sick of it. Reading a book narrated by death would provide both irony and motivation to stay alive.

– Jenna Boone, digital editor