Desert Island Books
I have been known as the reader of my family for my entire life. Since I figured out how to read (a delayed start for me) I am not often without a book. From this, when in conversations, I’m often asked the inevitable question: what is my favorite book?
Now, anyone who reads books often will tell you that this is an impossible question to answer. My favorite book changes all the time. It could change tomorrow if I find a good one. But more than that, my favorite book changes with my mood, how hungry I am, the time of the month, or even the time of day.
Then there is the type of favorite to consider, and I have to guess what I should say based on who I’m speaking to and what kind of conversation I want to have with them. Am I honest that ACOTAR was my summer obsession and I would genuinely love to reread the books? Do I say something everyone had to read in school, like Catcher and the Rye, to ensure we have something to talk about? Do I pick something obscure that they’ve likely never heard of so I seem interesting? Do I pick something more recent in high-brow literature, like The Goldfinch, so they think highly of me? Or what about a politically charged book? Something about social activism? Something that shook me to my core? (A Thousand Splendid Suns, most recently, if you were wondering).
Being asked my favorite book has always been a tricky question for me. As you can see, I’ve put, likely, too much thought into it. Instead, I have reframed the question for myself.
What’s my desert island book? This is much easier for me to contemplate. Picking a favorite book seems like a rejection of all the other phenomenal books I’ve read in my life. But if I was trapped on a desert island and I could only bring one or maybe two books with me to entertain myself, which would I choose?
No Spoilers.
2. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Who doesn’t love a murder mystery? What makes Tartt’s writing so exceptional is the way she completely wraps you in whatever story she’s writing. Within only a few hundred pages, I forget whatever is happening in my own life and become completely devoted to understanding her story. The Secret History was the first Donna Tartt book I read. It blew up on TikTok at just the right time and as a graduated Classics student myself, I was immediately sold. I have more recently read her latest work The Goldfinch, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014, and it is also an exceptional story that kept me engaged throughout the entirety of its many pages. Nevertheless, A Secret History holds a special place for me as an idealized, romanticized notion of what it means to be a Classics student in a small, private college in a small Northeastern town. Every humanities student knows that draw of the dark academia aesthetic, and Tartt beautifully presents it. If I was on a desert island hoping to escape from my worries for a bit, I’d certainly allow the worries of these characters, of which there are many, to take up space in my brain.
1. The Iliad, Homer
As I said, I majored in Classical Language and Literature in my undergraduate career. I didn’t intend this when I first went into college. I began as an English major, concentrating on Publishing studies. But at my university, we had to take 3 levels of a foreign language, and my language from high school was Latin. This was originally because at my high school, the spoken languages had to take speaking exams one-on-one with the teacher and I was quite shy at the time so I went with the dead language (not spoken) to avoid that anxiety all together. After taking the university’s entrance exam, I was placed into Latin 3. It was incredibly difficult and I was close to dropping back down to a lower level until my professor encouraged me to stick with it, and come to her with any questions. Within the semester, I became devoted to learning more and absolutely fascinated with the ancient world. She insisted I take on a second major, and after another semester, this time in Ancient Greek, I worked out my schedule and figured out it wouldn’t take any additional time to complete, so I added Classics to my coursework.
Fast-Forward to senior year and I am writing my Honor’s thesis in the Classics department on the Homeric influence in the ancient world. This was the first time I read the Iliad. It’s an incredible story, worth all of the recognition it has received in the thousands of years it has existed. Each character is so complex and each piece of the story invokes stories outside of the pages in front of you, yet it all still works on its own. It is war and love and anger and anguish. Some characters commit terrible atrocities, while others stand strong in defense of their home and deserve far more recognition than they have received by history (cough, cough, Hector).
But more than all of that, this is one of the oldest stories recorded in the Western world. Homer composed the Iliad around the 8th century BCE. It is hard to imagine a world more different than one so long ago compared to the way we live now. Yet all of the emotions the characters experienced still happen today all around the world. It would be comical if it wasn’t true that I am able to understand my life now in 2025 with much more clarity after reading the Iliad and recognizing in myself the emotions of the characters within it. I could read this story forever and always take something new from each reading.