Desert Island Books, 2011 edition

Back in 2008 I posted a list of my Desert Island Books, and now I think it’s time to do another one. Just to make sure I do this right, I didn’t look at the old list before drawing up this version.

Rules:
There can be more than one book in a volume, but I can only choose10 volumes plus a book of national importance to my culture and one religious book.
Since there is no electricity on my fictional desert island and I can only take a limited number of batteries with me – all of which I will need to power my flashlight and an emergency radio – I can not take an e-book reader.

My culturally important book is the Icelandic Sagas and the religious book is the Koran.

If only allowed to take 10 volumes (plus the above two) I would choose:

The collected works of William Shakespeare, because I want to finish reading the plays and, frankly, I need seclusion in order to concentrate on the historical plays.
Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Mallory. I love Arthurian legends and have only read a few chapters of this.
One of my Terry Pratchett omnibuses (three books in one volume).
The Once and Future King by T.H. White (all the books in one volume).
The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, in one volume.
The Arabian Nights, a contemporary translation. I read an old, cleaned-up version as a teenager and now I would like to read an unexpurgated one.
Dalalíf (an Icelandic multi-generational family epic) by Guðrún frá Lundi. Something I have always wanted to read but never got round to.
South Wind by Normal Douglas, because I want to read it and because it takes place on an island, albeit not a desert one.
Nostromo by Joseh Conrad. Another TBR book I have been putting off reading.
Ulysses by James Joyce. I am not ready to sacrifice one of my other choices for a book of annotations for Ulysses, so I will only choose this one if I can find an annotated version (it probably doesn’t exist, as the resulting volume would weigh in at about 2 kilos or have type so minuscule as to require a magnifying glass to read it). If the above is unavailable I would instead choose Sjálfstætt Fólk (Independent People) by Halldór Laxness.

Taking a look at the old list I see that only three of my previously self-chosen books made the cut (White, Guðrún frá Lundi and The Arabian Nights) and the culturally important book was the same. I guess that tells me what I should be reading in the course of the year...

Dear reader, do you have a list of desert island books?

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