DESERT-ISLAND-LIBRARY.
Sir,-Most lists of books for castaways or other inhabitants of desert islands consist largely of the books no one else ever gets time to read. I think the list should go like this: Section A: Edible Plants and How to Distinguish Them from @oisonous Ones, with an appendix on Simple Antidotes, Just in Case; Simple Cooking for Amateurs; Simple Carpentry for Amateurs; Simple Boat-building for Amateurs, etc. Section B: Simple methods of making all the tools, utensils, etc. mentioned in all the books in Section A. Section C: Ditto for all the tools, etc. mentioned in all the books in Section B. And so on, in an infinite regress, until we reach Section Z. Leisure Reading. Here we just have a brief note: "Castaways have no leisure. Even people baching in a' highly civilised community, with Woolworth’s just around the corner, don’t have much. One light novel to read on the ship which finally rescues you will be ample." For my own part, I am sure I would spend the first ten years trying to make the first tool with which to make the first tool with which to make .... ete.
MAEVIUS
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19431022.2.9.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 3
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194DESERT-ISLAND-LIBRARY. New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 3
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