Time Machine Books

[Jamie123]

Right at the end of The Time Machine (the 1960 movie, based on H.G.Wells' story of the same name), after the time-traveller has departed back into Earth's future to help the Eloi fight the terrible Morlocks, the following conversation takes place:

Filby: He must have taken something with him...

Housekeeper: Nothing... except three books.

Filby: Which three books?

Housekeeper: I don't know... is it important?

Filby: Oh, I suppose not. Only, which three books would you have taken?

I know it's a very predictable question, but which three would you have taken?

(Please don't include The Bible, the Book of Mormon, or any other books of scripture: I'm assuming you keep a full set of those in your time machine anyway.)

P.S. I'm still trying to decide what mine would be.

[Wingnut]

Why is it a predictable question?

[Jamie123]

Why is it a predictable question?

LOL - well what else was I going to ask? Have you ever built a time machine and battled Morlocks in the year three million?

[zippy_do46]

Ok this is so wrong but the first thing that .... (shaking her head... for shame)

Joy of Cooking!!! I know I know very bad .... :) the scriptures were in the Time Machine though. :)

[marshac]

I think back to the future part 2 had it right-

Oh- and since i'm going back in time, maybe some really thick medical books to walk me through how to synthesize penicillin or something

[Wingnut]

Call me stupid, but I don't get it. If you're going to the future, wouldn't it be assumed that any book you could take with you would already exist in the future?

If we're talking about going into the past, that changes things. I would also want to know how far in the past (that would affect what I would bring, based on publication dates.)

[Dravin]

Call me stupid, but I don't get it. If you're going to the future, wouldn't it be assumed that any book you could take with you would already exist in the future?

I wouldn't assume that. Do we really expect to find a copy, digital or hardbound of Twilight several hundred years in the future? Shakespeare may survive at this point (to wide spread for a Library of Alexandria event to wipe out known copies), but my Clive Cussler collection I wouldn't be so sure of.

If we're talking about going into the past, that changes things. I would also want to know how far in the past (that would affect what I would bring, based on publication dates.)

You can have fun with time travel into the past. If I brought a history book, assuming I didn't cause the destruction of the publisher, author or otherwise cause the book to never be written and published would the book change to reflect things? The writer would have written it to reflect history before I took it back. Or would it be protected in its own temporal change proof bubble? Of course that even presupposes you could affect history. You would have already made your attempt before the future rolled around and the history was written down.

Edited March 13, 2010 by Dravin

[marshac]

Call me stupid, but I don't get it. If you're going to the future, wouldn't it be assumed that any book you could take with you would already exist in the future?

You're right- my quick reading of the OP's statement lead me to believe that we were going back in time- not forward in time.

...after the time-traveller has departed back into Earth's future to help the Eloi fight...

my bad :)

[Moksha]

So, what three books would Wells have deemed most useful for the Eloi? Considering the time period, I wonder if one would have been an elementary reader. although I am thinking that the McGuffy Reader was strictly an American item. Would Wells even have such basic books in his library? Wonder if Wells would have viewed the Bible to be a help or a hinderence to a fresh new culture?

[talisyn]

Understanding Sun Tzu on the Art of War That Sun guy knew what he was talking about

Chemistry for dummies [book]

so you can make super cool bombs and fizzy drinks.

and you can't go wrong with this

Amazon.com: Greek and Roman Artillery: Technical Treatises (Oxford University Press academic monograph reprints) (9780198142690): Eric William Marsden: Books

The way I see it is this. Philosophy, govt., medicine, and all that good stuff will evolve naturally. What the Eloi needed right then and there were effective ways of dealing with their cannibalistic cousins. If I were in the intrepid time traveler's shoes these would def be on my must-have list.

edit: naturally I'd have a quad on hand. One must balance fighting with righteousness lest one fall into the same pit the Lamanites found.

Edited March 13, 2010 by talisyn

[Dravin]

edit: naturally I'd have a quad on hand. One must balance fighting with righteousness lest one fall into the same pit the Lamanites found.

A quad in a sturdy scripture case makes a decent last ditch weapon, tie a stout rope to the handles and it could be viscous. :)

[talisyn]

If you get it leather bound it might stop a hungry guy long enough for you to get away, too

[rayhale]

I would create my own book of instructions on how to build, and to repair, the time machine, and bring it. Bring a survivors guide. Bring a book that explains how to talk to someone that doesn’t know your language, a linguist type of book.

[Jamie123]

Every time I think about it, I come to a different choice. But if I'm forced to choose then:

1. Plato's Republic - partly because I've never managed to finish it, and partly because what I have read of it has really made me think.

2. The Lord of the Rings. I'm not one of these people who re-reads it every year, but I have read it several times and never yet found it tiresome (except for some of the more tedious bits between Mount Doom and them getting back to the Shire, but even those have grown on my with successive readings).

3. For light relief, Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This is another book I'd not easily get tired of.

By the way - these are based on the kind of reading I'd need to keep me sane, rather than what would be particularly useful to the Eloi. That's more-or-less what I had in mind when I posted the question.

Life with just 3 books would be tough though, and other books I'd yearn for would be David Hume's Dialogues, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, the poetry of Wordsworth and Tennyson and....too many more to mention!