If Kirsty Young Called For Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs, the long running BBC radio programme, recently uploaded a tonne of their archived programming from the late 90s till now on to iTunes. I highly recommend the series, which uses a parlour game where one person (in this case, a celeb of some type) chooses eight songs, one book, plus a luxury of some sort (which cannot be a person, nor can it be an iPod thanks to Nick Hornby) to be cast away with. I have posted a desert island list before (three in fact). But I have decided, while listening to a slew of these programmes this last week on my walks home from work, to play the BBC game.

My picks are after the cut.

Desert Island Picks: DVDs

I decided something. I double discs can be counted as a single album, DVD box sets count as a single DVD. After all, why would anyone take season three of The West Wing when one can take the box set?

DVD’s are a difficult thing. I could easily package up ten different TV series box sets. I didn’t do that. ( I took only two complete series, and two seasons of another, plus the only season ever of a fifth). So the following are the five TV series DVDs and five movies I would take with me to an island.

Desert Island Picks: The Book List

There is a new internet meme running around the blogosphere, started here, and being followed here, that I just had to get in on, even though I have three regular readers and am in no way a sparkling intellectual like some of these bloggers. This is easily part of the “Desert Island” list I am currently forming and you will be reading more about over the coming weeks.

I stuck with books I love and still read over and over again ( yes, I am one of those people). I decided that I had to make the list fictional books as opposed to non-fiction simply because I write fiction and those influence my writing more than anything ( except, perhaps, Roger Ebert). Plus, I mostly read biographies, and I didn’t feel like giving a reason why when I was in high school I read Ginger Rogers’ autobiography about thirty times.