January 27, 2025
Towards the end of 2024, I began wishing friends a happy new year with the admonition, “Cheer up. Things will be better. 2025 couldn’t be worse than 2024.”
Well…so far, 2025 has caused me to rethink my claim. In a nation more deeply divided since the Civil War, we’ve been plagued by increased global conflict and a wide range of international challenges. My city, Los Angeles, has faced fires on a scale not seen here in my lifetime, as well as the threat of floods. I haven’t talked to anyone who doesn’t know at least one family whose home and all if not most of its contents burned to the ground.
A few days ago, I heard someone pose the question, “What three books would you take with you if you had to evacuate?”
While I readily acknowledge that food and shelter should take priority these days, I found myself going back to this question. It’s led me to thinking about the books I have read in my reading lifetime and which I’d want to keep if I could. I also thought about the importance of books as an “escape route” when the realities of the disaster became overwhelming.
Here’s what I came up with: Fiction choices include The Complete Works of Jane Austen and The Complete Sherlock Holmes. These I picked because their stories take place in Great Britain, a favorite location, and because they are beautifully written. For non-fiction, I chose Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste , a brilliant explanation of inequality in America, an issue more important than ever.
So now I issue the challenge: What three or four books would you take with you if you were forced to evacuate? Why these choices?