I have been amusing myself making a list of books that I would take to a desert island (the reader’s version of the long-running BBC series Desert Island Discs, in which guests are asked to choose 8 records/CDs that they would take with them to a desert island). In no particular order, my choices would be:

1. A blank notebook (and pen)
2. My 1959 Chambers dictionary
3. Barrayar (Lois McMaster Bujold)
4. The Black Chalice (Marie Jakober)
5. Red Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson)
6. The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula Le Guin)
7. The House Tibet (Georgia Savage)
8. My own Legacies

Some of them would be on my list of ‘best books’. Others might not. But if I were going to be stuck on a desert island with just 8 books and my imagination to amuse me, they are the books with the greatest imaginative resonance for me.

When I used to listen to Desert Island Discs you were also allowed to take a luxury item. Mine was always going to be an immense hunk of paramasan cheese. I like parmasan cheese. And having regularly set the fire alarm off in my grad student apartment while grilling provencale topping, I know it smokes very well too. Which, if you’re stranded on a desert island, is a consideration.