There is an idiotic question that pops up often in popular magazines: which book would you take to a desert island? And my idiotic answer is long ready: my own.

Addendum I (December 18, 2015)

Well, I would also need a laptop, a solar panel, and a battery as the power source, as well as an antenna for the connection to the World Wide Web. When it comes to books, I would turn out to be a veritable freak of modern technology. Alas, the 1996 edition of my Residua would not do any longer, for it stops exactly half way into my writing extravaganza. Sadly, the full printed edition covering forty years of writing would now take roughly six volumes of the same size as twenty years ago. One way or another, I would have to take a whole load with me to that proverbial desert island. Would that my writings were much, much shorter…

Addendum II (February 15, 2017)

As time goes by, and it appears to go by ever faster, my own book is nearly the only one I read even without going to a desert island. Although I still read other books on occasion, their number is dwindling pretty fast. In a few short years, they are likely to go the way of the dodo. Be that as it may, now I spend most of my time with my own book or one of the many selections from it. And there are many of them, indeed. Put differently, my world has shrunk to a desert island of sorts. By now, the idiotic question that pops up often in popular magazines has become a dash too palpable for comfort. All I actually need wherever I go as of late is my laptop and its power cord. Nowadays, the World Wide Web is available everywhere I happen to be going, as well. My desert island in a nutshell.