Straggler plunges fist into screen and then falls to the floor screaming in exasperation before a van pulls up and the men in white coats drag him off for electro-shock treatment
After ten weeks of intensive treatment, a team of Viennese therapists with sloping brows declare their experimental treatment a failure . . . Straggler is led behind a wall. A single shot is heard.
Straggler, I think it might have helped if you attempted to personalize this list more. For example, "what personally inspires YOU, and what BOOK would that represent?"
For me, in no particular order:
Music: A pop and/or classical songbook. How about the musically varied Beatles' "Fake Songbook".
Architecture: Sir Banister Fletcher's "A History of Architecture". Maybe a book of actual blue-prints of the buildings would be more desirable than just 2-D photos?
Art: Any one of those big, oversized, coffee-table-books, "History of Art". (Really, I would have imagined EVERYONE would have included at least this one book in the list.)
Politics: The Prince, Niccol Machiavelli. Manufactured Consent, Chomsky. Mein Kampf, Hitler. Mao Zedong 'Red Book'. Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, William Blum.
Social: Harry Frederick Harlow research on maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys. Really.
Religion: Choose any one of J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" book.
Humanist: Amazing Randi's "Flim Flam"
Humor: Gosh, what IS humor? (Do not derail the topic Dronester, do not derail). Hmmm, how about Steve Martin's "Cruel Shoes" or Woody Allens "Getting Even".
Food: Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. Or perhaps Kang & Kodos' meat-lover's guide, "To Serve Man."
Erotica: (I'm the ONLY person to consider erotica on this forum? There be geeks!!!) How about either, the Kamasutra, or one heavily-laminated copy of "Big 'Uns"?
drnstr