Three Books, Pt 1

And so I'll read a book/ Or maybe two or three...

So, I've been fascinated by the fact that two recent retellings of the Rapunzel story (Disneys Tangled and Rapunzel's Revenge by Hale, Hale and Hale) have been very clear about the fact that Rapunzel had exactly three books in the tower.

Tangled never went into specifics about what the books were (EDIT: actually they did - see comment), but Hale, Hale and Hale showed us the titles of the books in their version:

• Girls Who Get Saved and the Princes Who Save Them
• Weave Your Own Twig Bonnet
• There's Always Bird Watching

Which made me really want at least one of those books to exist. At present, not-so-much. Give it time.

Anyway, it got me thinking about that game. You know the one: you have to imagine you've been shipwrecked on a deserted island, but somehow you were prepared for such things and you managed to take three books with you; you need to say what three books you would choose and why.

Well, for something different, how about we go with the following variation: you have to imagine you want to lock someone in a tower, and you want to chose three books that will distract them from escaping. They have to be real books that you have actually looked at in your travels.

What three books do you choose, and why?

My three picks for locking with someone in a tower would be:

The Lady of Shallott - the one where the entire book is just Tennyson's poem illustrated by Genevieve Cote. A) because everyone should have some poetry in their lives, even if they happen to be locked in a tower, and b) because the heroine is locked in a tower and dies when she leaves. The hidden message is: "Don't even think about looking out of the windows, it's not worth it".

The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery, by Mildred Graves Ryan (originally published in 1979). Knitting, embroidery, crochet... everything really, and with detailed, illustrated step-by-step instructions. You just need to make sure there's a constant supply of material, and hopefully your victim will keep her/himself occupied.

Gravesend by Jason Fischer. The world is full of zombies. The people who aren't zombies will probably shoot you anyway, just to be sure. You don't want to go out of the tower.

Of course, this is all working on the assumption that I kidnap the victim and lock them in the tower after they have already learnt to read...