BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS!

by Miko Johnston

After spending the better part of a quarter-century writing about how the world has changed, I can’t help but envision similar scenarios in the future. Imagine if humans had to start all over again. What would you preserve?

For me, books would top the list. Books would teach the necessary lessons of how to do everything, how to live, and how to learn. Books provide food for thought, whether on who we are, why we’re here, or what we can do. We read books for entertainment, stories that tell tales both familiar and foreign. Books remind us of places we’ve been to and transport us to places we’ve never been. Books can ensure our salvation.

I know which books give me pleasure, but if I had to create a repository for a new world, I’d have to consider more than which books I enjoy. For starters, I’d have to think of how to organize my selections – do I catalog them, like the Dewey Decimal System, or go with something more instinctive, like by subject headings as you’d find them in a bookstore?

Once I picked my system, I’d select books based on what future generations would need, at every reading age and level. Baby board books. Early learning books and age-appropriate stories for the young. Textbooks on critical subjects: math, the sciences, history, the social sciences, language, and literature. Medicine. Mechanics and engineering. Religion and philosophy. Law and criminology. Biographies, memoirs, and essays. Sheet music, plays, and poetry. Books that have influenced us since their publication. Learning who we’ve been, what we’ve accomplished, and I suppose in this scenario, where we may have failed, ought to guide us into the future.

Next, I’d focus on DIY/how-to manuals, everything to support the necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter, safety, and health – physical and mental. Knowing how to raise, grow, cook, and preserve food. Weave cloth, sew, and knit. Build a house or a table and keep it functioning as well as clean, fix a leaky faucet, or rewire a lamp. How to play a musical instrument, write a play, or a story. How to interact with people. I’d do everything I could to preserve our acquired knowledge, with the same urgency as preserving humanity.

Last but certainly not least, I’d add a section of fiction, with a variety of eras, genres, and styles. Classic literature mixed with modern fiction. Books about the human condition, at least as it existed in the past. About growing up and becoming an adult. About growing old and facing mortality. About doing good and being bad. Books about human emotions. Adventures to thrill, mysteries to ponder, suspense and horror to send chills down the spine. The hybrids – science fiction, historical fiction, and creative memoir.

I don’t know if the new world will be brave, cowardly, or complacent, but as long as people are living and can read, there ought to be books.

Am I being alarmist with this scenario?

Years ago, I visited the Benaki Museum in Athens, essentially a repository of Greek culture. As I went through the chronological display of objects dating back to prehistoric times, I noticed with each passing century a gradual sophistication and technical advancement in the articles on display, including some that would be at home in modern times. Then suddenly, the objects turned primitive again. No explanation was given, but I assumed some catastrophic event, either natural or man-made, caused the change. Over the thousands of years covered in the exhibit, it happened twice.

***

If you had to create a library for the future, what books would you include?

Miko Johnston, a founding member of The Writers in Residence, is the author of the historical fiction series, “A Petal in the Wind”, as well as a contributor to several anthologies. Miko lives in Washington (the big one) with her rocket scientist husband. Contact her at mikojohnstonauthor@gmail.com