Books are the Greatest Treasure of Mankind
A Tribute to the late "Ka Mao" Chanco, veteran journalist, publisher and environmentalist.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Author inspects piles of books for display at a family museum
and reading center, or donated to other reading centers.
Books, once the privilege of a few in pre-printing machine era, each page painstakingly handwritten, each book a well-kept treasure.
Books, the authority, the final say, unquestioned, un-refuted, else any one rising contrary faces punishment, including death or damnation.
Books, the diary, the ledger, the document of conquest and discovery, of battles fought, often in favor of the writer and party.
Books, the novels that carry the greatest stories of all times are called classics, for which they are regarded timeless for their universal values.
Books, the epics of Homer, stories of the Grimm Brothers distilled from oral literature passed through generations to the present.
Books, written ahead of their time - Galileo's astronomy, Darwin's evolution, Martin Luther's Protestantism ignited dis-pleasure of the Church.
Books, bedtime stories, baby's introduction to the world, legends and fantasies that take young ones to the land of make-believe.
Books, the record of ultimate scholarship, are the epitome of the greatest minds in thesis and dissertation, theories and principles.
Books, the precursor of the Internet, the framework of the i-Pod, Tablet, Galaxy, and other gadgets that man becomes a walking encyclopedia.
Books, the progeny of the earliest forms of writing like the cuneiform, hieroglyphics, cave drawings, etchings, scrolls of the Dead Sea.
Books, that gave the idea and structure of the Wonders of the Ancient World, and the significance and belief for which they were built.
Books, that grew with knowledge, brought new schools and movements in arts and philosophy, in unending search for truth.
Books, the most widely read, the Bible; the shortest, Albert Einstein’s e=mc2, and book-to-cinema versions of Spielberg, Lucas, Cecil B de Mille et al.
Books, the greatest treasure of mankind, its collective attributes as humanity, the very stimulus of man's rationality to rise above other creatures - and himself.
Books, that brought about man's disobedience to his creator, playing god, and questioning if god made man, or that man made god.
Books that enlighten man to care for the environment, guide the young and future generations to a better future, and lead man to save his own species from extinction. ~
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The 100 most meaningful books of all time (Internet)
A 2002 survey of around 100 well-known authors from 54 countries voted for the most meaningful book of all time in a poll organized by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo. Voters included Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes and Norman Mailer. Miguel de Cervantes’ tale gained 50% more votes than any other book, eclipsing works by Shakespeare, Homer and Tolstoy.
Ten authors got more than one book on to the list. After Cervantes, Fyodor Dostoevsky emerged as the most worthwhile read with four books listed. The only Shakespeare plays the authors agreed on were Hamlet, King Lear and Othello. The Bard was matched by Franz Kafka whose three angst-ridden tales of grotesque alienation on the list were The Trial, The Castle and the Complete Stories. Three works by Leo Tolstoy made it: War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf both scored twice, along with the Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Other than Don Quixote in first place below, the remaining 99 titles are reproduced as published by De Norske Bokklubbene in alphabetical order and are not ranked.
· Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · King Lear William Shakespeare
· Othello William Shakespeare
· Oedipus the King Sophocles
· The Red and the Black Stendhal
· The Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
· The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories Leo Tolstoy
· Thousand and One Nights
