Desert Island Books

Jerry: You're on a desert island; which five books do you take?
George: I gotta read five books??

Among the books you like, which ones transcend mere enjoyment to become enduringly enjoyable, instructive, refreshing, edifying, necessary?  The question needn't prompt an actual list, but it ought to prompt thinking about what we read and why. Apart from the obvious ones like the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer,  I would want some poetry, probably an anthology; a loved children's story; a work of philosophy (Pascal? Augustine?); and the rest fiction.

I've met people for whom fiction would be the first thing they'd jettison when the boat starts to go down. They'd consider it supremely unnecessary. I think that's why we need it so much. It's the sublimely unnecessary grace of ordinary life; the magic lantern that makes long sunscorched days endurable; the mirror that shows us at once what is and is not there. If you're stuck on a desert island, a mirror is a terrifically handy thing to have.