If you could memorize one (1) book flawlessly, what would you choose?

If you could memorize one (1) book flawlessly, what would you choose?

I was personally considering a dictionary, but I am interested in your less autistic conclusions.

why would I want to memorize a book?

Moby dick probably

To weld its words to your soul.

the communist manifesto

Finnegans Wake

As much as I appreciate the immediate interest, I was hoping for some elaboration on WHY as well as WHAT. My bad for not being more clear in the OP.

would a book printed by me count?
if so print out every text that could be usefull and compile it into a single book

>Catch-22

>WHY

Don't fucking know, just answering a stupid goddamn question.

because i always want to be able to flawlessly recite it at any time at all costs (if exproprietated)

The Holy Bible

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, user. An endless source of entertainment, from musicality to literary enjoyment. Experiences and teachings.

I've yet to encounter a book with better prose than Moby Dick, so I'd love to be able to have any given passage permanently encoded in my repertoire, available whenever I want.

Sure. The more subtle purpose behind the question though is, "What information is worth memorizing in a modern day with so much freely available information?"

So your answer doesn't do much to narrow it down.

i only want this so i can quote random obscure lines or passages and lend momentary credibility to my essays and / or poems

Seems like something you could do with a little googlefu anyway. I think is closest to the mark when it comes to why you'd do this.

The Bible

my diary, desu

The Qaran

A thesaurus

Pretty much. Every problem would have an answer.

why the fuck would you want to memorize a book? what matter is understanding it, grasping its message.

which dictionary though?

Why read a book if its message can be distilled into a pithy quote? Why not just write the message for people to read instead of the book? Surely that is more time efficient.

Either the Bible, The Imitation of Christ, or The Prophet

I hadn't given it consideration. Perhaps you have an opinion on which dictionary is best?

Some cookbook probably

True understanding almost requires memorization. You think you can truly grasp a book by skimming and speedreading a mere once or twice?

it'd be impossible because i'm not prescriptivist scum

this. NRSV. with the non-canonical books.

if not the Encyclopedia Britannica, if that counts as a singular work

KJV

Dictionary

It would be fun to choose the dictionary and be able to wield a super genius level lexicon but I'd still have to go with The Bible.

It's such an obvious choice, really.

Mahabharata.

Don Quijote

This this this. Oh, and did I mention this?

A book containing all books

The Phenomenology of Spirit.

Poo in loo

infinite jest

Hans Christian Anderson's Fairytales

My diary desu

Paradise Lost desu senpai

Mein Kampf

The book of the new sun.
A- it's full of puzzles that would be easier to solve if I could memorize the whole thing
B- The main character has a perfect memory, so it's rather fitting

Use of Weapons.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Excellent book my man

Mort à Crédit/Death on Credit.
French actor Fabrice Luchini knows it by heart but then again he recites it almost every night to an audience of sophisticated Parisians.

Guinness Book of World Records 2004

The Lotus Sutra

you mean the bible

I would want this only if I could memorize it in the original German
I speak no German, have never met anyone who speaks German, and live in flyover nowhere America.
I can only imagine the reactions I would get with my instant EIN VOLK EIN REICH diatribes in pure German. I would start a race war lads

probably some really advanced technical book so i could get a fancy job

Now I'm imagining Zakalwe returning to his homeworld, only to find that the Stabarinde was anthropomorphized as part of a popular cartoon show.

And she has Darckense's face.

Hear, Hear!

underrated

A huge Chinese-English dictionary. I just undercut the entire learning process for Chinese characters I would know each flawlessly.

Goethe's Faust

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon

The annalects of Confucius

Napoleon Hill was/is fantastic. His works are a must read imo and it's a damn shame that self-help books aren't discussed around here more often

All 20 pages of The Art of War.

Metro 2033 in English and russian. I could tell tales for hours.

The Holy Bible. Merry Christmas to all my fellow brethren.

That's 12 books dumbass

i'm an OED man myself

the bible duh

You can have a word for what something looks like but not for what it represents.

is this actually good or just genre fiction shit? I want to do some reading in Russian

Thus Spoke Zarathusra

someone just read the last chapter of Fahrenheit 451

The bible

Poetic Edda.

Don Quijote, both parts.