P G Wodehouse short stories.

Thelwell, Garfield, Peanuts, Alex and Dilbert cartoon books.

Poetry compendium. NOT T S Eliot - far too abtruse for me, and probably most of my guests too. (Frankly, that smacks of Michael Dirda showing off to his guests.)

Gallico Magic - a book of seven of Gallico's best short novellas.

A James Herriot book or two.

That lot would keep me happy. I'm not sure that I wouldn't prefer to stay there rather than make small talk with my hosts!

Depends how long you want your guest to stay. If you're not of a particularly hospitable disposition, Stephen King's Misery might be a good one to display prominently.

Alternatively the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, The Complete Book of Vampires and Colin Wilson's Beyond the Occult. A few garlic bulbs and vials of holy water placed strategically around the room will complete the picture.

elliot, welcome!

> Encyclopedia of Fantasy

I have two incredibly wonderful browsing books that would go along with this: The Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were and The Encyclopedia of Mysterious Places. Both are illustrated by Robert Ingpen. Fabulous illustrations and very interesting texts

Pratchetts Last Hero is illustrated by Paul Kirby and is tons of fun.

I'd also include Calvin and Hobbes, as well as my Far Side collection. I'd probably also toss in some local guides and narratives.

And if that doesn't keep my guests happy, they can always peruse my shelves!

martin z,

I can't believe I forgot P.G Wodehouse.

I think your right about no T.S. Eliot. Probably better to have some light verse such as Ogden Nash.

I cannot imagine any selection as ill suited to a guest room as the original list. I cannot imagine inviting a guest to my home that would enjoy those books. They are not what I would consider light casual reading. And I think that you would want casual....not serious...in a guest room. You aren't trying to impress, but to make your guest feel comfortable.

Certainly some of the Calvin and Hobbs or Far Side cartoon books. Ogden Nash would be another. Some coffee table type books would be another choice of mine. There are many showing the local points of interest. A travel guide for my state....in fact, just about anything that could be picked up and scanned or studied as time and mood demanded.
A Bible would depend on you and your guests. Some might think it a bit much.

No novels. That is, unless we want the guest to feel that he or she is supposed to stay in their room and read.

Since my guest room does have 3 bookcases in it i just reviewed what's in there that I didn't remember.

On one bedside table is The Assassin's Cloak an anthology of diarists. A gift that has never really interested me but might be good for guests.

A whole bookcase with all of our travel books, including a whole shelf on Northern CA for guests to dip into.

Another bookcase has all of DH's baseball books and old sci-fi. Several anthologies in there.

The last bookcase has a little of everything. Spillover of cooking magazines, fun reading cookbooks that I never cook from, some coffee table books, crossword anthologies, old dictionaries, a few paperback novels and mysteries that if someone started I'd let them take home and some hardbound books that my SIL gives us as freebies from her job and the bookstores won't take. Would love for someone to take those!

Not a really thoughtful collection but if I were in that room with nothing to read I would certainly be happy for a few hours.

agnespuffin, I think your right that you would want more of browsing material in a guest library...probably short story collections, essays, photography, drawings, cartoons, etc.

One item I thought of that might work well in a guest library is The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition. Martin Gardner has annotated Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with extensive information so you can understand some of the Victorian jokes that would go over our heads these days. The book has some wonderful drawings from the original editions. Gardner also includes a lot of interesting, and some strange, information about Lewis Carroll. Most of us have either read the books or are at least familiar with the story through the Disney version.

I forgot. Several guests have commented that they enjoyed the copy of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by Garner. It is fun.

We have rented beach houses in Florida for a week for several summers. The 10 books I'd like to find in a beach rental would be:

1-The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
2-The Indispensible Calvin & Hobbes
3-Willy Ley's Exotic Zoology (unicorns, dodos, & platypus)
4-Weekend Wodehouse
5-Annotated Alice
6-The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
7-Dick Francis' Whip Hand (a mystery for the beach!)
8-The Oxford Book of Aphorisms
9-The Book of Ogden Nash
10-My Family and Other Animals

I'd be pretty content to read these books for a week!

Some classic children's stories...

Henry Huggins
Fudge
Little Women
A Child's Garden of Verses
Bobbsey Twins
Peter Rabbit
Titch
(Yes, even picture books!)

Too tired to think...but you all know that ones that we list everytime we list our favorite childhood books.

Oh, some other children's stories that are great adult reads:

The True Story of the 3 Litttle Pigs by A. Wolf

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Jester

Animalia by Graeme Base

Anything by Shel Silverstein

>A Bible would depend on you and your guests

And depending on my guests I might put The Good Omen beside it :)

I would only put in (paperback) novels I didn't mind losing, as my guests have said things like "I've gotten to page 216, do you mind if I take it along and finish it? I'll mail it back." I usually just go out and buy another copy of whatever it was-so I went to my shelves to see what I could assemble without new purchases:
Short stories are a must-
an Agatha Christie collection,
a P.G. Wodehouse collection,
a set of ghost stories locally set and written,
The 50 Americans All Kids Should Know,
any of the Shel Silverstein poetry collections,
a local tourist guide,
and a local cook book with stories and pictures about the traditional PA Dutch recipes. ('cause they won't get them in my kitchen....too too heavy.)

ccrdmebks's suggestion abour paperbacks made me remember the new doctor's office I went to this week. In her living room like waiting room she had a basket of magazines. But, also a basket of paperbooks, with labels on the cover...please feel free to take a book. How cool is that?

Veronica, it is way cool.
The library in the next town over has several paperback racks and you just take whatever ones you want for however long you want and then bring them back. You do not check them out on your card. They just like to keep the racks filled and so far whenever I have been in there they are.

The shop where I get my hair done has a rack with books, mostly paper backs. It's sort of a bring one - take one set up. Of course, no one ever checks to see who does what.

The only guest I ever have for an extended period of time is my mother-in-law. I always email her prior to her arrival to ask if there are any books in particular she would like me to check out of the library for her.

Apart from that, I always put a selection of travel and home decor magazines in that room.

I've rented guesthouses also (this summer, it was a three story home filled with books everywhere), but when I go on vacation I always bring my own and lack time to read them anyway.

Well, I stayed at a B&B in Kingston a few years back and they had old copies of Harper's in the room I was in. I'll be eternally grateful for that since I found that magazine to be an amazing read, especially the Readings section. I found that section to be perfect -- small snippets of interesting, humorous, or just plain weird pieces.

I'd make sure my guest room was well stocked with my back issues of Harper's. Actually, my guest room IS well-stocked with said back issues. My sister dropped by the other stay and she almost absconded with some of those back issues! I think I need to raid her library the next time I visit her. ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's a link to an online version of Harper's Readings

The airport in Waterloo, Iowa has a selection of paperbacks you can take. Very thoughtful since this is an airport too small to have any shops. You are encouraged to leave one if you have one. (My mother lives there.)

Another thing you might think about is two or three cross word puzzle magazines of various skill levels. Put them by the bed with both a pencil and pen. Some people simply MUST do them in ink!

Maybe a book of Sudoku puzzles too.