Last night I watched an old time favorite movie from 1960, “The Time Machine.”  I like this version even better than the newest version, but perhaps it’s because I’ve seen the older version so many times, it’s almost like an old friend.

I’m sure you know the storyline; Rod Taylor’s character builds a time machine, travels into the future, discovers a future race of people, the Eloi, who know nothing of the past.  Without going into great detail here, he discovers that the Eloi are controlled by another race of people, the Warlocks, who are the ‘bad guys’ of this science fiction story.

The Eloi have no knowledge of the world, of government, of anything more than swimming and playing.  They also don’t realize that the Warlocks use the Eloi as a food source…literally.

Rod Taylor leads a revolt against the Warlocks, and succeeds in getting the Eloi to fight back. Oh, and he falls in love with an Eloi while he’s at it.  He also narrowly escapes being killed by the Warlocks when he jumps into the time machine again and makes his way back to his own time, albeit five days after he first left.

His friends, however, fail to believe his wild story about time travel.  One friend, returns to Rod Taylor’s house just in time to hear the whir of the time machine and discovers his friend has apparently decided to return to the land of the Eloi.

In conversation with Rod Taylor’s housekeeper, the friend discovers that three books are missing from the shelf, presumably taken by Taylor back to the Eloi, but it can’t be determined which three books are missing.

His friend turns to the housekeeper and with a smile he asks, “What three books would you have taken?”

Hmmmmm…… That made me start to think.  If I was to head off into the future to help a race of people become self-sufficient and develop a new society, what three books would I take with me?

A day later, I’m still pondering that question.  I immediately knew which book I would choose first, but I’m still trying to choose the other two.

If you could leave only three books for all of mankind to find thousands of years from now, which three books would you choose?

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