Booking Through Thursday: Burn

If your house was burning down and you could save just one book from your collection … what would it be?
(And, for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll allow series to count as “one” long, multi-volume book.)

Can't do it.  Sorry.  I struggled with this question back in February when Top Ten Tuesday asked us to list the top TEN books we'd want to save.  I couldn't manage to pick just ten...there's no way on Earth I'm gonna be able to choose just one.  Here's the answer I gave then:

So...I own over 2000 books....and I'm really supposed to choose only ten to save? I'm afraid I'm mostly going to have to choose Ten Groups of books to save from the Inferno (or other imminent danger).

1. All of my Dorothy L Sayers books--especially the special editions of Lord Peter. That includes a first edition, hard-back British Whose Body? and a special Armed Forces edition of Busman's Honeymoon and a couple of WWII pocket size editions that I will probably never find again in used book stores.
2. Speaking of pocket size editions. I love those little square-shaped books. Must save all of those--the whole shelf.
3. All of my signed editions. Most of these are not signed by famous authors. Rather, 90% of them are signed by authors I know personally and whose books are all the more special because the authors are my friends.
4. A Sprig of Sea Lavendar by J. R. L. Anderson. Is it a great book? I have no idea--I haven't read it yet. But it had been on my must-find list For-ev-er. And my mom-in-law just found it for me this past Christmas at a used bookstore in Florida. Must save it since it was so difficult to find.
5. All of my Frances & Richard Lockridge books. I have a near-complete set...I certainly don't want to have to start collecting all over again.
6. All of my hardbound S. S. Van Dine mysteries--nearly all are first editions in fine to near-fine shape. Don't want those going up in smoke.
7. Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon and Laddie: A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter. Two very old editions that also have a great deal of sentimental value. My grandma got these for me--Beverly she picked up simply because that's my name and she thought it would be nice to give me a namesake book. Beverly is in great shape...Laddie, not so much--but I loved it when I was growing up and wouldn't want to lose it for anything.
8. Thomas Moore's Complete Poetical Works. Again, not the greatest poetry on earth--but it is the edition that makes it worth saving. It's what I call my "puff book." It's covered in an interesting, off-white, "puffy" material. When I was growing up, I used to covet it....it sat for years on a shelf in Mason's Rare & Used Bookstore downtown. Finally, one of my best friends arranged for me to have it.
9. Set of 6 Nancy Drew books that were my mom's. They were a Christmas gift to her from her mom and she passed them on to me when she realized she had a reader on her hands.
10. All of my Bibles...they all have been given to me by special people and have additional meaning beyond spiritual.

and I had to add an extra level...

11. The rest of the 1st edition vintage mysteries that I own. If you absolutely insist that I wouldn't have time to save all of these books...then I'll just grab one at random. And then stand outside and cry when I think of the others that I couldn't save.