When Scott Simon takes a break from his job as host of NPR's Weekend Edition, it's usually to get closer to news making events. Reporting from trouble spots all over the world, he's covered wars, famines, sieges, earthquakes and presidential campaigns. He's also the author of the books Home and Away: Memoirs of a Fan, and Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball, which bring a historical perspective to our national pastime. I've asked him to imagine a real respite, a long retreat in a quiet place, away from the hubbub, and to tell us something about himself, namely the 8 things his Survival Kit would contain.

His List:

1) Collected Poems of WH Auden (to spotlight now: September 1, 1939)
2) Graham Greene's The Comedians (Dr. Maigret's last letter to Brown)
3) A Passage to India, by EM Forster
4) Authentic Mexican by Rick and Deanne Bayless
5) Chicago, the musical (revival version with Bebe Neuwirth and Anne Reinking)
6) DVD of Truffaut's The Last Metro. Or, maybe I'll pick John Boorman's Hope and Glory?
7) DVD of Bob Fosse's Cabaret (the Joel Gray/Liza version)
8) Sondheim collection

WNYC archives id: 32515