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Verne...that's another author I have some somewhat obscure stuff from. Mysterious Island and (if I have the name right) In Search of the Castaways. He wrote an incredible number of books. I need to reread Mysterious Island. I remember being fascinated by the details - how they attempted to make gun powder, the things they found to eat, the illnesses they encountered.

We also started counting how many times he used the works "verdure" and "quadrupeds". Might have just been the translation we had, but those words came up ALL the time.

Yes, Mysterious Island was his sequel to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which is my favorite of his that I've read so far. I think In Search of the Castaways may have been a Disney movie inspired by his ideas that subsequently got turned into a book--I remember seeing that as a kid, but would need to look it up to remember the details. I also like his Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon a lot. If you like his technological details, I think From the Earth to the Moon is one of his best--it anticipated the actual NASA moon mission very closely. He wrote many other lesser-known works I still want to read--about trips to the Arctic and the Amazon and stuff. Didn't notice he said "verdure" and "quadrupeds" all the time, but I'll keep an eye out for that :) BTW, since you like that aspect of Mysterious Island, did you ever read Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson?--I like those for the same reason.