The Book Meme

Perigrinato "memed" me on his blog. I don't know what the hell a "meme" really is, but I know when I been double-dog dared. And then Chalice Chick did the same thing. Awright then, here we go.
It's... THE BOOK THING!

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Given my lame memorization skills, it would have to be something that lends itself to drama, like the Viking Library's The Portable Dorothy Parker collection. Which I adore. Madly. Damn Miss Rose. In a world where books have been outlawed, I would be happy to risk my life to bring Miss Parker to a hungering and thirsting citizenry.

The last book you read is...?

I just read the novel Gilead, given me by a colleague. It was sweet and pastoral and featured some lovely writing and a wonderful narrator. Also an extended meditation by Margaret Wheatley called Turning To One Another, which basically suggests in the nicest way that we are totally destroying the planet and we'd better straighten up and fly right or DIE and take Mother Earth with us. Nice with morning coffee.

What are you currently reading?

Currently stacked around the house in strategic reading areas:
On the stairs to be taken up to bed: The John Adams biography by David McCullough.
William Ellery Channing essays and sermons on the kitchen table. Marked to "Self-Denial" (try that with chocolate!).
In the living room, the sermons of John Emery Abbott (not touched since Christmastide, I'm sorry to say).
Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and Shambahla Sun (Pema Chodron on the cover, something about anger which I'm too irritated to read -- please give me my Entertainment Weekly now, mummy, I was good all day).
I am reading the brochure of the life story of a woman who lived in the Kalaupapa leper colony in Hawaii. A congregant just gave it to me.
Also, and finally, The Worship of the American Puritans by Horton Davies.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

To remind me of what I hated and shall never miss about the civilization I left behind:
something by Anne Coulter, something that celebrates the life and presidency of George W. Bush, something by Jack Welch, something from the Left Behind series, and then the Book of Common Prayer so I can read my own funeral service before I take my cyanide capsule and die. I do get a cyanide capsule, right? A blunt instrument? A sharp coconut shard?

Something about "have you ever had a crush on a character from a book:"
Well, I always swoon with adoration for John Adams whenever I read about him (sorry, Abby). Likewise, when I read Mr. Emerson's journals I just want to go on a long, holding-hands walk with him. I don't think he'd want to make out with me, though. For hot, brooding, dysfunctional Scandanavian romance, there are the protagonists of Knut Hamsun's novels Pan and Victoria. I loved Dr. Larch (Larch, was it? I can't quite recall the name) from The Cider House Rules. And I mean, who didn't have a crush on Almanzo Wilder and Pa in the Little House series? (I ain't talkin' 'bout no Michael Landon, either). Or Cap Garland? Wasn't he the Little Hottie on the Prairie!

And no one asked, but...

Some best literary girlfriends and idols: Harriet M. Welch, Melanie Wilkes, Mame Dennis, Cathy Trask (deliciously evil!), Medea (girl, I feel you), Liesl from The Deptford Trilogy, Michael Mouse from Tales of the City, both Kit and Hannah from The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Who are you going to pass this baton to (three persons)? And why?

If I pass this baton I'm likely to accidentally hit someone on the head with it. I never was the best marathon runner or twirler. If you'd like to grab this baton, by all means...