...Plus C'est La "Meme" Chose

Adam Tierney-Eliot challenged me with this "book meme" thingy that's been making the rounds. Here's my answer:

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

Ecclesiastes or Ben Sirach.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Oh, yeah. Here’s the chronological history of my unrequited fictional love life:

Cinderella.

Pippi Longstocking.

Marcia Brady, as played by Maureen McCormick in “The Brady Bunch”.

Laurie Partridge, as played by Susan Dey in “The Partridge Family”.

Ensign Nellie Forbush, as played by Dana Delany in my high school production of “South Pacific”. (Okay, maybe not so fictional.)

Hester Prynne.

Queen Esther. (Assuming she’s fictional.)

Dr. Susan Wheeler, in Michael Crighton’s Coma.

Marion Ravenwood, as played by Karen Allen in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

Grace Van Owen, as played by Susan Dey in “L. A. Law”.

Lt. Colleen McMurphy, as played by Dana Delany in “China Beach”.

Lois Lane, as played by Teri Hatcher in “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”.

Lady Claire, in Michael Crichton’s Timeline.

The last book you bought is:

Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief.

The last book you read was:

Ibid.

What are you currently reading?

Prescott Wintersteen, Christology in American Unitarianism.

Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club.

(Been trying to finish Menand for over a year. It’s dense slogging.)

Five books you would take to a desert island.

This question (well, three books) was asked on the Beliefnet UU boards not long ago, back before the bureaucrats poisoned the forum by appointing an abrasive and narcissistic moderator. At that time, I postulated that multi-volume sets count and named these: the HarperCollins Study Bible (NRSV), the Yale Shakespeare, and the Harvard Classics. (If I recall correctly, I think CC independently also named the Bible, Shakespeare and the Harvard Classics). If multi-volume sets still count, I’ll switch the Bible choice to the Anchor Bible and add the Encyclopaedia Britannica for a fourth. For a fifth, it would probably be some practical manual on campcraft and survival, perhaps this one.

If everything must be in one volume, then I’ll stick with the HarperCollins Study Bible, the Yale Shakespeare (Barnes and Noble puts out a single-volume edition), and the campcraft manual, but I’ll choose two others from these three: a complete Emerson anthology, a complete Robert Frost anthology, the Columbia Encyclopedia. Probably the Emerson and Frost.

Who are you going to pass the baton to (three persons) and why?

Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. If you Google “Fahrenheit 451 book meme”, you discover that this thing is running through the blogosphere like a bad turkey salad. Chain letters are evil, even in cyberspace.