If you were

shipwrecked or stranded on a deserted island, which books, albums, movies

or famous person, living or dead, would you bring with you and why?

This is assuming

that you have a CD player and television and VCR and the power to run

all three devices and that if you bring a famous person who has passed

on they are alive and not decomposing.

I'm sure you

have been asked this question many times in your life and your answer

is constantly changing. For instance, when you were little all of your

answers may have revolved around "Sesame Street," but how would

you answer the question now?

Well, no one

has asked me this question recently, so I have asked myself. I guess all

the hype and hoo-hah surounding "Cast Away," "Survivor

II" and "Temptation Island" have influenced me. I would

also like it to be known that I would not like to be stranded on a deserted

island and that I would want people to search for me day and night because

I hate camping and I hate seafood.

As for which

books I would bring with me, I would choose James Michener's "The

Drifters," Stephen King's "The Stand" and Shel Silverstein's

"The Giving Tree."

"The Drifters"

follows a bunch of 20-somethings around Europe and Africa in the late

1960s and early 1970s. I would enjoy reading about their travels while

stranded. "The Stand" is exceptionally long and talks of a plague

sweeping Earth. That would make me feel good a million miles from civilization

and germ-free.

"The Giving

Tree" is a great book about a boy and his relationship with a tree

over the years of their lives and it always makes me misty. It would be

a great reminder to commune with nature and to give