THE FIVE BOOKS YOU WOULD TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND AND WHY

1. The Bible

It’s got blood, gore, guts, colorful characters, and it initiated me into a lifelong fight for social justice. I sit on the Public Safety Committee of the state Assembly, where we face eye-for-an-eye and turn-the-other-cheek debates all the time. Contemporary questions of all kinds resonate in this book.

2. The Oxford English Dictionary

It’s a heavy book in every conceivable way. But as Orwell said, “Language is thought.” You can never have a big enough vocabulary.

3. Grimm’s Fairy Tales

I read these wonderful stories over and over as a child, and now I read them to my daughter, my nephews and nieces, my neighbors’ kids. My beat-up old copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales just keeps on giving new meanings. Although I’m a feminist and a fighter for social justice, I am also a woman who has had dreams of dancing at the ball with a handsome prince against background music by Johann Strauss.

4. “The Old Man and the Sea,” by Ernest Hemingway

Conviction, strength and courage against impossible odds. Triumph and loss, humility and reaffirmation. Despair and desire, self-improvement amid utter poverty. These are

only some of the powerful ideas and themes which play out in this amazing, spiritual little novel.

5. “The Memoirs of Cleopatra: A Novel,” by Margaret George

On one level, it’s about one of the most fascinating women and influential world leaders who ever lived. On another, this book really conveys the struggle of women in what has been a man’s world. In between, there’s love, lust and power plays, and a legacy so enduring it captured Shakespeare’s imagination.