You can take advantage of the fact that opening the inventory will select the item the cursor ends up on. To do so, make sure the item you want to use is at the place where the object you want to use it on will be.

Doing so every time isn't feasible as far as I know. Sometimes it might be possible by slightly changing the route. In this case, the book ends up at the right place because we picked up the books before opening the envelope with the banana and because we went to the mansion during our first visit to Phatt Island.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure whether this change in the route loses time, although I don't think it does. And you know which coffin you get pretty early (which might or might not be a good thing :D).