Fetch!

Listening to: Devils and Dust-Bruce Springsteen and Dyzrythmia-Split Enz

Picking up the stick thrown at me by Morgue here and running with it.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

My first inclination was to say 'Fahrenheit 451' just to be absurd.
'Empire of the Sun' by J G Ballard. I love the depiction of a world in complete collapse (Japanese occupied China at the end of the Second World War) yet seemingly still full of wondrous possibilities.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Assuming from the context of the other questions that this is a literary character...
Miss Alexandra Kincaid (Brunswick). Maybe Mara Jade (Dark Force Rising Star Wars trilogy) as well, although she might be a bit difficult to live with.

3. The last book you bought is:
Discounting book fair purchases, which tend to be en masse, the last new book I bought (for myself, gifts don't count) is "When the wind calls your name: Tales of the supernatural in Aotearoa", by Tahu Potiki and Grant Shanks. A companion to "Where no birds sing" by the same authors, this is a nicely presented collection of anecdotes from around the country that lets the reader draw their own conclusions.

4. The last book you finished is:
"Modern Naval Combat", by David Miller and Chris Miller. Thats 'modern' as in published in 1986 'modern'. Interesting guide to how naval warfare works, and was expected to progress, and how things were in the mid eighties at the height of the Cold War. Still vaguely relevant since the last significant naval combat was in 1982, meaning a lot of theory is still just that.

5. What are you currently reading?
Fortuitously still current, see here.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island
'Fools Paradise' by Steve Braunias. A collection of 'Listener' columns from the late 1990's. Steve and I appear to see the world in similar ways, and I like the way he writes.
'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S Thompson. One of the most quotable books I have ever read, and whether you read it as critical journalism, scathing satire, a work of fiction or straight comedy, it is the only book I have ever read that has stuff that can make me laugh out loud on almost every page of text. Given that it was first published in 1971, I still find it oddly relevant in trying to understand US culture and the death of the Hippie dream.
'Piece of Cake' by Derek Robinson. Following the a Royal Air Force fighter squadron over the course of a year from the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939 to the climax of the Battle of Britain in September 1940, this novel utterly refutes the myth of the noble steely eyed, square jawed, chivalrous and unafraid fighter pilot. Somewhat controversial at the time it was published, it paints it's protagonists as real people; some nice, some thoroughly unlikeable, most good, some bad and some barking mad. And inevitably one by one they fall (often messily and horribly) as the war moves from a sort of exciting and risky game into an utter and desperate battle for survival. Being well researched and peppered with irreverence and blacker than black humour doesn't hurt either. I like its lack of idealism.
'A Brief history of Time' by Stephen Hawking, on the grounds that the isolation might force me to actually finish reading the damn thing.

7. Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?
Why? Because they read interesting stuff.
Judge and Jury
Not Kate
Ethel the Aardvark