Book Stick

The world has gone quiet on Terri Schiavo, God Bless her soul. Whatever was planned or took place before Thursday, it would seem that nothing surmounts the vacuum that is the Easter Break.

Limbo.

SO,.............. I have had time to consider the book stick passed to me by Badaunt. She got it from Melinama, just about the most prolific writer that I know of, who's blog seems to update four times a day, so good luck finding the link on there. Oh that's a point, Badaunt refers to it, alongside her own answers, here.

In the spirit of the thing, I have to arbitrarily select two people to pass the book stick to, who then have to come up with their own answers. I choose Sheweevil and Duncan Bamberg.

Here, then, are my answers:

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Depends what you mean by a crush. If you include wanting to adopt them, hug them (strangely I never want to be them), take them out for a drink, then yes. A good novel is one where you want to pull the main character's photo out of your wallet and tell people you are related, where you root for them, worry for them and want to know what happens next. If you dont relate to their hopes and aspirations, its a boring read.

The last book you bought is:
For me: The Skilled Helper, A Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development Approach to Helping (7th edition), by Gerard Egan. It was a college course text book, what can I say.
For someone else: Gene, by Stel Pavlou.

The last book you read:
This is a hard one to answer. I belong to FanStory and there are a lot of wonderful unfinished books in my bookcase there. They haven't been published yet so do they count? If yes, then Wind Age, Wolf Age by RazberryBullet. A good, intelligent, old fashioned sci-fi action story that, to my mind, rates alongside the first book of the Amtrak Wars by Patrick Tilley.

If thats not a good answer then the last book I referred to was a 1931 copy of The Woman's Own Book of The Home. I love all the outrageous remedies they used to recommend, the etiquette of the period, but most of all all the recipes for polishes and making repairs.

If that doesnt count either, then I am 90% certain that my last cover-to-cover read of a new book was one of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. Theres nothing like his adorably knowledgeable and witty parodies of all things new age or political, and his characters are brilliant. His books make me laugh out loud, honestly, so I try to resist the urge to read them in public.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:
Oh dear. I hoard so many books; vacuous, informative, escapist, humorous, factual etc and I rarely read a third time because I'd sooner be learning something new. Today that means they would be:

1. The Eight, by Katherine Neville because its a romping good read, very big and full of so many intricate historical facts that you can let disbelief slide.
   
2. An Anthology of Dan Brown's works. It doesnt exist and might involve me physically glueing Angels and Demons to The DaVinci Code and Digital Fortress
   
3. Something about Yoga, Pilates or the fashionable bastardisation, Yogalates, I mean with all that time on my hands I might as well learn how to kiss my own butt goodbye, or at least how to climb a tree without straining something. I wouldn't mind being a little more streamlined in case of rescue, either.
   
4. An Army Survival Manual. I would prefer a British one if it exists, but anything I can read that stops me getting contact dermatitis from finding a big leaf, to wipe........
5. Last one is a cheat. It would have to be my photo album, with parents, grandparents, children, my childhood, old houses etc.