…So I don't end up being a fucking waffle waitress

You know, I was going to swear off blogmemes, but I’ve just been challenged to one again. (Thanks for that, Bert. I’ll get you for this.) And, who knows, this might even help me blast away the remnants of the hangover causing my frontal lobe to throb ever so slightly. Let’s do it:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Of course, I would never advocate the destruction of the written word. Apart from a truly diafuckingbolical hunk of turgid prose that deserves to be consigned to the flames of hell: Will Rhode’s Paperback Raita (now inexplicably re-published as Paperback Original. I guess the title was one godawful pun too many.)

In my defense, I only picked up this book as I found it kicking round the house when I couldn’t find anything else to read. Mrs. AKA had bought it as a holiday read one year, and never got around to reading it herself. She graciously allowed me to hurl the book into a paper recycler after I had finished it, as I didn’t want it stinking up the house and contaminating my bookshelves.

The book is LadLit at it’s worst. I cannot believe it ever got published. It’s that bad. The book commits every single storytelling sin: Characters change their motivations for no reason whatsoever, just so that the author can manipulate the book to move in nonsensical directions. Nothing about it is believable: not the characters, not the situations, not the dialogue, not the plot, nothing. The Book Must Die.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

That is so icky. I have admired fictional characters, and been moved by them, or inspired, but I don’t get hot for them.

The last book you bought is:

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

The last book you read and What are you currently reading?

Covered both of these yesterday

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Michael Chabon – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Love, friendship and comics in post-war New York. When I reached the last page, I wanted to turn back to the beginning and start again. Yes, it’s that good.

Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Everyone has a book that changed the way they looked at the world as a teenager. For some, it’s The Catcher in the Rye. For others, it’s On the Road. For me, it was this. Lost count of how many copies of this book I’ve bought for people over the years. Me, I just hang onto my dad’s beat-up old copy where I first discovered Randall Patrick McMurphy.

Joseph Wambaugh – The Choirboys – It’s Catch-22, but with L.A. cops. And it’s better. The bleakest and funniest novel I’ve ever read.

Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon – Preacher – I’d take all nine volumes of the simultaneously epic and intimate story about a Texan preacher, his gun-toting girlfriend, and his hard-drinking best friend (who just happens to be a vampire) as they travel America looking for God for an almighty showdown.

A large, blank hardcover journal, so I can finally write one myself…