Book stick

Melinama at Pratie Place has passed the book stick to me, with these questions. In turn, I am passing them on to Cheryl at Mad Baggage Rambling and to Susan of Pudlin.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Er, not really... or maybe I have done but forgot, which would make them not very serious crushes. But there are some characters I really look forward to meeting again in new books in a series. Andy Dalziel, from Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series, is one, but I certainly wouldn't want to meet him in real life.

The last book you bought is:
(Please don't tease me. I'm not usually this pretentious.) Pragmatics of Human Communication: A study of interactional patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes, by Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin Bavelas, and Don D. Jackson. It was on my list, and turned up in a bookstore here. (This is not a new book - it was first published in 1967.) I can't remember where I read about this book or why I wanted it, but I had written in my notebook BUY IT! So I did.

The last book you read:
Looking Down by Frances Fyfield. She is a reliably good mystery writer, and this is a good one.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:
1. Pragmatics of Human Communication: A study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes
Because I haven't read it yet, and I'd be annoyed not to find out why I wanted it so much.
2. The Collected Works of Shakespeare. (Am I allowed collected works?)
3. How to Survive on a Deserted Island for Incompetent Beginners by Somebody Incredibly Practical. I just made this up, but I'm sure there must be something out there, and I'll need it. My survival skills are horrible.
4. The fattest book the Dalai Lama has ever written.
Because I have a skinny little book he wrote, and every time I pick it up I get stuck on the page I open it at, thinking. I will need books that last as long as this one has.
5. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. I know this link goes to a boxed set of three volumes, but... I'll, I'll glue them together. My undergraduate degree is in history and this is a classic I've never read.

If I were to write this tomorrow it would be a different list, except for number 3. This is today's list.