Max Ross is a local writer whose work has appeared in Reveille and The Rake. He’s also writes short stories, the kind of stories that are so original teachers at The Loft talk about how original they are even when he’s not in the class. You can read Max all the time over at the Cracking Spines book blog.

What book(s) are you currently reading?
I’m reading Nowhere Man and The Lazarus Project, both by Aleksandar Hemon, as well as re-reading Lolita — getting my Slavic-writers-who-write-in-English on.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Who?
I think I had a man-crush on the fictional Jonathan Safran Foer in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated, but then Elijah Wood ruined it for me. Franny from Franny and Zooey might be a candidate, but only pre-freak-out.

If your favorite author came to Minnesota, who would it be and what bar would you take him/her to?
Kafka. Bryant Lake Bowl. Weird.

What was your first favorite book?
I want to say it was Maurice Sendak’s In The Night Kitchen, because I like it now, but I can’t remember that far back. Probably it was Mossflower by Brian Jacques.

Let’s say Fahrenheit 451 comes to life, which book would you become in order to save it from annihilation?
Anna Karenina, because it has every novel in it, anyway.

What is one book you haven’t read but want to read before you die?
I suppose I’d like to make it through Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.