Paul Cleave

View Reviews of books by Paul Cleave

Countdown with ...

Paul Cleave

Paul Cleave was born and raised in New Zealand but likes to float around Europe for a month or two every year to escape the Christchurch winters. He travels with a frisbee, throwing it in as many countries as he can, with the goal to reach 50 before he turns 50. His report card from high school told him there was a time and a place for his kind of writing – and high school wasn’t it – in part based on his short story where Santa was a heroin addict who threw elves into a shredder to turn into toys. He took up tennis too late in his life to be any good at it and took up golf when he was young enough to be good at it but simply isn’t. He knows a handful of card tricks, can solve a Rubik’s cube, and once accidentally spun a car 360 degrees at a funeral, covering family and extended family at the graveside in mud.

Interviewed 23 October 2021

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Hopefully I’m much closer to the beginning than the end.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

A bobblehead Gorn (think Star Trek) holding a dagger. A King Kong Escapes poster. A cat. My napping couch. Another cat. An orange-and-blue dragon hanging from my ceiling. A Star Trek ‘Operation Annihilate’ poster. A cat toy. The top of my neighbour’s roof.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Toasted sandwiches all day long.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

Tina Fey. Stephen Colbert. Trevor Noah. Roger Waters. Jacinda Ardern. Tiger Woods. The Rock.

Six things you can't live without ...

A cat door. My stereo. Running shoes. Coke (the drink). Noise-cancelling headphones. iTunes.

Five favourite words ...

Heft. Rugged. Albeit. Backpfeifengesicht. Half-price.

Four places you'd run away to ...

I already live in NZ … so … I’m already here. Otherwise – Caribbean. Or Bora Bora. Or Sweden.

Three books you've bought recently ...

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Hideout by Jack Heath. The City by Dean Koontz.

Two things that make you rant ...

Folks who think vaccines make them magnetic. And I rant at my cats for not understanding what pointing is when I’m trying to show them where the food is I just gave them.

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

Keep an eye out for this thing called Bitcoin – it might make no sense but snap up as much of it as you can.