What are you reading right now?

Just finished four books about the EU which will be the subject of a massive blog entry at the weekend. Meantime, I’m in the middle of Preacher – specifically in the middle of book 5 which is the middle book of nine. I’m also about a hundred pages into volume three of Proust (so about a third of the way throgh the whole thing). Sort-of on the list of books I am reading are two that I lost in mid-read: the complete “Unexpected” short stories of Roald Dahl, which vanished while we were on holiday, and Volume 5 of the About Time books on Doctor Who, which I think I left on the bus last week.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

Just picked up the biography of Parnell by Catherine O’Shea and was leafing though it, so it might be that. I have pious aspirations for a few other books as well.

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?

I really hated Immensee, by Theodor Storm, a dreary nineteenth-century tale of blighted love which was a set text for my German A-level.

“Elisabeth”, sagte er, “hinter jenen blauen Bergen liegt unsere Jugend. Wo ist sie geblieben?”

Well, yeah. Your own bloody fault, mate.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

The essential book for career planning, What Color [sic] Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. Changed my life, and could change yours.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?

No. Our local library is a very small branch of the local Flemish commune. I’m not at home when it’s open on Wednesday afternoons, and I’m too tired when it’s open on Sunday mornings.

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer?While you’re having sex? While you’re driving?

Yes. Yes. Rarely. No. No. No. Definitely not.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

I stayed in bed to have a chance of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in peace, but that doesn’t quite count. The last one that really kept me awake to find out what was happening was Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay.