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Library residency
Jacek Kownacki
The book I'm reading currently
In terms of fiction I love reading historical novels.
I've just read Portrait of an unknown woman by Vanora Bennett, a novel centred around Hans Holbein. It's fictional but it's cleverly woven with history. Non-fiction I've been reading The massacre at Montsegur by Zoe Oldenbourg. It was a good eye-opener for the hypocrisy of religion, the Church being the biggest miscreant of all time for causing wars and suffering.
A book that had a big impact on me
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, the film was brilliant as well. I thought it was a really profound comment on the confusion of life. I loved the play on the fact that to get out of the airforce he claimed to be mad, he wasn't mad, he would've had to be mad to be there in the first place.
My desert island reading
Catch 22, obviously. Or it would have to be a history of the world book. Ernst Gombrich's The story of Art or An outline of European Architecture by Nikolaus Pevsner.
My choice of lifetime magazine subscription
Time.
My must-see film
Planet of the apes. I think basically it's a bit like Animal Farm, a parody where animals become humans, showing all the worst aspects of human beings.
My guilty-pleasure telly
I used to love Scrap-heap challenge. I love watching antique programmes.
My radio turn-on and turn-off
I listen to classical radio, I listen to Radio 2, Absolute Radio. I hate Radio 1.
My favourite work of art
It fluctuates and it can change at the time of the year as well. Night watch, Rembrandt. I absolutely loved Graham Sutherland when I was at art college.
The weekend paper I am most likely to pick up
The i. I don't like newspapers. I like news that is reported objectively not with the personal opinion of whoever's writing it.
A paper I loathe and hate is the Daily Mail. An appalling rag. It pontificates and is so hypocritical.
The section of the weekend paper I read first
I start at the front and make my way through it.
A piece of music that makes me smile
It's got to be Monty Python, Always look on the bright side of life.
A piece of music that makes me cry
Must be Chopin. Whenever I hear Chopin I just see Poland, he epitomises Poland.
