The Proust Questionnaire — Book Edition

Angus Hyland Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

By Angus Hyland December 12, 2013

Angus Hyland, Graphic Designer: Pentagram (London)

This November marked the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Marcel Proust’s opus, In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu), originally known in English as Remembrance of Things Past. To honor the occasion, we developed the Designers & Books version of the eponymous Proust Questionnaire, which we’ve sent out to various contributors and friends. Rather than including the questions from the original that asked about a wide array of “thoughts and feelings,” our adaptation focuses solely on the respondent’s relationship to books.

View the complete questions asked in The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

Here are the answers Angus Hyland sent in response to the Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition:

1. Of these, your reading preference: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama:
Fiction.

2. Your favorite childhood book (or favorite childhood author):
The Wind in the Willows. The first book I read in one sitting. I have such a vivid memory of finally discovering the joy of reading books.

3. Your favorite book character:
Emma. Jane Austen predicted that Emma would be “a character whom no one but me will much like.” Not so. She’s such a bright and independent optimist albeit mixed with the stubborn vanity of someone used to having her own way. Besides, I have a soft spot for pretty and well-meaning posh girls.

4. Your favorite book title (because you like the sound of it):
Tender Is the Night.

5. A book you could never finish:
In Search of Lost Time.

6. A book you will never start:
Finnegans Wake—utter gobbledygook.

7. If for some reason it turned out that you could save one and only one book from among those you own, which would it be:
Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination or Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. Whichever was first at hand and whether I was in a Gothic panic or a more reflective mood.

8. A book you should have read but haven’t:
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for 35 years.

9. The best “book as object” you own (how it looks over what it says):
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Knopf, first edition).

10. Your reading speed: very slow, slow, moderate, fast, very fast:
Slow—my wife would say, very slow.

11. While you read, are you a note-taker?
No.

12. Your most idiosyncratic reading habit:
Dog-earing the pages. Very bad form I know, but I do it nonetheless.

13. The most expensive book you’ve ever bought (and, if you can remember, the price):
Bill Brandt: Perspective of Nudes (1st Edition, 1961).

14. If you could be any author:
Robert Louis Stevenson or Hergé. Wouldn’t it be fun to have the skill to write a great adventure or two and even better to be able to draw them?

15. If you are what you read, the book that best says who you are:
Any book with Bertie Wooster or Bingo Little as the central character. I empathize with their sense of bafflement about life.

16. Your favorite writer of the gender opposite yours:
Jane Austen.

17. The last book you bought:
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

18. Your favorite place to purchase books:
Sadly, Amazon.

19. The book you are currently reading:
Harvest by Jim Crace.

20. The book you will read next:
The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock and Fernette Eide.

21. The current location of the book you will read next:
Bedside table.

22. Your favorite format for books: paper or pixels
Paper.

23. If you could have written any book:
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Short and clever.

24. A book that was particularly meaningful to, or highly recommended by, an acquaintance of yours:
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. I love this book and I love the person who recommended to me. It’s powerful combination.

25. If you have the chance to plan it, the last book you’ll read:
Emma—a happy ending.

View all Questionnaires.

Also see “Celebrating a Proust Anniversary with The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition.”

Coralie Bickford Smith Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

Michael Bierut Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.