The Proust Questionnaire — Book Edition

Alice Rawsthorn Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

By Alice Rawsthorn November 26, 2013

Alice Rawsthorn, Design Critic and Author (London)

This November marks 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 Alice Rawsthorn 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):
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

3. Your favorite book character:
As a child, it was Jo in Little Women.

4. Your favorite book title (because you like the sound of it):
All That is Solid Melts into Air by Marshall Berman.

5. A book you could never finish:
The Red and the Black by Stendhal.

9. The best “book as object” you own (how it looks over what it says):
There are so many beautiful books, but my favorite is Boom, the miniature book of Irma Boom’s work in book design: original, witty, eloquent, irreverent, and irresistible.

10. Your reading speed: very slow, slow, moderate, fast, very fast:
Fast.

11. While you read, are you a note-taker? If yes, where do you record your notes:
I only take notes when reading for research, and I record them on my iPad.

12. Your most idiosyncratic reading habit:
I vowed at the age of eight that I would finish every book I started, and I’ve stuck to it ever since with very few (unconscionably bad) exceptions.

13. The most expensive book you’ve ever bought (and, if you can remember, the price):
For a new book, Gerhard Richter’s Patterns for roughly $750, and for an old one, a first edition of an early novel in Anthony Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time” series for about $500.

14. If you could be any author:
Too many wonderful ones to choose from, but I’d probably plump for one whose writing had a political impact on their time, as Emile Zola’s did in France, Elizabeth Gaskell’s in Britain, and Tolstoy’s in pre-revolutionary Russia.

16. Your favorite writer of the gender opposite yours:
Emile Zola.

17. The last book you bought:
A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard, the second volume of “My Struggle,” his series of six novels.

18. Your favorite place to purchase books:
The first time I went to Heffers, the university book store in Cambridge, I was so excited to see so many books in one place. Every time I have gone back there, it has felt just as enticing.

19. The book you are currently reading:
The New English Landscape by Jason Orton and Ken Worpole.

20. The book you will read next:
The Odd Women by George Gissing.

21. The current location of the book you will read next:
On my desk at home in London.

24. A book that was particularly meaningful to, or highly recommended by, a friend of yours:
My publisher, Simon Prosser at Hamish Hamilton, recently recommended a series of six novels by a Norwegian novelist I’d never heard of—Karl Ove Knausgaard’s “My Struggle.” He’s an extraordinary writer and I’m hooked.

View all Questionnaires.

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

Alexandra Lange Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

10 Great Books on Product Design: Alice Rawsthorn’s Book List

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.