Reading is perhaps what I do mostly, and one book a week is my rate. My interests are mostly scientific essays, classics, poetry, some novels written lately (such as Banana Yoshimoto's), and as light readings fantasy books.

My scientific interests concern mostly epistemology, and my favorite are the philosophical works of Konrad Lorenz, especially "The other side of the mirror" (Die Rückseite des Spiegels), in which the chapter about phylogenetic interpretation of Hartamann's theory is the base of my philosophy.

My preferred authors of entertainment books are J.R.R.Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Ellis Peters.

The first of them is the actual "father" of fantasy writings: teacher of old English at university, he started writing a fable for his child (the hobbit) and ended picturing an entire world, with legends, poetry, and languages; with bold heroes, even if not very mighty, melancholic elves, and villains of great power. The war between good and evil, is a common place in all adventure literature, but Tolkien managed to create from nothing a myth, whose followers prospered all around the globe. Ryo Mizuno's saga of Lodoss war is in debt with Tolkien, and so many other authors.

Marion Zimmer Bradley is another master of fantasy literature: if not the mother maybe the current queen. I particularly appreciate her saga of Darkover, of which all books are in my personal library. The mix of science fiction with fantasy prove this background a valid support for the birth of stories that mainly concern feelings of independent women in a world dominated by males. The inner feelings of telepathic people expressed with their own thoughts; the shyness and reservation, but also the capacity of "compassion" between them, together with the scenario of a cold planet and its blood-red Sun (I have been always hating hot climates), involved me so much sometimes.

Ellis Peters aroused my curiosity mixing a whodunit story with an age in which fingerprints and gun are unknown, and only the cleverness and the spirit of observation of a Benedictine monk with a secular past, brother Cadfael, make him solve his riddles. This character can be considered the precursor of brother Guglielmo, the monk made known worldwide by the interpretation of Sean Connery in "The rose's name" (from "il nome della rosa" by Umberto Eco, an Italian writer).

Classical authors I prefer are Goethe (of whom my best is "the elective affinities"), Dostoijevski, and Kafka; Dickens, Fielding, Scott, and Melville. More recent are also Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, of whom I adore "tender is the night".

For what concerns nowadays books my most favorite is perhaps Banana Yoshimoto, but also Richard Bach, Milan Kundera, Baricco, and Isabel Allende.

Talking about poetry and theatre I must name G.B.Shaw, Shakespeare, Moliere, Goldoni, Leopardi, Montale, and Yeats.

I have named many authors, but they are only a part of what I read: my personal library count more than 500 books, both in Italian and English (when I'm able I prefer to read the original version and not the translation of a book), of which I'm very proud.