Hobbies

  • Windsurfing in the Mediterranean
  • Star watching

 

Ten preferred novels

  • The leopard by Giusepe di Lampedusa
  • Germinal by Emile Zola
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  • Rayuela by Julio Cortazar
  • La casa verde by Mario Vargas Llosa
  • Tinker, Taylor, Sailor, Spy by John Le Carré
  • The pionners of Texas by William Humphrey
  • Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron
  • Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac
  • Thank you, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehouse
 
 

Ten preferred essays

  • The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin
  • A History of Greece by J.B. Bury and Russell Meiggs
  • The History of Impressionism by John Rewald
  • "Microeconomics of Banking" by Xavier Freixas and Jean-Charles Rochet
  • Barcelona by Robert Hughes
  • The Greek Myths by Robert Graves
  • The Story of Art by Ernst Grombrich
  • La distinction by Pierre Bourdieu
 
 

Ten preferred movies

  • Napoleon by Abel Gance
  • Citizen Kane by Orson Welles
  • Casablanca by Michael Curtiz
  • Dances with wolves by Kevin Kostner
  • Once upon a time in the West by Sergio Leone
  • The big country by William Wyler
  • Duck Soup by Leo McCaren
  • North by Nortwest by Alfred Hichcock
 

Claims to fame

  • My family, obviously!
  • Passing the french "aggregation" contest, France, 1984
  • Finding the right move in the a Chess Catalonia Championship match, 1964
  • Winner of the Lindt Chocolate gold nugget contest, France, 1989