Your favorite genre: I am fascinated by people who go on solo trips to the mountains or the sea - I'm constantly surrounded by people, maybe that's why lone travelers attract me. For example, I love The Long Way by French sailor Bernard Moitessier.

The book you like to give as a gift: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Murakami - it's like an invitation into another dimension. Aside from that, I was given Paul Coelho's The Alchemist in the early 2000s when I was going through a particularly rough patch, shortly after I stopped drinking. The book helped me a lot at the time and I gift it myself quite regularly these days.

The book you can never finish: I've had the same book by my bed for 15 years. It's not so much that I can't finish it, I can't even start it! It's called The Scottish Nation, 1700 to 2000, I bought it when I realized that I don't know enough about my country. I tell myself it's the book that I'd take with me to prison, that I'd finally get round to reading it if I really had nothing else to do.