LIKES

wit

generosity

Jane Austen

The Bach Cantatas

anyone who brings me coffee in bed

dogs

fireworks

badgers

walking in the mountains

any mindless, repetitive task, like mowing the grass

reading in bed

Handel’s operas and oratorios

ice cream -- I am, after all, an American

the mezzo soprano and counter tenor voices

Gashkai carpets

Iznik tiles

Ruth Rendell

New York

lilacs

DISLIKES

rhetorical questions

pink

religious enthusiasm

psychoanalysis

self-help books

Ernest Hemmingway

what Luciano Pavarotti has become

any sentence beginning with, “I’m the kind of person who . . .”

iced or fizzy drinks

middle-aged male academics

True-crime books

bullies

telefonini

waste

films and television

being told what to do

loud noises

mass tourism

salacious talk or dirty jokes