Books

Some of my first childhood memories are sitting with my grandparents in the garden reading. Coming from a family of bibliophiles, I never developed a particular liking for a specific form of book. I like to read poems from Rainer Maria Rilke but also from Shel Silverstein. I like biographies, thrillers and - to keep up with my niece - teenage fiction. As a child I had a serious Thomas Mann and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (pictured) phase. We had a small library in our village, run voluntarily by a teacher and his wife. When I read The Magic Mountain aged 11, I had to promise I would read it again as an adult. I liked that our librarian never insisted that we were too young to read anything.

Music

From Chopin to Iron Maiden - what can I say? Chopin is fantastic, complex and one never gets tired of it. The best interpretation, of course from Arthur Rubinstein, we have on vinyl. Sometimes when I visit home I pull out the old record player and listen to it. I like heavy metal, Africando and folk music, and my favourite band, ever since I was 14, is Iron Maiden - it kept me sane when losing a parent as a teenager.

Film

For the past eight years, we have not had a TV. Paying the tax for the stuff that was on was really not worth it. But we have a massive DVD collection. At the moment, I am hooked on kitschy movies from the 1950s and 1960s. Everyone who knows some German should try out Peter Alexander movies. They are so innocent, and somehow project the idea that life is fun and light. However, ever since coming to the UK, both my husband and I have become big Doctor Who fans and cannot wait for the next season to air.