The Question Book: Pick Your Three

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The Question Book: Pick Your Three

The Question Book: What Makes You Tick? (2012) by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler is exactly what you’d expect from its title; it is a series of provocative questions that explore who you really are, how you see the world, and how others see you. There are no right or wrong answers, just honest ones. I’ve been playing around with the book for a couple of days, and I find that some of the most interesting questions are really good conversation prompts. Additionally, some of them have really made me think about topics I’d never really taken the time to explore.

The book is divided into thematic sections, ranging from Mind & Body and Making Decisions to Fears & Anxiety and What Your Friends Think About You, just to name a few. It touches on love, friendship, career, family, death, and a myriad of other aspects of our lives upon which we do not necessarily reflect on a daily basis.

And then there are sillier chapters, like Pick Your Three. I thought it would be fun to share the questions and my answers with you like it’s 2003 MySpace all over again.

Pick Your Three

1. Three places where you have lived:

  • The north of France. It really redefined the countryside for me.
  • Gran Canaria. Loved all of it.
  • Luxemburg. Meh.
The street where I used to live in Las Palmas

2. Three of your favourite books:

  • Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë. I re-read it every year around Christmas, and always find something new to love about it.
  • The Magus (1965) by John Fowles. I’ll never fully understand everything in it. It is rich, textured, and incredibly real.
  • Promise at Dawn (1960) by Romain Gary. Romain Gary‘s unique, sensitive, funny, and deeply moving prose gets me every time.

This one was a particularly difficult question for me because the list could go on for fifty more items and I’d still feel guilty about leaving out books that I really love. But alas, one has to pick. Otherwise, I’d just list Isabel Allende’s entire bibliography and call it a day.

3. Three films that you can watch again and again:

  • Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954). Will I always have a crush on James Stewart? Possibly.
  • Highlander (Russell Mulcahy, 1986). Peak Sean Connery, peak Christophe Lambert, peak Queen. Just the first one though; the rest of the franchise is rubbish if you ask me.
  • Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Look, I know it’s propaganda. I’m not an idiot (at least, not entirely). But it is so pretty. And my heart breaks every time as if it were the first time I was watching it.

4. Three TV series where you haven’t missed an episode:

  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Andy & Susan Borowitz, 1990-1996). It was the TV series of my childhood. I’ve rewatched it recently and I was amazed at how modern it still is when it comes to the topics it dealt with.
  • Futurama (Matt Groening & David X. Cohen, 1999-2003/2008-2013). This must be my thirteenth or fourteenth rewatch.
  • Justified (Graham Yost & Elmore Leonard, 2010-2015). I’m a sucker for Westerns and Timothy Olyphant (and also Gangstagrass), so this ticks all my boxes.

4. Three music albums that have changed your life:

I’m not quite sure I can say that a music album has changed my life, let alone three, but some of them have had a huge impact on me at all sorts of levels.

  • The Score (Fugees, 1996). It’s the album that made me discover hip hop. Sadly, the themes of it are as relevant today as they were then. However, it remains a brilliant, layered experience to listen to; it’s very rich and very intertextual. Also, everybody involved was so talented that it’s a little ridiculous.
  • The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan, 1963). Don’t tell me you don’t love Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right; I won’t believe you.
  • The Last Waltz (The Band, 1976). Definitely one of my desert island discs. I bought the original three-LP album at a secondhand record store in Cardiff ages ago, and it’s my go-to record when I don’t know what to listen to.

5. Look at your iPod/iPhone: what were the last three songs that you played?

6. What are the three most-played songs?

Honestly, I was fully prepared for it to be all Florence + The Machine and Taylor Swift.

7. Three games you like to play:

8. Three of your favourite drinks:

  • Water
  • Tea
  • Champagne

I don’t think I could get any more basic if I tried.

9. Three brands that you like to buy:

10. Three of your favourite local restaurants:

11. Three things that irritate you about other people:

Because “irritate” is quite a few notches below “infuriate”, I’ve only picked the mild stuff that I don’t like:

  • When they interrupt other people a lot
  • One-upmanship
  • Humblebragging

12. Three favourite topics of conversation at the moment:

  • The Housing Theory of Everything, a 2021 essay by Sam Bowman, John Myers, and Ben Southwood about the ways in which where we live affects every single aspect of our life.
  • Blogging
  • Local politics

13. Three things you typically do when you’re bored:

I’m rarely ever bored because there is always something that needs doing or that I want to do, but if I’m forced to reply:

  • Go for a walk
  • Read something
  • Browse Reddit

14. Three things you would like to do before you die:

  • Write a novel(la)
  • See every single surviving painting by Caravaggio in person
  • Set foot on every continent (except Antarctica; let’s be reasonable here)

I skipped a question that was about favourite shops because I don’t actually like any shop enough for it to make it to the list. I do like bookshops, record stores, fancy bakeries, and makeup shops though.

Do you have fun questions that you like asking yourself or other people? What would your own Pick Three answers be? Let me know in the comments!

All texts and pictures ©Ms. Unexpected except .gifs which remain the property of their respective owners. Header picture courtesy of Olya Kobruseva.