I'm a compulsive reader. When going on a holiday I used to haul tons of books with me, afraid that I might run out of things to read before getting home again. So I'm very glad that there are ebooks now, it saves my aching back :-).

But there's still nothing like a real book, the smell of paper, the weight in my hands. Bookshops and bookmarkets are my absolute favourite places in a city.

My favourite genres are science fiction and fantasy, topped by (ofcourse) 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Wheel of Time' (Robert Jordan), all books by Terry Pratchett and yep, 'Harry Potter'. I realize I'm not being very original here, but these are books I can read again and again, being transported to another world.

For the rest I like everything that is well written, except for one genre: Dutch Literature. I just do not like that, my taste for that probably got spoiled for life by the compulsive reading lists that I had to go through for my high school exam.

In my daily life I design and build embedded software, which are the bits and bytes that make machines do what they're supposed to do.
And besides reading I love playing computer games that have good stories, like adventures and RPGs, I like taking long walks (especially combined with geocaching) and I like travelling (even when I have to haul all those books around :-).