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Do you have any hobbies outside your time at university?
Not that I would admit to! I am re-designing my garden this year – not a very sexy hobby! I also really like craft and paper craft. I am doing some book-binding courses at the moment and I enjoy paper sculpture.
Apart from reading academically, do you have any favourite authors? Fictional or non-fictional?
I read novels all the time, often right before I go to bed, so I don’t always remember what I’ve read. I’m currently reading The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud and really enjoying it.
So you are currently on research leave - could you tell us a little bit about what you are doing?
Luckily I have some funding for this particular project: writing another book on Boccaccio. This time it’s looking at how the Decameron was read in the sixteenth century – the way the book itself was printed – so I’m looking at all of the editions of the Decameron printed in the sixteenth century. It’s not really looking at or reading the text; it’s thinking about what we call the “paratext”- everything that isn’t the text itself. So things like tables of content, acknowledgements and dedications or whether it has a title page. It’s about that kind of material and what that tells us about how the author was being received by the people producing those books and how they thought people would want to read him.
And finally, what is your favourite place in Italy?
Siena was the first place that I spent a lot of time in. I still have a soft spot for it. Padua probably supersedes it as a more realistic place to live though. Siena is full of beauty, but Padua for beauty and liveability. We’ve been going to Sardinia a lot on holiday recently as well, and I also love Puglia.
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