Proust Questionnaire Book

A penny for your thoughts.

Okay, maybe not a penny.

I had no idea that those little books I made in junior high, where each page had a different question for my girlfriends to answer (like “where would you love to live?”) had its origins in real literature.

The French writer Marcel Proust provided now-famous answers to a litany of personality questions back in the late nineteenth century. These questions have morphed into a variety of popular uses in today’s culture, including the question-and-answer format employed on the show Inside the Actor’s Studio. [source: Wikipedia]

For the low price of $295, you can have a leather-bound rendition of the Proust Questionnaire for your very own.

It includes replicas of some of Proust’s personal responses to the questions, and pages of blank questionnaires for your friends or guests to complete.

The book measures 8×10″ and comes in brown leather, or white leather. This is a fancy book.

I think it would be great fun to pull the questionnaires out at a dinner party. Of course, you could probably get some of the same results by making up your own questions, or with a carefully selected adult board game.

I could also see getting this as a gift (albeit an expensive one) for a literati who already has every book under the sun.

If you’d like to order this 256-page volume, you can get more details about it at Shop Assouline.