BEST AUTHOR BEST : STEPHEN FRY

" I've succumbed to a preference for nonfiction,'' says the actor and writer, '' the awful cliche that seems especially to beset middle-aged males.''

The fourth book in his series on Greek myth is '' Odyssey.''.

.-  What's your favorite fictional hero or heroine?

Jo, the crossing sweeper in '' Bleak House,'' is the character who has the most powerful effect on me whenever I return to that peerless book. [ Incidentally, Miriam Margolyes, reading on the audiobook is one of the wonders of the age.]

Jo is a minor character really, not a hero, but he literally sweeps across the different worlds of the novel. And Dickens' authorial voice denouncing the society that let him die is a masterpiece of fury and despair.

.-  What's your favorite book no one else has heard of ?

'' Seven Men,'' by Max Beerbohm

.-  How have your reading tastes changed over time?

The awful cliche that seems especially to beset middle-aged males : I've succumbed to a preference for nonfiction,  especially history.

As one for whom a youth and early adulthood of reading novels was the gateway to untrammeled joy and fulfillment, I try to fight this lamentable tendency and read fiction when I can,  but I drift into that other cliche of being more drawn to classics and old favorites than to new novels.

.-  The last book that made you laugh?

'' The Empress Murders,'' by Toby Schmitz, a classic whodunit and laugh out loud funny at the same time.

.-  What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn't?

My mother brought me up to be kind, so I'll go to a dead writer, D.H. Lawrence. He was a wonderful poet.

But '' Women in Love,'' '' Sons and Lovers,'' '' The Rainbow '' and '' Lady Chatterley'' - I loved them at 16 but if I go back now they seem silly, often cruel and Frankly ridiculous.

.-  What books are on your night stand?

One must always have a P.G. Wodehouse and an Agatha Christie in the pile - currently '' Uncle Fred in the Springtime '' and " Mrs. McGinty's Dead.''

Wimbledon is coming, so I've also got a copy of '' String Theory '' handy : It's a collection of David Foster Wallace's writings on tennis.

But on top is Stefan Zweig's '' Erasmus of Rotterdam.''

Reading it now is like listening to two prophets who have foreseen the disruptions and upheavals of our age. Chilling and thrilling.

.-  Your favorite antihero or villain ?

David Copperfield's brutal stepfather Mr. Murdstone still haunts my dreams. Perhaps Tom Buchanan in '' The Great Gatsby '' stands out as the worst of all.

There are so many Tom Buchanans in the world now. Running it.. Or....... to change a letter...... ruining it.

The Publishing continues to Part [2].  The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.