Sabeen Mahmud is the director of PeaceNiche, an NGO that runs T2F, a place that serves as a coffee house, bookstore, gallery, and most of all, as a space for conversation, debate and performing arts

What are you reading these days? You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard P. Feynman, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy and This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin.

Which books are on your bedside table? Racists by Kunal Basu, Best of Tehelka (Volumes 4 and 5), Twitterature by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, Junky by William S. Burroughs, Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee and Platform for Art: Art on the London Underground by Alex Coles.

Which titles are on your bucket list of books? Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

What is the one author you feel everyone must read? Douglas Adams.

What are you planning to reread? Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The World According to Garp by John Irving and The Story of My Assassins by Tarun Tejpal.

What is the one book you read because you thought it would make you appear smarter? Can’t think of any.

What is the one book you started reading but could not finish? Catch-22. I started it at the wrong time in the wrong place many years ago. Not having read Catch-22 is among the greatest tragedies in my life. Hope prevails...

What is your favourite childhood book or story? The Noddy and Miffy series.