James Wollak

A lifelong devoté of Jane Austen and all her works, James Wollak works as a financial data analyst and lives in San Francisco, California. He is a third generation San Franciscan, as both sides of his family have lived in the city for just over one hundred years. He still lives in the house where he grew up.

He is an avid reader, numismatist, and music lover, enjoying all kinds of music such as classical and opera, Motown and soul, ABBA, Celtic, blues, bluegrass, and zydeco. He also loves silent and classic Hollywood films, and the “Poldark” and “Downton Abbey” series.

His favorite classic composers include JS Bach, JC Bach, Handel, Telemann, Gluck, Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Vaughn Williams, Stravinsky, Ravel, Joaquin Rodrigo, Gershwin, Copland, Leroy Anderson, and the Golden Century of Italian Opera (GCIO), especially Verdi and Bellini.

A definite Anglophile, Pride and Prejudice is his favorite novel of all time. He first read it as a freshman in college, and has reread it several times. Emma and Persuasion rank next in the Austen canon.