This was a black-and-white movie made in 1940, directed by William Wyler, and based on a Somerset Maughan short story. It's electfying and passionate, and you'd think it was made last month!

William Trevor is a gentle, thoughtful writer who knew Ireland very well. He is equally at home in the big crumbling mansions of the rich and the small cramped cottages of the poor. His stories are like little gems.

I always loved the painting of that wistful girl with the perfect oval face, and although I know very little about the artist Vermeer and his life before I read the story, I can almost see his whole life and times now. It's very haunting; you think about it months and years after you read it.

I love the music of an Irish piper called Liam O'Flynn. Irish pipes are called Uileann Piples. They are slightly different than Scottish bagpipes. There is a haunting piece of music written by Shaun Davey called The Brendan Voyage, about a theory that St. Brendan sailed the Atlantic many years before Columbus did. The music always makes me cry, and I am sure that it will touch something in you too.

Ella Fitzgerald is a beautiful singer, and I can hardly choose between the Gershwin Songbook or the Cole Porter Songbook. If I really did have to decide, then I think I would come down in favor of the Gershwin brothers, George and Ira, because they wrote "They Can't Take That Away from Me," one of the most beautiful love songs ever written.