There's always these giant baffling books, like 'The Da Vinci Code.' People say it's not as well written as 'Midnight's Children.' Why aren't people reading 'Midnight's Children?' Nobody knows why these phenomenons happen but they're great.

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone

My upbringing was middle-class but my parents' families were both working-class so I had this odd combination of working-class background but in a privileged position.

I have two children. They are more fun than anything in the world, and it's more immediate fun than the hard slog of writing.

We don't really go in for big family dinners, but Scottish people are famously confrontational. It's a cultural thing, so maybe we don't need to have them to clear the air. Also, traditional family food isn't as nice here so there's no payoff for traveling hundreds of miles.

I came from this very traditional background and I benefited hugely from feminism. I felt privileged going to university and doing a PhD. Most people of my background don't get to do that.