That's more about lifestyle [Peter Mayles], living abroad. It's about buying a donkey and house in south France, and that's a slightly different thing. A very popular genre but that's not quite my thing.

What's fascinating is where they come from in the world. People in Bangladesh, a chap in a fire-base in Tikrit in Iraq. Chap in an Irish pub in Dublin. And lovely to think this literary network - or rather network of readers - is well spread out.

I want people to laugh with me and Paraguay and Newfoundland, but I don't want to laugh at them. I hope in my books at the end of the day you come across with the impression that I really admire both of these places.

I have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.

A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading?

I don't want to sell other people trips! I want to be there!

My parents probably feel closer to the U.S. They feel America came to our rescue in the war and all that sort of thing. And for their generation the war still goes on. We still save food and little bits get scraped off and boiled out the next day.