I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.

I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird questions on book tours in the Midwest. People would stand up and explain to me the situation in their office and ask me whether they should resign or not.

I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.

As I say, I have never in all these years thought of the matter in quite this way; but then it is perhaps in the nature of coming away on a trip such as this that one is prompted towards such surprising new perspectives on topics one imagined one had long ago thought throughly.

What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint.

I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.