Childbirth changed my perception of my wife. She was now the bloodied special forces soldier who had fought and risked everything for our family.

In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude. E-reading opens the door to distraction. It invites connectivity and clicking and purchasing. The closed network of a printed book, on the other hand, seems to offer greater serenity. It harks back to a pre-jacked-in age. Cloth, paper, ink: For these read helmet, cuirass, shield. They afford a degree of protection and make possible a less intermediated, less fractured experience. They guard our aloneness. That is why I love them, and why I read printed books still.

The ethnocultural connotations of the burkini ban are very strong. It's as absurd as mandating that women have to go topless on the beach. If I were a woman, I definitely would not want to wear a burkini or a headscarf. But it's not about what I want.

Novels are make-believe and play for adults.

It's important to have a non-nostalgic view and say, let's look forward, because if we don't, all we'll hear are voices telling us to go back.

If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren't differences at all.

Walking is very good for writers. There's something fundamentally useful about not talking to anybody, not looking at a screen, and being in nature - even if that nature is an urban environment.