Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A.

I was the kind of kid whose parents would drop him off at the local town library on their way to work, and I'd go and work my way through the children's area.

Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled but halved. No man is an island

I like reading. I prefer not reading on my computer, because that makes whatever I am reading feel like work. I do not mind reading on my iPad.

American Gods was designed to be if not open-ended, at least a trilogy kind of shape, so there's definitely one more book, probably another couple of books there to get written.

When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.