To me, respect for human life begins with making it more difficult to obtain an inanimate object that is designed to snuff it out.

Back in the 1980s, when I was a lowly editorial assistant by day and trying to be a novelist by night, no god reigned so supreme as the god of literary prose.

A good story, a story resonant and remarkable, can be remade endlessly to tell new sides of itself for new generations of readers.

The implication of AKC registration is that a dog who has it is better than a dog who hasn't.

My dog is vicious to the uninvited guest, lavishly affectionate to the invited one, and so freakishly acute that he has mastered the English language.

I made it to London aged six, an event I recorded in my diary with coloured markers to convey my sense of occasion. And in 1983, after graduating from college, I returned to spend two years at Cambridge University.