I teach 18- to 21-year-olds - the 'Harry Potter' generation. They grew up as voracious readers, reading books in this exploding genre. But at some point, I would love for them to give Umberto Eco or A.S. Byatt a try. I hope 'A Discovery of Witches' will serve as a kind of stepping-stone.

I couldn't resist hiding some historical details and a few clues relevant to the plot and characters of 'A Discovery of Witches' throughout the pages of the novel.

I found a 'lost' manuscript called the Book of Soyga that had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I's court astrologer, John Dee, in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Everybody thought it was the missing key to Dee's interest in magic. Of course, it wasn't really lost. It was there, in the catalog.

For me, a $20 wine that drinks like a $40 wine in terms of complexity and interest is a value, while a $5 wine that is not very good is not a value at all in my opinion.

Many schools today are sacrificing social studies, the arts and physical education so children can cover basic subjects like math, English and science.

I could never call myself an atheist; my parents could, quite happily. I always felt like there was a little bit more out there, and was always into observing the world from a slightly more spiritual, as opposed to scientific, perspective.

Our mission on Apollo 14 was to be the first to do science on the moon, so we had to be careful about getting everything in during the allotted time.

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics.