I write as if I'm someone reading the book - often people ask if I write one strand first and then go back and seed in the other, but I don't think I could keep track of who knows what, and the tension would come out wrong, so the answer is no - I write it more or less in the order you read it.

I'm not 100% sure 'Rebecca' qualifies as a thriller, given it's three parts screwed-up love story and two parts ghost-story-without-a-ghost, but the mystery at the heart of the novel is what happened to Maxim's first wife, the eponymous Rebecca, and it's unravelled with the pacing and finesse of the finest psychological thrillers out there.

One of my desert island books, 'The Leopard' is not so much a novel as a eulogy for a way of life and a Sicily that was already lost by the time Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was writing.

I really enjoy writing about female friendship. It's an endlessly interesting dynamic for me.

Now, with the success of musical comedy like the Mighty Boosh, Flight of the Conchords and Bo Burnham, I feel vindicated.

Capote is one of those people who represents something larger than himself. I think that his ambition, his kind of success, and the downfall that followed are very contemporary.

Middle class families are struggling to send their sons and daughters to school. For many Americans, a college education is essential to future success.

We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves. The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents and interests.