I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.

Somehow, the rare trips to Tel Aviv give me the feeling that I have a career.

What kind of people will these ghettos of Palestinians produce? What form of morality, national consciousness and hope will people be left with after so many years of stifling occupation and a sense of hopelessness?

How I'd like to start a new life in a distant land. Not because of racism or politics. But to be in a place that I knew hardly anything about, in a place where I wouldn't even care to know the prime minister's name. A place where names and faces would have no meaning for me.

Starting a new business will take its toll on your time and energy, and this can place strain on family and social relationships, depending on their expectations and how open you are in your communication with them.

Passing on a full scholarship to MIT would be irrational for me, but to my father and his parents, what would have been the point of spending five years at one of the world's most prestigious universities if he just ended up back on the farm?

My family were very poor. We never owned a house, in fact, we were lucky if we could afford the rent. So when I bought my first home, it was a very emotional time for me.

I never liked my father. He really was a dullard and misanthrope. My mother and he were married for 22, years and it was an ill match. She encouraged me to be a writer. She opened her home to black friends, and this was the 1950s. She didn't care later when I write about her.