I started writing 'Cod' at a time when people were first beginning to take an interest in the problem of fisheries because the Grand Banks had closed.

The inventors we remember didn't invent anything. They're the people who took somebody else's invention and made it commercially viable.

I grew up in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of fighting. It's what boys did during school, during recess, after school. And I was a fairly large kid. So everyone wanted to see if they could take me on.

Europeans are far more anti-war than Americans. They've had more wars, and they really just don't believe in it any more. But Americans do.

Don't forget the Vietnam War was brought to us by Democrats.

How you solve your problems are quite different. In non-fiction, you can always go back to the research, whereas in fiction, you have to go back to yourself - which is a little bit scary.

I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.

I don't do much research on the Internet.

I was a theatre major and started off as a playwright.

There's a lot about the early history of salt that isn't known, including who first used it and when or how it was discovered that it preserved food. We were sort of handed, in history, this world where everyone knew about salt. And it's not clear exactly how that developed.