I read many wonderful novels, though I now find the idea of literary fiction obsolete.

A crenelated wall of books encircles my bed, its tottering towers looming ever taller, always on the verge of collapsing onto oblivious sleepers.

When we were in school, we were told that Stalin was a madman who got control of Europe, which teaches you nothing.

Around us, we do see attempts to delegitimize Israel, a sort of secret, hidden anti-Semitism growing in many countries, often on the right but also on the left.

I always wanted to write a history of Jerusalem.

Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield.

The vanishing of David Tang is like the unthinkable diappearance of a magnificent palace on a mythical mountaintop. He was a dreammaker, pianist, adventurer, writer, entrepreneur, scholar, connoisseur, and a great friend.

Putin regards Stalin as a great tsar; he is a great tsar. Asked who the worst tsars were, he said Nicholas II and Gorbachev.

There is a view of Russian exceptionalism, that they are a unique civilisation, a view right since Ivan the Terrible that Russia is a special civilisation with a special culture. Putin is pushing that now.

As a youth, I was much more of a Zionist. But Israel was very different then. Israel's changed, and so have I.