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You put books out into the world, and people form their own visuals and images and attachments to characters; those characters become part of them, and they have their feelings about them.

Because they are inherently social, people find value in reading the same books and watching the same movies that others do.

Any time you can take a book a little beyond the realm of pure entertainment, I think it's a good thing. But I don't really have it on my to-do list when I write a book. It just evolves naturally during the process of immersing yourself in a subject.

I'm excited about how books work in a digital age. When you read a book, unlike a film, you are decoding symbols in order to 'see' the story, so it is collaborative in a way that a film can never be.

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

I certainly grew up seeing more movies and television than I read books, but when it came time to do the thing itself you don't have to hire a lot of people to sit down and write a book, so that was the story-telling medium that was available to me.

Some of my books sort of have a provocative take. Sometimes you find interesting things about characters that show they weren't necessarily the way people usually see them. It can make for lively conversations, but that's great. Spark a little controversy, get people to think about it. That's what it's all about.

We want a book to be a book. We'll have all the interactive bells and whistles but our intent is to engage young people in reading, not to show them a movie.

I think books, novels and autobiographies have a power to touch people far more personally than films do, so there's a bit more of a responsibility when you then dramatise it.