We All Act As Hinges-fortuitous Links Between

There's A Preoccupation With Memory And The Operation Of Memory And A Rather Rapacious Interest In History.

Forever, Reading Has Been Central, The Necessary Fix, The Support System. Her Life Has Been Informed By Reading. She Has Read Not Just For Distraction, Sustenance, To Pass The Time, But She Has Read In A State Of Primal Innocence, Reading For Enlightenment, For Instruction, Even. ... She Is As Much A Product Of What She Has Read As Of The Way In Which She Has Lived; She Is Like Millions Of Others Built By Books, For Whom Books Are An Essential Foodstuff, Who Could Starve Without.

You Have This Comet Trail Of Your Own Lived Life, Sparks From Which Arrive In The Head All The Time, Whether You Want Them Or Not - Life Has Been Lived But It Is Still All Going On, In The Mind For Better And For Worse.

Born In Jerusalem, Wadie Said Went From Being A Dragoman To A Salesman In The United States And Thence To A Hugely Successful Businessman In Egypt.

In Old Age, You Realise That While You're Divided From Your Youth By Decades, You Can Close Your Eyes And Summon It At Will. As A Writer It Puts One At A Distinct Advantage.