He must have seen her shock, because he said, "You can't defeat the power of the book. But you can make it work for you.

He rolled his eyes. "Fiction lies for the truth.

Women's fiction is just a marketing category, designed to appeal more to women than to men. But there are stories in that category that any human being would like.

It is the mess that readers love. The fact that sometimes the people who love us the most aren't people we're related to, but people who join our family later. The book acknowledges how difficult family relationship are, and this fuss just proves it.

Fiction is very, very important," he said, his voice is rising. "Storytelling is how people learn. You get people to understand new cultures and other lives through stories. Made-up stories. Fiction.