Jay Parini

'Of Mice and Men,' Steinbeck's fifth novel, adheres to a simple dramatic structure, which observes the classic Aristotelian unities of time, place and action.

For the most part, I think of PC as meaning Plain Civil. You treat people the way you'd like to be treated yourself, and that means not using language that is demeaning.

Indeed, we might all forget where we have been if we didn't have somebody to assemble and arrange the little blocks called facts from which history is constructed, artfully or less so.

I'm a terrible grocery shopper. I hardly ever do it. And if I do, there's never more than three things in the bag.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

I am more excited about 'Divinity of Doubt: The God Question' than any other book in my entire career, and I've had seven New York Times bestsellers, three of them reaching number one.