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

William F. Buckley was a man who had a great capacity for fun and for amusing himself by amazing others.

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.