Do you ever feel the urge to purge?

I do. Every few months. And while we were sorting our house out before Hurricane Irma this month, I realised how much stuff we’ve accumulated in just a year.

Anyone who has experienced a hurricane or similar act of nature’s wrath will tell you how it throws into perfect clarity the things that are most important to you. If we had been in a situation where we had to get out of our house fast, I realised that there was only one material item I would run back for: the books I’ve been writing...