During the six years I spent writing my novel 'The Incarnations,' I lived in seven cities in four countries. I moved in and out of 17 different houses and flats in Beijing, Seoul, Colorado, Boston, Leeds, Washington D.C., London and Shenzhen.

I wrote in coffee shops in Japan when I was 22, 23, before I had the stamina to sit down and write. I liked the buzzy environment; I couldn't speak Japanese when I arrived, so it was kind of a white noise. It felt more sociable than being alone, but now, as I've developed a writing practice, I couldn't do it.

There are many reasons I love novels with multiple narratives. In novels where the events are filtered through the consciousness of a single 'reliable' narrator, I often wonder, is this the whole story? What could be missing here?

Truth is often a multiplicity of perspectives, and sometimes the more viewpoints and versions of events there are, the closer the reader gets to an overarching truth.

And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the front lines of his holy war.

Though times have changed, it's a nice surprise to see that youthful feeling of anti-war sentiment returning once more to the cobbled main streets of Europe.

While our goals in Syria were never clearly enumerated by then-President Obama or President Trump, throughout the war one of our most committed and effective allies in the fight has been the Kurds.

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side.