If you are already familiar with the book in your hand, you know the relevance of this sliver of autobiography. Weaveworld is a meditation on memory. Yes, it also tells about magic and demagogery and angelic judgments, but the central drama of the tale is the way the characters remember - or fail to remember - the glimpse they've had of paradise.

This, for instance, of Cal Mooney, our hero: ‘It was only when, in the middle of a dreamy day, something reminded him - a scent, a shout - that he had been in another place, and breathed its air and met its creatures, it was only then that he realized how tentative his recall was... The glories of the Fugue were becoming mere words, the reality of which he could no longer conjure. When he thought of an orchard it was less and less that extraordinary place he'd slept in (slept, and dreamt that his life he was now living was the dream) and more a commonplace stand of apple trees... Surely dying was like this, he thought; losing things dear and unable to prevent their passing.'

The novel is not primarily about the escape into Eden. It's about how the knowledge of Eden slips from us, and the means we devise to hold on to that knowledge: This is, I think, a universal experience; which may go some way to explaining why the book continues to find readers. I recently, finished a six-week publicity tour for a new novel, and at book-signings across the country found readers bringing me battered but much-beloved copies of Weaveworld to be inscribed; several times I heard people say the book had helped them through dark times in their personal lives.

There is nothing more gratifying to this author than to sign and personalize a book which has seen some action: passed between friends, dropped in the bath, coffee-stained and sun-yellowed. I have in my library copies of certain works - Melville, Poe, Blake - that I've treasured over the years, all much the worse for wear.