"Rounding it out would be Inside Out. I remember seeing that with my family on one of our family vacations during the summer, and just how they interpreted emotions to kids. There’s such an emphasis in society to “Be happy, be happy, be happy!” but you have to give kids the permission to feel sad. You have to give them permission to feel the range of emotions. That’s really healthy. And how creatively it was done, and it didn’t hurt that Amy Poehler was the voice of Joy. It just worked. I’m a huge Pixar fan, and it just completely worked."

"One of my favorite YA novels. The dystopian society was so well planned out, removing the passions of our world such as poetry and music to lend the support to an existence without pure love. The main character, Lena Halloway, had such a great voice, perfect for a teen narrative, and her interactions with all the Cureds (those who have been saved from the disease, ""amor deliria nervosa"") just grew more and more fascinating with each page. "Love; the deadliest of all deadly things. It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.""

"Much has been written about authoritarianism and its multiple manifestations, but little has been said about the ways in which people, even the most educated, seemingly open-minded people, internalise authoritarianism in their daily life. What happens to politics and politicians under a corrupt system is obvious. But what happens to a society and a culture under authoritarianism is a question less understood. The Polish poet, essayist and thinker Milosz wrote extensively about home, homeland, exile, memory, history…. As a writer who comes from a turbulent land of collective amnesia, I have always read him with a sense of affinity."