The author of Housekeeping and three other novels has just published a new book of essays. “One thing I cannot understand about contemporary society is that, as we learn more, and become more aware of the incredible singularity of our Earth, we cannot seem to allow ourselves to recognise it. And even if one day we were to discover there is another planet out there, just like ours, that fact would just mean that, in all this universe, there were only two things so absolutely extraordinary.”