One of the most successful and prolific American novelists writing today, Jonathan Lethem will be in town to speak at the Singapore Writers Festival. His work is sprawling and dynamic: from early genre-bending science fiction such as Gun, with Occasional Music (1994) and Girl in Landscape (1998), he has become a bonafide best-selling author in recent years with novels set in a strange, slightly surreal New York City: The Fortress of Solitude (2003), Chronic City (2009) and his most recent novel, Dissident Gardens (2013), among others. Here, he tells us why he dropped out of college, the books that bring out his inner fanboy and his one rule for writing.