I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.

Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

I'm not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now - have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?