There is something particularly fascinating about seeing places you know in a piece of art - be that in a film, or a photograph or painting.

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

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.

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

Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation.

Often we don't notice the stringent rules to which our culture subjects us.

Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.