Category: Book related extras
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Artificial Intelligence isn’t taking our jobs, it’s deciding who gets them.
Robots aren’t interested in taking our jobs after all. They’ve skipped that basic rung of the career ladder and have gone straight into management and consultancy instead. Artificial Intelligence, the Guardian reports, is now being used to decide which of us is going to fill that job vacancy. A.I. is taking over the world of…
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Why Hemingway decided you should never go on trips with anyone you do not love.
Journeys don’t always work out the way we think they will. When F. Scott Fitzgerald invited Ernest Hemingway on a short trip from Paris to Lyon, Hemingway jumped at the chance. Fitzgerald was the more established novelist at the time and Hemingway saw it as a chance for two writers to spend some agreeable time…
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How the architecture of Queenslander houses influenced the plot of Crossing Live.
Some of the key scenes in Crossing Live take place in or around the home of Roland Kendall. His house isn’t described in detail in the book – I wanted to leave it as much as possible to the reader’s imagination. But a reader who isn’t familiar with Queenslander houses recently asked me about the…
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Touching the sea again at Honfleur
Three months into her tandem journey around France, Catherine Pringle reaches the English Channel when she arrives at Honfleur in Normandy. It’s late summer now and the weather is turning colder. She is tempted to mark the return to the coast with a symbolic dip in the Seine Estuary. But, as ever with Catherine, food…
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How a moment from Casablanca inspired a scene in Peloton of Two
This month marks the 75th anniversary of the release of Casablanca, one of Hollywood’s most successful and iconic movies. Casablanca’s popularity has only improved with time and it is now considered an undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood’s quintessential statement on love and romance. The movie was released in November 1942 to a solid but not…
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10 ways that life was different in 1990
After hearing the surprising news that cassette tapes are making a comeback, I thought I’d share my list of 10 ways that life was different in 1990. I compiled it during the research for my novel, Crossing Live, but it might just contain some pointers to the next retro craze.