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Weather forecasting stopped looking for patterns in the past, and started using numbers to look solidly at the future.
Women dressed as handmaids promoting the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale.
Brian Snyder, Reuters
With a new TV series based on the novel - and its bleak vision of women’s rights - The Handmaid’s Tale is riding a new wave of popularity.
German journalist and novelist Theodor Fontane.
Wikimedia Commons
Theodor Fontane was a German newspaper’s England correspondent – who reported ‘from’ London without leaving his Berlin desk.
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James Patterson – one of the world’s bestselling authors – may not principally be a writer.
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Whether the ubiquity of fiction has devalued truth or enhanced morality has been in doubt for over 2,000 years.
Dar Digest (story ‘Muhafiz’), February 2015. Free from the fetters of common natural laws, horror stories represent a society’s fears and prejudices.
J.Schaflechner
Pakistani pulp fiction often portrays Hindu characters as evil demons and Muslims as heroes, an attempt to spread nationalist ideology.
Twain was an opinionated, prolific commentator on the personalities and political issues of his day.
Terry Ballard/flickr
He probably would have been amused by – and maybe even befriended – Trump the entertainer. Trump the president? Not so much.
One can find reading material to suit all tastes.
Arif Akhtar/Flickr
From censorship, to mainstream, to Donald Trump: erotica has a long and varied history.
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Despite the escapist nature of these romance novels, there is a considerable amount of realism contained within their pages.
A work of fiction gives an interesting insight into the real world of science research.
Shutterstock/Julija Sapic
Thomas Barlow is more used to writing factual reports on science innovation, so his first novel gives an entertaining insight into the science community.
Arman Zhenikeyev / Shutterstock.com
Virginia Woolf’s archive can be seen as a serious resource for research into the experience of hearing voices.
From the cover of JG Ballard’s ‘Concrete Island’.
A number of novels provide links between risk-assessment, financial speculation, and terrorism. But simultaneously, real life terror in 2016 renders writing about it completely and utterly pointless.
A scene from the TV mini-series, ‘Mars’.
National Geographic
The recently broadcast TV mini-series, “Mars”, combines fiction and nonfiction in a way that places them in balance. This kind of combination is likely to feature in more television series and films.
Lionel Shriver in 2014: her keynote address at the Brisbane Writers Festival on cultural appropriation has unleashed a torrent of opinion.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Lionel Shriver’s controversial speech about cultural appropriation has made headlines around the world. But the debate need not be a binary one – novelists might approach characters from other cultures as ‘thoughtful tourists’.
A family photograph of the children’s author Roald Dahl, with his wife Patricia Neal, and children Olivia, Tessa, and Theo.
PA
A war hero and a philanthropist, or a bully and a misogynist – there are many versions of the enigmatic author.
Songquan Deng/Shutterstock
The debates surrounding the 9/11 novel have been as informative as the novels themselves.
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The work of one legal thriller writer in particular shines a light on two of today’s most pressing dilemmas.
Martin Quinn / Shutterstock.com
Two sociologists recommend their favourite thriller for your summer reading.
Dallas police pay their respects to fallen colleagues.
Erik S Lesser/EPA
An unfinished crime novel was a strange portent of recent events in Dallas.
Writer Thomas Wolfe is played by Jude Law in ‘Genius.’
Wikimedia Commons
The president of the Thomas Wolfe Society explains why Law had his work cut out for him when he agreed to portray a man who was “a hydroelectric plant of emotion.”