“Catch-22” is a satirical novel by American author Joseph Heller, the son of poor Jewish parents. Heller wanted to be a writer from an early age. His experiences as a bombardier during World War II inspired Catch-22. While sitting at home one morning in 1953, Heller thought of the lines, "It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain, fell madly in love with him." Within the ne... Read More
In striving to be as objective and honest as possible, Ernest Hemingway hit upon the device of describing a series of actions by using short, simple sentences from which all comment or emotional rhetoric has been eliminated. The resulting terse, concentrated prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable of conveying great irony through understatement. Hemingway's next-door... Read More
“There were three sorts of people. Those who ran, those who stayed, and those who were built in”. The Spire is a 1964 novel by the English author William Golding. William Golding was born in his grandmother's house, 47 Mount Wise, Newquay, Cornwall. Golding's mother, who was Cornish and whom he considered "a superstitious celt", used to tell him old Cornish fairy tales from her own childhood. I... Read More
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author. He has been called "a giant of American letters," and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature. A study by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature in the United States found that Of Mice and Men was one of the ten most frequently read books in public high schools. Steinbeck's last novel, The Winter of Our Dis... Read More
John Steinbeck, the author of such classics as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, remains firmly planted in the souls of his readers today. In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. The idea was that he, pretty much depleted as a novelist, would travel alone, stay at campgrounds and reconnect himself with the country by... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. During the Second World War, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, and the Wellington and Lancaster bombers. After leaving the RAF in 1946, Francis became a highly successfu... Read More
Dick Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned. The book's success led to his becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, and he continued in that job for 16 years. He set his first thriller, Dead Cert, published in 1962, in the... Read More
Dick Francis was one of the best-known and most talented thriller writers of his time. His Sid Halley novels remain some of the most popular PI thrillers, and his writing still wins fans. Francis was not only a highly talented and acclaimed author but also, he was a prize-winning jockey. His background in horse racing gave his novels a real feel of authenticity. He left school at 15 without any... Read More
Dick Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter, which he spurned. The book's success led to his becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, and he continued in that job for 16 years. He set his first thriller, Dead Cert, published in 1962, in the... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. His novels centre on horse racing in England. During the Second World War, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft. After wartime Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey o... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. During the Second World War, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, and the Wellington and Lancaster bombers. After leaving the RAF in 1946, Francis became a highly successfu... Read More
Dick Francis is widely acclaimed as one of the world's finest thriller writers. His awards include the Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Tufts University of Boston. In 1996 Dick Francis was made a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement and in 2... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. His novels centre on horse racing in England. After wartime Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winning over 350 races and becoming champion jockey of the British National Hunt. Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter,... Read More
Richard Stanley Francis was a British crime writer. His novels centre on horse racing in England. During the Second World War, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens, for which he was offered the aid of a ghostwriter... Read More
British writer Doris Lessing felt that “a writer’s job is to provoke questions.” Her first published book, The Grass Is Singing, is about a white farmer and his wife and their African servant in Rhodesia. Among her most substantial works is the series Children of Violence, a five-novel sequence that centres on Martha Quest, who grows up in southern Africa and settles in England. The Golden Note... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. He was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair. His mother was Evelyn, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917. As an infant, he briefly lived, with his fami... Read More
Ian Fleming, in full Ian Lancaster Fleming, was a suspense-fiction novelist whose character James Bond, the stylish, high-living British secret service agent 007, who became one of the most successful and widely imitated heroes of 20th-century popular fiction. The son of a Conservative MP and the grandson of a Scottish banker, Fleming was born into a family of wealth and privilege. He was educa... Read More
There's nothing like a good spy thriller to get your imagination running wild. And perhaps no one was better able to give his readers such a trip as the legendary Ian Fleming. Indeed, the titular hero of his James Bond series of books started out as an intentionally flat character, someone onto whom readers could project a more complex identity. Fleming said of his work, "while thrillers may no... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer. Born on May 28, 1908, Ian Fleming would go on to create the most enduring literary figure since Sherlock Holmes. Rare book collectors are fascinated with the legacy of Ian Fleming and James Bond. Ian Fleming named James Bond after an ornithologist because it was the ‘dullest name’ he’d ever heard. The origin... Read More
Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. William Cook in the New Statesman considered James Bond to be "the culmination of an important but much-maligned tradition in English literature. As a boy, Fleming devoured the Bulldog Drummond tales of Lieutenant Colonel H. C. McNeile and the Richard... Read More