Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond novels. The Bond books were written in post-war Britain when the country was still an imperial power. As the series progressed, the British Empire was in decline; journalist William Cook observed that "Bond pandered to Britain's inflated and increasingly insecure self-imag... Read More
Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors. The first US edition of Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale was published with the title ‘You Asked for It’; it took a few... 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. As well as the hugely successful Bond novels, Ian Fleming also wrote the novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, on which the 19... Read More
Sebastian Charles Faulks is a British novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He was born on 20 April 1953 and was educated at Wellington College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Sebastian Faulks was the first literary editor of The Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. In 1989 he published The Girl at the Lion d'Or, th... Read More
Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and The Ladies of Missalonghi. Before her tertiary education, McCullough earned a living as a teacher, librarian and journalist. In her first year of medical studies at the University of Sydney, she suffered dermatitis from surgical soap and was told to abandon her dreams of be... Read More
With many millions of books sold globally, Colleen McCullough was arguably Australia's most popular novelist. Best known for The Thorn Birds, she penned more than two dozen books, including the Masters of Rome. Antony and Cleopatra is the seventh and purposely last novel in Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. Mark Antony, a famous warrior and legendary lover, expected that he would be... Read More
Scottish novelist Alistair MacLean never planned to become a writer. After serving in the British Royal Navy during World War II, MacLean attended Glasgow University, where he received a degree in English literature. After working briefly as a hospital porter, MacLean secured a job teaching at a secondary school just outside of Glasgow. When he entered his short story "The Dileas" in a competit... Read More
MacLean was born on 28 April 1922 in Shettleston, Glasgow. His family spoke Gaelic, and MacLean did not learn English until he was seven. Maclean's father and oldest brother both died while MacLean was still at school, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1941 the 18-year-old MacLean joined the Royal Navy, where he served on the Arctic convoys. Night Without End was first pub... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote successful thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both having been made into successful films. He also wrote under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the mari... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. MacLean effectively translated his own experiences as a torpedo man on a convoy escort into the plot of H.M.S. Ulysses, which takes place on a British destroyer. HMS Ulysses was Alistair MacLean's debut novel. Wh... Read More
Alistair Stuart MacLean, the son of a Scots Minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy; two and a half years spent aboard a cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. He was responsible for firing torpedoes during World War II and offered his ser... Read More
Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland's most successful television dramatists. Series The Enzo Files, is set in France and is... Read More
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. He is the recipient of writing awards in Europe and America. Peter May was born in Glasgow. From an early age, he was intent on becoming a novelist but took up a career as a journalist as a way to start earning a living by writing. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials... Read More
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. He has won several awards in France. He received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy. In 2014 Entry Island won both the Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and a CWA Dagger as the ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year. Series The Enzo Files, is... Read More
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. He received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy. In 2014 Entry Island won both the Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and a CWA Dagger as the ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year. Series The Enzo Files, is set in France and is centred on the... Read More
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. From an early age, he was intent on becoming a novelist but took up a career as a journalist as a way to start earning a living by writing. The series The Enzo Files tells the story of Enzo Macleod, a half-Scottish, half-Italian former forensic scientist that is forced to use his skills once again to solve old cold-cas... Read More
Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. Series The Enzo Files, is set in France and is centred on the work of half-Italian, half-Scottish Enzo Macleod. This former forensic scientist, now working as a biology professor at a French university becomes involved in applying the latest scientific methods to solve cold cases. In the first novel of this series, Extraordinary People, Enzo is sent on... Read More
Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris is an English author especially known for her award-winning novel Chocolat. Joanne Harris was born in Barnsley in 1964, of a French mother and an English father. She studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels; The Evil Seed, Sleep, Pale Sister and Choco... Read More
Joanne Harris began writing at an early age. She was strongly influenced by Grimms' Fairy Tales and Charles Perrault's work, as well as local folklore and Norse mythology. She was educated at Wakefield Girls' High School, Barnsley Sixth Form College, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where she studied modern and medieval languages. In Coastliners, Madeline, “Mado”, coming back from Paris t... Read More
Joanne Harris is an acclaimed contemporary English writer who writes under mixed genres, such as magic realism and gastromance. She was born in Barnsley in Yorkshire, to an English father and a French mother. Her parents were both teachers of modern languages and literature at a local grammar school. Her first language was French, which caused divisions between her English family, where nobody... Read More