Niall Fallon 
Jules Verne (1828 to 1905) was a French novelist whose “Voyages extraordinaires”, a sequence of more than fifty adventure novels, includes “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” and “Around the World in Eighty Days”. He has been the second most translated author in the world since 1979, behind … Read more
Jojo Moyes is an English novelist, journalist and screenwriter, born in Maidstone, Kent, on 4 August 1969. She is best known for “Me Before You” (2012) and its two sequels, and is one of the few authors to have won the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romantic Novel of the Year Award twice. Before university she worked … Read more
Joe Abercrombie is an English fantasy author, born in Lancaster in 1974, best known for “The First Law” trilogy and the further novels set in the same world. His most recent novel, “The Devils” (2025), opened a new series, and its sequel “The Heretics” is due in May 2027. Abercrombie went to Lancaster Royal Grammar … Read more
Janet Evanovich is an American novelist, born in South River, New Jersey, in 1943, best known for her comic mysteries about Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton who becomes a bounty hunter after losing her job. The series began with “One for the Money” in 1994 and reaches its thirty-second novel in 2026. … Read more
Jane Austen (born 16 December 1775, died 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known mainly for six novels about the landed gentry of late eighteenth-century England, among them “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma”. Her plots often turn on the dependence of women on marriage for social standing and economic security. Austen was born in … Read more
Dame Jacqueline Wilson (born 17 December 1945) is an English novelist known for children’s books that deal with realistic subjects such as adoption, abuse and divorce. She has written more than 100 books since 1969, including “The Story of Tracy Beaker”, “Double Act” and the Hetty Feather series. Wilson was born Jacqueline Aitken in Bath … Read more
Sir Ian Rankin (born 28 April 1960 in Cardenden, Fife) is a Scottish crime writer best known for the Inspector Rebus novels, a series set mainly in Edinburgh that began with “Knots and Crosses” in 1987 and reached its twenty-fifth book with “Midnight and Blue” in 2024. The Rebus books have sold more than 35 … Read more
Holly Black is an American author of fantasy for children, teenagers and adults. She is best known for “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, created with the writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and for the Folk of the Air series that began with “The Cruel Prince” in 2018. Her books have been translated into 32 languages. Black was … Read more
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese novelist, born in Kyoto on 12 January 1949, whose books include “Norwegian Wood”, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, “Kafka on the Shore” and “1Q84”. His work has been translated into 50 languages and is often described as magical realism. Murakami was raised in Nishinomiya, Ashiya and Kobe, the only child of … Read more
Fredrik Backman is a Swedish novelist, columnist and blogger, born on 2 June 1981. He made his debut in 2012 with “A Man Called Ove” and has since written the Beartown trilogy, “Anxious People” and “My Friends”. Backman grew up in Helsingborg and wrote for the newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad and for the men’s magazine Moore. … Read more
