Love For Books

Sue Townsend

Susan Lillian “Sue” Townsend was born on 2nd April 1946 she is a best selling British novelist, best known as the author of the Adrian Mole books.
Sue who was born in Leicester went to Glen Hills Primary school, where she got the idea for her Adrian Mole books, the school secretary was Mrs Claricotes, which is one of names she used as the secretary her the books. Her dad was a postman and she had three sisters of which she was the eldest. Sue went to the secondary modern South Wigston High School and left at the age of 15 ,  she then  worked in a variety of jobs including shop and factory work. She later married a sheet-metal worker with whom she had three children under five by the time she was 22. She joined a writers’ group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester when she was in her thirties.
She has four children: Sean, Daniel, Victoria and Elizabeth.

Sues novels include;
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982)
• The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)
• The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
• Adrian Mole From Minor to Major (1991) Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)
• Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)

Michelle Knight

Michele Knight was brought up in London by her mother who was Itallian and a very gifted psycic. Her beloved father who was English, died when she was just six it was from then that her life changed. She had a very unstable upbringing  and was sexually abused by many different men all through her childhood including her neighbours and her mothers lovers, her mother never knew of any of this and was distraught when Michelle told her many years later.

She was born a twin but her twin Lucy died when she was born, she stayed with Michelle in spirit allways there to protect and guide her to safety. She also has an adopted brother, Nicholas, who has also had a difficult life. Michelle has a son Julien whom she has adored since the moment he was born. She has had to climb a mountain to get where she is today, when many people would have given up.

Michelle was passed on the psycic gift from her mother and has spent most of her life doing readings . She works with lots of famous people and has appeared on TV shows including Housebusters, she is also resident psycic on X Factor xtra and strictly dance fever.

Rachel Vincent

Rachel Vincent learned to read when she was just four years old. At the age of six she had written her first story about a school class that went on a trip to a zoo. In this first story Rachel illustrated it herself, this was to be the first and last time as it seems her talent lies with writing, drawing is not really her thing.

Since she was in sixth grade, Rachel’s being interested in reading about the dark side. When she was in junior high, she wrote her first book report which was about Carrie, by Stephen King, her teacher found it a bit distressing. She poured over books about vampires, magic and werewolves. She was fascinated by monsters whether human or beast. Eventually she started to write books of her own.

All the way through High school and College Rachel wrote short stories, but it wasn’t until several years later when she started to write her first novel that she began writing seriously. After she had completed her first four manuscripts, Rachel knew that this was what she wanted to do with her life.

Recommended by Rachel Vincent - Stray

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Barbara Rendell was born on 17 February 1930, she also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, she is an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many murder mysteries and psychological thrillers.

She was born in South Woodford, London, the daughter of teachers, she was educated at the County High School for Girls in Loughton, Essex after which she worked as a journalist for Essex newspapers. Ruth was fired after she wrote an article on the local Tennis Club’s annual dinner, which she had not really attended.

Ruth also won of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary award, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
She has won lots of awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with A Demon in My View; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, The New Girl Friend; a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986.

Ruth’s books are loved worldwide and have been translated into twenty-two languages; they are also published to great acclaim in the United States.

James Long

Until the end of the 1980’s James Long was a BBC TV news correspondent. After two years of running an international TV station from Zurich, he returned back to England where he could concentrate on writing, which was always his first love. He first wrote four thrillers, he then returned to a story he had begun writing many years previously and which became Ferney. The story was originally born from his disappointment at being unable to purchase an old run down cottage which he had found near the village of Penselwood this cottage then became the centre of the book. Lots more books followed, which included two which were written under the pseudonym ‘Will Davenport.’ He later moved onto historical non-fiction in 2007 with The Plot against Pepys, which he co-wrote with his eldest son, Ben. Since then, he has co-written a play with his middle son, Harry.
James lives with his wife, Annie and daughter Matilda in Totnes, Devon. His interests vary from archaeology to motor racing. He is also actively involved in the creative writing charity, the Arvon Foundation he tutors from sometimes on Arvon courses. He is also a patron and adviser to the Dartington Literary Festival, ‘Ways with Words.’

Catherine Cookson

Catherine Cookson was born Kate McMullen at 5 Leam Lane in Tyne Dock, South Shields, which was then part of County Durham, later she moved to East Jarrow, County Durham (now in Tyne and Wear), which became the setting for one of her best selling books, The Fifteen Streets. Catherine was the illegitimate child of an alcoholic mother, Kate Fawcett. When she was a child, Catherine thought that her unmarried mother was her sister, and her grandmother Rose McMullen and her step-grandfather John McMullen raised her.
Catherine left school aged 13 and, after a period of domestic service, she took a laundry job at HartonWorkhouse in South Shields. In 1929 she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, saving every penny to buy her a large Victorian house and then taking in gentleman lodgers to supplement her income.
In June 1940, at the age of 34, she married Tom Cookson who was a teacher at Hastings Grammar School. After having four miscarriages late in pregnancy, it was discovered that she was suffering from a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which causes bleeding from the nose, fingers and stomach and results in anemia. A mental breakdown followed the miscarriages, from which she took a decade to recover.

JK Rowling

Joanne “Jo” Rowling OBE, better known as JK Rowling was born on 31 July 1965. J. K. Rowling is a British author, who is best known as being creator of the much loved Harry Potter series. JK says she came up with the idea for of Harry Potter when she was on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. Harry Potter books are famous worldwide  and have won multiple awards the book have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and has been made into box office favourite movies, both the books and the films are loved by both adults and children.

Awell as writing the Harry Potter books, JK is also famous for her “rags to riches” life story, in which she changed from living on benefits to being a multi-millionaire within five years. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated JK is worth £560 million ($1.1 billion), meaning she is the twelfth richest woman in Britain. Forbes ranked JK as the forty eighth most powerful celebrities of 2007.

JK was born to Peter James and Anne Rowling in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, she has a sister, Dianne (Di) who was born at their home on 28 June 1967] when Rowling was 23 months old.

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Llandaff Cardiff, Wales , his parents were  Norwegian , Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl (née Hesselberg). Hiss family moved from Norway to Cardiff in the 1880s. He was named after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who was a national hero in Norway around that time. He spoke Norwegian at home with his parents and sisters. Dahl and his sisters were christened at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff, where their parents worshipped.

In 1920, when he was just four, his seven year old sister, Astri, died suddenly from appendicitis.  A month later, his dad, Harald died of pneumonia aged of 57, following the grieving from his daughter Astri’s death. Dahl’s mother,Sofie, decided she wouldnt return to Norway to live with relatives, instead she chose remain in Wales since it had been her late husband’s wish to have their children educated in British schools.

Roald first attended The Cathedral School, Llandaff. At the age of eight, he and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of sweets at the local sweet shop, which was owned by a “mean and loathsome” old woman called Mrs. Pratchett (wife of blacksmith David Pratchett). This was known amongst the five boys as the “Great Mouse Plot of 1924″. This was Roald’s own idea.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a Spanish novelist. He was born in Barcelona in 1964, he has lived in Los Angeles, United States, since 1993, he works as a scriptwriter aside from writing novels.

His first novel, El príncipe de la niebla (The Prince of Mist, 1993), earned the Edebé literary prize for young adult fiction. He is also the author of three more young-adult novels, El palacio de la medianoche (1994), Las luces de septiembre (1995) and Marina (1999).

In 2001 he published the novel La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind), his first “adult” novel, which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Since its publication, La sombra del viento has garnered critical acclaim around the world and has won numerous international awards. It has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone. Ruiz Zafón’s works have been published in 45 countries and have been translated into more than 30 languages. According to these figures, Ruiz Zafón is the most successful contemporary Spanish writer along with Javier Sierra (published in 42 countries) and Juan Gómez-Jurado .

Danielle Steel

Danielle Fernande Dominique Schuelein-Steel was born in New York on August 14, 1947 her parents were John Schulein Steel, and Norma da Câmara Stone Reis, the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat.[Danielle spent much of her childhood in France [3], where she was from an early age included in her parents’ dinner parties, which gave her the opportunity to observe the lives and habits of the rich and famous.[2] Her parents divorced when Danielle was seven, and she was raised in by her father in New York, she rarely saw her mother, who moved to Europe.[1]

Danielle’s books have been translated into 28 languages and can now be found in 47 countries across the world.[9] Her books, often involve the main characters being in a crisis of some sort which threatens their relationship. Some people say that her characters are over-the-top, which they feel make her books seem unrealistic.

Danielle has had  Twenty-two of her books adapted for television films; two have even received Golden Globe nominations. One of them is “Jewels,” which is the story of the survival of a woman and her children in World War II Europe, and the family’s eventual rebirth as one of the greatest jewelry houses in Europe.