Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double lifeas the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachiaand the faith and fury of its peopleto rich and vivid life.
The son of Viennese émigrés, novelist Allen Kurzweil was raised in Europe and
the United States. Educated at Yale and the University of Rome, he worked for
ten years as a freelance journalist in France, Italy, and Australia before
settling in the United States and turning his attention to fiction.
His first novel, A Case of Curiosities, (Harcourt, 1992) the chronicle of
an eighteenth-century mechanical genius, received international critical
acclaim. Translated into twelve languages, it earned literary honors in England,
Ireland, Italy, and France. The novel was reissued by Harvest Books in 2001.
Allen's next novel, The Grand Complication (Hyperion/Theia Books 2001)
redirected the author's love of invention to twentieth-century New York. As with
the first book, The Grand Complication is steeped in the world of watches
and watchmaking; indeed, the "grand complication" of the title is a 200-year-old
timepiece commissioned for Marie Antoinette and stolen from a Jerusalem museum
in 1983. To research the circumstances of the theft, Allen spent nearly five
years crisscrossing Europe and the Middle East, interviewing detectives,
curators, horologists and watch dealers.
Devotion to the complicated passions of his characters has led Allen to take
courses in pop-up book design, study the repair of player-pianos and work behind
the reference desk of a public library. He regularly constructs the contraptions
"invented" by his characters. To date these devices have included roll-players,
potato cannons, and color wheels designed to distinguish different brands of
potato chips.
Despite a lacklustre performance in grade school, Allen, since 2002, has been
writing children's books. He has published two novels in the bestselling "Leon"
series: Leon and the Spitting Image (2003) followed by Leon and the
Champion Chip (2005).
Allen has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Guggenheim
Foundation, and the New York Public Library Center for Scholars & Writers. He
currently sits on the board of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and
is a fellow at the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American
Civilization at Brown University. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island with his
wife and son.
A note about the biographies
We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 1,500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that
some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date,
inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we replace the old with the new.
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legaciesof magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and lossthat haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in Norfolk. But when a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, and Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help, Ruth finds herself in...
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alices Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole and the grown woman whose story is no less...
The Coral Thief, as riveting and beautifully rendered as Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stotts first novel, is a provocative and tantalizing mix of history, philosophy, and suspense. It conjures up vividly both the feats of Napoleon and the accomplishments of those working without fame or...
I rarely read anything before this. Years ago I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It changed me into a book nut. It was a wonderful ...
read more
I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Shame on me. This book was wonderful, lyrical, entertaining - all the makings of a wonderful ...
read more
The book held so much for the reader but in the end I felt robbed. The evolution of Trudy was disturbing and somewhat insulting. She came across as ...
read more
Justice Department still has issues with Google Settlement(Feb 05 2010) The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this...
Full Story
Hachette formally adopts 'agency model'(Feb 05 2010) Hachette Book Group USA became the second major U.S. publisher to officially announce its intention to move to an agency model for the sale of e-books....
Full Story