About The Author: Summary and book reviews of About The Author by Alfred Glossbrenner, plus links to an excerpt from About The Author and a biography of Alfred Glossbrenner.
About The Author The Passionate Reader's Guide to the Authors You Love, Including Things You Never Knew, Juicy Bits You'll Want to Know, and Hundreds of Ideas for What to Read Next
by Alfred Glossbrenner
Paperback: May 2000,
320 pages.
For the book fiend in the family, the ultimate fan's guide
An indispensable guide for passionate readers, About the Author offers insider information on America's favorite writers, from Margery Allingham to Evelyn Waugh, from Michael Crichton to Charles Dickens. It gives background on the lives of the writers, what they did before becoming writers, facts about their fans, quirky tidbits, and recommendations for what to read next.
Chosen for their popularity, their staying power, and the intensity of their following, this amazing range of writers will appeal to all types of readers. Find out what movies and television shows were adapted from their novels, how they decided to become writers, what the Nobel Prize for literature did for some, and what being an Oprah selection did for others. In addition, About the Author includes lists galore: from Pulitzers to fan clubs, from bestseller lists to book conventions, from reading groups to CD-ROMs.
About the Author offers an engaging feast of information that any book lover will find hard to put down.
Library Journal
Most of the 120 entries in this bibliographical treat are 20th-century authors selected for their popularity, staying power, and number of followers, though some earlier authors (e.g., Austen, Conrad, Tolstoy) frequently read as high school assignments are also included.... All the information provided here is available in less abbreviated form in Contemporary Authors, but this book is handy to use and reasonably priced.
School Library Journal
The Glossbrenners include quite a few enticing bits of personal or professional facts on the two pages allotted to each of 125 popular authors, mainly from this country and Great Britain. A small black-and-white photograph appears with most entries.... The book includes lots of lists and information about book clubs, conventions, special events, and publishers. It offers just the right amount of facts for quick reference or to use as a starting point for more intense investigation.
Booklist
The alphabetized order makes for some funny juxtapositions of commercial authors with literary luminaries, Danielle Steel followed by Wallace Stegner, for instance; but the Glossbrenners don't allow the pragmatic format to dull their commentary their short takes are informative and instantly addictive.
Illuminates the work of 125 current novelists who have captured the imagination of the modern reader. Each entry includes critical commentary on the author's published fiction by prominent reviewers, as well as thematic and plot synopses, and a short biography.
This is one of 2 readalike suggestions for About The Author. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing(May 16 2013) In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth...
Full Story
Library Journal
