BookBrowse has a new look! Learn more about the update here.

Reviews of About The Author by Alfred Glossbrenner

About The Author by 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
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Paperback:
  • May 2000
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

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.

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.

BookBrowse selects from the best and most popular books and features a substantial excerpt of each, usually a full chapter.

The excerptions to this rule are a handful of 'reading guide' books (including this title). In this case, BookBrowse has included the book even though an excerpt was unavailable because we feel it has a contribution to make to this relatively specialized category.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

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.

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.

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.

Reader Reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked About The Author, try these:


Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

Books with similar themes


Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start
discovering exceptional books!
Find Out More

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Briar Club
    The Briar Club
    by Kate Quinn
    Kate Quinn's novel The Briar Club opens with a murder on Thanksgiving Day, 1954. Police are on the ...
  • Book Jacket: Bury Your Gays
    Bury Your Gays
    by Chuck Tingle
    Chuck Tingle, for those who don't know, is the pseudonym of an eccentric writer best known for his ...
  • Book Jacket: Blue Ruin
    Blue Ruin
    by Hari Kunzru
    Like Red Pill and White Tears, the first two novels in Hari Kunzru's loosely connected Three-...
  • Book Jacket: A Gentleman and a Thief
    A Gentleman and a Thief
    by Dean Jobb
    In the Roaring Twenties—an era known for its flash and glamour as well as its gangsters and ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The 1619 Project
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
An impactful expansion of groundbreaking journalism, The 1619 Project offers a revealing vision of America's past and present.
Book Jacket
Lady Tan's Circle of Women
by Lisa See
Lisa See's latest historical novel, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
    by Bart Yates

    A saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

L T C O of the B

and be entered to win..

Win This Book
Win Smothermoss

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

A haunting, imaginative, and twisting tale of two sisters and the menacing, unexplained forces that threaten them and their rural mountain community.

Enter