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Modern Authors
Build your taste profile and get better suggestions. You've rated 0 of 46 topics. Want more suggestions? Launch Quick Rate- J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Murray, OBE (née Rowling; born 31 July 1965), better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990.
- Anne Rice
Anne Rice (born Howard Allen O'Brien on October 4, 1941) is a best-selling American author of gothic and religious-themed books. She was married to poet and painter Stan Rice for 41 years until his death in 2002. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read...
- Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris (born November 25, 1951 in Tunica, Mississippi) is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, and...
- Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman (pronounced /ˈɡeɪmən/) (born 10 November 1960) is an English author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comics, and films. His notable works include The Sandman comic series, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.
- Dan Brown
Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols and codes, and have been translated into 51 languages.
- John Grisham
John Ray Grisham (born February 8, 1955) is an American author, best known for his popular legal thrillers. Before becoming a writer, he was a successful lawyer and politician. As of 2008, his books have sold over 250 million copies worldwide. John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was...
- Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher. He lives near Vancouver, Washington.
- Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948), more commonly known as Terry Pratchett, is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. In late 2007 he was...
- Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (born March 6, 1927) is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. García Márquez, familiarly known as "Gabo" in his native country, is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. In 1982, he was...
- Jamie Oliver
James Trevor 'Jamie' Oliver, MBE (born 27 May 1975), frequently nicknamed The Naked Chef, is an English chef and media personality well known for his growing list of food-focused television shows, his more recent roles in campaigning against the use of processed foods in national schools, and his...
- Jodi Picoult
Jodi Lynn Picoult (pronounced /ˈdʒoʊdi piːˈkoʊ/) (born May 19, 1966) is an American author. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003. Picout was born and raised in Nesconset on Long Island but moved to New Hampshire when she was 13 years old.
- Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami (born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim, and he is the sixth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize for his novel Kafka on the Shore. He is considered by critics an important figure in...
- Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan (born June 5, 1964 in San Antonio) author from Texas of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He also wrote the Tres Navarre mystery series for adults and helped to edit Demigods and Monsters, a collection of essays on the topic of his Percy Jackson series.
- David Baldacci
David Baldacci (b. 1960 in Richmond, Virginia) is a bestselling American novelist. Baldacci received a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. As a student, Baldacci wrote short stories in his spare time, and later practiced law for nine years...
- José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ sɐɾɐˈmaɡu]; born November 16, 1922) is a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events...
- Clive Cussler
Clive Eric Cussler (born July 15, 1931 in Aurora, Illinois) is an American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra, California. He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14.
- Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940) is a contemporary American author of detective novels. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Sue Grafton is the daughter of novelist C. W. Grafton and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children of Presbyterian ministers.
- Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell (born September 3, 1963) is a British-born Canadian journalist, author, and pop sociologist, based in New York City. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He is best known as the author of the books, The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008).
- Enid Blyton
Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 ? 28 November 1968) was a British children's writer known as both Enid Blyton and Mary Pollock. She was one of the most successful children's storytellers of the twentieth century. She is noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed...
- Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini (Persian: خالد حسینی [ˈxɒled hoˈsejni], or pronounced /ˈhɑːlɛd hoʊˈseɪni/ by English speakers) (born March 4, 1965) is a novelist and physician from Afghanistan. He is currently living in the United States, where he is a citizen. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite...
- Ann Brashares
Ann Brashares is an American writer of young adult and adult fiction. She is best known as the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series of books which later spawned two movies. The first installment in her most recent series, My Name is Memory, was optioned for film in 2009.
- Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, (born 24 August 1948) is a Zimbabwean-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and...
- Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist from Jackson, Mississippi. She is known for her 2009 debut novel, The Help, which is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. The novel climbed best seller charts a few months after it was released.
- Audrey Niffenegger
Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963 in South Haven, Michigan) is an American writer and artist. She is also a professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. She is the founding member of T3 or Text 3, an artist and...
- Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (Czech pronunciation: [ˈmɪlan ˈkundɛra]; born April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech and French writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness...
- Diana Gabaldon
Diana Jean Gabaldon Watkins (b. January 11, 1952 in Arizona) is an American author of Mexican-American and English ancestry. Diana Gabaldon is her maiden name, and the one she uses professionally. Gabaldon is the author of the best-selling Outlander Series.
- Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese: (Kazuo Ishiguro) or (Ishiguro Kazuo); born November 8, 1954) is a British novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of...
- Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE (born 23 February 1944) is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films. Cornwell was born in London in 1944.
- Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis (born October 15, 1960, New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American contemporary non-fiction author. His bestselling books include Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and Home Game: An Accidental Guide to...
- Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy (born October 26, 1945 in Atlanta, Georgia), is a New York Times bestselling author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Born Donald Patrick Conroy, he was the eldest of seven children (five boys and two girls) born to Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, of Chicago and the...
- Yann Martel
Yann Martel (born June 25, 1963 in Salamanca, Spain) is a Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi. As an adolescent Martel attended high school at Trinity College School, a boarding school in Port Hope, Ontario, where he honed his early skills in writing.
- Madeleine Wickham
Madeleine Sophie Wickham (nee Townley), who also writes under the pseudonym Sophie Kinsella, is an English author of chick lit. Educated at Putney High School and New College, Oxford, she worked as a financial journalist before turning to fiction. She is best known for writing the Shopaholic novels...
- Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls is a writer and journalist. One of four siblings, she was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated with honors from Barnard College, the women's college affiliated with Columbia University. She published the bestselling memoir The Glass Castle in 2005.
- Vince Flynn
Vince Flynn (born April 6, 1966) is a best-selling American author of political thriller novels. He lives with his wife and three children in the Twin Cities. He also served as a story consultant for the fifth season of the 24 television series. Vince Flynn is a graduate of Saint Thomas Academy...
- J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee (Afrikaans pronunciation: [kutˈseː]) (born 9 February 1940) is an author and academic from South Africa (now an Australian citizen living in South Australia). A novelist and literary critic as well as a translator, Coetzee won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Arthur Golden
Arthur Golden (born in 1956 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is the writer of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha. A member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family (owners of the New York Times), Golden grew up on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and attended Lookout Mountain Elementary School in Lookout Mountain...
- Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout (born January 6, 1956) is a Pulitzer Prize winning American author of fiction. She was raised in small towns in New Hampshire and Maine. After graduating from Bates College, she spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year.
- Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson (born 1957) is a humanitarian, international peace-maker, and former mountaineer from Bozeman, Montana. Mortenson is the co-founder (with Dr. Jean Hoerni) and director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute, and founder of the educational charity, Pennies For Peace.
- Jason F. Wright
Jason F. Wright (born February 1, 1971 in Florissant, Missouri) is an American author and political blogger and pundit. Jason Fletcher Wright was born on February 1 near St. Louis, Missouri to Willard Samuel Wright and Sandra Fletcher Wright. Within months of his birth, Jason's father was...
- William P. Young
William Paul Young is a Canadian author, best known for The Shack, a novel. Young was the eldest of four, born May 11th, 1955, in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, but the majority of his first decade was lived with his missionary parents in the highlands of Netherlands New Guinea (West Papua)...
- Garth Stein
Garth Stein is an American author and film producer from Seattle, Washington. Stein earned a B.A. in 1987 from Columbia College of Columbia University and later received a Master of Fine Arts degree in film from the University's School of the Arts. Afterwards, Stein worked as a director, producer...
- Julia Donaldson
Julia Donaldson (born in 1948) is an English writer and playwright living in Scotland, best known as author of The Gruffalo and other children's books, many illustrated in cartoon style by German Axel Scheffler. Of the 79 books that she has written, 67 have been published: 29 are widely available...
- Mark Levin
Mark Reed Levin (born September 21, 1957) is an American radio host, lawyer, author, and political commentator who served in the Reagan administration. He is the host of The Mark Levin Show, a nationally-syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States, and the President of Landmark...
- Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian (Chinese: ; pinyin: Gāo Xíngjiàn; Wade-Giles: Kao Hsing-chien, pronounced [kɑ́ʊ ɕǐŋtɕjɛ̂n]; born January 4, 1940) is a Chinese-born novelist, playwright, and critic. An émigré to France since 1987, Gao was granted the French citizenship in 1997.
- Glenn Beck
Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American radio and television host, conservative political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He hosts The Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks.
