Hornby writes with a funny, fresh voice which skewers male and female foibles with hilarious accuracy Guardian He should write for England Observer Hornby is a fine writer, swift and pointed, with a lighter, more mischievous heart than he lets on, and more sympathy for the devil than he admits to New York Magazine

Nick Hornby was born in 1957. He is the author of five previous novels, High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the Whitbread Award) and Slam; three works of non-fiction, Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award), 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Books Critics Circle Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree; and a Pocket Penguin book of short stories, Otherwise Pandemonium. He has also edited two anthologies, My Favourite Year and Speaking With the Angel. In 1999 he was awarded the E. M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2002 he won the W. H. Smith Award for Fiction. He recently wrote the screenplay for a film, An Education. Nick Hornby lives and works in Highbury, north London.