Christopher Paul Pascoe (born 26 April 1966) is an English writer of humorous books, and magazine columnist.
His first two books, A Cat Called Birmingham (Hodder & Stoughton, 2005) [1] and You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007) tell the story of a disaster-prone cat named Birmingham.
A Cat Called Birmingham has since been translated into French and Chinese. In France, the book is titled Monsieur Chatastrophe . The book caused controversy in Birmingham because it was seen as a slur on the city by a London-based writer. [2]
You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough has also been released in France (October 2009), titled Le Journal de Monsieur Chatastrophe.
A Cat Called Birmingham and You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough have featured in Kindle's Top-Ten Cat books, and A Cat Called Birmingham is now in its tenth U.K. edition. You Can Take the Cat Out of Slough was re-released in paperback in 2015.
In 2009, Pascoe signed with Anova Books, and Death, Destruction and a Packet of Peanuts, a humorous factual/historical tour of the English Civil War battlefields and their pubs, was released on Anova's Portico imprint in July 2010.
Confessions of a Cat Sitter, based on the long-running Your Cat magazine series, was released in January 2016.
The World's Daftest Rabbit, a collection of his My Weekly magazine columns, was released by My Weekly in September 2017, and The World's Craziest Cats in September 2018.
Pascoe is now a writer with various U.K. and U.S. magazines, and is a columnist for the U.K. national magazines My Weekly and Your Cat. [3]
Lindsey Davis is an English historical novelist, best known as the author of the Falco series of historical crime stories set in ancient Rome and its empire. She is a recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger award.
James Daniel May is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter, alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, of the motoring programme Top Gear from 2003 until 2015 and the television series The Grand Tour for Amazon Prime Video from 2016 to 2024. He also served as a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons.
A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay by a specific writer who offers a personal point of view. Columns are sometimes written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or a brand name. Columnists typically write daily or weekly columns. Some columns are later collected and reprinted in book form.
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous novel by English writer Jerome K. Jerome describing a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty.
Edmund Dulac was a French-British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse, he studied law but later turned to the study of art at the École des Beaux-Arts. He moved to London early in the 20th century and in 1905 received his first commission to illustrate the novels of the Brontë Sisters. During World War I, Dulac produced relief books. After the war, the deluxe children's book market shrank, and he then turned to magazine illustrations among other ventures. He designed banknotes during World War II and postage stamps, most notably those that heralded the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
Lynn Breeze is a British illustrator and author who specialises in books for babies and toddlers. She has illustrated more than 100 books, and has also written many stories. Breeze is well known for her Pickle series of board books, which introduce infants to household objects, as well as the This Little Baby series. Her books have been translated into various European languages, and have been distributed internationally.
Vitali Vitaliev is a Ukrainian-born journalist and writer who has worked in Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland.
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
Gervase Phinn is an English author and educator. After a career as a teacher he became a schools inspector and, latterly, Visiting Professor of Education at the University of Teesside. He graduated from Leeds Trinity University in 1970 with a degree in Education.
Matthew Robert Ralph d'Ancona is an English journalist and editor-at-large of The New European. A former deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, he was appointed editor of The Spectator in February 2006, a post he retained until August 2009.
Victor Rousseau Emanuel was a British writer who wrote novels, newspaper series, science fiction and pulp fiction works. He was active in Great Britain and the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
Sophie Hannah is a British poet and novelist.
Margaret Murphy is a British crime writer.
Ivan Jones is a British writer of fiction. His work includes novels, picture books, plays, poetry anthologies, television series and many adaptations for BBC Radio. He was born in Shropshire and educated at Adams Grammar School in Newport and has a first degree from Birmingham University and a master's degree from the University of Nottingham.
Lesley-Ann Jones is a British author, journalist and broadcaster who spent more than 20 years as a national newspaper journalist on Fleet Street. Of Welsh descent, she was born in Kent, England. She read French and Spanish at the University of Westminster, and worked in the music industry. She later followed her father, sportswriter Ken Jones, to Fleet Street.
Robert Timothy Dowling is an American journalist and author who writes a weekly column in The Guardian about his life with his family in London.
James Anthony Bowen is an English author based in London. His memoirs A Street Cat Named Bob, The World According to Bob and A Gift from Bob, written with Garry Jenkins, were international best-sellers. A film based on the first two books was released in 2016 and a sequel was released in 2020. Bowen now dedicates his time to helping numerous charities that involve homelessness, literacy and animal welfare.
Sue McCauley QSM is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer, playwright, journalist and screenwriter.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry is a novel written by the Swedish columnist, blogger, and writer Fredrik Backman. The book was first published in Swedish in 2013. The English translation was later published in 2015. The rights for translation have been sold in more than 40 countries. In 2017, the novel was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Concordia Merrel was a British stage and silent film actress, photographer's model and a prolific author of romantic fiction.
