Roald Dahl was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. He has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century".
Victor Lewis-Smith was a British film, television and radio producer, a television and restaurant critic, a satirist and newspaper columnist. He was executive producer of the ITV1 Annual National Food & Drink Awards. He was an alumnus of the University of York and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Westminster in November 2008.
Delia Ann Smith is an English cook and television presenter, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a direct style. One of the best-known celebrity chefs in British popular culture, Smith has influenced viewers to become more culinarily adventurous. She is also notable for her role as Honorary Life President of Norwich City, where she was previously the Joint Majority Shareholder alongside Wynn-Jones from 1998 to 2024.
Brian David Sibley is an English writer. He is author of over 100 hours of radio drama and has written and presented hundreds of radio documentaries, features and weekly programmes. Among his adaptations is the 1981 version of The Lord of the Rings for radio. A columnist and author, he is widely known as the author of many film "making of" books, including those for the Harry Potter series, and The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.
William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple is an India-based Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
There are several different types of mass media in the United Kingdom: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and websites. The United Kingdom is known for its large music industry, along with its new and upcoming artists. The country also has a large broadcasting, film, video games and book publishing industries.
"Don't Stop Believin'" is a song by American rock band Journey. It was released in October 1981 as the second single from the group's seventh studio album, Escape (1981), released through Columbia Records. "Don't Stop Believin'" shares writing credits between the band's vocalist Steve Perry, guitarist Neal Schon, and keyboardist Jonathan Cain. A mid-tempo rock anthem and power ballad, "Don't Stop Believin'" is known for its iconic opening piano riff.
Michael Monroe Lewis is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He is known for his nonfiction work, particularly his coverage of financial crises and behavioral finance.
Nathaniel Parker is an English stage and screen actor best known for playing the lead in the BBC crime drama series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, and Agravaine de Bois in the fourth series of Merlin.
Peter Sís is a Czech-born American illustrator and writer of children's books. As a cartoonist his editorial illustrations have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, and The Atlantic Monthly. In 2012 he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his "lasting contribution" as an illustrator of children's literature.
The New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The magazine's offices are located near Times Square in New York City.
Julian Dutton is an English writer and performer. He is principally known for television and radio, whose work has won a British Comedy Award, a BAFTA, and a Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Comedy. He is the author of six books.
Helen Elizabeth Skelton is an English television presenter. She co-presented the BBC children's programme Blue Peter from 2008 until 2013, and since 2014 has been a presenter on Countryfile. She co-presented two series of the BBC One programme Holiday Hit Squad alongside Angela Rippon and Joe Crowley. She also presented the daytime series The Instant Gardener that ran for two series.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
A History of the World in 100 Objects was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of a 100-part radio series written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor. In 15-minute presentations broadcast on weekdays on Radio 4, MacGregor used objects of ancient art, industry, technology and arms, all of which are in the British Museum's collections, as an introduction to parts of human history. The series, four years in planning, began on 18 January 2010 and was broadcast over 20 weeks. A book to accompany the series, A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor, was published by Allen Lane on 28 October 2010. The entire series is also available for download along with an audio version of the book for purchase. The British Museum won the 2011 Art Fund Prize for its role in hosting the project.
American Rust (2009) is a novel by American writer Philipp Meyer. It is set in the 2000s, in the fictional town of Buell in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, which is in a rural region referred to as "the Valley" of dilapidated steel towns. The novel focuses on the decline of the American middle class and well-paying manufacturing jobs, and the general sense of economic and social malaise. Meyer's novel received positive reviews, and many publications ranked it as one of the best novels of the year.
Bring Up the Bodies is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning Wolf Hall (2009), and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy is The Mirror & the Light (2020).
The Martian is a 2011 science fiction debut novel written by Andy Weir. The book was originally self-published on Weir's blog, in a serialized format. In 2014, the book was re-released after Crown Publishing Group purchased the exclusive publishing rights. The story follows an American astronaut, Mark Watney, as he becomes stranded alone on Mars in 2035 and must improvise in order to survive.
Chigozie Obioma is a Nigerian writer who wrote the novels The Fishermen (2015) and An Orchestra of Minorities (2019), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in their respective years of publication. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. His third novel, The Road to the Country, was published in 2024, and was described by The Guardian as 'giving voice to the victims of the Nigerian civil war'.
Mark Vanhoenacker is a Belgian-American airline pilot and author. He is a Boeing 787 pilot with British Airways and is also frequent contributor for the New York Times, Slate and the Financial Times with a focus on aviation. His first book, Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot was published in 2015, followed by How to Land a Plane in 2017, and Imagine a City in 2022.
