Nick Hornby

Will is thirty-six, comfortable and child-free. And he's discovered a brilliant new way of meeting women - through single-parent groups.

Marcus is twelve and a little bit nerdish: he's got the kind of mother who made him listen to Joni Mitchell rather than Nirvana.

Perhaps they can help each other out a little bit, and both can start to act their age.

In this joyous and illuminating book, the million-copy bestselling author brings together an unlikely pairing to explore the story of their creative genius

What could possibly connect Prince, the great twentieth century singer songwriter, and Charles Dickens, the great writer of classics usually stuffed into the hands of adolescents too early? What could these two geniuses, one born in 1812 in England, and the other in 1950s Minneapolis, have in common?

For Nick Hornby, Dickens and Prince are two artists that compare to no others. At the young age of 24, they both had their breakthroughs, Prince with '1999' and Dickens with The Pickwick Papers. At 26, Prince released 'Purple Rain' and Dickens' Oliver Twist was published, and, by 30, both artists were huge stars.

No one else had such a relentless work ethic and produced such a staggeringly original and enormous body of work. Where did their magic come from? How did they use it? And, in the end, did it kill them?

Tracing their lives, from the early years to their relationships with women, their finances to their inability to stop working, Dickens and Prince is a brilliantly surprising and joyous uncovering of the essence of a very particular and unique type of genius.

As a young boy, growing up in the Home Counties and watching his parents' marriage fall apart, Nick Hornby had little sense of home. Then his dad took him to Highbury. Arsenal's football ground would become the source of many of the strongest feelings he'd ever have: joy, humiliation, heartbreak, frustration and hope.

In this now-classic book, he vividly depicts his troubled relationship with his father, his time as a teacher, and his first loves (after football), all through the prism of the game, as he insightfully and brilliantly explores obsession, and the way it can shape a life.

Barbara Parker is Miss Blackpool of 1964, but she doesn't want to be a beauty queen. She only wants to make people laugh. She lands a life-changing audition for a new BBC comedy series and overnight she becomes Sophie Straw: charming, gorgeous, destined to win the nation's hearts. But soon the script begins to get a bit too close to home, and life starts imitating art..

Nick Hornby's first novel, an international bestseller and instantly recognized by critics and readers alike as a classic, helps to explain men to women, and men to men. Rob is good on music: he owns a small record shop and has strong views on what's decent and what isn't. But he's much less good on relationships. In fact, he's not at all sure that he wants to commit himself to anyone. So it's hardly surprising that his girlfriend decides that enough is enough.

Because Katie, a doctor, is a good person, whilst her husband, David, is the 'Angriest Man in Holloway' she calculates that she has earned her affair with another man. When David suddenly becomes good, Katie's sums no longer add up! Contains some offensive language.

On an average Saturday morning in a butcher's shop in North London, Lucy and Joseph meet on opposite sides of the counter. She is a teacher and mother of two, with a past she is trying to forget; he is an aspiring DJ with a wide-open future that maybe needs to start becoming more focused. Lucy and Joseph are opposites in almost all ways. Can something life-changing grow from uncommon ground?

On New Year's Eve at Toppers' House, London's most popular suicide spot, four strangers realise that this will not be the private final act they had imagined. They start to talk, but can an evening with other 'losers', and pizza, see them through the long dark night? X rated, contains offensive language.