John Connolly is the Sunday Times, Irish Times and New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books. His body of works include the Charlie Parker novels, The Book of Lost Things and The Samuel Johnson Adventures.
John Connolly is the first non-US author to win the Shamus Award. He has also won the Barry and Agatha awards. He is sold in 28 languages. John was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968, and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods. He studied English at Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, to which he continues to contribute.
He is based in Dublin but divides his time between his native city and the United States, where each of his novels has been set.
The Book of Bones is a thriller that ranges across different countries, and various time periods, to detail the hunt for a book called The Fractured Atlas, believed to be capable of altering worlds. As for why people should read it, well, I have two dogs and a wine habit to feed.
If someone was to write your life story what would the title be?
I’d steal the title of the New Zealand writer Barry Crump’s book Bastards I Have Met.
What’s the strangest fan question or request you’ve received?
Actually, they’re generally quite lovely, although I know that tattoos of my handwriting, and one or two quotations from my books, are adorning body parts in the form of tattoos.
If you could co-write with anyone in the world (alive or dead) who would it be?
P.G. Wodehouse, if only because he seemed like a thoroughly good sort.
Tell me something nobody else knows about you (yet!).
There’s nothing. I’m an open book.
Finally please recommend 3 books that you have recently read and tell me why you’ve chosen these.
Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh: like a British Catch-22, but with more Catholicism.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers: because the single death in the book has stayed with me ever since.
The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke: because it’s good to remind oneself how high the bar has been set.
