John Saul

Why John Saul?

     When I was on my freshman year in college, I was into psych things that I always go to the library to research books related to folklore and all. Maybe because of the stories I heard around me and about the place I went to which interested me to delve into these things, out of curiosity also. I found one of John Saul's books on the shelf and I borrowed it hoping I can read it overnight. Alas, I can't read it at night! I have to wait for breaks in between my class during the day to finish the book. But, I really wanted to read his works. They are not only horrifyingly exciting but also mind-terrifying that I can't wait to own some.

Robin Cook

Why Robin Cook?

    As I was on my boring job before, I searched for some diversion to while away my time, I so happen to glance across the street and found a shop that rents books. I visited the shop on my break time and I came upon Robin Cook's work. Just for curiosity and since I am a lover of suspense, I rented one of his books and true, I was enthralled by it. I was hooked by Cook. With all the medical terms I was learning and all the wonders of Science unbelievably revealing to me page by page, I can't seem to just have a break with the book. I enjoyed reading it that everyday (that's how fast I can read his books!), I went to the shop and rent and read some more of his works. It's just so sad I can't read them again and again. When I went to the mall's bookshop, I found one and bought it (it's again on paperback sale! of course, I can't afford books not on sale). The CONTAGION is the only book written by Cook I owned. There are no more on sale but I still keep an eye on his works(only on sale).

About Robin Cook

Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word "medical" to the thriller genre, and thirty-four years after the publication of his breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Cook has successfully combined medical fact with fantasy to produce a succession of twenty-eight New York Times bestsellers that have been translated into forty some languages. To date, they include Outbreak (1987), Mindbend (1988), Mutation (1989), Harmful Intent (1990), Vital Signs (1991), Blindsight (1992), Terminal (1993), Fatal Cure (1994), Acceptable Risk (1995), Contagion (1996), Chromosome 6 (1997), Toxin (1998), Vector (1999), Shock (2001), Seizure (2003), Marker (2005), Crisis (2006), Critical (2007), Foreign Body (2008), and Intervention (2009). Putnam published Cook's most recent novel, Cure, on August 10, 2010.

In each of his novels, Robin Cook strives to elucidate various medical/biotech ethical issues. Dr. Cook says he chose to write thrillers as a way to use entertainment as a method of exposing the public to public policy conundrums such as genetic engineering, medical economics, in vitro fertilization, research funding, managed care, drug research, organ transplantation, stem cell research, concierge medicine, and M.D.-owned specialty hospitals.

There have been numerous theatrical movies, television movies, and mini-series made from Robin Cook's work. In addition to the successful feature film Coma, in December 1993, CBS-TV aired "Robin Cook's Harmful Intent"; in November 1994 NBC-TV aired "Robin Cook's Mortal Fear"; in May 1995, NBC-TV aired "Robin Cook's Virus," based on Outbreak; in February 1996 NBC-TV aired "Robin Cook's Terminal"; in 1997 NBC-TV aired "Robin Cook's Invasion"; and in October 2001 TNT-TV aired "Robin Cook's Acceptable Risk".

Robin Cook was born on May 4, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, and spent his early years in Woodside, Queens before moving to Leonia, New Jersey. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class, his interests switched from archaeology to medicine when he realized, as he humorously puts it, all the major buried cities had been discovered. Putting himself through college, he graduated from Wesleyan University summa cum laude with a major in chemistry and a distinction in government. He then attended Columbia University Medical School and spent his medical school summer electives setting up a blood/gas lab for the Jacques Cousteau Oceanographic Institute in Monaco. Following residency training in general surgery, Dr. Cook was then drafted into the Navy and spent a tour of duty in the South Pacific on the submarine the USS Kamehameha before being transferred to the Deep Submarine Systems Project. After his completion of military service, he was discharged from the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander. He then undertook a second residency in ophthalmology at Harvard. After completion of his second residency, he opened a small private practice of medicine and matriculated at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in public policy. He also accepted a clinical position at Harvard Medical School to teach residents and to see patients at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Robin Cook currently works and lives in Florida. Recent awards include the 2002 "Author of Vision" presented by the RP International organization and a 2004 appointment by President George W. Bush to the Woodrow Wilson Board of Trustees.

In the business arena, Dr. Cook is a co-founder of an Internet software company, a partner of a New Hampshire sports complex, and has significant real estate holdings. In the past he has owned a restaurant and a construction company.

Dr. Cook's hobbies mainly involve interior and architectural design, period renovation, and athletics including basketball, tennis, skiing, and when waves are accessible, surfing.

Dean Koontz

                          

Why Dean Koontz?

Being a book reader by heart, I borrowed a book from an acquaintance just to while away time, and she gave me one of the books in her boss' study, "Whispers".  I was engrossed by it, being a lover of suspense and detective stories, that I can't wait to purchase his books if I'll have the chance to see it. When I got the chance to search the bookstore, it so happened that his books are on paperback sale! I began to collect and put it in my bookshelf. It's just so sad that not all his books are for sale, so I have to settle with what I can only purchase thinking how much money will be left for other priorities. 

So far, I owned 11 of his books:
       
      Whispers

            The page-turner, terrifying, fascinating and thoroughly engrossing tale that I was not able to like to see cockroaches for a while...like I have been there and have to shoo them away from me but I can't...

    

 

About Dean Koontz

When he was a senior in college, Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition and has been writing ever since. His books are published in 38 languages. He has sold 400,000,000 copies, a figure that currently increases by more than 17 million copies per year.

Twelve of his novels have risen to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list (One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, Intensity, Sole Survivor, The Husband, Odd Hours, and Relentless), making him one of only a dozen writers ever to have achieved that milestone. Fourteen of his books have risen to the number one position in paperback. His books have also been major bestsellers in countries as diverse as Japan and Sweden.

The New York Times has called his writing “psychologically complex, masterly and satisfying.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Koontz is, “at times lyrical without ever being naive or romantic. [He creates] a grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O’Conner or Walker Percy … scary, worthwhile reading.” Rolling Stone has hailed him as “America’s most popular suspense novelist.”

Dean Koontz was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University), and his first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where he was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-to-one basis. His first day on the job, he discovered that the previous occupier of his position had been beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and Koontz was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. He wrote nights and weekends, which he continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After a year and a half in that position, his wife, Gerda, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “I’ll support you for five years,” she said, “and if you can’t make it as a writer in that time, you’ll never make it.” By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of her husband’s writing career.

Dean Koontz lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.

Jean Auel

Why Jean Auel?

Way back in my college days, I happen to read a book written by her from one of my dorm mates on my lazy and boring days. I was totally love-struck by her way of writing, her plot and everything that I promised to myself that if I will be able to get hold of her books I will never let go of it. Many years still passed, I was already married when I stumbled upon "The Mammoth Hunters" on paperback sale! I grabbed tight on it and true, never let it go until I finished it! From then on, I always dropped by any bookstore on sale and try to comb every shelf for her works...I was able to collect, with the help also of my sis, only four of the Earth's Children series. I still have to search for the other two which I am really dying to own but can't afford to order...just waiting for it on the sale list.

 

About Jean Auel

  

“It started as a short story…”

Jean Marie Auel was born February 18, 1936, the second of five children of parents Neil and Martha Untinen. She is an American author best known for her Earth's Children® books, a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. As of 2010 her novels have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide, with nearly half that total number sold in the United States alone. The series consists of The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage, The Shelters of Stone, and The Land of Painted Caves.

She grew up in Chicago. Following her marriage to Ray Auel—a man she has known since they were children together in grade school, and with whom she recently celebrated a 56th wedding anniversary--the Auels relocated to Oregon. She did her undergraduate work at Portland State University, and later earned an M.B.A. from the University of Portland, while working and raising her five children.

In 1977, at the age of forty and on the cusp of changing jobs, Ms. Auel was inspired by the idea of writing a story—a short story—that was as entertaining and informative as the books she enjoyed herself. She envisioned a young woman from mankind’s earliest history, who was the archetypal stranger, living with people who are physically and psychologically different. Ms. Auel began to write, until she realized something important: She had no idea what the world she wanted to write about was like. How did early people live? What did they eat? What were their relationships like? And what kind of a woman could not only live through the challenges of this harsh world and harsher prejudices, but triumph?

Always meticulous and a voracious reader, Ms. Auel began to research. She visited the local library and came home with two armfuls of books. She immersed herself in the available historical and scientific data, learning everything she could about life more than 30,000 years ago. Her extensive, precise research became a hallmark of her work, earning her the respect of archeologists, anthropologists, and paleontologists worldwide for her subtle interpretation of facts and artifacts. “Scientists have to be objective,” she has stated, “but as an author I have to be subjective. But it is an informed subjectivity, and true to the facts we have.”

She named her heroine Ayla (pronounced with a long “A”). Ms. Auel’s short story grew into an outline for a novel … and the outline grew into a plan for six epic novels. “I told my husband I had a plan for six books,” she laughs, “and he replied I hadn’t even written one!”

But she soon finished the first of the novels, entitled The Clan of the Cave Bear, composed in a burst of creative energy in just over one year. A chance encounter with a New York-based literary agent at a local writers’ workshop further sparked her success; the much-respected Jean Naggar expressed real interest in the manuscript. Impressed with the power of her storytelling, Naggar negotiated a deal for the novel … and the rest is publishing history. The Clan of the Cave Bear was published in hardcover in 1980, and The Valley of Horses followed in 1982. Her third novel The Mammoth Hunters (1985) broke records, being the first hardcover novel with a first printing of more than one million copies. In 1990, The Plains of Passage was published, and in 2002, her fifth novel, The Shelters of Stone, debuted at #1 on bestseller lists in 16 countries. The Land of Painted Caves will be published all over the world in late March, 2011.

Ms. Auel still lives in Portland, Oregon. She holds four honorary degrees from universities, and was awarded the French government's Ministry of Culture "Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters” medal.