Long ago, George — who’s just published her 20th Inspector Lynley novel — read about the diary Steinbeck kept while writing “East of Eden,” and it inspired her to start her own.
Ernest Cline, whose novel “Ready Player One” is the basis for a new movie, grew up reading: “Like many nerdy kids, I don’t know how I would have survived without being able to escape into books.”
Though wary of being typecast as a one-note author, Mr. Kerr, to keep his fans satisfied, ended up writing 13 novels about a detective in Nazi-era Berlin.
The actor spares no one in “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff,” about a hired killer (maybe) and politics (for sure): “We are a nation in need of an assassin.”
In novels by Lissa Evans, Roshani Chokshi and Diane Magras, girls go on urgent rescue missions. That’s only fair, since they caused the trouble themselves.