Background
John Lanchester was born on February 25, 1962, in Hamburg, Germany.
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
John Lanchester
Cromer Rd, Holt NR25 6EA, United Kingdom
Between 1972 and 1980 John Lanchester attended a Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk.
St Giles', Oxford OX1 3JP, United Kingdom
John Lanchester attended St John's College, the University of Oxford, where he tried postgraduate research.
(Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a ...)
Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a New York Times Notable Book, John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure is a wickedly funny ode to food. Traveling from Portsmouth to the south of France, Tarquin Winot, the book's snobbish narrator, instructs us in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu. Under the guise of completing a cookbook, Winot is in fact on a much more sinister mission that only gradually comes to light.
https://www.amazon.com/Debt-Pleasure-Novel-John-Lanchester/dp/0312420366/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=John+Lanchester&qid=1580218406&s=books&sr=1-3
2001
(It is 1935, and Tom Stewart, a young Englishman with a lo...)
It is 1935, and Tom Stewart, a young Englishman with a longing for adventure, buys himself a cheap ticket aboard the SS Darjeeling-en route to the complex and corrupt world of Hong Kong. A shipboard wager leads to an unlikely friendship that spans seven decades as Hong Kong endures the savagery of the Japanese occupation, emerging as a crossroads of international finance and the nexus of a world of warlords, drug runners, and Chinese triads.
https://www.amazon.com/Fragrant-Harbor-John-Lanchester/dp/0142003379/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=John+Lanchester&qid=1580218406&s=books&sr=1-7
2003
(The author of The Debt to Pleasure digs into his family's...)
The author of The Debt to Pleasure digs into his family's extraordinary past in a memoir as enthralling as his finest fiction It was only when his mother died that John Lanchester realized how little he really knew about his parents. With the cache of letters and papers she left behind, he set out to reconstruct just who his parents had been. In doing so, he did much more than trace the remarkable story of a reluctant international banker, a secretive former nun, and the life they shared; he also gained extraordinary insight into his own nature and a deeper understanding of the universal push-pull of family love-and family loss. Part detective work, part evocation of character, this is, above all, compelling storytelling.
https://www.amazon.com/Family-Romance-Story-John-Lanchester/dp/0143112953/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=John+Lanchester&qid=1580218406&s=books&sr=1-4
2008
(John Lanchester's brilliant survey of the current financi...)
John Lanchester's brilliant survey of the current financial crisis explains how the booming global economy collapsed seemingly overnight.
https://www.amazon.com/I-U-Why-Everyone-Owes/dp/1439169845/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=John+Lanchester&qid=1580218406&s=books&sr=1-9
2010
(Each house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, h...)
Each house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. But each of the street’s residents - a rich banker and his shopaholic wife, a soccer prodigy from Senegal, Pakistani shop owners, a dying old woman, and her graffiti-artist son - is receiving a menacing postcard with a simple message: "We Want What You Have." Who is behind this? What do they really want? In Capital, John Lanchester delivers a warm and compassionate novel that captures the anxieties of our time - property values going up, fortunes going down, a potential terrorist around every corner - with an unforgettable cast of characters.
https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Novel-John-Lanchester/dp/0393345092/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=John+Lanchester&qid=1580218406&s=books&sr=1-2
2013
John Lanchester was born on February 25, 1962, in Hamburg, Germany.
Between 1972 and 1980 John Lanchester attended a Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk and then St John's College, the University of Oxford, where he tried postgraduate research.
John Lanchester is a journalist and novelist whose novels include The Debt to Pleasure and Mr. Phillips. Characterizing Lanchester as a “master of digression” in his review of both works in New Statesman & Society, contributor Rebecca Abrams added that “A confident, unashamedly intellectual writer, Lanchester is keen on semi-concealed jokes, embedded references, and literary allusions. The Debt to Pleasure was a delightfully showy display of erudition, replete with quotations and extravagant syntax ... and [Mr. Phillips] is too, ... having about it an air of self-conscious braininess.”
Lanchester’s first book, The Debt to Pleasure, concerns a middle-aged killer with aesthetic pretensions. The novel’s protagonist, Tarquín Winot, contends that getting away with murder constitutes a sublime feat of creativity. Stalking newlyweds while undertaking a gastronomic tour in France, Winot - who serves as narrator - recalls friends and employees who seemingly vanished without a trace. In addition, he relates favorite recipes and discusses extraordinary meals. Nation reviewer Gerald Hower described Winot as “cocksure, obtuse, increasingly sinister” and deemed him “a brilliant creation.” Hower added that “it was inevitable that somebody was going to write a high-toned serial killer novel with a literary pedigree, and ... we must be grateful to Lanchester for bringing it off so beautifully.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer proved likewise impressed, lauding The Debt of Pleasure as “diabolically clever” and noting the narrative’s “insidious fascination.” John Derbyshire, meanwhile, wrote in the Washington Post Book World that Lanchester’s literary debut “is original as well as witty and brilliant.”
Lanchester followed The Debt of Pleasure with Mr. Phillips, the story of Victor Phillips, described by Philip Landon in an appraisal of the novel for Review of Contemporary Fiction as a “philistine, mediocrity, and ogler of girls.” A middle-aged accountant who suddenly finds himself relieved of employment, Mr. Phillips nonetheless observes his usual morning routine and departs for London, but instead of returning to where he once worked, he strolls about town, watches a pornographic movie, and reflects on his life. A Publishers Weekly reviewer proclaimed Mr. Phillips a “stylishly written novel” and a “purposefully prosaic tale.” Veronica Scrol was also impressed, writing in Booklist of Lanchester’s “grace and wit,” while Edward B. St. John observed in Library Journal that with Mr. Phillips, the author “has radically shifted gears.” Another reviewer, Phil Baker, wrote in the Sunday Times Culture that Mr. Phillips constitutes “an entertaining and oddly optimistic book with ... humanity and charm.”
(The author of The Debt to Pleasure digs into his family's...)
2008(It is 1935, and Tom Stewart, a young Englishman with a lo...)
2003(Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a ...)
2001(Each house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, h...)
2013(John Lanchester's brilliant survey of the current financi...)
2010Quotations: "I'm an omnivorous reader, but I don't read what could overlap with my own work. It's like tuning a radio frequency - it's much harder to pick up if there's something else there."
John Lanchester is a man of playful humor and wide-ranging erudition.
Quotes from others about the person
"He is an elegant and wonderfully witty writer." - New York Times
John Lanchester is married to historian, writer, and biographer Miranda Carter. The couple has two children and lives in London.