Legal dramas by John Grisham and political thrillers by Tom Clancy

John Ray Grisham Jr. (born February 8, 1955) is a former politician, retired attorney, American novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal drama.

He was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer. After moving frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven in De Soto County, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck whose clarity he admired.

In 1977, Grisham received a B.Sc. degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. While studying at MSU, the author began keeping a journal, a practice that would later assist in his creative endeavors. Grisham tried out for the baseball team at Delta State University but was cut by the legendary coach and Boston Red Sox Pitcher Dave Ferriss. He earned his J.D. degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During law school, Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of clients. As a young attorney, he spent much of his time in court proceedings and preparing for court the following morning.

In 1983, he was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. In his spare time and as a hobby, Grisham began work on his first novel, which explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript eventually was bought by Wynwood Press, which gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988.

The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. That second book, The Firm became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham then went on to produce at least one work a year, most of them widely popular bestsellers. Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, all the while continuing to pen his legal thrillers.

Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only two authors to sell two million copies on a first printing (Tom Clancy is the other). Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.

Grisham returned briefly to the courtroom in 1996 after a five-year hiatus. He was honoring a commitment he made before he retired from law; he represented the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500 — the biggest verdict of his career.

Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004. He has also performed mission service for his church, notably in Brazil.

Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native South. Grisham has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program, and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a 'slick' magazine devoted to literary writing and famous for its annual music issue, copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock.

In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose talk show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author was John le Carré.

Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist." He lives with his wife, Renée, (née Jones) and their two children, Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Major works: A Time to Kill (1989), The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992), A Painted House (2001).

Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (born April 12, 1947), better known as Tom Clancy, is an American author of bestselling political thrillers, best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science story-lines set during the Cold War. His name is also a brand for similar books written by ghost writers and a series of non fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders.

Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was born April 12, 1947 in Baltimore County, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965. He went on to study English Literature at Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating with the class of 1969. He remarked that he studied English because he was not smart enough to do physics. Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance business.

Clancy married his first wife, Wanda, in the 1970s. After having 4 children together, they divorced in 1998.

In 1998, Tom Clancy attempted to purchase the Minnesota Vikings and had a purchase agreement in place, but the deal fell through after his divorce settlement decreased his net worth significantly.

In 1999, Clancy, at age 52, married 32-year-old fellow writer Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, on June 26.

Tom Clancy was an early, and to many, surprising defender of Islam after the September 11, 2001, attacks. He was interviewed on CNN later that day. Clancy has also associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the war in Iraq and former U.S. secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. The two have worked together on two books.

The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Harrison Ford as Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second famous character John Clark has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. The first NetForce novel was adapted as a television movies, starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters. Presumably, he has retired Jack Ryan as a central character. Many fans have expressed disappointment in Clancy's recent fiction works and sales of his books have reflected the growing trend of readers turning away from Clancy.

In 1997 Tom Clancy signed a book deal with Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part of Pearson Education), that paid him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books. He then signed a second agreement for another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal.

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Дата добавления: 2014-01-11