Nick Hornby was born in 1957. He is the author of five novels, High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the Whitbread Award) and Slam; three works of non-fiction, Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award), 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree; and a Pocket Penguin book of short stories, Otherwise Pandemonium. Nick Hornby lives and works in Highbury, north London.