Now I'll give you some short facts about the author of the novel:

• Nick Hornby was born 1957 in Redhill, a city in Surrey in south of England.
• He is an English novelist and essayist who studied English (language and literature) at the University of Cambridge.
• He becomes famous with his novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and his football memoir Fever Pitch (a few of his books even were filmed).
• Gill Hornby (Jane Austen: The Girl with the Magic Pen), his sister is an author, too.
• While his studies he wrote some stage play, television drama and radio play.
• Before he 1992 devoted himself to writing, he practised English teacher.
• Because of his autistic son Danny, Hornby became a founding member of a organization called "TreeHouse" that support a better school care for autistic children.