John Lewis-Stempel

John Lewis-Stempel
Born Hereford
Occupation Writer

John Lewis-Stempel is a historian, author and farmer, who was born in Herefordshire, England, where his family have lived for over seven hundred years.[1]

Career

He has written on a range of subjects from Native Americans to Fatherhood, but specialises in military history and natural history. His semi-autobiographical 'The Wild Life' was hailed by Paul Blezard, the literary editor of The Lady as 'Beautifully written. As close to poetry as you'll find in prose.'[2] Overall Lewis-Stempel has published nearly a hundred books, which have been published in languages as diverse as Portuguese Brazilian and Japanese, and which have sold over a million copies.[3] He was awarded a Society of Authors Foundation Award in 2012. He is a former columnist for the Sunday Express.

Lewis-Stempel started writing under the name 'Jon E. Lewis' for Constable & Robinson, for whom he still writes many books in the 'Autobiography' and 'Mammoth' series, among them the Amazon Top 50 Kindle seller 'London: The Autobiography'. Under his real name of John Lewis-Stempel he published 'Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War'[4] in November 2010 to widespread acclaim; it was reviewed in The Literary Review as 'The single most moving book that I have read on the Great War.'[5] It subsequently became a No. 1 best-seller on WWI on Amazon. In 2011 he authored Young Herriot, a biographical account of the early years of James Herriot, to accompany the BBC series of the same title. His The War Behind the Wire, a study of British POWs in Germany in WW1, was released in January 2014. Max Hastings called it a 'noble service' in The Sunday Times. His latest book is Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field, an Amazon Top 40 bestseller, and a Sunday Times non-fiction Top 30 hardback. The book won the Thwaites Wainwright prize and was also short-listed for BBC Countryfile's Country Book of the Year 2014. He frequently appears at festivals, and on radio and TV. In May 2014 he was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week.

Bibliography

Personal life

Lewis-Stempel lives on a farm in Herefordshire with his wife, Penelope, and children, Tristram and Freda.

References

  1. ↑ The Wild Life, Doubleday, 2009
  2. ↑ The Wild Life, Black Swan, 2010
  3. ↑ John Lewis-Stempel Author page at Amazon.co.uk
  4. ↑ Six Weeks The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010
  5. ↑ 'Fighting Words', Nigel H. Jones, The Literary Review, November, 2010


External links

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