Nick Hornby

Both lightly whimsical and darkly melancholy, novelist and screenwriter Nick Hornby channeled his unyielding love for pop music and Arsenal football into a series of successful novels that often featured adult men struggling to grow up while refusing to let go of their obsessions - usually for pop music or Arsenal football. Though he carved out a niche as the writer of literature that focused on angst-ridden men, he also managed to fulfill a long-held ambition to write feature films. While his first novel, Fever Pitch, was adapted in both 1997 and 2005, the Americanized version of his second work, "High Fidelity" (2000), became something of a cult classic in the United States. But it was the adaptation of "About A Boy" (2002), starring Hugh Grant, that brought serious critical acclaim to a film based on his work and put Hornby on the public's radar. He continued to produce quality novels, and adapted the work of another author for the coming-of-age drama, "An Education" (2009), which earned him several award nominations and launched a second career as a successful screenwriter.