How author Lee Child lost his job and found global success - BBC News

Lee Child - born Jim Grant in Coventry in 1954 - says he grew up reading exactly what an average British boy would read in the 1960s. "I'm not one of these guys who claim they read Dostoevsky when they were seven. I started with Enid Blyton and then the Biggles books by Captain W.E. Johns and later it was Ian Fleming. Alistair MacLean probably made the biggest impression on me with stories like Where Eagles Dare. All very normal stuff for a kid of my generation.

"Back then everything was so unstructured compared to the modern world of online book groups and suggestions for further reading. I sort of miss the chaotic days of random discovery."