Jodi Picoult

Difficult to categorize and impossible to ignore, Jodi Picoult books are notable for their brilliantly nuanced characters, pitch-perfect descriptions of suburbia (and the darkness it often conceals), and unfettered insight into the shape-shifting terrain of family relationships. There are over 14 million Jodi Picoult books in print worldwide. This highly popular fiction writer has a prolific body of work that includes Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992), Harvesting the Heart (1993), Picture Perfect (1995), Salem Falls (2001) and Second Glance (2003), the last being her personal favorite of all her best selling books. Picoult's first novel to debut as a #1 New York Times bestseller was Nineteen Minutes (2007), a deeply affecting work that follows the aftermath of a small-town school shooting. It was followed in 2008 by Change of Heart, a taut psychological drama about a death row prisoner who wants to donate his heart to the half sister/daughter of his victims. Critically lauded, it was the second of many Jodi Picoult books to debut as a #1 New York Times bestseller. Picoult's streak of best selling books continued in 2010 with House Rules, a psychological drama about a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome, who has a rare, almost supernatural knack for forensic analysis. Meeting with rave reviews, the novel once again debuted as a #1 New York Times bestseller, which has become something of a tradition for Jodi Picoult books. A self-professed workaholic, the popular fiction writer says there's nothing she'd rather be doing than telling stories. "I write quickly, but I also do not believe in writer's block, because once I didn't have the luxury of believing it. When you only have twenty minutes, you write—whether it's garbage, or it's good...you just DO it, and you fix it later." She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.