Author James Patterson Biography

Author James Patterson Biography Born March 22, 1947, James Patterson, perhaps best known as the writer of the Alex Cross detective series, ranks among the most prolific of contemporary American authors. He even holds the Guinness World Record for the number of New York Times number one best-selling novels sold, and he was the first author to sell more than one million e-books.  Despite his widespread popularity- he’s sold some 300 million books since 1976- Patterson’s methods are not without controversy. He uses a group of co-authors which allows him to publish his works at such an impressive rate. His critics, who include contemporary authors such as Stephen King, question whether Patterson  is too focused on quantity, to the detriment of quality. Formative Years Patterson, son of Isabelle and Charles Patterson, was born in Newburgh, NY. Before heading off to college, his family moved to the Boston area, where Patterson took a part-time night job at a mental hospital. The solitude of that job allowed Patterson to develop an appetite for reading literature; he spent most of his salary on books. He lists â€Å"One Hundred Years of Solitude† by Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a favorite. Patterson went on to graduate from Manhattan College and holds a masters’ degree in English literature from Vanderbilt University.   In 1971, he went to work for advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, where he eventually became CEO. It was there that Patterson came up with the phrase â€Å"Toys R Us Kid† which is still used in the toy store chain’s ad campaigns. His advertising background is apparent in the marketing of Patterson’s books; he supervises the design of his book covers down to the last detail and was one of the first authors to orchestrate advertising his books on television. His techniques have even inspired a case study at Harvard Business School: â€Å"Marketing James Patterson† examines the effectiveness of the writer’s strategies. Published Works and Style James Pattersons first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, was published in 1976, after being turned down by more than 30 publishers. Patterson told The New York Times that his first book compares favorably to his current works in one way: â€Å"The sentences are superior to a lot of the stuff I write now, but the story isn’t as good.† Despite its slow start, The Thomas Berryman Number won an Edgar Award for crime fiction that year. Patterson makes no secret of his current use of co-authors, a group that includes Andrew Gross, Maxine Paetro, and Peter De Jong. He likens the approach to the collaborative efforts of Gilbert and Sullivan or Rodgers and Hammerstein: Patterson says he writes an outline, which he sends to the co-author for refining, and the two collaborate throughout the writing process. He’s said that his strength lies in concocting plots, not in parsing individual sentences, which suggests he has refined (and perhaps improved) his writing technique since his first novel.   Despite the criticism that his style is mechanical, Patterson has hit on a commercially successful formula. He’s written 20 novels featuring detective Alex Cross, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, and 14 books in The Women’s Murder Club series, as well as the Witch and Wizard and Daniel X series. Books Made Into Blockbusters Given their broad commercial appeal, its no surprise that several of Pattersons novels have been made into movies. Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman has played Alex Cross in adaptations of   Along Came a Spider (2001), and  Kiss the Girls  (1997), which also starred Ashley Judd.​ New Focus on Childhood Literacy In 2011, Patterson wrote an opinion piece for CNN urging parents to become more involved in getting their kids to read. He discovered his son Jack wasnt an avid reader. When Jack turned 8, Patterson and his wife Susie made a deal with him: He could be excused from chores over summer vacation if he would read every day. Patterson later launched child literacy initiative ReadKiddoRead.com, which offers advice for age-appropriate books for kids of various ages.

Overview of the Oligocene Epoch

Overview of the Oligocene Epoch The Oligocene epoch wasnt an especially innovative period of time with regard to its prehistoric animals, which continued along the evolutionary paths that had been pretty much locked in during the preceding Eocene (and continued on in turn during the ensuing Miocene). The Oligocene was the last major geologic subdivision of the Paleogene period (65-23 million years ago), following the Paleocene (85-56 million years ago) and Eocene (56-34 million years ago) epochs; all of these periods and epochs were themselves part of the Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago to the present). Climate and geography While the Oligocene epoch was still fairly temperate by modern standards, this 10-million-year stretch of geologic time saw a decrease in both average global temperatures and sea levels. All of the worlds continents were well on their way toward moving into their present positions; the most striking change occurred in Antarctica, which drifted slowly south, became more isolated from South America and Australia, and developed the polar ice cap that it retains today. Giant mountain ranges continued to form, most prominently in western North America and southern Europe. Terrestrial Life During the Oligocene Epoch Mammals. There were two major trends in mammalian evolution during the Oligocene epoch. First, the spread of newly evolved grasses across the plains of the northern and southern hemispheres opened a new ecological niche for grazing mammals. Early horses (such as Miohippus), distant rhinoceros ancestors (such as Hyracodon), and proto-camels (such as Poebrotherium) were all common sights on grasslands, often in locations you might not expect (camels, for instance, were especially thick on the ground in Oligocene North America, where they first evolved). The other trend was mostly confined to South America, which was isolated from North America during the Oligocene epoch (the Central American land bridge would not form for another 20 million years) and hosted a bizarre array of megafauna mammals, including the elephant-like Pyrotherium and the meat-eating marsupial Borhyaena (the marsupials of Oligocene South America were every match for the contemporary Australian variety). Asia, meanwhile, was home to the largest terrestrial mammal that ever lived, the 20-ton Indricotherium, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a sauropod dinosaur! Birds As with the preceding Eocene epoch, the most common fossil birds of the Oligocene epoch were predatory South American terror birds (such as the unusually pint-sized Psilopterus), which mimicked the behavior of their two-legged dinosaur ancestors,  and giant penguins that lived in temperate, rather than polar, climatesKairuku of New Zealand is a good example. Other types of birds also undoubtedly lived during the Oligocene epoch; we just havent identified many of their fossils yet! Reptiles To judge by the limited fossil remains, the Oligocene epoch wasnt an especially notable time for lizards, snakes, turtles or crocodiles. However, the plenitude of these reptiles both before and after the Oligocene provides at least circumstantial evidence that they must have prospered during this epoch as well; a lack of fossils doesnt always correspond to a lack of wildlife. Marine Life During the Oligocene Epoch The Oligocene epoch was a golden age for whales, rich in transitional species like Aetiocetus, Janjucetus, and Mammalodon (which possessed both teeth and plankton-filtering baleen plates). Prehistoric sharks continued to be the apex predators of the high seas; it was toward the end of the Oligocene, 25 million years ago, that the gigantic Megalodon, ten times bigger than the Great White Shark, first appeared on the scene. The latter part of the Oligocene epoch also witnessed the evolution of the first pinnipeds (the family of mammals that includes seals and walruses), the basal Puijila being a good example. Plant Life During the Oligocene Epoch As remarked above, the major innovation in plant life during the Oligocene epoch was the worldwide spread of newly evolved grasses, which carpeted the plains of North and South America, Eurasia and Africaand spurred the evolution of horses, deer, and various ruminants, as well as the meat-eating mammals that preyed on them. The process that had begun during the preceding Eocene epoch, the gradual appearance of deciduous forests in place of jungles over the earths spreading non-tropical regions, also continued unabated.