John Ironmonger
About John Ironmonger
John Ironmonger is the author of six novels, or maybe seven, or even eight depending upon how you count them. He has had a varied and eclectic career; his cv includes helping to research elephant populations in Kenya, studying freshwater leeches in the UK, delivering groceries in Cornwall, teaching zoology at a university on the edge of the Sahara, selling microscopes in England, and marketing computer systems to hospitals from Ayrshire to Saudi Arabia.
Where it started
His first published book was ‘The Good Zoo Guide,’ a guide to British Zoos, Safari Parks, Bird Gardens and Aquaria, and from there he leapt into writing fiction. ‘The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder,’ earned him a shortlisting for the Costa first novel award, and his second novel, ‘The Coincidence Authority,’ won the Reader’s Prize at the European Literary Festival in Cognac in 2014.
Random Facts
If John Ironmonger’s books have anything in common it is their exploration of our place in the world, and of the need to seize opportunities as they come to us.
John was born in Nairobi, but has lived in Cornwall, Nottingham, Liverpool, and Shropshire. Today he lives in the village of Parkgate in Cheshire in a house that stands on the very edge of the RSPB marshes looking out over the hills of North Wales. His wife Sue is a retired RSPCA farm welfare assessor and a former council member of Chester Zoo, his daughter Zoe is a location and production liaison manager for big film projects, and his son Jon is a BBC investigative journalist.
Greatest Achievements
He is absurdly proud of the fact that, ‘The Whale at the End of the World (also sold as ‘Not Forgetting the Whale’) was in the top ten paperbacks in Germany for 50 weeks and was even the Christmas Number One. He writes books that defy easy categorisation.
Biographical notes on John sometimes include as random details the fact that he once:
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Made the Guiness Book of Records as part of team speed reading the complete works of Shakespeare
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Idi Amin once bought him a drink
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He once drove a £100 banger from Plymouth to the Gambia for charity
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He once tried unsuccessfully to email Jared Diamond only to bump into him a week later in a forest in Sumatra
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He and Sue (his wife) are perhaps the only westerners ever to see a Java rhino and her calf (true).
After every novel, John has sworn it would be his last...
He is now working on the next one.