John Grisham: Signed Books & Author Biography

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VJ Books Presents Author John Grisham!

John Grisham was born in 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He held a series of uninspiring jobs as a teenager and college student and changed colleges twice before graduating from Mississippi State University with a bachelors in Accounting. Grisham then entered law school, and eventually became a trial attorney. After graduating from the University of Mississippi with his JD, he also spent some time doing missionary work in Brazil.

Grisham never had any intention of becoming a writer, but he was inspired after observing a particularly heartbreaking trial and imagining how else the crime might have unfolded. He began working on his novel early in the morning before work and during court recesses, all the while working 60 and 70 hour weeks and serving in the state House of Representatives--a position he was elected to in 1983, and held for 7 years.

Four years after Grisham began writing it, A Time To Kill (1988) was finished and was published the next year in a tiny run of 5000 copies. By this time, he had already started on a second novel, and was not to be deterred. By 1991, Grisham had left law and turned to writing full time. He returned to law briefly to represent the family of a railroad brakeman who was killed on the job, earning them the largest financial verdict of his legal career, and then returned to writing. He writes primarily legal thrillers, but has also dabbled in sports and comedy fiction, as well as legal thrillers for young readers. 10 of his stories have been adapted to film or television. You can find a number of John Grisham signed books below this author biography.

Grisham is passionate about baseball and various charitable causes. He is the local Little League commissioner and hosts Little League games on the 6 baseball fields he built on his property. He served on the board of directors of the Innocence Project, which works to free and exonerate the unjustly convicted, and he and his wife have contributed millions of dollars to other charitable causes.

Grisham lives with his wife, Renee. They have two adult children.

John Grisham Book List and Awards
Author's website: www.jgrisham.com
Similar authors: David Baldacci, Brad Meltzer, John Sandford, Scott Turow