Piers Anthony Popular Books
Piers Anthony Biography & Facts
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob (born 6 August 1934) is an American author in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony. He is best known for his long-running novel series set in the fictional realm of Xanth. Many of his books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, and he claims one of his greatest achievements has been to publish a book beginning with every letter of the alphabet, from Anthonology to Zombie Lover. Early life Anthony's parents, Alfred and Norma Jacob, were Quaker pacifists studying at Oxford University who interrupted their studies in 1936 to undertake relief work on behalf of the Quakers during the Spanish Civil War, establishing a food kitchen for children in Barcelona. Piers and his sister were left in England in the care of their maternal grandparents and a nanny. Alfred Jacob, although a British citizen, had been born in America near Philadelphia, and in 1940, after being forced out of Spain and with the situation in Britain deteriorating, the family sailed to the United States. In 1941 the family settled in a rustic "back to the land" utopian community near Winhall, Vermont, where a young Piers made the acquaintance of radical author Scott Nearing, a neighbor. Both parents resumed their academic studies, and Alfred eventually became a professor of Romance languages, teaching at a number of colleges in the Philadelphia area. Piers was moved around to a number of schools, eventually enrolling in Goddard College in Vermont where he graduated in 1956. On This American Life on 27 July 2012, Anthony revealed that his parents had divorced, he was bullied, and he had poor grades in school. Anthony referred to his high school as a "very fancy private school", and refuses to donate money to it. He recalls being part of "the lower crust", and that no one paid attention to, or cared about him. He said, "I didn't like being a member of the underclass, of the peons like that". Marriage and early career Anthony met his future wife, Carol Marble, while both were attending college. They were married in 1956, the same year he graduated from Goddard College, and he worked in a series of odd jobs. In 1957, Anthony decided to join the United States Army, as his wife was now pregnant, and they needed both medical coverage and a steady source of income. During his two-year enlistment, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1958 and became an editor and cartoonist for his battalion's newspaper. After completing military service, he briefly taught school at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida before deciding to try to become a full-time writer.Anthony and his wife made a deal: if he could sell a piece of writing within one year, she would continue to work to support him. But if he could not sell anything in that year, then he would forever give up his dream of being a writer. At the end of the year, he managed to get a short story published. He credits his wife as the person who made his writing career possible, and he advises aspiring writers that they need to have a source of income other than their writing in order to get through the early years of a writing career. Writing On multiple occasions Anthony has moved from one publisher to another (taking a popular series with him) when he says he felt the editors were unduly tampering with his work. He has sued publishers for accounting malfeasance and won judgments in his favor. Anthony maintains an Internet Publishers Survey in the interest of helping aspiring writers. For this service, he won the 2003 "Friend of EPIC" award for service to the electronic publishing community. His website won the Special Recognition for Service to Writers award from Preditors and Editors, an author's guide to publishers and writing services.His popular novel series Xanth has been optioned for movies. It inspired the DOS video game Companions of Xanth, by Legend Entertainment. The same series also spawned the board game Xanth by Mayfair Games.Anthony's novels usually end with a chapter-long Author's Note, in which he talks about himself, his life, and his experiences as they related to the process of writing the novel. He often discusses correspondence with readers and any real-world issues that influenced the novel. Since about 2000, Anthony has written his novels in a Linux environment.Anthony's Xanth series was ranked No. 99 in a 2011 NPR readers' poll of best science fiction and fantasy books. In other media Act One of episode 470 of the radio program This American Life is an account of boyhood obsessions with Piers Anthony. The act is written and narrated by writer Logan Hill who, as a 12-year-old, was consumed with reading Anthony's novels. For a decade he felt he must have been Anthony's number one fan, until, when he was 22, he met "Andy" at a wedding and discovered their mutual interest in the writer. Andy is interviewed for the story and explains that, as a teenager, he had used escapist novels in order to cope with his alienating school and home life in Buffalo, New York. In 1987, at age 15, he decided to run away to Florida in order to try to live with Piers Anthony. The story includes Anthony's reflections on these events.Naomi King, the daughter of writer Stephen King, enjoyed reading books by Piers Anthony, which included things like pixies, imps and fairies. After she told her father she had, "very little interest in my vampires, Ghoulies and slushy crawling things", he wrote The Eyes of the Dragon which was originally published in 1984 and later in 1987 by Viking Press. But What of Earth? Early in Anthony's literary career, there was a dispute surrounding the original publication (1976) of But What of Earth?. Editor Roger Elwood commissioned the novel for his nascent science-fiction line Laser Books. According to Anthony, he completed But What of Earth?, and Elwood accepted and purchased it. Elwood then told Anthony that he wished to make several minor changes, and in order not to waste Anthony's time, he had hired copy editor (and author) Robert Coulson to retype the manuscript with the changes. Anthony described Coulson as a friend and was initially open to his contribution. However, Elwood told Coulson he was to be a full collaborator, free to make revisions to Anthony's text in line with suggestions made by other copy editors. Elwood promised Coulson a 50–50 split with Anthony on all future royalties. According to Anthony, the published novel was very different from his version, with changes to characters and dialog, and with scenes added and removed. Anthony felt the changes worsened the novel. Laser's ultimate publication of But What of Earth? listed Anthony and Coulson together as collaborators. Publication rights were reverted to Anthony under threat of legal action. In 1989, Anthony (re)published his original But What of Earth? in an annotated edition through Tor Books. This edition contains an introduction and conclusion setting out .... Discover the Piers Anthony popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Piers Anthony books.
Best Seller Piers Anthony Books of 2024
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The Real Peter Pan
Piers DudgeonIllustrated with 47 photographs, this is the captivating and ultimately tragic story of he boy Michael, the one whom J. M. Barrie loved and filled with his fantasies before filleti...
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Dragon on a Pedestal
Piers AnthonyThere is trouble in Xanth againall kinds of trouble, in fact.The Gap Dragon had escaped from the Gap and was ravaging across the land. The forgetspell that had covered the Gap was ...
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Vale of the Vole
Piers AnthonyWhen Esk, a young ogrenymphhuman, began his pilgrimage to the Good Magician Humfrey to rid himself of a seductive demoness, little did he know it would become a mission of mercy. A...
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Scruffy
Jack Stoneley'Scruffy is a classic for perfectly catching a dog'seye view of the world.' Library Journal This is a tragic, touching, but ultimately joyful tale of a dog abandoned to the lonel...
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Vets in Congress
Alex DuncanVets in Congress is the fourth in this entertaining series of books based on the exploits of a vet who was practising in London and the Home Counties from the 1950s. Vet Michael Mo...
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Enchanted Cornwall
Daphne du MaurierCompleted shortly before her death in 1989, this is Daphne du Maurier's personal memoir, the story of how in Cornwall she found herself as a writer and as a person. Illustrated wit...
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Ogre, Ogre
Piers AnthonyWhen a Nymph rides a Night Mare, Ogre beware!Smash knew all about ogres. After all, despite his having a human mother, Smash was an ogre himself. Ogres were not only huge and horri...
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One and Wonder
Piers Anthony & Evan FilipekPiers Anthony presents a compendium of the Golden Age science fiction classics that inspired his astonishing careertimeless tales by Isaac Asimov, Jack Williamson, Walter M. Miller...
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Golem in the Gears
Piers AnthonyA golem to the rescue!Grundy Golem was the size of an inconsequence, and nobody had any respect for himincluding Grundy! To prove himself, he volunteered to ride the Monster Under ...
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A Spell for Chameleon
Piers AnthonyBEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR, BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY Discover the magical beginning of Piers Anthony’s enthralling Xanth seriesXanth was the enchanted land where magic ruledwhere ...
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Don Camillo and Company
Giovanni Guareschi'So concerned with the trivialities of everyday life … and so shrewd.' London Evening News Against the background of the rise and fall of fascism (Mussolini, Hitler) and po...
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Split Infinity
Piers AnthonyOn the technological, decadent world of Proton, someone was trying to destroy Stile, serf and master Gamesman. His only escape lay through a mysterious “curtain” revealed by a lovi...
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Don Camillo and Peppone
Giovanni GuareschiThe Don Camillo Series, beloved by 23 million readers worldwide More timeless, bittersweet stories of life in Italy’s Lower Plain, most of which appear in English for the fir...
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With a Tangled Skein
Piers AnthonyHere in this third completeinitself novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony weaves a fascinating plot as tangled as any skein of fate. This is Anthony at his most i...
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On a Pale Horse
Piers AnthonyIn this first novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony combines a gripping story of romance and conflicting loyalties with a deeply moving examination of the meaning...
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The Postcard Murder
Paul Worsley QCPaul Worsley QC, for 10 years a judge at the Old Bailey, revisits one of the most remarkable trials to be found in the annals of the Criminal Courts of England. This is a vintage w...
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Bearing an Hourglass
Piers AnthonyLike On a Pale Horse, this second, completeinitself novel of the Incarnations of Immortality is a richly imagined and always fascinating story. And again, Piers Anthony adds to his...
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Being a Green Mother
Piers AnthonyOrb had a rare giftthe magic which manifested whenever she sang or played her harp. No one could resist her music. But she knew that greater magic lay in the Llano, the mystic musi...
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The Biography of Edward de Bono 1933-2021
Piers Dudgeon‘We have to stop bothering about who is right and who is wrong, and ask instead, what will make a difference.’ Edward de Bono was born in May, 1933, and died in June, 2021. The man...
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TANGIER
Angus Stewart‘Highly personal. Enormously readable. Intense love shines through.’ Peter Burton Gay News ‘Closely observed. Sensitive. Highly entertaining.’ Oxford Times Stewart arrived in Tang...
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Merry Christmas Don Camillo
Giovanni GuareschiIn ‘Merry Christmas Don Camillo’ the author's Christmas stories appear alongside his wartime experiences in the prison camps of Germany and Poland, out of which he formed the polem...
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Maeve Binchy
Piers Dudgeon‘I still think, as I did when I was twenty, that I could run everybody else’s life. Not my own of course, as my own is deep confusion to me.’ This uplifting biography, illust...
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Comrade Don Camillo
Giovanni Guareschi‘Those who read The Little World of Don Camillo will need no more than the news of this new volume to send them quickly to their bookshops so lovely, so humorous, and so wise.’ Har...
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A Vet Has Nine Lives
Alex Duncan‘The author will have you in stitches’ Sunday Pictorial ‘A Vet Has Nine Lives’, written six years before James Herriot first put pen to paper, is the second in this entertain...
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The Little World of Don Camillo
Giovanni Guareschi‘Inimitable, delicious, full of pure fun’ The Observer In this newly translated volume, many of Guareschi’s enchanting and strangely moving stories are available in English for the...
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Lifting the Veil
Piers Dudgeon‘The real John Tavener revealed...’ GRAMOPHONE With generous access to Sir John himself, Piers Dudgeon lifts the veil on the secrets of how Tavener produced the most evocative and ...
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Castle Roogna
Piers AnthonyOnce upon a past. . . .Millie had been a ghost for 800 years. But now, restored by the magic of Xanth, she was again a maddeningly desirable woman. She could have had any man she w...
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Vets in the Belfry
Alex DuncanVets in the Belfry is like its predecessors … very funny indeed.’ The Catholic Herald Vets in the Belfry is the third in this entertaining series of books by Alex Duncan based o...
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Night Mare
Piers AnthonyThe danger to Xanth was so great that only a night mare could offer hope!The Nextwave of barbarian warriors was invading Xanth from the north, ravaging and destroying as they advan...
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Centaur Aisle
Piers AnthonyThe magic of Xanth was useless in Mundaniauntil Dor tried honesty!Dor was having troubles growing up to be the next MagicianKing of the magic Land of Xanth. He wanted no part of ru...
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Blue Adept
Piers AnthonyIn this brilliant continuation of the epic adventure that began in Split Infinity, Piers Anthony again proves himself a master of both fantasy and science fictionFor Stile, life wa...
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Don Camillo and Don Chichi
Giovanni GuareschiGuareschi's searing, slapstick satire on the modern world A gang of Hells Angels rips through the village we love so well, bringing mayhem and a generational shift to traditional ...
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Heaven Cent
Piers AnthonyHeaven Cent continues the Xanth saga from New York Times bestselling fantasy author Piers Anthony. In the mind of Xanth's precious shapeshifting Prince Dolph, the perfect way to se...
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A Warm Hand on Your Opening
Ian DavidsonIt is with great sadness that we learn that Barry died today [April 22, 2023], aged 89, following hip surgery. There will be many eulogies for his inimitable comic sense, but more ...
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Juxtaposition
Piers AnthonyIn this brilliantly satisfying conclusion to the epic adventure begun in Split Infinity and continued in Blue Adept, Piers Anthony again proves himself a consummate master of ...
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Sandel
Angus Stewart‘Here is a controlled and beautifully written love story . . . this is a superb stylistic feat.’ NEW STATESMAN ‘The writing is always intelligent, its sensual quality surpri...
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Don Camillo of la Bassa
Giovanni GuareschiVintage Don Camillo stories in English for the first time La Bassa is the home of Don Camillo and Peppone, the lowland plain on the banks of Italy’s Po River where their hilarious ...
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Wielding a Red Sword
Piers AnthonyHere in a fourth completeinitself novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony again combines fascinating magic with a gripping, complex struggle between good and evil.M...
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Source of Magic
Piers AnthonyA quest for the source of power threatened to doom the land of XanthAs a ruler of a country steeped in enchantment, King Trent was naturally curious about the source of its magic. ...
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Crewel Lye
Piers AnthonyA knight of ghosts and shadows!Jordan was a ghost in Castle Roogna now, spending his time with little fiveyearold Ivy and watching his own past unfold on the magic tapestry. But on...