Edward Brooke-Hitching

Edward Brooke-Hitching is a screenwriter and bestselling author of adult and children's nonfiction titles, including The Madman's Library (Sunday Times Literary Book of the Year 2020, BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week), along with the Simon and Schuster non-fiction works Love: A Curious History, The Madman's Gallery, The Devil's Atlas, The Sky Atlas, The Golden Atlas (both shortlisted for Edward Stanford Writing Awards), The Phantom Atlas, and Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports. His latest title is The Most Interesting Book in the World, an "everlasting gobstopper" collection of curious facts, stories and illustrations. Forthcoming children's titles include the What's the Weirdest...? series (Bloomsbury, 2025), 365 Amazing True Things to Read in Bed (Quarto, 2025), and The Time Machine is Out of Control! series (Bloomsbury, 2026). Edward spent six years as a fact-finder and scriptwriter for the BBC TV show QI before leaving to write books full time. His work has featured in the Guardian, the Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Literary Review, the Spectator, the Economist, the Washington Post and others. He has appeared on shows including BBC Radio 4's Museum of Curiosity, Start the Week with Andrew Marr, and the Radio 2 Arts Show with Jonathan Ross. The son of an antiquarian book dealer and an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he lives with his red Labrador Annie Jump Cannon in a dusty heap of old maps and books in Berkshire, where he gardens poorly and practises sword-swallowing even less successfully. "A mine of information" - Simon Mayo, Books of the Year "Writes great books" - Sandi Toksvig "Brooke-Hitching's prose is elegant and witty. A worthy inheritor to D'Israeli." Spectator "An author of superb visual compilations" Daily Telegraph "The QI brainbox" Daily Mail Twitter: @foxtosser