Gregory Norminton's first novel, the Ship of Fools, was published by Sceptre in 2002 and was followed in 2004 by Arts and Wonders and in 2005 by Ghost Portrait. That year he took part in a conservationthemed television series, Planet Action, filmed in Panama, Belize, Malaysia and Cambodia, and broadcast around the world in 2006. Norminton moved to Edinburgh in 2007, where he finished his fourth novel, Serious Things, which was published to great acclaim in 2008. Norminton has also translated Gustave Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas. Gregory Norminton was born in Berkshire in 1976. He read English at Oxford University and currently lives in Manchester with his wife Emma.