“One of the nice things about books as opposed to television and movies to some extent is it's not a passive entertainment. People really do get involved, and they do create, and they do have their own visions of what different characters look like and what should happen. It's great - it means their brains are working.”

American author

James Brendan Patterson is an American author known for a long run of bestselling fiction and for creating the Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women’s Murder Club, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, NYPD Red, Witch & Wizard, Private, and Middle School series. His career has also included stand-alone thrillers, nonfiction, and romance novels. His books have sold more than 425 million copies, and he was the first person to sell one million e-books. Many of his novels are written with other authors, with Patterson supplying the story and a coauthor doing most of the writing. That collaborative method has helped make his name as recognizable as the books themselves.