Beneath the surface of this fascinating biography, there lies a warm and wise craft book about what it takes to make great art in any century.” — Esquire You’re writing almost as much for cinema and TV as you are novels now, from Brooklyn to Love , Nina and State of the Union . In which medium do you feel most at home? And second, he was on his own. There was no John or Keith to write songs with. He knew other musicians, and by the time we get to Purple Rain, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman played an important role. But on that first album, made, remember, when he was 20, there was nobody else even to bang a cymbal. No one else had such a relentless work ethic and produced such a staggeringly original and enormous body of work. Where did their magic come from? How did they use it? And, in the end, did it kill them? I loved Hornby’s discursive delves into both artists, comparing, and sometimes contrasting who they were, where they came from, and the people whose lives they impacted. There’s similar upbringing, their relationships to, and with women, their reactions to superstardom and the perception that they were not being paid what they were worth. All of it really does seem like these two creative people are intertwined in some profound way.

Nearly everybody who had any time for him lost sight of him during this period. There were countless albums, and it was impossible to tell whether they were any good or not, because nobody seemed to write about them or talk about them. Eventually he found out what the rest of his colleagues discovered much later in the digital revolution: that the only money to be made was in live shows. He made peace with his past and reminded people what a breathtaking performer he was, first with a spectacular spot at the Grammys co-starring Beyoncé́, and then, in 2007, with the greatest half-time Super Bowl show in history. That same year he played 21 nights at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London. After flirting with bankruptcy at the end of the 90s, Prince became rich again.Hornby’s admiration for his subjects is infectious… a zesty tribute to two cultural legends not often spoken about in the same breath.” —Publishers Weekly I also was grateful to learn that, in all his exhaustive research, Hornby found that, with the exception of Sinead O’Connor’s account of a hellish night she spent with him, Prince was overall an ally to women. Evidence of this (of which there is plenty) made me feel better about still being a Prince fan, because shew…it’s a dwindling list of artists we can still admire full-stop, is it not? Prince’s death was foretold, too. A few days before he died, his private plane had to make an emergency landing in Illinois after a concert in Atlanta, and he was reportedly given a shot of the anti-overdose drug Narcan by local emergency services. The night before he died, someone on his staff phoned a doctor in California called Howard Kornfeld who specialised in treating addictions. Because he was unable to respond immediately himself, he sent his son Andrew, a colleague at his practice, to Minneapolis that night. But when Prince overdosed for the second time that week, he was found dead in his own private elevator, on his private estate, too far away from everybody, too hidden, to receive the magic shot. Prince and Beyoncé at the 2004 Grammy awards. Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Reuters HORNBY: Yes. And what I can learn from the way they worked to get myself to work more and harder and better. But time was in short supply, for both of them. As you may remember, neither of them lived to see 60. The first edition of the serial version of Oliver Twist, published from 1837. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

Yes, it does. It still feels to me as though I write maddeningly little during the course of a day but I do write every day and as a consequence words mount up and, by the end of the year, you have something to show for it. But it still feels like there’s too long between sentences. Whichever one I’m not doing at the time. The other one always looks a much better prospect when you’re in the middle of something tough. This pairing—two magnificent creatives, centuries and genres apart— makes stunning sense in the hands of their wisest, wittiest fan.” — PeopleDev Patel in Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy

NADWORNY: Yeah, kind of a meditation on your own career and creative process and kind of how these works influenced you.There have been four movie or TV adaptations of Great Expectations in the past decade, including the Indian film Fitoor, and Armando Iannucci’s brilliant The Personal History of David Copperfield, with a marvellous colourblind cast. Claire Foy played Amy Dorrit before she was old enough to play the Queen, for the BBC; there is simply no counting (I have tried) the number of 21st-century adaptations of A Christmas Carol across all media – animated films, puppet dramas, the works. Dev Patel in Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy Prince performing at Wembley Arena, London, on the Parade tour, 1986. Photograph: Michael Putland/Getty Images In this joyous and illuminating book, the million-copy bestselling author brings together an unlikely pairing to explore the story of their creative genius

Despite being in the top 0.1% of their profession, both felt that they were being robbed, and unlike a lot of artists they attempted to do something about it. In Prince’s case, he metaphorically destroyed himself because he was so angry. ‘A breathtaking performer’: Prince in concert, 1984. Photograph: Bill Marino/Sygma/Getty ImagesWhat a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods. Examining the two artists' personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries "lit up the world." In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art. ( Penguin Random House Canada) Oh, and money was an issue for both of them when they were growing up. There were and are so many poor people in the world that it doesn’t feel like much of a big deal, but they were truly great artists and childhood poverty should have stopped them from achieving as much as they did. The clever British storyteller …[has] excellent taste and a smart, irreverent sense of humor.” — The Boston Globe You've done exhaustive research into life and times with both these artists. What about them most surprised you?