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Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sophie Kinsella or Madeleine Wickham?


This week I have decided not to talk about a specific chick lit novel, but rather about a specific author. Last week I discussed Sophie Kinsella’s Twenties Girl, and while doing some background research on her I discovered that she uses a pen name. Kinsella’s real name is actually Madeleine Wickham.
For those of you who might not know, a pen name is basically a fake name that an author adopts and uses when they publish a book. Using a pen name is not extremely popular, but there have been several well known authors who have followed this trend. Some of these authors include George Orwell (his real name was actually Eric Author Blair) and Mark Twain (his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens).

Anyone who is a fan of chick lit has likely heard of Sophie Kinsella, most likely because of her widely successful Shopaholic series. What many people do not know is that Kinsella has also published several novels under her legal name, Madeleine Wickham. Some of these books include The Tennis Party, A Desirable Residence, Sleeping Arrangements, and The Wedding Girl. Although these books are supposedly written in a similar style to the books that she has published under her pen name “Sophie Kinsella,” I had not heard of any of them before doing this research. Kinsella has not published a book with her real name since 2001. This is because she decided to stick with her pen name after the Shopaholic books became so popular.

Have any of you read any of Kinsella's books that are published with her real name, Madeleine Wickham? If so, which one is your favourite? I am excited to read some of them since there are currently no new Kinsella books for me to look forward to. I encourage anyone who may be looking for a light, fun read to do the same.
Happy Reading.

2 comments:

  1. Personally, I don't like it when people in general do this because I feel that they aren't being true to their real names that they were given. I know that if I were to become famous, I would want to keep my real name so that people knew who I really was. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Skylar Grey( she has collaborated with Dr. Dre and Eminem, Rihanna, P, Diddy and more) but I recently found out that her real name is Holly Brook. Not going to lie, I was disappointed when I saw that! (ps, No I haven't read any of Wickham's books, But I will when I have time! :) )

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  2. So why do you think people use pen names I don't understand it, except that mark twain is a cool name.

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