The Optimist's/Pessimist's Handbook: A Companion to Hope/Despair Paperback - 2009

Niall Edworthy is an author and journalist. He is the author of The Curious Gardender's Almanac and over a dozen other books under a variety of guises and noms de plume, covering military history, biography, sport, general humor, and gardening. He lives in West Sussex with his wife and two children.

The following are the author's biographical blurbs as they appear in The Optimist's/Pessimist's Handbook:

The Optimist's Handbook:
Niall Edworthy is the celebrated author of twenty books, making him a hero to many around the globe. Commentators say it is just a matter of time before he sweeps the board of literary awards, turns down a seat in the House of Lords and retires from his estate in the Home Counties to a tropical island, a robust, over-sexed, eight-figure-millionaire philanthropist.

The Pessimist's Handbook:
Over the past decade Niall Edworthy has made a poor to modest living as a jobbing hack. An ongoing disappointment to his dysfunctional family and both his friends, Niall spends his days in a cold garage in the middle of nowhere typing nonsense into an old computer with the one finger not yet afflicted by RSI. His magnum opus, Life Is a Bowl of Toenail Clippings, remains unfinished.

Petra Cramsie worked as an editor for puzzle magazines, then as a writer/researcher for a production company making television documentaries, and then as an editor at Allison and Busby. After leaving London, she studied for degrees in human ecology and philosophy. She lives in Herefordshire with her family.

The following are the author's biographical blurbs as they appear in The Optimist's/Pessimist's Handbook:

The Optimist's Handbook:
In her dazzling early career launching exhibitions, publishing magazines, editing books and writing for television, Petra Cramsie added considerably to the gaiety of nations. She now lives in a rural idyll above Herefordshire's Golden Valley, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow will be even better than today. Blessed with children, Petra often reminds those citizens of a brighter future that a day without a smile is like a day without sunshine.

The Pessimist's Handbook:
After years spent toiling at various unrewarding employments, Petra Cramsie left London to face the vicissitudes of middle age. She and her dependants live in a godforsaken, wind-tormented spot opposite the Black Mountains. When she is not up to her eyeballs in relentless domestic drudgery, she spends her time contemplating the exact size, shape and texture of the hand-basket in which the world is going to hell.