Lee Child on Nov. 9, 2018

Event Details

6 p.m.-Welcome Reception
Legacy Hall, ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center

6:30 p.m.-Dinner & Program
Click Hall, ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center
Child presents after-dinner remarks and takes questions.

8:30 p.m.-Book Signing Reception
Legacy Hall, ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center
Selections of Child's work will be available for purchase.

About Lee Child

Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made "Brideshead Revisited," "The Jewel in the Crown," "Prime Suspect," and "Cracker." But he was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, "Killing Floor," the first in the Jack Reacher series.

"Killing Floor" was an immediate success and launched the series which has grown in sales and impact with every new installment.

Lee has several homes—an apartment in Manhattan, country houses in England and the south of France, and whatever airplane cabin he happens to be in while traveling between the two. In the US he drives a supercharged Jaguar, which was built in Jaguar’s Browns Lane plant, thirty yards from the hospital in which he was born.

Lee spends his spare time reading, listening to music, and watching the Yankees, Aston Villa, or Marseilles soccer. He is married with a grown-up daughter. He is tall and slim, despite an appalling diet and a refusal to exercise.

About the Speaker Series

The H. Louise & H.E. "Ed" Cobb Speaker Series was established in 1991. It is the primary fundraising event for the Friends of the OSU Library. All proceeds from the event directly benefit the OSU Libraries.

The series is presented annually by the Friends of the OSU Library to recognize an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large. A selection committee chooses the keynote speaker on a noncompetitive basis.

This event is made possible each year thanks to the ongoing generosity of the Cobb family.