Thomas Fensch

Thomas Fensch has a B.A. from Ashland University, Ohio, an M.A. from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.

He began publishing books in 1970; from 1970 to 2020 he has published 41 books of nonfiction.

His 1977 Syracuse University doctoral dissertation, on the relationship between John Steinbeck and his editor-publisher Pascal Covici was published in 1979 under the title "Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship," and has been in print now over 40 years and long been considered a seminal book in Steinbeck scholarship. It was the first of five books he has published about Steinbeck.

He has published two books about Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, two on James Thurber, one each on Hemingway, Oskar Schindler and George Orwell and a variety of other titles.

Other notable books have been:

* "The Man Who Changed His Skin; The Life and Work of John Howard Griffin." 2011, the only full biography of Griffin, who wrote "Black Like Me."

* "At the Dangerous Edge of Social Justice: Race, Violence and Death in America," 2013.

* "The Sordid Hypocrisy of To Protect and To Serve: Police Brutality, Corruption and Oppression in America," 2015.

* "The Books That Haunt Us," literary analysis of 18 books he has read throughout his lifetime that he could never forget, 2020. Submitted for a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.

He lives outside Richmond, Va., with three Apple desktop computers, a working library of 700-plus books ("never enough," he says) and three dogs, his literary advisors, who follow him everywhere.