Geoff Nicholson was born in Sheffield and was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a furniture salesman, bookseller, dustman, security guard, gardener and chef. First published by J. G. Ballard in the legendary counter-cultural literary magazine Ambit, Nicholson is the author of over twenty books, which have been widely translated with one made into a Hollywood movie. These include the acclaimed novels Bleeding London (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), Gravity's Volkswagen and The City Under the Skin, as well as classics of psychogeographical non-fiction, The Lost Art of Walking and Walking in Ruins. He has written for publications including the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, GQ, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, London Magazine, Literary Review and Gastronomica. He was prose editor at Ambit magazine, succeeding J.G. Ballard, and is currently a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Essex.