The Reading Room

• Name: Steve Cole
• Date of Birth: 1972
• Place of Birth: Bedfordshire
• Likes: Spider-Man
• Dislikes: Jelly Babies
• Hobbies: Singing in a band, making music and collecting comics.
• Website: www.stevecolebooks.co.uk
• Recent Titles: Cows in Action: The Battle for Christmoos

I've already celebrated Christmas once this year. It was back on January 11th - the day I finished writing Cows In Action: The Battle for Christmoos!

I suppose it was a strange time to be feeling festive. The decorations were packed away for another year. The leftover mince pies were growing mouldy coats. The last scraps of turkey were weakly waving white flags from the back of the fridge. And yet there I was, sending off my book, singing carols to myself in a crumpled party hat and giddily thinking, "Only 348 days to go till the next Christmas!"

This is because I am completely Christmas-crazy, and have been ever since I was knee-high to a brussel sprout. (I think the medical term for this festive fever is 'Christmazooli Bonkus', but I might have made that up.) Each year, the madness began around August, when I would start playing old, deeply uncool Christmas records. I would make up my own TV channel, BBC 10, and record hundreds of silly made-up Christmas programmes (starring me and my friend Sean) on my sister's tape recorder - then I would write a BBC 10 TV listings magazine (called 'Times Ten', geddit?) explaining what the programmes were about and when they were on. I also wrote Christmas stories (about me), went on long Christmassy walks in the hope it would snow (well, it was August), made my own advent calendars (messy), and tried baking mince pies (with beef mince - ugh!). Eventually, my mum said, "Steve, you're 37 years old - don't you think you should do something sensible instead?" So I did.

I wrote this book about time-travelling cows gadding about in the year 1066, trying to stop robot bulls from squashing William the Conqueror with deadly Christmas decorations and techno-turkeys. Mum will be so pleased!

Wishing you a sensationally silly holiday season and tons of festive fun,

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Born in 1971 Steve Cole spent a happy childhood in Bedfordshire being loud and aspiring to amuse. He liked books and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to young adult thrillers with the odd film and TV tie-in thrown in for good measure! Steve currently resides in front of a computer somewhere in Buckinghamshire and has a few things he thought you might like to know about him... Likes: Spider-Man, loud music, dinosaurs and cows. Dislikes: Boredom, salad - especially tomatoes - and spiders. Favourite things: Steak and chips, jelly babies and Doctor Who. Hobbies: Singing in a band, making music and collecting comics. To find out more about his wonderful world of fiction where dinosaurs fly spaceships and cows use a time machine, visit www.stevecolebooks.co.uk.

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