James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of the bestselling Empire of the Clouds , which was hailed as a classic account of the golden age of British aviation. He won a Whitbread Prize for his first novel, Gerontius , and among his many other celebrated books are Seven-Tenth s, one of the finest books written in recent times about the oceans, the satirical trilogy that began with Cooking with Fernet Branca , and the autobiographical Playing With Water . Born and educated in England, he has lived in the Philippines and Italy and now makes his home in Austria.