John Grisham

John Grisham has written at least 253 books. Their most popular book is The Firm with 453 saves with an average rating of 3.91⭐. Their next book, The Widow, is scheduled for release on 2025-10-21.

Author Bio

Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi, law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn’t have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.

One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl’s father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988.

That might have put an end to Grisham’s hobby. However, he had already begun his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career—and spark one of publishing’s greatest success stories. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991.

The successes of The Pelican Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham’s reputation as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham’s success even renewed interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a bestseller.

Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of Torts, Bleachers, The Last Juror, The Broker, Playing for Pizza, The Appeal, and The Associate) and all of them have become international bestsellers. There are currently over 250 million John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 29 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas), as was an original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October 2006) marked his first foray into non-fiction, and Ford County (November 2009) was his first short story collection.

Grisham lives with his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, VA.

Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books’ protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients’ case, earning them a jury award of $683,500—the biggest verdict of his career.

When he’s not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.

Details	Rating	Readers Count
The Firm John Grisham	3.91	332 reads
A Time to Kill John Grisham	3.88	323 reads
The Client John Grisham	3.73	210 reads
The Pelican Brief John Grisham	3.76	199 reads
The Runaway Jury John Grisham	3.78	175 reads
The Rainmaker John Grisham	3.75	115 reads
The Chamber John Grisham	3.44	97 reads
Camino Island John Grisham	3.44	80 reads
The Street Lawyer John Grisham	3.68	82 reads
Sycamore Row John Grisham	3.77	71 reads
The Testament John Grisham	3.48	83 reads
The Partner John Grisham	3.78	81 reads
The King of Torts John Grisham	3.5	72 reads
The Brethren John Grisham	3.34	76 reads
The Exchange John Grisham	3.23	37 reads
The Whistler John Grisham	3.6	59 reads
The broker John Grisham	3.62	65 reads
The Last Juror John Grisham	3.71	65 reads
The Innocent Man John Grisham	3.7	58 reads
The Judge's List John Grisham	3.79	41 reads
Skipping Christmas John Grisham	3.46	59 reads
A Painted House John Grisham	3.52	60 reads
A Time for Mercy John Grisham	4.04	46 reads
The Racketeer John Grisham	3.6	58 reads
Rogue Lawyer John Grisham	3.48	54 reads
The Boys from Biloxi John Grisham	3.88	30 reads
The Appeal John Grisham	3.22	51 reads
Sparring Partners: Novellas John Grisham	3.68	25 reads
The Summons John Grisham	3.3	52 reads
The Guardians John Grisham	4.07	34 reads
The Associate John Grisham	3.44	46 reads
Gray Mountain John Grisham	3.38	36 reads
Rooster Bar John Grisham	3.42	42 reads
Playing for Pizza John Grisham	3.22	42 reads
The Litigators John Grisham	3.72	36 reads
The Confession John Grisham	3.79	33 reads
Bleachers John Grisham	3.11	35 reads
Camino Ghosts John Grisham	3.33	15 reads
The Reckoning The Reckoning John Grisham	3.55	28 reads
Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer John Grisham	3.46	32 reads
Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions John Grisham Jim McCloskey	4.28	10 reads
Calico Joe John Grisham	3.58	30 reads
Camino Winds John Grisham	3.25	26 reads
Sooley John Grisham	3.87	17 reads
Camino Winds John Grisham	3.14	17 reads
Ford County John Grisham	3.36	15 reads
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South Radley Balko Tucker Carrington	4.25	9 reads
The accused John Grisham	3.44	15 reads
The Firm / The Pelican Brief John Grisham	3.42	14 reads
Theodore Boone, The Activist John Grisham	4	10 reads
The reckoning John Grisham	3.43	9 reads
Witness to a Trial John Grisham	4.17	9 reads
Theodore Borne El secuestro Theodore Borne El secuestro John Grisham	3.7	9 reads
The Tumor John Grisham	2.58	7 reads
El fugitivo El fugitivo John Grisham José Serra Marín (Translator)	4	7 reads
Theodore Boone John Grisham	1	5 reads
The Client The Client John Grisham	4.38	10 reads
El cómplice El cómplice John Grisham	5	3 reads
The Guardians John Grisham	3.8	5 reads
Partners John Grisham	3.67	4 reads
The Firm The Firm John Grisham	3.67	4 reads
The Broker The Broker John Grisham	3	5 reads
La tapadera John Grisham Enric Tremps (Translator)	3	2 reads
Fetching Raymond Fetching Raymond: A Ford County Story John Grisham	3.5	3 reads
The Scandal John Grisham	4	3 reads
Theodore Boone, The Abduction John Grisham	4	4 reads
... Si vreme e ca sa ucizi John Grisham	5	2 reads
Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer John Grisham	3	3 reads
Camino Winds John Grisham	4	3 reads
Il broker John Grisham Renato Pera (Translator)	5	2 reads
El caso Fitzgerald John Grisham María del Puerto Barruetabeña Diez (Translator)	0	1 read
Theodore Boone John Grisham	4	2 reads
I contendenti John Grisham Nicoletta Lamberti (Translator)	3.5	2 reads
Firma Firma John Grisham Ileana Țăroi (Translator)	3	2 reads
Cazul Pelican Cazul Pelican John Grisham	3.5	2 reads
La convocazione John Grisham	3	1 read
La citación John Grisham	2	1 read
Η ετυμηγορία John Grisham Παλμύρα Ισμυρίδου (Translator)	5	1 read
La prima indagine di Theodore Boone John Grisham Fabio Paracchini (Translator)	0	1 read
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town John Grisham	5	2 reads
La giuria John Grisham Tullio Dobner (Translator)	3.5	2 reads
Il re dei torti John Grisham	5	2 reads
The Street Lawyer The Street Lawyer John Grisham	5	1 read
The Client John Grisham	3	1 read
Camino Winds: The Ultimate Murder Mystery from the Greatest Thriller Writer Alive John Grisham	0	0 reads
El secuestro El secuestro John Grisham José Serra Marín (Translator)	3	2 reads
Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial Corban Addison	4	2 reads
Tiempo de matar John Grisham	0	0 reads
The Guardians The Guardians John Grisham	4	1 read
Avocatul strazii John Grisham	4	2 reads
Theodore Boone: El Acusado John Grisham	4	1 read
The Rooster Bar John Grisham	2	2 reads
La confesión John Grisham	3	1 read
Wspólnik John Grisham Andrzej Leszczyński (Translator)	3	1 read
Bractwo John Grisham Jan Kraśko (Translator)	3	1 read
Prawnik John Grisham Krzysztof Bereza (Translator)	3	1 read
Ominąć święta John Grisham	1	1 read
YA Thrillers from Adult Bestsellers Harlan Coben Elizabeth George John Grisham Kathy Reichs	0	1 read
Oikeuden vartijat John Grisham Jorma-Veikko Sappinen (Translator)	0	1 read
Wezwanie Wezwanie John Grisham Jan Kraśko (Translator)	3	1 read