Bernard Beckett Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Bernard Beckett is a published author.

Born in New Zealand in 1967 the fifth child out of seven, he is not only a writer but a high school teacher. He works and lives in the area of Wellington, New Zealand. He teaches his students in the subjects of English, math, and drama.

His book Genesis was written while the author was in a Royal Society genetics research fellowship that was investigating DNA mutations. The book had come out and received international acclaim, earning Bernard two literary prizes in New Zealand. The rights to this book have also been sold in twenty-one countries.

Bernard grew up on farmland that was located five kilometers south of the closest small town. He went to a Catholic primary school, St. Teresa’s, and then Chanel College in Masterton. When the school years were concluded, Bernard moved to Wellington, got an Economics degree, and then got trained to become a teacher of high school students.

The teaching career started in 1990 at Otaki College, where he found that he loved the classroom. Bernard also enjoyed the extra-curricular activities that were there as well as developed his passion for mountain biking and hiking while also directing plays for the first time.

He moved to Tokyo in 1993, working part time for six months as an English language tutor. He says this lifestyle and the empty days gave him the chance to try writing novels. He wrote five books in the next three years, saying none were publishable. His apprenticeship grew to a close in 1997, the same time his novel Lester was approved for publication by Longacre Press.

Then he was working at Onslow College, where he started writing and directing his own plays. He wrote his first three novels that would be published while in the gaps of teaching. In 1999, he traveled Europe, spending an afternoon soaked in sun with his pen in his hand. He would also go on to write books such as Home Boys as well as Deep Fried with Clare Knighton, now his wife, and entered into the YA scene.

His book Jolt was adapted into a radio play for Radio New England. The broadcasting of this play led to another opportunity to develop a screenplay of Jolt. The film was not made but gave him the chance to write in this medium.

The chance to try something else came in 2005, when he was given a Royal Society teaching fellowship. He would spend a year at The Allan Wilson Center, where he wrote a teenage science fiction metaphysical thriller called Genesis after abandoning the idea to use the chance to write the foundation of Acid Song, his first adult novel.

Genesis was meant to be a side project but instead introduced Beckett to the international market. It was sold to Text Publishing in Australia, which sold the world rights to Quercus in the United Kingdom. Since then, it has entered into thirty territories and has been translated into over twenty languages. In the meantime, he completed Acid Song and Falling for Science, a nonfiction work.

Bernard married his wife in 2008, Clare. He became a father in 2010 after his twins Sebastian and Alexander were born. He had always considered writing more to be a hobby over a career, which now went even further down his list of priorities. He went over to part-time teaching so that he could spend as much time as possible with his family. He took a year’s leave in 2012 to be the Victoria University Writer in Residence. He then finished another novel and started a new project. His third child also was born named Avery, which completed their family.

Beckett says that these days his focus is on teaching and parenting, with writing somewhere in the middle. He was able to put two of these together in 2016, writing a book for his twin sons that was a fantasy about twins in a parallel universe. He wrote a new section every day that was read to them every evening and the result was A.S. Normal and the Tunnel of Dreams.

Genesis is a 2005 book by Bernard Beckett. Check out this book that Booklist says has an ending that ‘is an absolute mind-blower’ in this interesting story of the future that is set on an isolated island fortress.

Anax is someone that believes she knows history. She has done her work, studying all of the stories of the twenty-first century in a diligent manner. She has done an all day examination that has just started, something that is grueling.

If she ends up passing, she’ll be taken into the Academy, the governing institution that runs her utopian society. But Anax is also about to find out that despite all of the learning that she has done, the history that they have presented to her is not the entire story. On top of that, the Academy just is not what she thought it to be.

In this suspenseful and smart novel, Anax takes a closer look that takes us into the future, where we deal with questions that are unresolved that have to deal with humanity and tech, as well as AI and the nature of consciousness. Read this book to find out what happens!

Acid Song is a 2008 book by Bernard Beckett. If you like other work by this author, be sure to check out this unique book and receive a story that you have not yet enjoyed!

For forty-eight hours, the reader will follow along with the lives of characters who are on their way for a showdown, all told by an award winning novelist. It is election day in New Zealand in contemporary times. A father takes on a teen burglar. A political stand taken by a psychologist means that he could be driven out from the university community. An argument comes up in the staff room– does a fight on the playground mean that a student should be expelled?

Meanwhile, a young girl tries to heal her broken heart, a riot among skinheads breaks out, and the biology lecturer has to deal with a secret which brings them all to the same conclusion. Follow along with it by getting a copy of this fascinating book from Bernard Beckett to see what you think.