Birthday profile

Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister, English author and playwright

Born
October 4, 1956
Age in 2026
70
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1956

About Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister (born 4 October 1956) is a British novelist, poet and playwright. She has written 16 novels, A Particular Man (2024) being the most recent, one play and numerous short stories and radio plays. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of St Andrews, and is a regular contributor of book reviews to The Spectator and The Times. She is married to poet Andrew Greig. Her subject matter is often serious (murder, madness and obsession crop up regularly in her books) but with a thread of dark humour running through it. Her first novel Honour Thy Father (1990) won the Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award, Now You See Me was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for fiction in 2002, and Easy Peasy was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998. Little Egypt, published in 2014, won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her first play, Bird Calls, was performed at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in 2003. Glaister is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Lesley Glaister was born

Lesley Glaister was born in 1956. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1956

  • #1 song"Heartbreak Hotel" – Elvis Presley
  • Top movieAround the World in 80 Days
  • Top TV showI Love Lucy
  • Best-selling bookPeyton Place – Grace Metalious

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentDon Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series
  • Top headlineElvis Presley takes America by storm
  • Technology milestoneFirst transatlantic telephone cable (TAT-1)
  • Defining fadElvis Presley mania
  • Notable inventionHard disk drive (IBM)
  • World population2.82 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderDwight D. Eisenhower
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonPhiladelphia Warriors (NBA)
  • U.S. population168.1M

1956 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Lesley Glaister's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19562026
Gas$0.30$3.45/gal
Average home$11,700$435,000
Average income$6,500$67,500
Minimum wage$1.00$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.50$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population168.1M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.