With its beguiling octopus narrator, Shelby Van Pelt’s “Remarkably Bright Creatures” has notable staying power and is back on the best-seller list — a year and a half after its release.
Peter Brown’s obsession with the abandoned railway that became the High Line led to two best sellers — including “The Wild Robot,” which is now a blockbuster movie.
By day, he helped run an autism center he opened in a suburb of Paris. In the evening, he delighted audiences as a clown named Buffo. In between, he wrote novels.
A sociologist, he challenged conventional thinking on matters as diverse as deviance, art making and marijuana use. He found a particular following in France.