English writer and biographer Philip Hoare was BOTD in 1958. Born Patrick Moore in Southampton to a working-class family, he won a scholarship to a private school. He credited David Bowie‘s television performances as his inspiration to pursue a more glamorous (and gay) life, eventually moving to London in 1976 to study at St Mary’s College. After graduating, he worked for Virgin Records and Rough Trade as a buyer, before setting up the independent record label Operation Twilight. He began writing for the New Musical Express and The Face in the mid-1980s, using the name Philip Hoare to avoid being confused with astronomer Patrick Moore. His first book Serious Pleasures, a biography of gay aristocrat and aesthete Stephen Tennant, was an immediate success, followed by biographies of Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde. His 2001 book Spike Island explored the history of a Victorian medical hospital as a microcosm for the rise and fall of the British Empire, followed by England’s Lost Eden, a portrait of Victorian cult leader Mary Ann Girling. His 2009 book Leviathan or, The Whale, a study of humans’ obsession with whales, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, and inspired two further cetacean-themed books The Sea Inside and Albert & the Whale. Hoare also curated an exhibition about gay polymath Derek Jarman, and contributed to the Victoria & Albert Museum’s international touring exhibition David Bowie Is. Openly gay since forever, Hoare lives in his family home in Southampton. His relationship status is unknown.