Jon Fasman was born in Chicago in 1975 and grew up in Washington, D.C. He was educated at Brown and Oxford Universities and has worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., New York, Oxford, and Moscow. His writing has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The Moscow Times, and The Economist. His first novel, The New York Times bestseller The Geographer's Library, was published in more than a dozen languages.

Jason Culp has been acting since the age of ten, and his credits include a variety of television, theater, and film roles. He is best known for his role as Julian Gerome on "General Hospital". In addition to voiceover work in national commercials, Culp has narrated audiobooks by bestselling authors such as Louis L Amour, Danielle Steel, John Irving, and David Weber. He has been recording since 1996 and has nearly 35 audiobooks under his belt. Culp has also narrated documentaries for National Geographic and the History Channel.