Rick Riordan is an author, mostly of books you'll find in the children's room of your local library. He wrote the popular Percy Jackson series of books about teens and Greek mythology. He also wrote The Kane Chronicles, about teens and Egyptian mythology, and the Heroes of Olympus series (sequel to the Percy Jackson set) that includes both Greek and Roman mythology. I'll admit I've read them all. They're easy reads, and you end up learning some about mythology in the process. According to the wikipedia page for Rick, he's tentatively scheduled to start a Norse series in 2015.
I'm not sure if most kids today would know anything about mythology and some of this history without books like his, so I appreciate what he's doing in making books that include some unique educational aspect.
The first Percy Jackson book was also made into a movie (which Rick was not involved in), and it looked bad, so I didn't watch it. Stick to the books.
He also wrote series of adult books about a Texas private eye named Tres Navarre. I found those books reasonable as well when I was looking for a summer read. Not the best ever, but certainly not bad.
Here Rick is talking a few years back about his children's books and how the first ones came to be.
