There is a very easy to use package available in PyPI that handles exactly that: django-related-admin. You can also see the code in GitHub.
Using this, what you want to achieve is as simple as:
class PersonAdmin(RelatedFieldAdmin):
list_display = ['book__author',]
Both links contain full details of installation and usage so I won't paste them here in case they change.
Just as a side note, if you're already using something other than model.Admin
(e.g. I was using SimpleHistoryAdmin
instead), you can do this: class MyAdmin(SimpleHistoryAdmin, RelatedFieldAdmin)
.