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I always loved going to the library as a kid and collecting as many books as I could.
And it could be any subject, that's what was great about the library was going there and
getting a stack of books from all different subjects. I especially loved
true stories,
that also
you know, blended into historical fiction. I loved that.
"Mutiny on the Bounty," "The Great Train Robbery," books like that...they took a real historical
event
and turned it into a thriller. Those were the books that excited me the most, so
it's always fun to go look
see what I can find like that. And to this day,
I love
finding books that I didn't expect to find. I did that just on my trip,
flying out from New York... just went and meant to find one book, but found something
else and I find
ideas for books that way too.
I go there and I think I'm searching for one thing, but
I end up finding the thing that's next to it, or maybe the thing across the aisle
that's on a different subject,
so, invaluable, every day.
I use it like crazy these days. I have two young children, two and six, and we
go there all the time for them.
I'll use it like an office sometimes. I live in Saratoga Springs, New York, now...
great public library. I go upstairs. It's very quiet and I can
sit there for hours at a time and just work.
I can find the history books I need on the shelf,
sit down and work.
I go downstairs to get a cup of coffee
and uh...
take the kids there after work.
It's second home basically, for me
you know since...
as a kid, I always pictured librarians in this a stereotypical way, and then
when I became an adult,
I realized all the coolest people I knew were librarians...
men and women.
And it's true to this day, all the time
I meet someone new and they're a librarian. I'm always amazed, they're just the coolest people.
[On censorship] I'm obviously very against
censorship and banning books. I think it's so much more important to let kids...
if something's outrageously inappropriate that's one thing, but to let kids read
the controversial books
and then talk
to them about it as opposed to cutting something out.
I know as a kid it just would make me more curious to know,
"what is it that's controversial about this?"And it's a great
way to learn too, to say alright here's why... this is "Huck Finn," here's why it is
controversial.
And a kid can handle so much more than we give them credit for in terms of
the complexities of
American history, which is what I work on.
It's better to have to make it more complicated as opposed to over simplify.
My latest one is called "Bomb."
It's about, it's this non-fiction
thriller. So that's what I try to do. I try to take
historical
facts and turn them it into
books that read like thrillers, that are novels because
people, especially young readers,
when they hear history
they might expect, "Oh it's going to be boring. It's gonna be like my textbook."
But this is not.
So I take true stories and turn them into sort of page-turners.
That's my plan and this is a page-turner about the race to make
the atomic bomb during World War II, and
at the same time the attempt to steal it, because as the Americans were trying to make
it,
the Germans were trying to build one and the Soviets were trying to steal
the plans from the Americans. So it's this global thriller
taking place on different continents at the same time.
Definitely my most ambitious book, so I'm excited to see how it
goes over.