Books are such quiet things - created in silence, read in silence - yet publishing a book has become a very noisy business. I've been noisy, too. I felt like I had to be in order to connect with my readers.
Writing blurbs for books means you have to read the book, and it cuts into the business of bookselling. So every time I get a blurb from a bookseller, I try to write a thank you note.
As soon as the printing press started flooding Europe with books, people were complaining that there were too many books and that it was going to change philosophy and the course of human thought in ways that wouldn't necessarily be good.
When I wrote 'Silver Linings,' I thought I was writing a book about the Philadelphia Eagles and male bonding, but when the book came out, it was surprising to me that the mental health community embraced it.
I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.
I've written a lot of books now; I've been published for over 30 years. I hope with every book I learn something new, and with every new novel I try to improve the process of writing.
I feel lucky that my career so far has included books for adults and books for kids. They're equally important to me, and I hope I get to continue writing both.
I often read nonfiction with a pencil in hand. I love the feel, the smell, the design, the weight of a book, but I also enjoy the convenience of my Kindle - for travel and for procuring a book in seconds.
Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books.
As a teenager I read a lot of books. Books with lots of scary trends, things like nuclear weapons and overpopulation and global diseases, and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to write stories that showed people these problems and that we could do som...
I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.
All my books are accidental books - they come from reacting to things and thinking about things and engaging in a real way. They are not about, 'Oh, did it get a good review in the Guardian?' I don't care.
The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters.
I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.
Reading a book about management isn't going to make you a good manager any more than a book about guitar will make you a good guitarist, but it can get you thinking about the most important concepts.
My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid.
A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.
This is what I believe is most important: getting good books into the hands of kids - books that will make them want to say, 'Wow, that was great. Give me another one to read.'
When I work on a book, I usually start with a question. And I don't sit around and go 'I need to write a book. What's a good question?' It will be a question that's just clanging around in my head. So for 'What It Is,' it was this idea of 'What is an...
I'm no good at describing my books. 'Holes' has been out now for seven years, and I still can't come up with a good answer when asked what that book is about.
Being a journalist is good if you want to write books: it teaches you to get beyond the blank screen. My books have been described as froth, but there's scope to be witty and ironic about everything in life.
