The railroads once were a dominant power in American life, for good and for ill. There's something inevitably nostalgic about a train book today. Trains attract us, but part of that attraction is cultural memory.
In the same way 'Lord of the Rings' was an interpretation of the book, 'The Hobbit' is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation.
Because I've a track record of talking about books I never write, in Australia they think I'm about to write a book about Jane Austen. Something I said at some festival.
That freedom of writing you don't get in other formats, I'd rather leave it to someone else to deal with the headache of drafting my book into a screenplay.
Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.
I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row, and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal, and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is, it makes the series limited, you can't write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.
Sequencing - the careful striptease by which you reveal information to the reader - matters in an article, but it is absolutely essential to a book.
My mother was a Book of the Month Club devotee. I remember she always looked forward to Pearl Buck's books.
Anybody who knows me knows I would never read a comic book.
People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of 'Hitchhiker's,' and I thought, 'No, no.' I didn't want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I'd already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.
One of the biggest differences between you and a traditionally published author is that a self-pubbed author is responsible for everything. Not just writing the book - but cover design, editing, producing, distribution, and publicity as well.
I wrote my first book without being to Ethiopia since I was two years old.
We decided we wanted the site to provide readers with fresh new stories to enjoy between major book releases by their favorite authors while allowing those same authors to flex their creative muscles.
When I was 11 or 12, I was really bored with everything on my summer reading list. It was all happy, middle-grade kinds of books. I was getting frustrated, because I liked to read. My mother went to the library and got me a copy of 'The Other Side of Midnight' by Sidney Sheldon. It was my first adult book.
There's no rules. Show me the rule book.
Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book.
There are books all around me... I don't read as much as I used to, but I always have a book or two going.
You don't know when you are immersed in a book what the reaction to it will be, but I feel great about 'The Lake of Dreams.'
My go-to author for knowing it all is Evelyn Waugh. 'A Handful of Dust' is as perfect as a book can get.
Going to so many book events keeps me connected with my readership while constantly reminding me that all the long hours at the drawing desk are worthwhile.
As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you can't possibly please everyone.
When I was 13, I read 'Et la paix dans le monde, Docteur?' a physician's account of working with Medecins Sans Fontieres during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. It was this book that inspired me to work for MSF.
A journalist gathers information for a media outlet that disseminates the information through a broadly defined 'medium' - including newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, magazine, news Web site, television, radio or motion picture - for public use. This broad definition covers every form of legitimate journalism.
I don't know if any single book made me want to write. C.S. Lewis was the first writer to make me aware that somebody was writing the book I was reading - these wonderful parenthetical asides to the reader.
My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.
'Underworld' was my first filmed book. I think there are about seven of my lines in it.
I frankly couldn't imagine being a series mystery-fiction writer, churning out book after book about the same viewpoint character.
A book that furnishes no quotations is no book - it is a plaything.
Even though I was trained in play writing and screenwriting, when I sat down to write a comic book for the first time, Alan Moore was first and foremost in my mind.
I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.
I've had my nose in a book my whole life. I never thought it would be useful, but it is now. What's really nice is that I don't have a photographic memory, so words get blurred, thoughts get mixed up, and they come out as something new.
You read a book, write a detailed review as proof you've read it, and they give you a badge. That's where my competitive nature came out. Give me the badges! I would sit in the library all day, not 'cos I loved reading, just because I needed those badges.
The oldest book I have is a treatise on architecture from the 17th century.
One of the best places for a shy person to meet people is in a coffee shop. If you are a reader, bring a book and read it there - that gives a guy something to ask you about. Same goes for sketching, writing, or any hobby you can take with you.
I think you live a fuller life with someone else, you know, you're firing on all cylinders. It can be a nightmare at times, we all know that, but nevertheless in the end I think to have someone else's input on anything - a book, a meal, your children, life, a walk - is fantastic.
