Harper Collins

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Pamela Haag: It was a bit like "Gilligan's Island." "Marriage Confidential" started out as a "three hour tour," and ended up a three-year book project. The inspiration for the book was simple enough: late-night conversations with close friends, in which I got the distinct but vague feeling that something was amiss with marriage. A fair number of us seemed to feel ambivalent about marriage; some were dissatisfied over perceived unfairness in marriage. Yet, for the most part, we hadn't divorced. And, for the most part, we didn't share these feelings easily with friends, for fear of looking like failures, or sounding like whiners. We were semi-happily wed.

All of this intrigued me, because as an historian, I wondered why this should be so. I was curious about how marriage had changed, or is changing, for my generation. Why should women and men who had so many options and so much freedom to stay single, to divorce, or to change marriage end up with such ambivalent and even stuck feelings about the institution? Or, is that just what marriage is?

Once I set my mind on these questions, a torrent of thoughts, hypotheses, ideas, and potential avenues for investigation just exploded on to the page, and I found myself having written a book proposal before I knew it. I had no idea how much pent-up energy I had for thinking about marriage in the post-millennial age. And, judging from the response to "Marriage Confidential," readers felt the same way. They've been eager to talk about these themes, too.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

PH: "Marriage Confidential" tackles one of our deepest human curiosities: what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage? This was a personal journey for me, as well, to explore that question.

In terms of the content of my book, what surprised me the most was how many marriages weren't as they appeared. There's so much innovation and variety, and such a range of complex feelings, even within an apparently "traditional marriage." And, as a writer, it was exhilarating to synthesize these feelings and changes, and pull them together into one narrative of a "post-romantic" turn in marriage.

In terms of the writing process, I was surprised by how challenging it was to muster the courage to admit to my own marital ambivalence, even though a fair number of husbands and wives have that feeling. It felt like an act of outing, just to admit that I had second thoughts about the estate of marriage. While we seem to be talking about private lives and relationships all the time today, there is, still, a lot of shame of failure attached to discussing marital semi-happiness, even though it's a common enough feeling.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

PH: I'd be dreaming of being a writer at a day job.

It's an achievement and a blessing when you can make money--at all--from writing. Actually, I've had a variety of pursuits and jobs in my life, from a Ph.D. to a speechwriter to the director of research for a nonprofit. Right now, I'm also a freelance editor. But one consistent thread in all of these jobs has been writing. Regardless of how I made money, I think I would always be a writer. Most of us don't really have a choice. Not writing isn't really an option, because it's how I make sense out of things, and it's such an intellectually and even soulfully satisfying experience, of finding just the right metaphor or just the right sentence to explain or describe something, to yourself and a reader.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

PH: I'm a literary omnivore, and an eclectic reader, although mostly of nonfiction. I read everything from scholarly monograph to memoir. Toward books I have a lot of generosity. I'm not the kind of critic who seeks to tear down a book. Instead, I read with a critical eye to figuring out how the book "works," toward identifying and appreciating the things that I can learn, appreciate stylistically, or emulate from whatever I'm reading. I try to take books on their own terms--as if they're invitations into someone's home, or mind, which they are. I almost never regret having spent time with one.

I usually have a few books open at once, as I do now. I've been curious about Chinese development so I just finished Peter Hessler's "Country Driving." To escape the heat wave, at least in my imagination, I'm also reading Ian Frazier's "Travels in Siberia." I'm also moving back into writing essays, so I've been re-reading Gore Vidal's collected works. And I'm reading Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows," because I've been vaguely worried about how the Internet is changing our habits of mind.

More eclectic are the manuscripts that I'm currently editing. In the last two months, I've edited an anthropological manuscript about Peru and the processes of social repair after political violence; a manuscript on 20th century denaturalization laws; an article on new trends in architectural education; and I'm now beginning to read a proposal to publish a set of letters between Gertrude Stein and some of her family members. So I'm all over the map--but that's the delight of being an editor, reader, and writer. You can temporarily get immersed in any world, or idea, that you want.

JG: What's next for you?

PH: I'm still getting lots of interest for interviews and other opportunities related to "Marriage Confidential." I'm gratified that the book's sparked an ongoing conversation about the state and future of marriage.

But another part of my mind's roving to the next thing. I'm writing new pieces of cultural criticism and commentary, which I think of as my niche. I have forthcoming essays on the "elite college mystique," for example, and a critique of the role of sentiment and emotion in our public culture today, and I have several other essays in the works for the Huffington Post, where I blog.

As happens with tropical storms, some of these manageable, small-ish ideas right now are likely to develop into full-blown hurricanes down the line, and I'll start thinking that one of them really does need to be a book. And then I'm sunk! Until that happens, though, it's very satisfying to be an author- vagabond again, and wander into whatever topic strikes my interest at the moment, and see what develops on the page.

Random House, Kate Eshelby

Jeff Glor talks to China Mi?ville following the release of "Embassytown," an ambitious, rollicking novel about alien contact and war in the far distant future. If you're looking for something different, it might be worth a shot. Mi?ville's writing and ideas can be mind-bending.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

China Mi?ville: A combination of an idea for double-voiced aliens that I'd had many years ago, when I was a kid; some stuff I'd been reading on the philosophy of language; and a notion of space travel as a kind of 18th Century maritime adventure.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

CM: I left a long time - a few years - between the first and the second draft of this book, and was perhaps not exactly surprised, but certainly fascinated, to verify how much critical distance that granted me, how I was able to improve it, the sense of remove that helped its editing. Since its publication I've been very surprised, and very gratified, to discover how many readers who don't come out of a science-fiction tradition have been willing to give a chance to a book featuring spaceships, aliens and zap guns.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

CM: I'd be an academic, in the field of International Law. That was always the original plan, and why I pursued a PhD and research in the ways I did. I still try to keep my hand in scholarly writing, in fact, publishing things now and then, whenever I can, going to conferences, and so on. I like research a lot. Ultimately I like writing fiction a bit more, though, is all.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

CM: I'm about two thirds of the way through "Liberalism: A Counter-history," by Domenico Losurdo, not a right-wing hatchet job as the title might suggest to some but a superb critique from the left, examining the political history of Europe and the US, and the complicity of its systems and many of its supposed theorists of democracy with grotesque racist reaction. And "The Great Lover," by Michael Cisco, who continues his astonishing carving out of an alternative tradition of the fantastic, in which Thomas Bernhardt is at least as important an influence as Tolkien or Howard or Poe.

JG: What's next for you?

CM: I'm just finishing up a draft of another book, and am raring to go on a whole bunch of other projects, in a bunch of styles and fora. You'll notice I'm being evasive and unspecific, and I apologize for that. Truth is I'm very superstitious about talking about work in progress. It always seems to me a good way to make God laugh, tell her my plans, so I'd rather not grant that hostage to fortune. 

Jeff Glor talks to Ben Mezrich about "Sex on the Moon," the story of Thad Roberts, the true story of a former NASA intern who pulled off one of the wildest heists in American history, stealing millions of dollars worth of moon rocks from the Johnson Space Center.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Ben Mezrich: I've always been fascinated by NASA and wanted to write something about what NASA is like in modern times, and then coincidentally friends of Thad contacted me after he got out of prison. I get a lot of crazy stories sent to me all the time but this was the wildest I'd heard in a while! I had to write it.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

BM: This one took a year to get to all the sources and to get the FBI files on the case which were about 1,000 pages long. The story itself has a lot of surprising twists and turns, but most of all I was intrigued by Thad's complex motivations and by Axel Emmerman as a bizarrely likable character.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

BM: I'd be unemployed. Sleeping a lot. Probably living in a van down by the river. I've wanted to be a writer since I was 12.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

BM: "Game of Thrones," isn't it awesome??? And "Robopocalypse."

JG: What's next for you?

BM: I'm working on a TV show where I go inside these crazy stories every week. And waiting for the next college kid who pulls off a heist to call me!

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Penguin Group, Heather Conley

Jeff Glor talks to Ben Loory about "Stories for Nighttime and Some For Day," his newly released collection of 40 short stories.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Ben Loory: Before I wrote stories, I was a screenwriter-- though never a very successful one. I made a living, writing X"-Files"-y kinda stuff, but knew I wasn't getting something. Then one day I saw a flier in my favorite bookstore (the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, Calif.) that said that Dennis Etchison was coming to teach a class for a few months on story writing. Dennis Etchison is a writer I admire-- he's won both British and World Fantasy Awards-- and it seemed like a sign, so I went to the class, and it was like he flipped a switch, and I started writing. Originally I thought I was writing outlines for screenplays, just one after another, like story treatments. It was only after I'd written 10 or 20 of them that I realized they were actually short stories. At that point I suddenly had a vision of a book-- a collection of colorful Twilight Zone-y fables. So I just wrote and wrote until one day it was done. It was almost like being possessed.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

BL: Well, that I was writing, mainly! I'd spent so long trying to force it out, and suddenly it was all just flowing. I found that stories have a mind of their own; it's like they exist somewhere, fully formed, and all you have to do as a writer is listen really hard and copy them down. When you get into a groove, time disappears, and it's like you come fully alive. I'd always thought of writing as a battle, but instead it was like flying through space.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

BL: No idea. I'd probably be dead. In any case, I'd be very unhappy. I really don't like to think about it.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

BL: I'm always reading a million things. Sometimes I read a book a day. I just finished an amazing novel called "The Circus of Dr. Lao." It was written back in 1935, by a man named Charles Finney, and is about a magical circus that comes to a small town in Arizona during the Depression. It was one of the strangest, most dazzling books I've ever read in my life. It was almost like a Fellini film, only in prose and 100 percent American. (It actually reminded me a lot of Erskine Caldwell, whose "Tobacco Road" is one of my favorite books.)

I'm also caught up in this mystery thing-- I recently discovered the Martin Beck series, which were written by a husband and wife team from Sweden, Maj Sj?wall and Per Wahl??. The series was at the heart of the Swedish detective genre in the 1960s and '70s, which eventually led to Henning Mankell's Wallander books, and, of course, Stieg Larsson. They're really a wonderful series of books; my favorite is called "The Laughing Policeman." Beck is an understated but completely real character, and the books have a deep emotional core. Very satisfying.

JG: What's next for you?

BL: We shall see! I just get up every day and write. I try not to think about what I'm going to do, I just open a blank page and see what comes. I'm also adapting one of the stories from my book into a screenplay with a friend of mine. This time around it's a whole new ballgame; it's going to be good. I'm excited.

For more on "Stories for Nighttime," visit the Penguin Group website.

Random House, Dawn Kish

Jeff Glor talks to David Roberts about "Finding Everett Ruess," the enthralling biography of an American explorer who vanished more than 75 years ago, but still inspires a cult following today.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

David Roberts: I'd known about Everett Ruess for almost two decades, and had written about him for National Geographic Adventure some 10 years ago. What rekindled my interest in that long-lost loner and idealist was the possibility that Denny Belson had discovered his grave on the Comb Ridge on the Navajo Reservation. That, and the fact that by 2008, the Ruess Family Papers were scrupulously archived at the University of Utah. Everett was such a unique and remarkable character that nobody who first learned about him seemed able to forget him. And by 2008, I'd hiked through most of the country Everett explored in the 1930s. Those solo journeys seven decades ago were, I became convinced, Everett's greatest achievement.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

DR: Discovering, as I perused those papers at the Marriott Library in Salt Lake City, how much more complicated Everett was than I'd first assumed, and how much that he'd written -- especially the passages that hinted at his dark side -- had never been published.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

DR: I'd be a burnt-out English professor, probably retired, wondering what books I might have written if I'd only had the courage to risk going broke in the process.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DR: Jonathan Franklin's "33 Men"; Patrick White's epic novel, "Voss", about a doomed nineteenth-century expedition into the Australian Outback; Christina Thompson's "Come on Shore and "We Will Kill and Eat You All." Survival!

JG: What's next for you?

DR: Just starting work on a book about Douglas Mawson, the great Australian explorer of the Antarctic, whose 1911-1914 expedition was every bit the equal of Scott's, Shackleton's, or Amundsen's exploits, and whose ordeal of solo survival from December 1912 to February 1913 has no match in polar history.

For more on "Finding Everett Ruess," visit the Random House website.  

Random House, David G. Christen

Jeff Glor talks to author Jay Bahadur about "The Pirates of Somalia," an account of his harrowing trip into the pirate havens of Africa. Bahadur spent months trying to infiltrate the ranks of these daring, often vicious criminals. This is what he saw.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jay Bahadur: The terrifying spectre of the agonizingly dull life that awaited me if I didn't do something with myself. At the time (late 2008), I was working out of my parents' house on a contract basis for a Chicago-based market research firm and trying semi-desperately to break into journalism. Every established journalist I spoke to advised me to skip journalism school and make my bones by writing freelance in crazy places. Somalia was a great candidate, and when piracy exploded in September 2008 I quit my job and bought a ticket. I was immediately shocked by how few Western journalists were in the country; during my first six-week trip, the only other foreigners I encountered were a team of Australian cameramen on my final day in Somalia. The one advantage I had over seasoned reporters is that I wasn't constrained by the insurance costs and tight deadlines that come with working for a major news agency; as a result, I was able to spend three months in the fray, and gain a perspective on piracy (and Somalia in general) that no other outsider was granted.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

JB: How long it took. My original book pitch promised editors a finished manuscript by the end of 2009; as it turned out, I was only just embarking on my third trip to the Horn of Africa when November rolled along. Some writers are disciplined enough to spend an hour at the computer every day, and I soon discovered I wasn't one of them. I had never written anything remotely as long as a book, and I burned out easily. Sometimes I couldn't string together a sentence for weeks at a time.

In hindsight, I'm also surprised by how crappy a journalist I was, at least at the beginning: I asked stupid questions, I didn't write down people's names. I didn't even have my own cell phone during my first trip to Somalia. Luckily, I stuck with the subject long enough to learn my job as I went along.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

JB: Probably still writing research reports on the Canadian premium napkin market and wistfully sending cold pitches to magazine editors.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JB: At the moment I'm reading Amy Chua's astute treatise on global politics and development, World on Fire, while simultaneously struggling (slowly) through Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

JG: What's next for you?

JB: Sticking with the mantra of "learning on the job," I'm working with several colleagues on launching a citizen journalism website, Journalist Nation (journalist-nation.com). In a sentence, our aim is to become a home for the myriad newsworthy cell phone videos ones sees floating around YouTube. My hope is to use the publicity surrounding the book to cross-promote Journalist Nation... sort of like I'm doing right now.

For more on "Pirates of Somalia," visit the Random House website.  

Scott Miller,Random House

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Scott Miller: I've long been interested in America's emergence as a global power in the late 19th century. Most people don't appreciate that our first steps abroad were taken by William McKinley, a rather little-known president. During his five years in office, from 1897 to 1901, the United States took over Cuba and Puerto Rico, annexed Hawaii, entered into a nasty war in the Philippines, and sent troops to China to help squash a peasant uprising called the Boxer Rebellion. This was all a sea change for the United States, which until then had been focused on events at home. I realized the many factors behind this great outward push could best be told through the lives of McKinley and the man who assassinated him, anarchist Leon Czolgosz.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

SM: I didn't appreciate how widely known and feared the anarchist movement was in the 1880s and 1890s. It is analogous to the fear that many Americans have of terrorists today. Anarchists during McKinley's life attacked and killed several political leaders in Europe, including the king of Italy. In the United States, four anarchists were hanged in 1887 for the murder of a policeman in Chicago. Another anarchist tried to kill a leading steel executive. Americans were terrified that social radicals would destabilize the government.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

SM: I love doing what I'm doing. Narrative history is endlessly entertaining. During the research for this book, I kept telling myself that a fiction writer couldn't invent better stories than what actually happened. But if I didn't write, I would pursue something completely different: fly fishing guide or marine archeologist. Neither option is probably very realistic.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

SM: Having lived for a considerable time in Germany, I enjoyed fellow Seattleite Erik Larson's book In the Garden of Beasts. I also just started Amanda Foreman's book about Britain's role in the Civil War, A World on Fire. Otherwise, I'm reading a lot of American history with an eye toward book No. 2. My office right now is stuffed with books checked out from the University of Washington's huge Suzzallo Library.

JG: What's next for you?

SM: I haven't decided exactly, but I'm attracted to the history of U.S. foreign relations. The key, I think, is finding a compelling story with great characters who illustrate broader historical events. The ultimate test, however, is finding a story that I myself would like to read.

For more on "The President and the Assassin," visit the Random House website.  

Penguin Group, Phyllis Christopher

Jeff Glor talks to Jojo Moyes following the release "The Last Letter From Your Lover," a novel about love lost, and love found.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jojo Moyes: Well, I'd had a hankering for a while to write a properly romantic book - a book that read like a black and white movie, with snappy dialogue and an epic sweep. But it actually started in a restaurant, when I found myself eavesdropping on a group of women who were trying to decipher a text message. Like most writers I'm horribly nosy, and I became fascinated by their debate about whether the man who sent it was keen or not. It went on for hours. What made me laugh was discovering at the end that the text message simply said: "Later X".

At around the same time my gorgeous 20-something cousin confessed she had never received a love letter. Nor had most of her friends. It got me thinking about how my generation might be the last to write love letters, and how new technology may have actually muddied the waters of romance. I just can't believe a facebook update or a texted booty call has the same emotional impact, or lasting joy of a handwritten letter, tied with ribbon and hidden lovingly in a box somewhere.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

JM: How much I enjoyed writing a real, no-holds-barred love story! I especially loved writing the letters between the two separated lovers. I also really enjoyed doing the research. I plastered my office walls with copies of newspapers from the late 1950s and early 1960s - the "Mad Men" era - and used the names, the advertisements and news stories as a backdrop for the plot.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

JM: A couple of years ago, I did think about being a midwife. Or a mounted policewoman. But like most alternative careers, I usually find myself thinking: "Oh, you could write a really good book about that". Ten books in, I think I'm pretty much ruined for anything else.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JM: I just started George R.R. Martin's "A Game Of Thrones" after becoming mildly obsessed by the television series. But I read very little when I'm halfway through writing a book; if what you're reading is too good, or has a really strong voice, it can be really disruptive.

JG: What's next for you?

JM: Well, I'm finishing my latest book, called "The Girl You Left Behind." And "Last Letter" has been optioned by a film company, so I'm excited about seeing the script and keeping my fingers crossed that it makes it to the big screen. At home, though, I'm just packing school lunches, looking for stray socks under the sofa and chasing horses around the farm.

Simon & Schuster, Isabelle Boccon-Gibod

Jeff Glor talks to Jeffrey Deaver, the prolific novelist who was picked to write the latest James Bond book.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jeffrey Deaver: As for the subject matter of "Carte Blanche," the process was typical of my approach to writing. I look for ideas that will scare the socks off my readers, ideally in a field that has not been previously written about. In this case, I was struck by how invisible the recycling and trash removal operations and personnel are. What could I do with that? I apply some of my sick and twisted thinking and came up with Severan Hydt, a recycling maven, who's the villain in the book and who has, let's say, an agenda very different from saving the environment.

On the subject of inspiration as a motive to prod one to write a book in the first place--I don't believe in it, not for commercial fiction, at least. Although my processes are creative and imaginative, I'm no different from a manufacturer of a consumer product. In order to get a book into the hands of the public with regularity, It's my job to wake up every morning and make my own inspiration.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

JD: Honestly? Nothing. I've written nearly 30 novels and several collections of short stories. I've been a full-time novelist for 20 years, so I have a stable of well-used techniques for writing a book. I approached "Carte Blanche" the way I approach any novel: I outline and research for about 7 or 8 months, without writing a word of the prose itself. At the end of that time, in the case of the Bond novel, I had a 140-page outline, which had every aspect of the story plotted out, bios of the characters and the surprise endings (yes, plural--as in all my books) entirely choreographed. Then I inserted and cross-referenced the research I'd done and, bang, it was off to writing the book. There are certainly moments of unexpected insight during that process, but it's my job to construct the story in a way that surprises the readers, but never me.

I will mention something that I didn't anticipate--how much I enjoyed working with the character of James Bond. In my book, which is set in the present day, he's a young agent for British Intelligence. He's smart, resourceful, well-versed in the tradecraft of espionage and he has an emotional component to him, even though he's just as tough as deadly as when Ian Fleming created him. For instance, I have a subplot about the fact he was orphaned at age 11, and his parents' death comes back in an unexpected way. He's a character I found it very easy to work with.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

JD: It would have to be something creative. I'd probably be a filmmaker. I think telling stories is the greatest thing on Earth. Film and theater, as well as books, are where we go for our philosophy, our insight, our real-world education, our inspiration in this post-scholastic, largely secular world we live in.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JD: I've just finished "Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall." I'm fascinated with mad, or at least eccentric, genius. And I'm halfway through David McCullough's marvelous "The Greater Journey: American's in Paris."

JG: What's next for you?

JD: In keeping with my philosophy of being a manufacturer of a product, I make sure my market gets what they want--that is a book a year. Presently, I'm working on my next Kathryn Dance novel (my protagonist who's a California police officer with a talent for using body language in investigations) for 2012, and for the year after a novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, my main character from "The Bone Collector" series.

For more on "Carte Blanche," visit the Simon and Schuster website.

Random House, Eric England

Jeff Glor talks to Adam Ross about "Ladies and Gentlemen," a collection of stories about the journey brothers take together.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Adam Ross: Since it's a story collection, each piece had its own inspiring incident or image. I was a child actor and "Middlemen" is based on a funny thing that happened during an audition with my best friend's beautiful older sister. "The Rest of It" arose from a harrowing story a bartender I worked with told me in between shifts one afternoon. "The Suicide Room" was born of apocryphal stories I'd heard about student hijinks while at Vassar. It's worth noting, though, that I wrote these stories whenever I got stuck while drafting my debut novel, "Mr. Peanut," so they orbit similar themes of cruelty and self-awareness. I think of it as a companion book.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

AR: Story to story it's always the creative tension between your plan or vision for the narrative and that moment where your writing takes off in a completely unexpected direction. It's an odd business: you write and write and write to build up enough confidence to let go.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

AR: Let's see: I've been an actor, a bartender, an editor, a journalist, a teacher, a waiter, a lifeguard, a lacrosse and tennis coach, a computer consultant and an assistant to a movie producer. There's no telling.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

AR: I just read Per Petterson's "Out Stealing Horses" and am currently plowing through Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian." I highly recommend both.

JG: What's next for you?

AR: I'm researching a new novel that's been on my mind for a quite a few years. Can't wait to start. 

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Harper Collins, Elizabeth Orcutt

Jeff Glor talks to Richard Mabey about "Weeds."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Richard Mabey: It was an irresistible suggestion by my publisher. The interface between nature and culture has always been fascinating to me, as has the resilience and opportunism of nature. Weeds fit into both areas. They're also nature's outsiders, revealing a lot about our prejudices and blind-spots and environmental loutishness, and I'm a sucker for the underdog.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

RM: Discovering that "weed gardens" were made by British soldiers in the trenches of WWI , who dug up wild flowers from the French countryside and transplanted them to little terraces, edged with shell cases, along the edges of their trenches. A heartbreaking image of how the familiarity and modesty of these lowly plants reminded them of home.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

RM: Mouldering in a pit of unfulfilled boredom - but I wouldn't have minded being gifted with the skills of a Baroque lutenist!

JG: What else are you reading right now?

RM: (Apart from work reading), on the bedside table are: Alexandra Harris, "Romantic Moderns: English writers, artists and the imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper;" Jonathan Franzen, "Freedom;" and Angus Trumble's wonderfully off-the-wall cultural history "The Finger. A Handbook."

JG: What's next for you?

RM: A kind of biographella of Flora Thompson, author of "Lark Rise to Candleford" (currently on PBS in the U.S. I believe), the most accurate, and literary, memoir of rural life at the end of the 19th C (written, uniquely, by woman from the rural working class) and how it contributes to the powerful image of a 'golden age' of country living as one of the defining ideals of national identity.

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W.W. Norton Publishing, Emily Priddy

Jeff Glor talks to Michael Wallis about "David Crockett," his biography of the great American hero.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Michael Wallis: Like other historical figures I have written about (i.e. Pretty Boy Floyd and Billy the Kid, to name but two), David Crockett (he never signed his name Davy) is a character shrouded in myth, half-truths and legend. The authentic story of this frontiersman reads much better than most of the other versions, including the Crockett portrayed by Fess Parker for Walt Disney in the '50s.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

MW: Many things surprised me while researching and writing this biography. For example, although Crockett had very little formal education, I discovered he read Ovid's Metamorphoses translated into English, the Bard, and the King James Bible. He was neither a buffoon nor a great intellect, but a savvy frontiersman who was comfortable deep in the woods on a bear hunt but also at ease in the halls on Congress and the fancy parlors of Philadelphia and New York. His self- effacing humor and down-home country wit profoundly influenced Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Will Rogers, and many others.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

MW: I would be a stage and motion picture actor. If you had asked this question 45 years ago, I would have responded, "Playing outfield for the St. Louis Cardinals."

JG: What else are you reading right now?

MW: I am researching and reading about Old West saloons and brothels, as well as a multitude of works concerning the impact of women in the American West.

JG: What's next for you?

MW: As the voice of the Sheriff of Radiator Springs in Pixar's motion picture "Cars," I return to the big screen on June 24 when the "Cars" sequel premieres nationwide. Also, I am busy as a co-founder of the new Route 66 Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of historic Route 66, a subject I have written about and promoted for many years. And, of course, I am narrowing the list of candidates for my next book.

For more on "David Crockett," visit the WW Norton website.

Simon & Schuster

Jeff Glor talks to Katie Lee about "Groundswell," a story of life in the spotlight and finding love through surfing.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Katie Lee: I have wanted to write a novel for years, and I have tried and failed a few times. I kept thinking I needed to write a book that had something to do with food, and I just couldn't get the story right. I started surfing a few summers ago, and about a week into it, I had the idea for "Groundswell." I left the beach, went home, and started writing.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

KL: I was surprised how the story and the characters took on a life of their own. They became real people to me, and did things I didn't necessarily expect them to do when I started out writing. I got so interested in them, that I was excited to sit down at my computer each day and write because I wanted to see what would happen next. I felt like a kid playing make-believe, and when I finished the book, I actually found myself missing them.

JG:What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

KL: My day job -- cooking. But I guess that's writing too, in a sense, as I am constantly writing new recipes.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

KL: I just finished reading "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett and I absolutely loved it, I was sad when it was over. On my nightstand, I have "Maine" by J. Courtney Sullivan that I'm just getting ready to start. I've heard it's great. And in my reading queue at the library, I've ordered "The Paris Wife" by Paula Mclain.

JG: What's next for you?

KL: Good question. I'm trying to figure that out. I really want to write another novel, and I am trying to come up with what the story will be. As I learned with "Groundswell," I can't force it, I just have to wait for it to come to me.

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Random House, Michael Lionstar

Jeff Glor talks to Juliet Eilperin about "Demon Fish."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Juliet Eilperin: I wanted to write a book about the oceans, because I think it's such a fascinating subject and we're learning more about them through science than ever before. As the sea's top predator, and one that's at a critical juncture, sharks provide a perfect lens through which to look at the ocean, And they're a creature that people find compelling, which always helps.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

JE: I was amazed to find out both how connected we are to sharks, and how different they are from us. We get the bones in our inner ear, and the muscles and cranial nerves that allow us to chew and speak, from sharks. But sharks are much less social than humans, and females in some species can even reproduce on their own, without males.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

JE: I'd practice law, like both of my parents. When I was 6 I wanted to be a Supreme Court justice, and I still haven't entirely given up that dream.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JE: I'm reading both a book of fiction and non-fiction: "Illumination," by Kevin Brockmeier, and "Tomatoland," by Barry Estabrook. Both of them are fantastic.

JG: What's next for you?

JE: I think I'll begin on another work of non-fiction in the near future, but not immediately. I still have my day job covering the environment at The Washington Post, and I'm looking forward to getting a little beach time with my family this summer. It's time to get back into the sea.

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