Jeff Glor talks to Sasha Issenberg about "The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Sasha Issenberg: I have covered political campaigns, in some form or another, for fifteen years, and only recently discovered how little I knew about what they were really up to. I spent 2008 flying around with John McCain and Barack Obama as a correspondent for The Boston Globe, writing about their rallies, speeches and campaign ads. After the election, I learned that if I had wanted to understand how campaigns were seeking votes-as opposed to just airtime-I should have skipped the rallies and press conferences. Instead I should have been talking to the geeks back at headquarters, and their unlikely collaborators in commercial data warehouses and university behavorial-psych labs.

The speeches and ads hadn't changed much at all during the time I had been covering politics, but out of public view the prior decade had been a transformative one in the way people went about winning votes.

I wrote a piece for The New York Times Magazine about one major change-the introduction of field experiments, basically randomized drug trials for politics, with voters as the guinea pigs-and knew I had just begun to crack the geeks' insular world. There was a much bigger story to tell about how data and analytics had changed politics much as the Moneyball revolution had upended sports. That narrative, I thought, would amount to a kind of secret history of politics at the outset of the twenty-first century.

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

SI: I had a sense of how much data campaigns had about individual voters; there had been plenty of awestruck (and, I now know from my reporting, almost entirely fanciful) stories after the 2004 election about how George W. Bush's team had figured out how to identify Republican voters by knowing that they were more likely to drink bourbon and Coors. What I didn't appreciate until well into my reporting was how much about an individual's political attitudes and behaviors campaign analysts thought they could predict from that data. In 2008, the Obama campaign generated individual statistical probabilities for every voter in America - predicting the likelihood that he or she would turn out to vote, would support Obama, would be open to voting for a black candidate for president - and updated them weekly.

Basically Obama's targeters thought these predictive-modeling tools had turned them into fortune-tellers. "We knew who these people were going to vote for before they decided," the campaign's microtargeting consultant Ken Strasma told me.

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

SI: This is boring, but I'd probably be an editor. I've worked only in journalism, because I was lucky to learn as a teenager that it offered a venue for me to pursue my natural curiosities about the world. I'm really interested in taking apart complex systems and telling stories about how they work-whether the modern political campaign or the global sushi trade, the subject of my first book-and love the fact that I can approach them as an outsider.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

SI: I've begun Neill Lochery's Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-45, which seems to combine two of my interests: urban history and Europe during the war. And I just got a copy of Obama Face au Pouvoir by my friend Guillaume Debr?, a Washington-based correspondent for the French television network TV1. Usually foreign coverage American politics is cursory and uninformative, but I am optimistic about this one - particularly for what I expect will be a satisfying account of Obama's decision-making about Libya as it was viewed by policymakers in Paris.

JG: What's next for you?

SI: I am covering the elections for Slate: my Victory Lab blog (and longer stories) there takes the curiosities I developed in working on this book-about political data, analytics, and tactics-and applies them to day-to-day reporting. After November I will focus wholeheartedly on my next book project, a political, legal and social history of the gay-marriage debate. I've now written a bit about how political mechanics have changed in the last decade. Marriage is the topic on which political opinions have changed the most during that same time-and I'm setting out to try to understand how and why. 

For more on "The Victory Lab," visit the Random House publishing website.

Jeff Glor talks to Tom Reiss about "The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Tom Reiss: I was a huge Alexandre Dumas fan growing up, and one day I came across the novelist's memoir. He spent the first 200 pages telling the story of his father, Gen. Alex Dumas, and it read like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo combined - only more outlandish. General Dumas was like some superhero living in one of history's most exciting eras: he sword fought his way across the French Revolution, then he rose from the rank of corporal to four-star general in the space of a year and half on his outsized talents and courage. Here was a guy from the tropics who scaled ice cliffs in the Alps and fought his way across Egypt as Napoleon's cavalry commander. Then, there's the shipwreck and the dungeon.

As an equal fan of history, superheroes, and adventure stories, I was enthralled - and amazed that I couldn't find this incredible man in the history books. I was even more amazed when I learned from a bit of further research that he'd been a black man who did all these incredible things at the height of slavery. Could it be true? And if so, how could such a man be forgotten by history?? I needed to find out.

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

TR: Probably to learn how far the French went on the road to creating a post-racial society before crushing it. The French Revolution was a kind of 21st century moment in the heart of the 18th century - and Alex Dumas, outstanding though he was, could never have risen the way he did if not for that. The French Revolution was the American Revolution on steroids.

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

TR: I've considered myself a writer since I was 7 years old, but I've done a lot of jobs along the way. I enjoyed waiting tables and tending bar during college, especially when it got busy, so I might like managing a big restaurant. In fact, I might like managing many kinds of businesses or organizations. I once started a small business when I got out of college and enjoyed the stress of making it work. High-stress situations clear my head, and I love the challenge of getting along with many different kinds of people. I'm scared of routine. When I was a teenager, I worked summers as a hospital orderly and loved that, and I sometimes wish I could become a doctor, like my father, but I'm not suited to the dispassionate, scientific part.

Basically, I'm tempted by too many jobs. The one thing I'm not tempted to ever do is stop working. Retirement would be too tough for me. As a workaholic and an insomniac, I identified with my subject, General Dumas, who, according to field reports, would ride on patrols without sleep sometimes for two nights on end before going into battle, and winning. But I'm not saying I could be a saber-fighting cavalry officer - that's a job I'd be terrible at! Like the general's son, I'll stick to writing the battle scenes.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

TR: I just started Candice Millard's "The River of Doubt." I recently finished her other book, "Destiny of the Republic," which I loved. I'm also reading my younger daughter "The Road to Oz" - I'll take any excuse to reread the Oz books - and am reminded what a sin it is that the series is out of print.

JG: What's next for you?

TR: After I finished my last book, "The Orientalist," I did three long New Yorker articles, each of which took me a few months to research and write. I'd like to do some journalism again now before I dive into another book, but maybe some shorter pieces. I need a change of pace.

For more on "The Black Count," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Kevin Powers about, "The Yellow Birds."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Kevin Powers: When I returned from overseas I was frequently asked what my time in Iraq was like. I realized that I didn't have a simple answer that could communicate the complexity of that experience. The book was my attempt to ask some larger questions about the war: What does it mean to try to be good and fail? How can you find meaning in an experience that seems like an incomprehensible aberration?

Just as no two people are the same, no two experiences of war are the same. I wanted to show the war from one soldier's perspective, to paint a portrait of him from the inside out.

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

KP: Being that this was my first novel, I'd say almost everything about the process surprised me. I've always written both poetry and prose, but having this project to return to day after day, month after month, was both daunting and exciting.

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

KP: I'm not really sure. It took me a long time to find the courage to give writing my full effort and attention, to stop worrying about failing or succeeding and just write the way I wanted to write. But I could certainly see myself teaching high school English or History. I've had some extraordinary teachers in my life, and I think doing my best to emulate them could have been a challenging and rewarding career.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

KP: I've been spending quite a bit of time with Dean Young's poetry collection "Fall Higher."

JG: What's next for you?

KP: I'm trying to finish up a collection of poems and I've recently started some tentative work in the direction of my second novel.

For more on "The Yellow Birds" please visit the Hachette Book Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Doug Fine about "Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Doug Fine: I got started on the project because the mayor of a nearby village to my ranch (this a U.S. town) was convicted of being a Cartel member and smuggling weapons. It was just too close to home. I saw how even well-intentioned law enforcement in my border region of New Mexico can't possibly make a dent in supply and demand. I had to see of there was a working alternative to the Drug War which I could examine as a potential model.

Recent polls have 56 percent of Americans ready to end the Drug War, which is one of our nation's worst policies for reasons documented at length in the book and not a surprise to most of us. This book aims to paint the picture of why a Drug Peace that I witnessed would mean a better America, from an economic and patriotic standpoint. I'm trying to let those remaining 44 percent know that this is a top-tier important issue for our economy and our national health. To illustrate that, I relocated to Mendocino County's and for one cannabis growing season (10 months) covered the county's successful efforts to permit sustainable cannabis farmers. I followed one flower, named Lucille for reasons that have to do with the neighbor of a farmer I followed, from farm to liver cancer battler.

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

DF: The kind of thing that surprises me is that there was a Big Bang, or that the Earth has an atmosphere at all. Or that "This is Spinal Tap" didn't win an Academy Award. Not much surprised me about the quantitative results of my research into the coming Drug Peace. The old lady rancher across the valley from me knows the Drug War is one of a great nation's worst policies. Pat Robertson knows. Maybe I was a little surprised by just how valuable the cannabis plant can be to the American economy -- $6 billion annually just in the county I researched in the book.

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

DF: Does not compute. Not an option. OK, if forced, um, professional river innertuber.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DF: Re-reading "The River Why" by David James Duncan.

JG: What's next for you?

DF: Goat milking. In about five minutes. Work wise, looking back in 10 years I'd like to have one or two novels, one or two nonfiction books, one or two feature films, one or two documentary films, and a children's book under my belt. Maybe even a small volume of poetry. And I'd like to have a hot tub.

For more on "Too High to Fail," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Jim Steinmeyer about "The Last Greatest Magician in the World: Howard Thurston Versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jim Steinmeyer: I've worked with magicians throughout my career, and when I was a boy in Chicago, I'd actually known magicians who had been friends of Thurston. Still, he always seemed to remain a mysterious, guarded personality. It was difficult to get a sense of his performances or his career. Over the years, I gradually came to discover that his personality and experiences were a key to the mystery. Even more, his story -- what he chose to tell people as well as what he chose to conceal from the public -- is one of the great stories about American show business. I think that Thurston tells us a great story about entertainment at the turn of the nineteenth century, about fame and success. The fact that he had basically become obsolete by the end of his career, virtually forgotten, only exemplifies the changing tastes as well as the nature of stage magic.

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

JS: As always, the surprise to me is getting to know these people. It sounds funny to explain it that way, but you approach these personalities by first reading the standard press releases and biographies, and then, as the research progresses, you begin to really understand them, their desires and fears. It's sometimes one or two letters, or a simple account or review, which provides the perspective. That's the key that begins to unlock the mysteries of personality. I'm always surprised to, in effect, shake hands with these great entertainers of a century ago. I really end up feeling like I know what it was like to watch them perform, and to experience the heights and depths of their careers.

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

JS: Much of my career is spent working with magicians, developing material for their performances and also creating special effects and illusions for Broadway shows. My books about magic have been real opportunities for me to explore the history of magic. It's great that I've had the opportunity to introduce new readers to these subjects, but I always feel, selfishly, that these books give me a much greater appreciation of magic. I'm always working with performers on new projects, and I hope to keep busy with that.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JS: I read a lot of nonfiction. For some reason, that's always my preference; maybe it's because I write nonfiction and I feel supportive of those stories. I'll mention a couple that I just finished. Simon Garfield's "Just My Type" is a great collection of essays about typefaces. Believe it or not. And, of course, each of those encompasses a fascinating story about style, personalities, or historical movements. James Shapiro's "Contested Will," which is a book about the Shakespeare authorship controversies. It's so smart, so clever, because this author, for the first time, asks why certain people felt compelled to create these controversies, and that takes the subject to a completely new level.

JG: What's next for you?

JS: I've written a few books that aren't books on show business or magic, and my next book will be one of those. It's called, "Who Was Dracula?" and it's a historical story about Bram Stoker's novel and the important influences that were responsible for that character. It will be published by Penguin early next year. It's really a great tale, with lots of surprises and ties to history. And, I confess, there's plenty of "show business" in this story, too, because Stoker was heavily influenced by the late Victorian theatre. I think that Dracula has to be seen in that context.

For more on "The Last Greatest Magician in the World," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Richard Duncan about, "The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Richard Duncan: I was inspired when I read Irving Fisher's "The Purchasing Power of Money" (1912) which discusses The Quantity Theory of Money.

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

RD: This is my third book. It surprised me that it does not get any easier.

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

RD: If I could do anything, I would be Treasury Secretary. Realistically, I would be a strategist in the investment industry. I would also like to be a professor.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

RD: Peter Watson's "The German Genius" and Caro's latest volume on President Johnson.

JG: What's next for you?

RD: More book promotion for this book. Then, more writing more books

MORE VIDEO:

Economist Richard Duncan explains how going from a gold-based monetary system to paper-based system led to an explosion of credit over the last 40 years. Richard Duncan talks about what he calls "a broadly held misconception" - that the U.S. has a capitalist economy. Duncan calls the American system "creditism." Economist Richard Duncan is optimistic that the U.S. can have an unassailable lead in 21st century industries if the government takes advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Richard Duncan maps out a plan to end American dependence on foreign oil and generate 30 years of prosperity.

For more on "The Great New Depression," visit his website.

Jeff Glor talks to Andrew Blauner about "Central Park: An Anthology"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to put together this collection?

Andrew Blauner: Love of Central Park.. But I was harboring the idea for a long time, after it first came to me, waiting for something to help hatch it, and it was only when I decided that I was going to be moving out of the City, leaving New York for the first time in my life, that I realized just how much I adored and have treasured Central Park, how much it has meant to me, what a miracle it is, really, and how much I would miss it.

I grew up just a couple of blocks from the park, and spent so much of my life, there, as a child and as an adult. My family lived on the Upper East Side, and I went to Collegiate School on the Upper West Side, so, every day, twice a day, for 12 years, I took the 79th Street crosstown bus [and, OK, occasionally, the odd taxi] through the park. After school, well, Collegiate sports teams often practiced in the park, and it was so often our home field advantage for games. Then there were countless other joyful afternoons in the park with Cavaliers Athletic Club, a phenomenal after-school sports organization [something akin to the group portrayed in the Salinger story, "The Laughing Man."]

The park is where we would take our family dog, dear Drummer, the collie who was a doppelganger for Lassie, in the '70s, and whom I trust is enjoying life, to this day, "in the country." Which always reminds me of Susan Cheever's story in the book, called "My Little Bit of Country," which refers to Andy Warhol's line about how it was better to live in the city than the country because in the city one can find a little bit of country, but in the country, there was no little bit of the city....

The park is where I heard Simon and Garfunkel play on The Great Lawn. The park is where I had my first real date--part of it, at least-- with my first girlfriend, after going to see "Ghostbusters." Well into adulthood, I lived very close to the park, and it became less a place a to play, as it had been, and more of a sanctuary, among other things. It's where I found myself magnetically drawn on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.

And/but in some ways, that's just it. It's a place that plays so many different and important parts in so many lives. It attracts almost 40 million visits per year, from people from all over the world. It's what so many New Yorkers name as their favorite part of the city, though, within the park, so many have such very varied pet places, favorite stories, memories, so many so closely associated with family.

So many stories and feelings and more. I could write a book....but instead, I assembled and edited one, hoping to try to channel some of sentiments, memories, and more into a book that would be an homage to the park, that would be a tapestry, of a kind, that, at least, in some ways, would get at what is so special about it. So, as I prepared to make the exodus from New York, I fell in love with the park, all over again, and I wanted to pay tribute, give something back to a place that has given so much to me, as it has to so many people, in ways, I think, we often don't even recognize or appreciate. And beyond that, I had the opportunity to ally with The Central Park Conservancy, the organization which has played the seminal role in making the park that we know and love today, and for that reason, among others, I'm donating part of my proceeds from the book to the CPC.

Now, when I come back, Central Park is ever-more magical than ever. I ran my first New York Road Runners race, the Race for Central Park, not long ago; it was through the park, and it was a most powerful, beautiful, sorrowful, and unexpectedly emotional experience. One of the best I have ever had in the park, in the city, anywhere. Just as the race was about to begin, Mary Wittenberg, head of NY Road Runners, said into the loud speaker words to the effect, to paraphrase: "Today, we are running for a friend..." and she went on to talk about Central Park, and it was all very resonant, moving, more, for all kinds of reasons

I'm a literary agent, representing other peoples' books, but once in a great while, as a labor of love, I'm compelled to put together an anthology [which, Iearned, along the way, derives from the Greek for garland, or bouquet of flowers] about a subject for which I have a true passion. Ironically, perhaps, while the first two volumes were about people ["Coach" and "Brothers"], this one is, in many ways, even more personal, intimate, emotional. And that seems apropos, since the park engenders so many feelings, such primal, Proustian feelings for so many people.

JG: What surprised you most during the editing process?

AB: Many things. The paradoxes of the park that emerged, for one thing. How it is a place that so many go to be with others, and yet, other times, to be alone. How it's a home for celebration and meditation, a place where people play and pray, exercise and relax, a place that, somehow, manages to defy and define the city.

Another surprise, really, was how many of the contributors, some of the country's best writers, who were at the top of my Wish List, said "Yes," when I invited them. They seemed to relish the chance to tell these stories, and in so many instances, they did it with such great emotion, and, again, so many connecting to family, to childhood, and so many tracing the trajectory not just of their own lives, but the life of the park, from the pre-Conservancy days to today. And doing it with such humanity, humility, and humor.

And maybe, too, I should add that what was surprising during the editing process was, to be candid, how easy it was, if only in the literal sense of how precious little editing I had to do. After all, for me, it was like being the coach in an all-star game, given the writers with whom I got to work.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

AB: Well, switching hats, in my capacity as a literary agent, I am reading books that I represent which will be published during this upcoming season, including:

"Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope" by Tina Kelley, formerly of the NY Times, and Kevin Ryan, President of Covenant House

"Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work" by Jeanne Marie Laskas

"The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel" by Timothy L. O'Brien

JG: What's next?

AB: If you mean, by that, on the anthology front...good question, and one that I was just asking myself. I thought about several things, including: a second volume of "Coach"; a sequel of a different kind to "Brothers" [with brothers and sisters writing about each other]; or choosing another meaningful, iconic place such as Central Park [though it's one of a kind] as subject....but I'm leaning, now, toward going in a very different direction--stories by and about writers' favorite books/passages of the Bible, what they mean to them, and why. "The Good Book"?

For more on "Central Park" visit Andrew Blauner's Facebook Page.

Jeff Glor talks to Maria Semple about "Where'd You Go, Bernadette."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Maria Semple: My own misery! We had just moved from Los Angeles, where I was a big fancy comedy writer, to Seattle, where I didn't know a soul. Our daughter was entering preschool, so I was immediately thrust into the hyperactive, PC parenting culture. I felt like I was the disheveled, antisocial mom all the other mothers judged. Worse, I was unable to write and somehow blamed that on Seattle. But the comedy writer in me recognized how funny my misery was. So I created the character of Bernadette Fox, who was going through much of what I was going through myself. I've always loved and agreed with Samuel Beckett's quip, "There's nothing funnier than unhappiness."

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

MS: "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" is an epistolary novel--one told in letters. I had no idea how much fun it would be, puzzling together the plot with letters and documents. I ended up using 30 different voices and fell in love with the form.

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

MS: I'd probably be teaching literature. The one constant in my life has been my love of books: reading them, thinking about them, talking about them, holding them, turning people on to new ones. So to have a captive audience would be a dream come true.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

MS: "Skios" by Michael Frayn. He's the writer whose career I most admire in that he writes wonderful novels and biting essays, not to mention the funniest and most provocative plays I've ever seen.

JG: What's next for you?

MS: "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" was surprisingly easy and fun to write because I was feeling such strong emotions. I don't want to even think about writing another novel until I'm in a similar situation. Come on, misery!

For more on "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" visit the Little Brown and Company website.

Jeff Glor talks to Fredrik Logevall about "Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Fredrik Logevall: As I was completing my first book, Choosing War, which dealt with JFK and LBJ and the "Americanization" of the war in 1961-65, I became more and more fascinated by the French War that came before, and wanted to learn about it. Simultaneously--and unknown to me--Jason Epstein of Random House wanted to sign someone to write a book on the long-term origins of America's war, one that would go back to WW2 and place the Indochina struggle in the broader context of decolonization and the emerging Cold War. My name came to his attention, and in short order his fellow editor Scott Moyers approached me about doing this new work. I jumped at the chance. That was in 2000, and here we are, a dozen years later.

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

FL: The degree to which the United States was a central player in the Indochina struggle from the very beginning, in 1940. (I begin the first main chapter with the Fall of France that year, which had major implications for the Empire in general and Indochina in particular.) For Ho Chi Minh, for the French, for the British, the Chinese, the Soviets, the non-Communist Vietnamese, a pressing question was always: What will the Americans do? Ho believed for a long time that America would be his ally in his quest for independence; the French feared he was right. Moreover, these were well-founded beliefs. FDR was anti-colonial and opposed to allowing France to reclaim Indochina after WW2, and it's not fanciful to argue that had he lived beyond 1945 he would have worked to prevent a French return and might well have succeeded, thereby changing the course of history. But Roosevelt died, and soon thereafter patterns of thought were laid down in Washington regarding Vietnam that would not really change for the next 20 years. As the book shows, the US was crucial to the French war effort in the First Indochina war, but failed to heed the lessons of France's disastrous defeat. Instead, American leaders moved to build up and defend South Vietnam, and thereby put the US on its collision course with history.

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

FL: A professional tennis player! Actually, by now I'd be washed up and coaching the tennis team at some college somewhere. I competed at a high level as a junior, and for a time thought I'd try to make it as a pro. But I came to the realization that I had neither the talent nor the undying commitment to reach the top rung. So maybe it would have been something else. Perhaps owning and running the fabulous bakery in Sandhamn, in the archipelago outside my native Stockholm and accessible only by boat.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

FL: Juggling several books at once, as usual: Adam Sisman's biography of Hugh Trevor-Roper; James Mann's "The Obamians;" Pico Iyer's "The Man Within My Head" (about Graham Greene, who figures quite prominently in my book and who was often within my head too!). I have Stephen King's "11/22/63" on my nightstand, but haven't cracked it open yet.

JG: What's next for you?

FL: A short interpretive volume on the entire American experience in Vietnam, up to the fall of Saigon in 1975, for the Modern Library Chronicles series. In terms of the next big research project, I'm not sure. Any ideas?

For more on "Embers of War," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Robert Hass about "What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to put the collection together?

Robert Hass: The last of the essays was about an anthology of environmental poetry by African Americans. It got me to thinking about spirituals, the blues, and the cash crops that produced slavery--sugar, tobacco, cotton, and rice.

And I began to think there were enough themes and convergences of ideas in the essays I'd written over the years to make a book. Possibly. But it began to seem like a book when my editor at Ecco/HarperCollins saw a way of organizing it.

JG: What surprised you most in the writing process?

RH: Hard to say. Writing is an incessant process of discovery.

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

RH: I'd have a social life. Hike a lot. Learn a language. Learn bird calls. Paint. Play the piano.

JG: What else are you reading?

RH: Right now I'm reading a remarkable novel by a young Korean writer--it's "Please Look After Mom" by Kyung-sook Shin. A kind of Korean version of "Faulkner's As I Lay Dying." It's a portrait of a family from the end of the Korean War to the present, told from multiple points of view. It's also a fable about the costs of modernization. A very beautiful book, heartbreaking, and surprising. (from Knopf) And I'm starting on the galleys of a book by the Scottish writer Melanie Challenger, "On Extinction: How We Became Estranged From Nature." Vivid essays in natural history and the way we live now. A book of wonders and perils, due from Counterpoint in December.

JG: What's next for you?

RH: I'm in the middle of a couple more essays and then I hope to leave prose alone for a while and hope that the muse hasn't wandered off permanently

For more on "What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World" visit the Harper Collins website.

Jeff Glor talks to Jon Friedman about "Forget About Today:Bob Dylan's Genius for (Re)invention, Shunning the Naysayers, and Creating a Personal Revolution."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jon Friedman: I became disillusioned by the flood of inaccurate and pretentious Bob Dylan "biographies" as well as the silly theories about the meanings of his songs. I saw that authors had not attempted to write about what really matters: Dylan's genius for longevity, owing to his knack for re-invention and the related factors that enabled him to have a FIFTY-year career. He is still going strong, too. I've heard his upcoming album "Tempest" -- his 35th! -- and it is excellent. He sure has attained longevity, the quality we all want to achieve. I explain in "Forget About Today" how he has done it. I also want to inspire the readers to learn from Dylan's example so they can live more fruitful lives.

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

JF: I was most surprised by how many big chances Bob Dylan took throughout his life -- start with JF: dropping out of a good school such as the University of Minnesota as a sophomore and embarking on an iffy career as a folk singer -- by moving across the country to Greenwich Village! Then, just as he was starting to catch fire, he walked off The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 because he refused to be censored. How about going electric when he was the king of folk music -- or releasing an album ("Slow Train Coming") containing strictly songs about his shocking born-again status! Dylan has taken many, many chances throughout his career, and I admire him for trying to be innovative all the time.

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

JF: I'd be playing shortstop for the New York Yankees -- sorry, Derek Jeter. You'd have to be the designated hitter because I can still "pick it!"

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JF: I am reading "A Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby, a terrific novel that I had to put it aside several times to do more Bob Dylan research or hand in a rewrite to my book editor. (Nick knows how it is)

JG: What's next for you?

JF: I'd like before too long to start working on another book, though I haven't settled completely on the topic. I am also the Media Web columnist for MarketWatch.com, and I think the media's treatment of the presidential candidates will be fascinating to chronicle.

For more on "Forget About Today" visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Dustin Thomason about "12.21: A Novel"

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Dustin Thomason: My own insomnia was the first inspiration for the idea. I was working on another project and having great difficulty sleeping -- something I've struggled with my entire life. So finally I decided I was going to use it in some way. When I started researching insomnia, I learned about this rare disease called Fatal Familial Insomnia in which you have trouble sleeping and eventually can't sleep at all and finally die. And by then I was hooked. I loved the idea of setting a thriller in a world where people could no longer sleep. The connection to the Maya quickly followed based on my research into prions, and soon I knew that setting the book against the backdrop of the 2012 phenomenon was exactly what I wanted to do.

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

DT: What surprised me most in the research process was how much still isn't known about prions, the type of proteins that causes Fatal Insomnia and Mad Cow. We've known about their existence for half a century, but we still don't know what they are, where they fall within biology, or why they spread and cause disease the way they do. These mysteries are what really got me excited about the idea of writing the book. What surprised me most in the actual writing process was how much fun it was to write in the voice of a ninth century Maya scribe. I had dreaded writing those sections at first because I was worried about getting the voice just right, but once I was into them, I just loved being able to imagine myself in that place and time.

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

DT: I'd probably be a psychiatrist. I loved my rotations in psychiatry during medical school, and I think psychiatry is about the closest you can come to being a writer; you are probing the human psych in the same way, trying to understand character and helping people think about what it means to be alive. I love a lot of different fields in medicine, but I think psychiatry is both the least understood and most exciting.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DT: I'm loving reading the early books in Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" series, and I'm hoping to get through all of them eventually. They're an incredible ride -- action packed and written in such a close perspective that in only a few pages you feel like you know the character. I'm also just finishing William Landay's amazing "Defending Jacob," one of the best written mysteries I've read in years.

JG: What's next for you?

DT: All of my books have an international flavor to them, and one of the great things about being a writer is having the opportunity to explore new parts of the world each time. For the next book I'm headed farther south, past the reaches of the Maya jungles and into South America. The escalating intrigue around natural resources in those rapidly developing nations is the backdrop for my newest thriller.

For more about "12.21" visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Rich Cohen about "The Fish That Ate the Whale."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Rich Cohen: I was a student at Tulane University in New Orleans, where the President lives in the grand mansion that had once been the roosting place of Sam Zemurray, the Banana Man, where the buildings are named for Sam and members of his family, where the professors, speaking in whispers, tell legends of the big Russian, Alabaman, New Orleanian Jew who came to this country penniless at 14 and by 18 had made a fortune selling bananas that other traders dumped as too ripe. The professors spoke of his as Gatsby's house guests spoke of their mysterious host in the Fitzgerald novel: I heard that he killed a man. You live in such a place only so long before you start to wonder, "What the hell is going on here? Who was this guy." I was inspired by whispered stories heard in New Orleans about Sam the Banana Man, El Amigo, Z, the Gringo, The Russian. I have a simple journalistic rule: any man with three nicknames is going to be a good story. Zemurray had five.

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

RC: Just how central Zemurray was in the history of America in the 20th Century. He was not an oddball, sidelight, eccentric, but a key player, unknown to people today because that's how he wanted it. Here was the guy behind the guy behind the guy behind the guy. His company, United Fruit, known in Latin America as the Octopus--because it had its tentacles in everything--was a key player in American history, a secret force behind revolutions and social movements. No matter what door I opened, I found Sam, with his piles of bananas. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, John Foster Dulles, Franklin Roosevelt, Chaim Weizmann, Huey Long . . . no matter where you look, Sam is there.

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

RC: I'd be installing hot tubs in some resort town in the Dakotas or the Idahos, earning just enough cash to free me for a life in the mountains, among the white peaks, where I would have a best friend, and we would talk and confide and cry from lack of oxygen, while our very beautiful wives waited in the little towns, where yellow light glowed. Or I might be a lawyer.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

RC: I am reading "Patton: A Genius For War" by Carlo D'Este, as well as Mike Ditka's autobiography "In Life, First You Kick Ass." I am also reading, and not for the first time, the George Trow book "My Pilgrim's Progress."

JG: What's next for you?

RC: I am working on a book about the Chicago Bears, my team, especially the Ditka/McMahon/Payton/Dent/ Fencik teams of the 1980s that made the Chicago winters bearable, cause, you know, it gets cold in that town in the winter, and it's just as flat as a skillet.

For more on "The Fish That Ate The Whale," visit the Macmillan website.

Jeff Glor talks to Vincent Lam about "The Headmaster's Wager."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Vincent Lam: My parents are ethnically Chinese from Saigon. I grew up in Canada. So, as a kid during the '70s and '80s, I heard two narratives about the Vietnam War. One was the western narrative - about drafted soldiers fighting a terrifying jungle war, and about the protests against the war. The other narrative came out of family stories. My parents told me how Saigon kids were fascinated by the Americans who came to Vietnam - they were tall, gregarious, and interesting because they were so different. Daily childhood life in Vietnam was innocent and sweet in many ways, despite the war. I heard stories about my grandfather, who was both a successful school headmaster and an incorrigible man about town. He was a gambler, womanizer, and drank too much cognac. The existence of these two narratives, and the intersections between them fascinated me. I wanted to write a novel set in this world. Also, I knew there could be a great protagonist inspired by my grandfather.

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

VL: I was surprised by how visceral certain scenes became as they were written. My relationship with writing is that I drive it along to a certain point. Then the book begins to pull me forward, dictating its imperatives. When the book 'took over,' it seemed to require that certain scenes of violence be rendered in very frank, open language, as did certain sexual episodes. I'm a quiet sort of person. People who know me personally and who have read the novel often say they're surprised that I wrote those scenes.

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

VL: I would be an emergency doctor. That's sort of cheating, because I actually am an emergency doctor. If I weren't a writer, I would still be an emergency doctor, and I would spend more time riding bicycles.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

VL: I recently read 'The End of Your Life Book Club' by Will Schwalbe, which is a tender, beautiful, life-affirming book that all book lovers will embrace. I just finished 'The Malice of Fortune' by Michael Ennis. It is an amazingly immersive historical novel that features both Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo Da Vinci. I'm reading 'The Power of Kindness' by Piero Ferrucci, which is a small and important volume that everyone on this planet should read. It has a blurb by the Dalai Lama. Need I say more?

JG: What's next for you?

VL: I'm going to enjoy the rest of the summer with my wife and kids, go on lots of bike rides, do some book touring in the fall, and then write another novel.

For more on "The Headmaster's Wager" visit the Random House website.