Loading summary
Transcript117 lines
- [00:00]
Ann
I was never really a runner. The way I see running is a gift, especially when you have stage four cancer. I'm Ann. I'm running the Boston Marathon, presented by bank of America. I run for Dana Farber Cancer Institute to give people like me a chance to thrive in life, even with cancer.
- [00:19]
Bank of America Representative
Join bank of America in helping Anne's cause. Give if you can@b of a.comSupportAnn what would you like the power to do? References to charitable organizations is not endorsement by bank of America Corporation. Copyright 2025.
- [00:38]
Charlie
Well, hello there, bookcasers. We see you all out there as we Normally do. There's 1, 2, 3, 4. Oh, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. That guy in Chicago. The eggs look a little runny and. Oh. Yep, yep. Oh, you there in Topeka. Mm, mm, mm. Get breast, will you? I'm sorry, I'm Charlie of the Kate and Charlie. This is the bookcase with Kate and Charlie.
- [01:00]
Kate
Well, and as long as we' hi, mom, how are you? Cause, you know, she's listening. I am fine. And happy Thursday to all of our listeners. I'm really excited about today's show. We have the wildly popular Harlan Coben on the show. And now many of you may be saying, but Kate and Charlie, you guys do such high end literary works. You have booker winners and Pulitzer Prize winners and. Yes, yes, yes. Spare us the flattery. However, I would like to.
- [01:31]
Charlie
What makes you think there's flattery?
- [01:34]
Kate
I created my own flattery. Isn't that good? How we can do that? It's a great way anyway, so. But the booking philosophy of this is not just that we want to have the great authors on this show. We want to have all sorts of great authors on this show who specialize in all sorts of genres. And Harlan Coben is proof that just because you are wildly popular doesn't mean you don't have a terrific amount of writing talent. I would say to our audience, we do wildly popular authors when they have a great amount of talent. And Harlan Coben is, is one of those.
- [02:09]
Charlie
Well, first of all, the book is nobody's fool. It is just.
- [02:12]
Kate
Sorry, I should probably mention that.
- [02:14]
Charlie
Yeah, minor detail. It's brand new. Harlan Coben puts out a new book about every other week. And this one is. Well, somebody said to me when they saw me reading this, what's it about? And I said, what difference does that make? It's a Harlan Coben novel. It makes no difference what it's about. It's going to be good. You know, it's going to be good. You know there's going to be, you know, you're gonna have fun reading it. And that's true of this one as well. Another part of all this which is tremendously attractive to Kate and me. He's so much fun to talk to. He's just, He. He comes to play. He knows what the game is. And, and, and it's, it's just. It's a delight. A delight to talk to him.
- [02:53]
Kate
Yeah, he's charming. He loves talking about his own work. And, you know, I. Again, I love reading his novels. So I just want to pull a throwaway line from page 122 of Nobody's Fool. The line is, he is the kind of man who looks like he's opening a door for a woman even when he isn't. Now, I love that line. I. First of all, I've never heard it before. It's refreshing. I think it speaks to Harlan Coben that he can start a sentence with a cliche like he was the kind of man who. Or she was the kind of woman who. And yet still he pulls off something innovative, refreshing, and original. And frankly, I know guys like that. Don't you know guys like that?
- [03:39]
Charlie
Yeah, I guess I do. I mean, who are very polite. Open the door of the car for you, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there are guys like that still. Not as many as there used to be.
- [03:50]
Kate
Not as many. But in that one sentence, he gives you a great amount of depth about the character. And again, that is a cliche sentence. I mean, how many times have we read in a detective novel, he was the kind of man. Man who. And yet it is a great sentence that he does not blow off. So that is why we sometimes speak to wildly popular, also wildly talented authors like Harlan Coben.
- [04:13]
Charlie
In this book, Nobody's fool, he brings back Sammy Kears, who was first featured in Fool Me once. Notice the parallel there, the word fool in both the names of the books. Sammy Kears is different in this book than he was in Fool Me Once. I went back and read Fool Me once and enjoyed it. Harlan said he actually is more like. Well, you'll hear he's more like the Sammy Kierce that was in the Netflix series of Fool Me Once. This is his 36th novel. He has 11 series going for Netflix. The guy should be on the New York Stock Exchange. He's.
- [04:45]
Kate
He does not cut corners. You get the sense that he writes every word that he works on every TV show. Like, again, you asked him when he slept, and I thought the answer was going to be never.
- [04:58]
Charlie
Anyway, let's get right to it because it is fun to talk to Harlan Coban. This is our conversation with Harlan Coben. His new book, Nobody's Fool. Harlan Coban, it is such a pleasure, such a pleasure to have you back in the bookcase. The new book is Nobody's fool, and you're no fool. You do interviews to promote your books that, if you'll pardon me, they really don't need any promoting. Your readers will find you if you wrote a cookbook. But I've heard you synopsize the book a number of times now in interviews you've done. So I'll do it for you. I'll take that away. Your protagonist, Sammy Kearse, wakes up in bed with his summer romance lying next to him. But she's dead. She's covered in blood. He has a knife in his hand. And then years later, he sees her and is convinced she's alive. He chases her, she runs. Okay. When you sit down to write this book, do you know where you're going to go with that?
- [05:55]
Harlan Coben
I do. I always know the ending before I start. I know the beginning, like that's set up. And I know the ending. Is it her? Is she alive? So I do know that I know almost nothing in between now compared to driving from my home state of Jersey across the country to LA. I know I'm going to end up in LA. I may go Route 80, the direct route. Chances are I'll go via the Suez Canal or stop in Tokyo, but I always end up in la, so that helps.
- [06:21]
Kate
Yeah, the stop in Tokyo might confuse your GPS a little bit. Well, when we had you on the last time, you said, I don't necessarily start writing at the beginning. I often start writing what I think is the most exciting thing and then build out. So I wanted to ask you what the first thing you wrote was in this book.
- [06:38]
Harlan Coben
He's seeing the woman he's about to fall in love with. He's on his. He's 21 years old. In the regular book, he's in his mid-40s. But I start with him thinking about that moment when he was 21 years old and first saw Anna at a club in the Costa del Sol of Spain, is about to approach her. And that's the prologue. So I start right there inside this discotheque that they're about to meet and about. And everything in his life is about to change.
- [07:04]
Kate
Do you start it at the beginning?
- [07:06]
Harlan Coben
Sort of. But yeah.
- [07:08]
Kate
Did you know? I mean, so I'll put it a Different way. You wrote the beginning. At the beginning. Did you know it was the beginning? Did you know it was the opening scene?
- [07:16]
Harlan Coben
Yeah. You know, I've written. This is my. Believe it or Not. I think somebody told me this is my 36th novel.
- [07:24]
Charlie
No, I think Harlow, Harlan. I think. I think it's 111. I think it's. It's book number 111. I said to Katie when we were talking about this book, I said, I think every bookstore needs a C section. That if they're gonna. If they're going to stock all the coven books, they've got to find a separate place for them. By the way, the first. The first line is, did it all go wrong the moment I saw you?
- [07:50]
Harlan Coben
Yeah. So that's starting in the middle. The moment he sees her is when everything starts to. To change for him. But 36 books I've done everything, really. I've done first person, third person, present tense, past tense. I've done second person. I've done old leads, young leads, big leads, short leads, male, female. There's not much that I haven't, you know, 36, I say I write about a book a year. So I started when I was 5. 41 now, so.
- [08:19]
Charlie
Yeah, yeah, right. You stick with that story, Harlan. You stick with it.
- [08:26]
Harlan Coben
I write fiction, remember, guys? So it's okay.
- [08:30]
Kate
But I went back and I read Fool Me Once, and what is it about Kiers from Fool Me Once that Wouldn't Let yout Go that lassoed you into Nobody's Fool?
- [08:40]
Charlie
Well, I'm saying I read it, too. I went back and read it, because Sammy starts there, but he's not such a nice guy in that. In that novel, he starts badgering a woman who just buried her husband.
- [08:53]
Harlan Coben
Yeah. Well, what's interesting, I don't think this is ever. I'm sure it's been done by somebody else, but I don't know. I can't think of a case. So Sammy Kierce, in the novel, this novel we're talking about, Nobody's fool, is not based off the Kirst that is in the novel for me, Once, it's based off the TV show character. So I created no Fool Me Once it became a big Netflix TV series starring Michelle Keegan. And a man named Adil Akhtar played Kiers. And when I got Adil Akhtar, who's one of my favorite actors in the world, I said, guys, we got to give him a lot more than what we have in this book. So I created a whole nother story for him. Involving an ex fiance named Nicole and some medicine he was taking and everything that went wrong in his life. And I love this actor. I loved watching him on set and writing for him. And I said, he's got more stories to tell. So actually, the spin off, it really doesn't follow. Fool Me wants the book at all. Maybe a little bit follows, but the character of Kiers is the one that was created for the TV series, not the book. So it's a little strange. It's all me, I guess, in a way, like, you know, I twisted him around. So that's why you won't recognize. If you read for me once and you meet Kiers there, he's not the same guy that you will meet when you read the book. And why you can really. You don't have to read for me once at all to read Nobody's Fool. They're very, very different stories.
- [10:15]
Charlie
So if you saw the. If you saw the Netflix series Fool Me Once, that's the Sammy Kierce that you'll see in this book, Nobody's Fool.
- [10:24]
Harlan Coben
So it's kind of a surreal, you know, my own little universe that I can play these sort of games with. And so it's kind of a, you know, that's. That's how I first created him. I'm not sure. I know. I've never done that before. I don't know anybody's kind of done that, where you base a character, not off your book, off of your TV show, after the book. So it's a little. It's a little weird. But just read Nobody's fool and forget all that. Trust me, you won't get lost.
- [10:50]
Kate
This book is an onion. There's like five mysteries in this book, and they all are sort of occurring within the first. Like I found myself thinking around page 30 or 40, boy, there's a lot of mysteries going on here. Is he going to be able to pull this off? I mean, did this feel ambitious for you? Nobody's Fool?
- [11:09]
Harlan Coben
You know, I feel that way each time a little bit. How am I going to tie all these together? And especially here, where it seems like he's trying to handle three different cases that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. And then at the end, to make sure that they all come together in a shocking, surprising, and emotional way was hard, but it's always hard. That's kind of what, you know, what I try to do. I was really pleased with how this one came together in the end, though. Kind of just flowed itself after looking, you know, you'll probably 2/3 of the way, 3/4 the way through the book, you'll think there's no way that these mysteries can be related. And then hopefully you're satisfied with how it's done.
- [11:49]
Charlie
Well, you're a basketball fan. You have converted a very mediocre basketball career in college to.
- [12:02]
Kate
He had no athletic career. Get too insulted by him calling I'm a total klutz.
- [12:08]
Charlie
You were, what, were your first string at Amherst? Or were you. Were you. Did you have a nice.
- [12:14]
Harlan Coben
I was actually. I joked that I was a collegiate All American, but I wasn't picked All American by the Sports Illustrated or one of those. I was picked All American by the Jewish Post and Opinion of Indianapolis. I'm a Jewish. I'm a collegiate, Jewish, all American basketball player, so.
- [12:32]
Charlie
Well, you've written a series of books about a former basketball player, and your novels always seem to have a hook shot, and at least you know what that's going to be. I mean, I don't want to give away anything about this book. Nobody's fooled. But, but about 60% of the way through the book, some shots are fired. And I went, whoa, I didn't see that coming.
- [12:50]
Harlan Coben
Yeah.
- [12:51]
Charlie
So is Harlan Coben. Does he have a book complete without a hook shot?
- [12:55]
Harlan Coben
Yeah, my hookshot was actually pretty good. You know, for a little while when I, when my contact lenses were bad, I had to wear those sort of goggles and my teammates called me Kareem Puff, so. So I had that sweet baby. But yeah, there's a, there is a shock, I guess, about two thirds of the way through the book, which I don't think. Which I knew was coming from page one, but I, but even pulling that one off, you know, it's not, I shouldn't say it's not hard. It's really hard to surprise people in today's world. But if, if that, if the hook doesn't also have an emotional component, if you aren't just, like, surprised by what happened and we won't say what it is, but also, like, emotionally moved by it, like you're, you know, disturbed by it or you feel, then it doesn't. Doesn't matter. What you find out with books is what I realized recently is it's true with life, too. Like, when you meet somebody, you don't remember what they say. You remember how they made you feel. That's an old. It's the same thing with a book. You may not remember every sentence, every character, but how did it make you feel? And if you felt, then you're going to return and want to read it, and you're going to enjoy the experience. And so with this book, I wanted you to really feel for what Kears was going through.
- [14:11]
Charlie
John Irving said to us that right at the beginning, you want to establish a character that you care about, that you want to see what's going to happen to that character. So many authors have told us character is everything. But in mysteries, how many, how many books do you remember who did it? But you remember the character, so you have to establish that very early. And that's very much in your mind. Especially if you start in the middle of a book when you think, I got to go back to the beginning. I got to make this man, this woman, whatever, somebody that the reader is going to care about.
- [14:43]
Harlan Coben
Right. Also starting when you just start in the middle, like every story you've done. I wrote the Myron Bolitar series. When I wrote the first one, myron was about 28 years old. Now he's nearly 50. So each book, when I started the first book, he was, you know, I didn't describe his first 28 years. He didn't know. And now that he's 50, I don't describe. You're starting wherever you're starting. So my point is, start them in the middle of what's going on and people will figure it out. I think one of the problems people have when they create character is they focus on creating character. And that's not how you create character. You create character through plot, through what they do. Not me sitting there going, well, you know what, he's an alcoholic, he had an abusive father. That's not creating character. Creating characters, actually telling the story and how the character reacts to that story. They're completely interlinked. And what people make the mistake of doing is sometimes trying to separate and saying, ooh, character comes first. It's not, it has to be done via the story or it's not going to work.
- [15:45]
Kate
Well, do you have all that architecture built or do your character surprise you as you write? You're like, you know what? Turns out your father was an alcoholic.
- [15:54]
Harlan Coben
It's a little bit of both. I know there's certain, you know, if you ask, as you guys know better than anybody, because you've interviewed a lot of authors, if you ask 10 authors how they do it, you get 11 different answers.
- [16:05]
Charlie
Right?
- [16:06]
Harlan Coben
And that's how it should be. I mean, I know writers who will spend. They'll write 50 page bios on their character before they start. I start with the core and it's a little bit the iceberg effect. There's a lot underwater, and I don't have to go underwater yet, but I know it's underwater maybe subconsciously in part. And part of it will actually sometimes come to the surface as I'm going through the book. But I just. So like. Best example I'll quickly give you is plot versus character is Spider Man. Okay, Now, Spider Man's origin story, he was bitten by spider. But the key for Spider man and true with Batman also to some degree. But Spider man could have stopped a man running by him who was a criminal, but his ego got in the way. He let the criminal go, and that criminal ends up murdering his Uncle Ben. So I ask you, is that character or is that plot? It's both, right? It's telling a part of the story that is giving you the character. And so by trying to separate those things out rather than realizing it's the same is the mistake that a lot of authors, I think, make. So I just told you a story that created character. It's a fascinating plot point and it builds character. Everything should try to do more than one thing in a book. I think I know Kiers's background. If you were to ask me questions about Kiers's background. And also there's a little bit of a danger in doing that. It's like research. I'm one of the only authors you'll ever have on this show that will that advises writers not to do research when they're doing a book. I know that sounds ridiculous, but let me quickly defend my position. One is research and doing things like you just described is more fun than actually writing a book. You know, I'll be like, I have to put a scene in Park Avenue. Oh, but first I have to go to Park Avenue and I have to smell the hot dog stands and watch the people walk by. I can't just write it, because research, you'll find any excuse not to write. And researching is much more fun than writing. So you're going to waste time researching. And the second problem is, if I know too much about a subject and get fascinated by it, I'm going to slow the book down by giving you all the factoids about it. Because I'm interested in it. That's not a problem with me. Because I don't know anything. I'm on a need to know basis. So my advice is always write the scene now, imagine what Park Avenue is. Then later go to Park Avenue and find the one or two details about it. Nothing should stop me from writing the actual novel. I should not use any sort of excuse not to get to work and produce words on a page.
- [18:35]
Kate
And we will have more with our conversation with the great Harlan Coven after these important messages. Stay tuned.
- [18:48]
Kaley Cuoco
Hey there travelers. Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music great artist BT Dubs, but which wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live? With Priceline, you can get out of your dreams and into your dream concert. They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave, sound bath or sonic experience you've been dreaming of. Download the Priceline app today and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline.
- [19:13]
Bank of America Representative
Go to your happy price. Priceline.
- [19:18]
Lowe's Representative
Spring Fest and Ego Days are here at Lowe's right now. Get a free select EGO 56 volt batter with purchase of a select trimmer, blower or mower kit. Plus shop today for new and exclusive items you need for your lawn. So get ready for spring with the latest in innovation from Ego, the number one rated brand in cordless outdoor power. Only at Lowe's we help you save offer valid through 4 2. Selection varies by location while supplies last.
- [19:47]
Zillow Representative
Wow, this house is cute. But can I really get in the game in this economy? I do have savings and I am responsible.
- [19:55]
Kate
Ish.
- [19:56]
Zillow Representative
I should bury it. I'm being wild. But what if I'm not being wild though? Could I actually score a kick off.
- [20:05]
Bank of America Representative
Your home buying journey with Zillow's new buyability tool? It makes it easy to find out what you can afford so you can get off the bench and onto the playing field with confidence. Check your buyability only on Zillow.
- [20:24]
Charlie
36 books now. How many Netflix series is it? I think you own the Netflix company, don't you? I, I, I saw that. There's nine. That number. That number stays.
- [20:37]
Harlan Coben
It's actually 11 right now.
- [20:39]
Charlie
There's 11 of.
- [20:40]
Harlan Coben
Well, there's two more this month that came out.
- [20:42]
T-Mobile Representative
What's two more?
- [20:43]
Charlie
What's two more? Among friends? Why not?
- [20:46]
Harlan Coben
Yes.
- [20:47]
Charlie
How many of them are you writing the screenplays for yourself?
- [20:50]
Harlan Coben
None. I, I mean I don't write the actual screenplay. I outline a lot of them. I'm showrunner on most of the English language ones and heavily involved the one that's currently out in fact to to sort of not humble brag because I've not didn't have that much to do with the series but we did caught a Netflix Argentinian show, which is right now the number one foreign language show on Netflix for the last week, based off my novel. But the Argentinian team really did it. I mean, I had very, very little to do with it. They ran stuff by me. I helped with some rewrites. It all depends on the particular show. But the Netflix deal is really interesting because I've done them in a lot of foreign languages as well. We've done. Most of them are English, but this month we had just one look, which was Netflix Poland and Caught, which was Netflix Argentina. And that's been a real joy and really fun to do to make the. Change them up that way.
- [21:41]
Kate
But you're in a unique position, which is usually writers on a set are somewhat synonymous with the toilet paper. They're. They're. They're completely disposable in every way. There are maybe three or four writers in the world that have names that enhance a media property and you're one of them. So when you. Stephen King is. So when you go to. What is your role? When you get down to Argentina, what do you do? Harlan Coven as the showrunner. What's. What Are you changing things on the fly or.
- [22:12]
Charlie
And are you understanding all the Spanish?
- [22:16]
Harlan Coben
They do translate the. Mostly I do the scripts. That's my sort of job. In that case, though, I had a certain actor in mind, Soledad Villamil, who I really wanted in it because I loved her from the movie Secrets in Their Eyes and followed her career. And Netflix got the people I wanted who I admired in Argentinian film. And then we had meetings and zooms and then I sort of left them alone. The English language ones? Yes. A lot more. I'm doing a lot more. They just announced I will Find you is going to start filming as a Netflix USA show with Sam Worthington, Brit Lauer, who is just in Severance Zazelli and Severance, Milo Bentamilli, who's a terrific actor I've always wanted to work with. And so that one I'll be a lot more actively involved because it's in English in. Here in America. So it all depends.
- [23:07]
Charlie
We had David Kep with us a number of weeks ago. He'd written his first novel, but he's mainly known as a screenplay writer now. I'm not sure that his distinctions apply so much to Harlan Coben's books, but David Koepp said, when you're writing a novel, you're writing about what a character thinks and feels. If you're writing a screenplay, you're writing about what they say and do now, as I say, I'm not sure the differentiation for you is all that great, but. But talk to me about the different disciplines and how, you know, how you can make that separation.
- [23:41]
Harlan Coben
I think David's exactly right, you know, brilliant writer, by the way, but I think he's exactly right. So that's why when I. I think that one of the issues when you're trying to do an adaptation, one of the mistakes people make is they want to be seriously devoted to the fidelity of the text. And a lot of readers want this too, which I kind of understand and I don't like. If you want the exact same experience as the book, read the book. I want the experience of the TV series to be different. And so it's a visual medium. It's very, very different. When I was doing the Stranger, for example, the stranger in the book was sort of a nerdy, computer geeky guy, but visually, when he goes up and was dropping bombs, it's just not that interesting. And I thought Hannah John came in. Let's change it to a woman, a really hip, cool actress like Hannah John came in and when she drops the bomb on Richard Armitage, just visually it's much, much better. And so, yes, I can't tell what people are thinking. They're really different. Storytelling is storytelling. But you know, to look at it from a distance. I mean, here in this book, Kier. So you know, the Kierce book that you're reading, nobody's fool, you are in Sammy's head. The whole book, it's first person, you really get to know him. Well, if I'm filming that, I gotta find another way of telling that story because I can't have voiceover through the whole show.
- [24:58]
Kate
So what are some of the techniques you like to use when you're facing that problem?
- [25:03]
Harlan Coben
First of all, you have to dismiss, you know, I think it was Hemingway at first said, you have to kill all your darlings. You can't be precious about it. You have to realize what, you know what's going on and try to tell it in a way that's visually arresting. And that will give you that part. And the second thing is you have to find actors who can really do a lot with their, their faces. I, I think later mistake. And I have this sometimes in my series too, we have to over explain things. People don't pay attention as much when they're watching a TV series. I've done some, some of my own sort of studies. So, you know, what I'm giving you is not necessarily factual. Information. But I know when people watch shows with subtitles they usually get it better. So caught, for example, is that you could watch it two ways of your English. You watch it subtitle with the original language, you can watch it dubbed into English and the people who watch it subtitled love it five times more because number one, you're getting the full acting, but number two, you are paying attention. We're not on our phones, we're not looking at other things, we're not distracted, which we get. That's just modernity. People don't watch as fully engaged as, as he did an old fashioned movie theater.
- [26:13]
Charlie
We spent St. Patrick's Day with a wonderful Irish writer, Niall Williams, who wrote this is Happiness and he's now got a new book, Time of the Child and he wrote a couple of plays and he said, not for me. He said, because you write that, then you do the. You hand it off to a director and a producer, they have their own images of it, then they hand it off to the actors, they have their own images of it. And what comes out is not necessarily what I had in mind when I wrote it. Problem for you?
- [26:43]
Harlan Coben
No, for a couple of reasons. The, the, the most obvious is I quote James M. Kane who wrote the Postman Rings twice in Double Indemnity and in an interview once he was asked, don't you hate what Hollywood has done to your books? And he said they've done nothing to my books. They're right there in the shelf. The TV show, if you love quantitative TV show or you love fool me wants the TV show, it doesn't. Or hate it, it doesn't change one word of my book, it doesn't change one bit of the experience of my book. And if somebody says, well, I didn't like the TV show, I don't like him, or whatever, well, that's just too bad. I mean, you know, life goes on. So no, they're different entities to me and they, and they should be. And so it doesn't change one word. You know, you read Nobody's fool, you had your experience with Nobody's fool, you liked it or you didn't like it, whatever it, however you felt, if I now do a TV series of it, it's not going to change that book, not one word of that book. And so that's more how I look at it. You have to surrender. And by the way, selfishly, I get the best of both worlds here. I have my own book that I created solely. I was writer, director, producer, key grip, whatever key grip is I was everything. And now I also have one that I'm collaborating with people on. So I get to have two bites of the apple. And I love that.
- [28:00]
Charlie
Harlan Coban, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Nobody's fool is the book. And we liked it. We both liked it.
- [28:07]
Kate
Oh, we did.
- [28:08]
Charlie
We knew when we picked it up we were going to like it.
- [28:10]
Kate
Yeah.
- [28:10]
Harlan Coben
Thanks very much, guys.
- [28:16]
Charlie
I didn't realize that he, in his acknowledgments, always invites readers to send some money to him. I think a considerable amount. And he will then put your book, or put your name rather, in the book. In this one, for instance, he thanks a series of people who sent a considerable amount of money. He said it's a good way to raise. First of all, he fixed the charities to which he will give the money, but he said he raised $50,000. Every time he does this, he wants to give a quick shout out to Richard Beltoff, Kate Boyd, Jim delap, Ken Lis, Kelly Neumeyer, Trevor Rennie, and Dimitri Skull. I guess those folks all said he does this. He told us he does this all the time. I didn't. He does it. And I think it's a wonderful, you know, he said, I can't continue to come up with names in every book. And so I invite people to send me their names and some money that he'll give to charity. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful custom.
- [29:10]
Kate
I think it's a terrific way. We had Jay Ryan Straddle, our writer in residence, talk to us about the fact that sometimes he auctions off character names at charity auctions. And I love the idea, too, that we just gave those people who gave Harlan Coben a bunch of money for charity. I love the idea that we just gave them a freebie. I mean, you know, if they were excited about being mentioned in a Harlan Coven book, imagine how ecstatic they'll be about ending up in an episode of the Bookcase.
- [29:36]
Charlie
That was a freebie. That was a freebie.
- [29:38]
Kate
Yeah, yeah, it was a freebie for you charitable givers out there. So who knows? Give to Harlan Kopan's charity, you may end up on the bookcase. Your life aspirations and life dreams may be met.
- [29:48]
Charlie
The book, again, is no funny. Nobody's Fool. And we had some rapid fire questions for Harlan. Here they are. Rapid fire questions for Harlan Coban, your favorite mystery series that you didn't write.
- [30:04]
Harlan Coben
Robert B. Parker, Spencer Detective. There was a Spencer for Hire TV show made from it that was okay, but the actual books, I mean, Nobody.
- [30:14]
Charlie
Writes dialogue the way he did. Just brilliant.
- [30:18]
Harlan Coben
No, a tremendous influence on all. On all of us. I mean, all the people you read today. Michael Conley or Lee Child or Laura Lippman or Sue Grafton. All of us, I think, owe. Owe Parker a debt of gratitude.
- [30:31]
Kate
Does that make Spencer your favorite series detective?
- [30:34]
Harlan Coben
Yes.
- [30:35]
T-Mobile Representative
Got it.
- [30:36]
Kate
Okay.
- [30:37]
Charlie
Longest book you ever read and was it worth it?
- [30:40]
Harlan Coben
The longest book, Chase? I don't know. Probably Infinite Jest by my college classmate David Foster Wallace. And definitely worth it.
- [30:47]
Kate
I read it.
- [30:47]
Harlan Coben
I don't know this.
- [30:48]
Kate
I live next door. It was.
- [30:50]
Harlan Coben
I lived next door to David my freshman year at Amherst College.
- [30:53]
Kate
Did you really?
- [30:55]
Harlan Coben
Friends? Yeah, And I always tell the story quickly. I was a he, and I took this class in political science together. And I, you know, I was at Amherst College, a little bit intimidating a lot of smart people. And I get my first paper back and I got a B on it. I'm walking back to the dorm with David and I said, david, what'd you get? He goes, I got an A. So can I just read your paper? I'm curious what an A paper looks like. This is my first week in school or whatever, and I read and go, oh, my God, how did I only get a big. I'm going to fail out of here. I thought everybody was as smart as David Foster Wallace, but no one was as smart. He was the smartest guy I ever had the privilege of knowing.
- [31:29]
Kate
God, was he smart. God, was he smart. Was he playing tennis still then?
- [31:33]
Harlan Coben
Oh, yes. He used to, actually. It's funny because later when I saw him with the bandana look and all that, I used to tease him with the long hair. But back then he had short hair and he had a tennis sweater tied around his neck like a real preppy Amherst boy. It was really kind of funny to see the changes that went. That went through him after he left school.
- [31:51]
Kate
Book that's on your bucket list that's been on there for a really long time and may not get off.
- [31:57]
Harlan Coben
Oh, boy. I don't think there's any, because I actually will. At least I'll start. I mean, I'm more. The bigger problem, if this is a problem is I would say I'm not exaggerating anymore. Almost three fourths of the books I start, I don't finish anymore. I give up. By page. I know by page 10. If I'm really going to want to.
- [32:17]
Kate
Spend the time in your acknowledgments you sell acknowledgments, I want to know about that. And I Want to know where? I love this idea. Tell our listeners about your selling acknowledgments.
- [32:30]
Harlan Coben
Well, I actually sell character names. So at the end of a book, there's times I'm going through and some smaller characters I don't really have a name for right now. The neighbor, the friend, whatever it is. So I put an XXY in my manuscript. And then if you donate to this, you know, the charity, the foundation that I support mostly does. My wife's a pediatrician, so we mostly do medical services for children, but we also do Michael J. Fox's foundation for Parkinson's. And so if you donate a certain amount of money, I will name that character the name that you want. So, you know, we could have a killer named Charlie Gibson or whatever else in the book if you donate the right amount of money. And so this is a great way. I raise about $50,000 a book doing this. And otherwise I'd just be making up a name. You know, the name has to fit. I can't.
- [33:21]
Kate
You can't do like a James Bond name. You can't do like Octopussy or anything like that.
- [33:27]
Harlan Coben
It has to fit whatever the character is. And if I can do it, it's been a kind of a fun way to buy sort of immortality and also make a donation to a charity. So it's been win, win. And if you go to harlancoven.com you can learn more. I came up with that website myself.
- [33:49]
Charlie
So again, the book is nobody's fool. If you don't get a chance to pick this one up, I suspect Harlan Coburn will have a new book within, within a couple of weeks. He does write, he says about one a year and then, and then he's got 11 series going. And I, I do say he should be on the New York Stock Exchange.
- [34:05]
Ann
Yes.
- [34:05]
Kate
And I think this is a great opportunity for all you listeners out there that if you want to give a whole bunch of money to charity and maybe give it in the name of Seymour Butts, you could do that and maybe get away with it. Harlan Covet is so busy, maybe he won't catch it, you know, Catherine, Catherine.
- [34:23]
Charlie
You should be ashamed of yourself.
- [34:25]
Ann
Completely ashamed.
- [34:26]
Charlie
Here are the folks who work on this podcast along with us. We thank them all. And then we'll have, from Arlen Coben.
- [34:32]
Kate
The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson is a production of Good Morning America and ABC Audio. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producers are Simone Swink and Laura Mayer. And we want to make mention of Amanda McMaster and Sabrina Kohlberg at Good Morning America and Josh Cohan from ABC Audio. Make sure to follow the bookcase wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to listen, rate and review. If you'd like to find any of the books mentioned in this podcast, we have linked them in the episode description.
- [35:00]
Harlan Coben
You know, with all the tough times that's been going on, I've been reminded a lot of the Buddhist proverb, tend the gardens you can reach. Sometimes we try reaching too much, try doing too much. We get lost in the sort of cycle of outrage and it's not going to do anybody any good. But just try to tend the gardens you can reach for right now, when you're, when you need to lessen your anxiety. That's my life advice for today. If you ask me, tomorrow I'll give you something different.
- [35:29]
T-Mobile Representative
T Mobile's network is more expansive than your favorite fictional universe because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now. Keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card.
- [35:50]
Charlie
Laugh.
- [35:50]
T-Mobile Representative
15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.