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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newtsworld. In France in nineteen forty,

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Speaker 1: the armies of Nazi Germany annihilate the French military and

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Speaker 1: capture Paris, the crown jewel of Europe, in a matter

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Speaker 1: of a few weeks. As Adolf Hitler tightens his grip

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Speaker 1: on the City of Lights, the shocked Allies regroup and

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Speaker 1: began planning for a daring counter attack into Europe. The

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Speaker 1: players holding the fate of Paris in their hands are

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Speaker 1: some of the biggest historical figures of the era, Winston Churchill,

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Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelt, General George S. Patton, and the exiled French

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Speaker 1: General Charles de Gaul. From the fall of Paris in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty to the race for Paris in nineteen forty four,

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Speaker 1: this enthralling drama unfolds through their decisions for veteran worse

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Speaker 1: Taking Paris his history told at a breath, taking place,

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Speaker 1: a sprawling yet intimate saga of heroism and desire and

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Speaker 1: personal sac of vice for all that is right. In

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Speaker 1: his new book Taking Paris, the Epic Battle for the

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Speaker 1: City of Lights, Martin Dugard tells the riveting story of

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Speaker 1: the people who set that beautiful city free vigorously research.

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Speaker 1: Martin Dugard's historical narrative takes readers behind the scenes in

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Speaker 1: an epic, page turning account of the battle for the

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Speaker 1: heart and soul of Paris in one of the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century's darkest moments. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,

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Speaker 1: Martin Dugard. He has co authored the best selling Killing

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Speaker 1: series with Bill O'Reilly, and he's here to talk about

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Speaker 1: his new book. Martin, thank you for joining me. Let

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Speaker 1: me start by saying that we just had the seventy

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Speaker 1: fifth anniversary of the Liberation of Paris on August twenty

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Speaker 1: fifth of this year, and it occurred to me that

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Speaker 1: he align your book Taking Paris the Epic Battle for

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Speaker 1: the City of Light's release on September seventh to coincide

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Speaker 1: with the seventy fifth anniversary. Tell me what inspired you

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Speaker 1: to write the book. First of all, mister speaker, thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me on. I had originally wanted to do

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Speaker 1: a book about Anzio and about the Italian landings, and

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Speaker 1: as I began to research, and I realized that to

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Speaker 1: tell that story, I had to tell the bigger picture,

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Speaker 1: to give a context about how we got to the

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Speaker 1: point that we were attacking Anzio Beach and trying to

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Speaker 1: march on Rome. And then I completely pivoted once I

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Speaker 1: began doing the research, and I was just fascinated with

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Speaker 1: what happened to Paris Is. The Nazi swept into Prince

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Speaker 1: on May tenth, nineteen forty. The French people didn't think

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Speaker 1: that their nation would fall. The people of Paris didn't

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Speaker 1: even bother to leave. It was a holiday weekend. They

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Speaker 1: went about their business, they went to their country homes.

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Speaker 1: Within a month, millions and millions of Parisians were fleeing

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Speaker 1: the city and panic ahead of the Nazis, and then

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Speaker 1: they descended into four years of Nazi occupation. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of funny. We landed on September seventh, but originally we

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Speaker 1: were supposed to be on November second, which would have

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Speaker 1: been the same day that the new Killing Book would

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Speaker 1: have come out, So we kind of had to backtrack

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Speaker 1: a little bit, and then the Killing Book got pushed

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Speaker 1: as well. I was gonna say, you've had a great

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Speaker 1: partnership with Bill O'Reilly. How did that come about? You know,

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Speaker 1: it happened during cash was a two thousand and eight

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Speaker 1: or two thousand and nine, you know, just when the

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Speaker 1: economy had collapsed, the book industry was just sinking fast.

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Speaker 1: And as somebody who writes history for a living, history

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Speaker 1: books weren't selling. People didn't want to read history books.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to read celebrity tells and cookbooks. And I

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Speaker 1: pitched a dozen ideas that just didn't go anywhere. And

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Speaker 1: finally I was up in the mountains with my family

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Speaker 1: and my agent called, and he was Bill's agent at

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Speaker 1: the time, and he said, you know, can you get

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Speaker 1: to New York by Wednesday? I've got a client who

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Speaker 1: wants to write a book. And he didn't tell me

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Speaker 1: who it was. So I arrived at the restaurant in Manhattan,

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Speaker 1: and of course it's Bill, and we've worked together ever since.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's been a remarkably successful well series Europe

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Speaker 1: to what number eleven? We just finished eleven and where

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Speaker 1: in talks about twelve. It's an ongoing concern. Yeah, you're

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Speaker 1: virtually a small industry by ourselves. And I was looking

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Speaker 1: at when you wrote Inline Skating Made Easy, a manual

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Speaker 1: for beginners with tips face Prinser. I mean the idea

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Speaker 1: that the guy who wrote that then jumped to writing

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Speaker 1: with Bill O'Reilly canuon on to write Surviving the Toughest

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Speaker 1: Race on Earth about covering the Raid Yellowa, which is

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Speaker 1: an adventure race to the wilderness and not a gascar.

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Speaker 1: I did you actually go on the race? I did

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Speaker 1: the race. I covered it for a few years. You know.

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Speaker 1: My story is I got out of college and I

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Speaker 1: got a corporate job. I just realized within weeks that

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Speaker 1: I was just not going to make me happy, and

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Speaker 1: I just couldn't imagine doing that, working for a corporation,

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Speaker 1: working in a cubicle. You know, I was twenty five.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that the rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: So I just decided to take a flyer on maybe

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Speaker 1: doing some writing on the side, and I started working

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Speaker 1: for free, just for little tiny triathlon and marathon magazines,

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Speaker 1: and I worked my way up to Esquire and GQ

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Speaker 1: and Sports Illustrated, but just still as a freelance is

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Speaker 1: still having my corporate job. And then one year I

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Speaker 1: went to cover the Raygual was in Madagascar, and when

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Speaker 1: I got back, my boss fired me. It was the

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Speaker 1: best day of my life. You know. I went home

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Speaker 1: and told my wife had gotten fired, and we decided

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Speaker 1: that we're going to take a chance on this whole

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Speaker 1: writing thing, and so I took anything that came my way,

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Speaker 1: including Inline Skating Made Easy, which I wrote in three

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Speaker 1: weeks for just a few thousand dollars. It was just,

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Speaker 1: you know, not much, but it kept me going, did it?

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Speaker 1: So I had no idea. You know. The saving grace

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Speaker 1: of that book is that I had to provide all

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Speaker 1: the photographs. So my models for all of the action

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Speaker 1: were my wife and my two sons, who were small

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Speaker 1: children at the time. So it's kind of poignant. Custin.

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Speaker 1: I visited Madagascar a couple of years ago. It too fascinating,

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Speaker 1: fascinating island. Tell us about the race. I'm intrigued. I

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Speaker 1: I don't think I knew about it. Oh the nineties,

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Speaker 1: you know the French or the French, they liked to

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Speaker 1: do the crazy stuff, and so they contrived this team event.

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Speaker 1: Five people on every team, one had to be a woman,

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Speaker 1: and the aim was to travel from across a different countryside,

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Speaker 1: every different wilderness, so you know, Madagascar, borneo Patagonia. We

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Speaker 1: had gets from pointing to point B. But there was

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Speaker 1: prescribed disciplines ahead of type might be kayaking, might be repelling,

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Speaker 1: it might be skydiving in Madagascar, a lot, a lot

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Speaker 1: of long hikes, maybe some horseback riding, and it usually

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Speaker 1: took about two weeks. And when I did at Madagascar,

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Speaker 1: when I covered it that year, was the first time

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Speaker 1: I'd never actually left the United States. So that was

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Speaker 1: my baptism to world travel. And you know, the temperatures

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Speaker 1: were so high that, you know, the mid one hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenties that a lot of journalists budged the numbers

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Speaker 1: because people didn't believe them, Like I should say, they

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Speaker 1: were afraid that the bureaus back in Paris wouldn't believe them.

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Speaker 1: And there were crocodiles and all their rivers, and it

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Speaker 1: was epic. It was sweeping, and I fell in love

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Speaker 1: with the idea of being a journalist and living a

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Speaker 1: life like that. So that's why I was so happy

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Speaker 1: when I get fired when it came back, because that

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Speaker 1: was the life I decided I wanted to lead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we had an experience on an island that was filled

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Speaker 1: with lemurs, and we have a picture of me with

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Speaker 1: I'm wearing a hat, sort of an adventurer's hat, and

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Speaker 1: I have three lemurs sitting on my head and one

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Speaker 1: on each shoulder. They're eating bananas, we're repeating him stuff,

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Speaker 1: and I found Madagascar to be just almost like magic.

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Speaker 1: Now you then go though, and you spend nine years

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Speaker 1: covering the Tour de France. So which seaves me, first

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Speaker 1: of all a note that you obviously a Francophile because

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Speaker 1: you you're in Madagascar with the French and then you're

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Speaker 1: in France with the French. It wasn't by any's is

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Speaker 1: a much more an Anglophile, to be honest. But I

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Speaker 1: kind of fell into the tour. You know, that was

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Speaker 1: back in the Lance Armstrong days, and so I enjoyed

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Speaker 1: covering bike racing from the mid eighties when it was

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Speaker 1: Greg Lamont who was winning the Tour de France. But

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Speaker 1: I never actually got to go to the tour until

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Speaker 1: the year that Lance first one in nineteen ninety nine,

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Speaker 1: and then it just became a habit. It's a super

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Speaker 1: intense way to cover an event because they changed cities

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Speaker 1: every single day, so you're always on the road as

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Speaker 1: this epic twenty three day road trip. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time you get to see places in France the

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Speaker 1: regular tourists will never go to, just places like the

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Speaker 1: Central Massif and you know these little towns in the

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Speaker 1: Pyrenees and the Alps, you know, and it's hard to

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Speaker 1: find a place to safe all out because there's so

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Speaker 1: many tourists and journalists and riders covering the tours. So

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Speaker 1: I mean I slept in cow pastures. I woke up

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Speaker 1: one morning with a Derek cow with a bell around

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Speaker 1: its neck standing over me. It was a great adventure,

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Speaker 1: It was a great time to do it, and I

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Speaker 1: think I rung every last bit of adventure out of

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Speaker 1: it before I just called it quits and decided to

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Speaker 1: stay home for a while. You end up writing a

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Speaker 1: book called Chasing Lance, the two thousand Tour de France

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Speaker 1: and Lance Armstrong's Ride of a Lifetime. Did you have

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Speaker 1: any notion at all of the drug problems he'd end

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Speaker 1: up in. You know, it was the number one topic

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Speaker 1: in the press room. There was always that question. But

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Speaker 1: you know, at the time there was suspicion. The French

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Speaker 1: certainly believed that they were just trying to find a

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Speaker 1: way to pin it on him. But at the time

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Speaker 1: he was this heroic American figure. You had tons of

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Speaker 1: people who would never go to the tour to France

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Speaker 1: were flying to France to watch lands and to watch

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Speaker 1: what he was doing, and he had never been busted

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Speaker 1: for doping, so there was no reason to think that

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Speaker 1: he really had done it. We thought it was all

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Speaker 1: in his merit, and he was this big, charismatic, almost

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Speaker 1: iconic figure that it was fun to cover, even though

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Speaker 1: there was doubt. You didn't want it to be a

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Speaker 1: real thing. The one thing we said about was if

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Speaker 1: he is doping, it'll be one of the biggest letdowns

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Speaker 1: in history, and it really was. It became a huge event.

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Speaker 1: You then switched. They move into history and write farther

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Speaker 1: than any man the Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook.

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Speaker 1: And Cook's a fascinating guy, but what guy you to

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Speaker 1: write about him? You know? In nineteen ninety eight there

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Speaker 1: was a huge sailing tragedy off the Custom Australia during

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Speaker 1: the Sydney to Hobart sailing race. A cyclone struck the fleet.

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Speaker 1: Ships were lost, men died, and I got a publisher

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Speaker 1: who called me and asked me to go down and

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Speaker 1: write a book about it. But I had to write

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Speaker 1: it pretty quick, and so I flew down to Sydney

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Speaker 1: and I was interviewing all the sailors who did it,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't know much about Captain Cook at the time.

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Speaker 1: But the one thing that all these sailors talked about,

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Speaker 1: of course, being Australians, you know, Cook was the pounder

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Speaker 1: of their nation in a way. They all talked about

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Speaker 1: what great bluewater sailor who was. I began looking into Cook,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he had these three great voyages. He

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Speaker 1: went places that nobody had ever been at that time.

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Speaker 1: He basically charted all of the Pacific. And I did

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Speaker 1: it for two reasons. One, it was the chance to

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Speaker 1: travel because he went everywhere, so I got to go

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Speaker 1: a lot of cool places too. But also, as a kid,

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Speaker 1: I had a fascination with history, and I had a

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Speaker 1: history minor in college. And my one beef with history

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Speaker 1: was that it was told, you know, boring academic, slow

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Speaker 1: paced manner. And with Cook, I was trying to write

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Speaker 1: And that began the stylistic process that I used in

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Speaker 1: I used it to my book about Columbus, but that

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Speaker 1: was all in the past tense. But when I started

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Speaker 1: writing with Bill and we begin with Killing Lincoln, I

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Speaker 1: really decided, what if we put this in the present tense.

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Speaker 1: What if we have a real ure there thing with

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Speaker 1: readers and then trying to pick it up, you know,

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Speaker 1: do it like page Turner. And that process continues today

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Speaker 1: into Taking Paris. I want people to read Taking Paris

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Speaker 1: as if it is James Patterson thriller. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: got a ton of detail, it's got a ton of action,

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Speaker 1: and it moves. For your background, you start moving into

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Speaker 1: history and you go to Africa with Stanley, and let

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Speaker 1: me say, then you joined Christopher Columbus on crossing the

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Speaker 1: Atlantic for the fourth time, and so you've really had

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Speaker 1: a remarkably broad background before you turned to France. I

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Speaker 1: which was the third kind of exploration trilogy, and I

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Speaker 1: kind of stumbled into working with Bill. We were going

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Speaker 1: to write Killing Lincoln as a one off. It was

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Speaker 1: just going to be this simple book. And for Bill

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Speaker 1: it was like a challenge because his publisher at the

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Speaker 1: time didn't think that he could write history. They thought

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Speaker 1: he could just do politics. So he switched to a

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Speaker 1: new publisher. And when we did this, and Killing Lincoln

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Speaker 1: was an immediate hit, and that we went to Killing Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: and then it was Killing Jesus, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: I realized Bill was unfettered by this idea that you

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Speaker 1: had to do a certain chronology of history. He just

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Speaker 1: kind of jumped around to different places in history, you know,

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Speaker 1: the fall of Japan and World War Two, the capture

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Speaker 1: and the SS criminals, all the way up to the mafia.

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Speaker 1: And it was for me great because as the guy

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Speaker 1: who did most of the research, I learned that instead

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Speaker 1: of just focusing on one period of time, that I

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Speaker 1: could write from any period of time as as long

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Speaker 1: as you do the research and you do the deep

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Speaker 1: dive and really pour yourself into the work, so you

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Speaker 1: become a I kind of called it like a MASTERSS degree.

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Speaker 1: Each book is a master's degree in a certain period

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Speaker 1: of history. And so by the time I had done

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Speaker 1: all those books with Bill, and we thought at the

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Speaker 1: time the Killing series was over and I went into

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Speaker 1: taking Paris. A was weird not to have my regular

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Speaker 1: three time four times a week discussion with Bill about

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Speaker 1: the stuff I was working on, and b it was

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Speaker 1: weird to take all the lessons I learned about storytelling

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Speaker 1: over a long career, but especially during the Killing series,

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Speaker 1: and to take them into a book of my own,

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Speaker 1: and that was super fun. You're now a very mature

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Speaker 1: writer and you've done a wide range of things. When

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Speaker 1: you look at what you've learned about Paris, what really

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Speaker 1: leaps to your mind as sort of the big insight

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Speaker 1: or the big moment of the big lesson a few

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Speaker 1: things If you take it with modern day history, you know,

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Speaker 1: the fall of Kabul, what happened in Afghanistan is very

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Speaker 1: much like what happened in Paris. You have these invaders

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Speaker 1: who have plenty of resources. They move quickly. The people

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Speaker 1: in the capitol city think that people are going to

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Speaker 1: fight for their country. They don't believe their own army

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Speaker 1: is going to fall apart. These invaders are rapacious, and

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Speaker 1: they sweep across the country and they surround the city

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Speaker 1: and take the city. These people who hadn't wanted to

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Speaker 1: get out just a month earlier are crazed with this

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Speaker 1: desire to get out. In just that cautionary tale, you know,

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Speaker 1: if there is a lesson there that in warfare, things

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Speaker 1: can happen very very quickly, and I think there's a

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Speaker 1: sense of disbelief for people when they are under attack.

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Speaker 1: You know, I've clearly never been in that kind of position,

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Speaker 1: but it would be one of those things where people

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Speaker 1: kind of suspend pragmatism and they cling to this hope

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Speaker 1: that their nation or their city is not going to fall,

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Speaker 1: and the history shows it does. In the case of Paris,

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Speaker 1: what was the reality of German occupation? Like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, we look back on it. I think it's

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Speaker 1: hard for Americans to fully appreciate what it would be

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Speaker 1: like to suddenly have a foreign government occupying you, in

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Speaker 1: a foreign destapo or secret police rounding up people, and

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Speaker 1: I think, combined with economic hardship, it made life in

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Speaker 1: Paris very difficult. From your research, what was the effect

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Speaker 1: on the people of Paris? Well, when the Germans first

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Speaker 1: came in, the people of Paris fled in this mass

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Speaker 1: exist the government fled. They declared Paris an open city

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Speaker 1: because they didn't want to see it get destroyed. So

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Speaker 1: that would be like the people of New York, for instance,

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Speaker 1: you know, caring so much about the beauty of New

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Speaker 1: York that they would rather be occupied than leveled by

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Speaker 1: an army. So the Germans just came in. But what

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Speaker 1: was different was, for instance, when they attacked Poland in

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, when they went to Divarsaw, they killed

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Speaker 1: everything in sight, they leveled the city. They used their

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Speaker 1: big guns to knock down cathedrals in major buildings. And

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Speaker 1: when they came into Paris, their whole attitude was, no,

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Speaker 1: this is a very special place. We cherish it, we

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Speaker 1: admire it. You know, Hitler himself came to see the

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Speaker 1: works of art in Paris just right after it fell.

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Speaker 1: It was just one of those places. Their idea originally

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Speaker 1: was that Paris would be this refuge during the war.

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Speaker 1: German soldiers on leave from the front would all get

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Speaker 1: a chance to go to Paris and enjoy its beauties,

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Speaker 1: which they did, and the people of Paris were going

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Speaker 1: to be treated with courtesy and respect. But again, you know,

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Speaker 1: anytime you have an occupying force, that changes. And so

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Speaker 1: what began as an attempt to treat Paris is this

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Speaker 1: respite from the war for the German army became this

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Speaker 1: thing where the people began to slowly rise up and

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Speaker 1: commit excess sabotage and subterfuge, and so the Germans began

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Speaker 1: kind of tightening things up. And then later in the

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Speaker 1: war when food became scarce and heating oil became scarce,

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Speaker 1: and cars used briquettes literally like a barbecue on their

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Speaker 1: car to power their engines because there was no gasoline.

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Speaker 1: Everybody in the city was basically starving by the end

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Speaker 1: of the war, and the Germans became very very strict

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Speaker 1: in that contract. You do end up with a genuine

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Speaker 1: resistance movement, both domestic from Frenchmen but also with particular

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Speaker 1: help from the British. Then how does that play out?

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Speaker 1: Did it really have any impact or was it just

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Speaker 1: an annoyance. It's interesting because revisionist history would have you

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Speaker 1: believe that the resistance played a very small role and

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Speaker 1: clearly that they could not accomplish what a big conquering force,

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Speaker 1: likely American army coming ashore in D Day. But at

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Speaker 1: the same time, the first resistance within Paris rose up organically.

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Speaker 1: You've had just regular people, people of no military training,

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Speaker 1: people with no background whatsoever in sedition, all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden finding ways to subvert the Nazi war effort. Whether

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Speaker 1: that was getting word back to England about troop movements,

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Speaker 1: or helping down Allied flyers, smuggling documents, taking pictures and

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Speaker 1: making sure they got back to England, and that kind

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Speaker 1: of grew it. It started with just a pandful of

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Speaker 1: people and became legitimate thing. And they were all acting independently,

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Speaker 1: and they had to be very careful because if they

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Speaker 1: were found out, they could be shot, they could be

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Speaker 1: sent off to a death camp. And at the same

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Speaker 1: time Britain launched their own SE, the Special Operations Executive,

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Speaker 1: which was basically the start of special forces in World

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Speaker 1: War Two, and we see US Special Forces later coming

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Speaker 1: to play on that Anzio Beach later on the war.

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Speaker 1: But it was literally Hitler's order was to set Europe ablaze.

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Speaker 1: That was what he told the people that would form

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Speaker 1: this SE. So we have the British, they link up

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Speaker 1: with the French, and then Degall comes in later and

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Speaker 1: sends in Jean Mulan, who his representative, and he basically

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Speaker 1: gets all these disparate groups of resistance throughout the country

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Speaker 1: to work as one effective force. So when the Allies

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Speaker 1: finally did come in, they were very very good at

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Speaker 1: blowing up bridges stopping trains, doing all these things that

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Speaker 1: the Nazis were expecting an army to do, but not

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Speaker 1: knowing that the local citizens were capable of accomplishing these tasks.

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Speaker 1: As the Americans and the Free Frenchman the British Band

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Speaker 1: approached Paris, I mean Hitler had in mind leveling the city. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he wanted set ablaze, and it was a year since that.

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Speaker 1: The German generals never were prepared to do that. They

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Speaker 1: were prepared, I mean they wired all of the bridges

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Speaker 1: across the Senate I think they're twenty three, all of

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Speaker 1: them were wired to explode. All of the communitions places,

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Speaker 1: the stored electricity, the places where gasolene was kept, all

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Speaker 1: those places were set to be destroyed. And for whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: Von Choltitz, the German general who was in charge of

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Speaker 1: the city at the very end, chose not to do that.

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Speaker 1: He was a guy who would oversee the fall of

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Speaker 1: Rotterdam where the city was just bombed, said nothing. That

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Speaker 1: was in the start of the war, and he was

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Speaker 1: in Sebastopol fighting the Russians, which was also destroyed. So

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Speaker 1: when he came to Paris, after meeting directly with Hitler

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Speaker 1: and Hitler's ordered to him to hold the city at Alcosta,

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Speaker 1: but if you had to get out to destroy it,

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Speaker 1: there was every reason to think von Schultiz was going

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Speaker 1: to follow those orders. And for him to instead give

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Speaker 1: himself up and surrender without carrying out those orders is

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Speaker 1: ken remarkable. It's really went against type. When I visit Paris,

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Speaker 1: I often think of what an extraordinary thing it was

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Speaker 1: in close and icement three and a half years in

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Speaker 1: Rome was he was ambassador to the Vatican, and Rome

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Speaker 1: also had become an open city. And you compare that

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Speaker 1: to the kind of damage saying Cologne, or for that matter,

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Speaker 1: in London or Berlin. Having Paris and Rome still the

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Speaker 1: cities they were historically is just really almost a miracle. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine, you know, take Rome, I

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Speaker 1: imagine the Colosseum getting leveled by a bombing or the Parthenon.

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Speaker 1: And then in Paris, if you walk the streets you

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Speaker 1: have to louve. You have all these great architectural marvels

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Speaker 1: in to think of is being destroyed. It's funny that

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Speaker 1: you mentioned Cologne, because I went to Cologne as part

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Speaker 1: of my resource, just as a sidebar, because I've never

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Speaker 1: been and One of the reasons I went was because

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Speaker 1: the epic tank medals that took place in the street

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Speaker 1: and you can see where all that took place, but

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Speaker 1: you can also see what it was like for that

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Speaker 1: whole city to have just been destroyed, with the exception

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Speaker 1: of the cathedral there, and that happened in so many

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Speaker 1: different cities in London. My favorite restaurant is kind of underground,

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Speaker 1: but it used to be more street level, but after

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Speaker 1: the blitz they used the rubble to basically if you

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Speaker 1: look at what used to be a window at street level,

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Speaker 1: now it's covered with rubble from the blitz because it

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Speaker 1: just got bombed out. It's pretty cool. Well that's kind

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Speaker 1: of amazing. Yeah, yeah, that is interesting, fascinating. So do

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Speaker 1: you have a new project coming up. I'm doing a

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Speaker 1: sequel to Taking Paris, so I'm trying to kind of

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Speaker 1: spawn my own series. Instead of the Killing series, would

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Speaker 1: be the Taking series, and we'll see where that goes.

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Speaker 1: I'm enjoying it for the guy who was in the

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Speaker 1: corporate world working for the man. All of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: I've been a writer enough for thirty years and I'm

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Speaker 1: really liking the fact that working on some projects that

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Speaker 1: feel like you said, I'm a been sure writer right now,

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Speaker 1: not that guy trying to prank out fifteen hundred words

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Speaker 1: for a magazine piece. And it's fun to just play

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Speaker 1: with the words, fuss over sentences, really do the deep

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Speaker 1: dive into the research. And I'm looking forward to this

430
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: next book, and if Bill calls any time for another book,

431
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: obviously I'm there for him. Well, essentially, I've always thought

432
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 1: that one of the virtues of being a writers. For example,

433
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:33,679
Speaker 1: you decide to do Paris, well, gee, you gotta go

434
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 1: spend some time in Paris. Like when I did my

435
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: Africa book, I had never seen a lion in the wild,

436
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 1: So I literally pitched the Africa book just because I

437
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: wanted to go see a lion. That was the whole thing. No,

438
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense. I really admire the

439
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 1: way you've done this. Let me ask you, because you

440
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 1: have been so successful and you are so professional, if

441
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,479
Speaker 1: a young person came to you and said, should they

442
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,199
Speaker 1: become a writer, what advice would you give them? I

443
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 1: would tell them, ay, if they want to be a writer,

444
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: I would let them know that it's one of the

445
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: rare professions where you choose your fate depends on how

446
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: much you want to work, how much you want to

447
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: dedicate to it, and you can't depend upon the muse.

448
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: You have to basically get your butt in the seat

449
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: every single day. My office is at my garage. It's

450
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: thirty feet from my kitchen. I get a cup coffee

451
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,880
Speaker 1: every morning. I come out here in six days a week.

452
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: I sit here whether I feel like writing or not.

453
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: It's a job. It's a very blue collared profession. And

454
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,479
Speaker 1: people think of it as something artistic or you get

455
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: to wait for the muse. It's a job. You have

456
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: to sit down. And yes, I enjoy my job. I

457
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: love it, But at the same time I realized that

458
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: it demands my full commitment if I'm going to succeed.

459
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,160
Speaker 1: So my second question is parallel. So somebody in their

460
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: forties or fifties comes to you and says, I'm really

461
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: tired of my corporate job and I'd really like to

462
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: break loose. Is it plausible that I could become a writer? Yeah,

463
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 1: I wass think of Grandma Moses. Remember her. Grandma Moses

464
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: was seventy seven when she started to paint. I mean,

465
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: that's crazy. I figure that if somebody wants to put

466
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: the time. In like when I was working in the

467
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 1: corporate world, if I was going to write, I had

468
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: to get up at four o'clock in the morning and

469
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: write for two or three hours before I went to work.

470
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 1: You have to be willing to do something like that,

471
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:24,439
Speaker 1: because most people don't help the financial resources to just

472
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: abruptly quit their job and start writing books. You bet

473
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:30,479
Speaker 1: to know that there's going to be some hardship. I

474
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: have people that writes me all the time and say

475
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 1: I have a book idea, write a book with me,

476
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: and it's a gutsy thing for them to do, and

477
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: I admire how they're putting themselves out like that. But

478
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 1: I always write back and say, it's your story. The

479
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: only person who can tell it is you, and you

480
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: have to be the one who sits down and writes

481
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:48,919
Speaker 1: a page a day, because at the end of the year,

482
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: if you write a page a day, you've got a book.

483
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 1: So it's work. I always tell people you have to

484
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,640
Speaker 1: remember that you have to spend as much time selling

485
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,719
Speaker 1: the book as you spend writing it. And a lot

486
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 1: of people thinking well, I'm going to write my book,

487
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: and then it gets published, and then they stop and

488
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: they turn to the next book, and they haven't spent

489
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 1: any time communicating to a world that doesn't even know

490
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: their book exists. Yet. Well, i have to admit, mister Speaker,

491
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: that I'm one of those guys because and I've had

492
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: the privilege in the luxury for the last twelve years

493
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: of working with Bill. Bill is a master promoter, you know,

494
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: and I'm on the sidekick. So he had a show

495
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: which was a bully pulpit. He still got this podcast,

496
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 1: which does great business. So I'm actually contractually prohibited from

497
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: doing any marketing for those books, which is great because

498
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: all I have to do is go into my office

499
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: in my introverted self and sit down and write books

500
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: all day long. And with this book, gosh, i finished

501
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: it back in February. It's been a long time. But

502
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: this whole process of like, oh yeah, I've got to

503
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: really publish as this book, I'm going to put myself

504
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: out there. It's hard and is a very necessary part

505
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: of this process, because, as you know, this is a business.

506
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: If you don't sell books, you don't get to write books.

507
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: But I have to say I'm not a very self

508
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: promotional person, but after twelve years away from not promoting

509
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: my books, it feels like a lot of fun because

510
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: I believe in this book. I'm really thrilled with the

511
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:14,919
Speaker 1: way it came out, and it's a great way to

512
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: meet people and talk to people. And if you've written

513
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 1: a book you really believe in, it's kind of fun

514
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 1: to a chance to talk about it. I know, and

515
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying it too. I love Weston Churchill quote about

516
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: you know, writing a book's an adventure at versus. It

517
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: is a mistress blah blah blah, and finally it is

518
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: a monster that you throw to the public. And that's

519
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: where I am with this book. I love it, but

520
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: I want to throw it to the public and stand

521
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: back and see whether they love it, see whether they

522
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 1: hate it. I want to hear people's comments. It's fun. Well,

523
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: it's great. I think you've got a great new series,

524
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 1: this whole idea of a Taking series of I'll be

525
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: intrigued to see where you go next with it. Martin.

526
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for joining me today. Your

527
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: new book will be out this Tuesday, September seventh. It's

528
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: available for pre order now. We're gonna have a link

529
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: to it. Taking has the epic Battle for the City

530
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: of Lights, on our showpage at newtsworld dot com and

531
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 1: I wish you well and whatever you decide to do

532
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: next well, Thank you, sir. It's been quite an honor

533
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: to talk to you, and it's also been a lot

534
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: of fun. You're a great and you're a very generous host.

535
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. Thank you to my guests, Martin Dugard.

536
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: You can get a link to Taking Paris the Epic

537
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 1: Battle for the City of Lights on our showpage at

538
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Gingwish Street sixty

539
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Debbie Myers, our producer

540
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: is Gornsey Sloan, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The

541
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: artwork for the show was created by Steve Pendley. Special

542
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: thanks to the team at Gingwish Street sixty. If you've

543
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast

544
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us

545
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about.

546
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of news World can sign up for

547
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: my three free weekly columns at Gingwish three sixty dot

548
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: com slash newsletter. I'm newt Gingrich this is news world,