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ROYAL

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ROYAL

[Royalty] is something I think about more than you can imagine…. I have spent enough time with peripheral historical figures to know when Victoria lived and died, that George VI smoked too much, and the wonderful historical trivia that the reign of Elizabeth II coincided with a British subject becoming the first man to set foot atop Mount Everest — and that an intrepid reporter named James Morris — later Jan, after a midlife sex-change — was the first individual to race off the mountain and flash the news back to London in time for the coronation.

KAREN

KAREN

I was walking into Lowe's the other day. A father and his two young sons were walking out. He was probably mid-forties. The kids were maybe eight and ten…. One of the little boys said nothing at all. For the purpose of our story, he might as well not have been there, other than the fact that his presence broadened the impact of the event which had just taken place. "Why did you call that woman Karen," the older child asked his dad. "Was her name Karen?"

AIRBNB

AIRBNB

If I were in the Netherlands right now, as I thought I might be this weekend, I would be driving my rental car back to Brussels from a venue known as Megaland in the Netherlands. It's right next to Aachen, the first portal into Germany for the US Army in 1945. My ears would be ringing from a Bruce Springsteen show almost four hours in length. The euphoria would linger.

WRITTEN WORD

WRITTEN WORD

I make my living writing books, so I get understandably nervous when prognosticators make bold statements about print being dead. What else would I do? In my heart of hearts, when I hear about AI or a more video-centric world, I pray a little prayer that books hang around for at least forty more years. I'll be 102 by then and most likely out of stories to tell.