Mike Safo with Erik Larson 2

Mike Safo

Joined today by New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson. Erik and I recorded at Legends in NYC and talk about the status of “Devil in the White City” being produced into a HULU original after the rights were purchased by Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. We talk about the behind the scenes of writing a book, how he knows it’s finished, if he feels pressure or relief when the final draft is submitted and what he does with his thousands of pages of notes. Erik’s latest release, “The Splendid and The Vile” debuted during the beginning of the pandemic, and we talk about being on tour when the lockdowns began. We change course and talk about our love of tennis, the US Open and the current state of men’s and women’s tennis. Erik shares how 9/11 influenced him to write “The Splendid and The Vile”, why this book about Churchill is different than the others, and why Mary Churchill’s daughter decided to give Erik Larson the diary which was the missing piece to his book. We talk about if social media could have impacted Roosevelt and Churchill’s actions during that tumultuous time, how Londoners reacted to 57 days of bombings and how Churchill went from being compared to the Third Reich to having an 88% approval rating. From trying to get an invite to his famous marathon brunch to shows he watched during the quarantine. All this and more with one of the most popular and influential writers of our generation. Follow Erik on twitter and his website: https://twitter.com/exlarson https://eriklarsonbooks.com/