Three Answers: Thomas Friedman

by Dick Donahue -- Publishers Weekly, 11/28/2005

Three Answers from Thomas Friedman, whose The World Is Flat (FSG) is marking its 33rd week on PW's bestseller list, and which won the first Financial Times/Goldman Sachs award for best business book.

PW: There's been a perception for a long time that Americans aren't interested in what goes on in the rest of the world. Does the success of your books prove that Americans are less insular than people think?

TF: Americans are interested in the world, and in the world their kids are growing up in, in a deep and profound way. What they are thirsty for are books or articles that can explain to them in terms they understand what is happening in their world. If you don't talk down to people, and frame things in a way that's compelling and interesting—hopefully with stories—then they will understand.

PW: Have you ever had the urge to write a novel?

TF: To me the real world is so compelling and interesting in and of itself that I've never had the desire to make it up. I've thought about it, but I'm not sure I have the skill for that; it's not how my mind works. I'm much better at connecting dots than forging them.

PW: What's your next project?

TF: I'm going on leave for a month and working on the updated and expanded version of The World Is Flat, which will be out in paperback and probably also a [new] hardback edition this spring. To show how far we've come since the first edition, at the beginning of November the podcast version of this book was the #1 selling album on Apple iTunes. When I started this book in March 2004 podcasting didn't even exist.