When some of my clueless friends ask me about my book, they rarely express interest in its substance. But they're dying to know whether it's a hit. I get the weird impression that, if it's a hit, only then would they actually consider buying it.

The winner takes all.

inflammatory garbage being written these days can pass for a "book." Such "books" have no detectable ideas or thoughts, and yet these so-called books seem to be what many readers want. Like political campaigns, negativity sells books, and the more inflammatory, thoughtless, and ideological the better.

I use big words sometimes and what some might call obscure literary references. I occasionally write in complex sentences, too. Maybe that's part of my problem. I refuse to dumb it down, and I'll persist in the belief, until the day I give up writing altogether, that readers are smart, that Americans want to read, and that they have attention spans of more than 30 seconds.