donald trump. donald trump has only thought about himself. and finally, joe biden. >> the two youngest members of ther senate thank you for your time and congratulations on the book

we offer martin to guard the author of several books includingis taking paris and wih

bill o'reilly the co-author of the killing series most recently killing the legends which is a current bestseller. so without further ado the latest book, martin do guard. [applause] >> could you come in, my voice that does not carry. people act c-span have told me to let you know ahead of time if you have a question we will bring aa microphone to you. thanks for coming out. it used to be as a writer things like this were fairly common. you would have a book come out and do a dozen signings and go

around the country. because of covid and the change, the book signings are rare so it's fun to be out and talking about taking berlin which is the latest labor of love. i see my cross-country team and good friends in the audience. thanks everybody for coming out. we have some chairs up front. everyone is just kind of don't be afraid. let me give you a little back story about me and the writing world and again like i said it's fun to have some of my runners here today because they usually see me in sweatpants and sweatshirts and if this is the only time they will see me and a button-down shirt so it feels

good notot to be sweatpants tod. it's the second book in the taking series and it's something that i wanted to do some stand-alonell books after a dozn years with bill o'reilly, bill is a good guy, nothing against him. w we sold 20 million books which is great, but at some point i wanted my voice to be the voice that made it to the stories in the page, so i did a taking paris last year and it was great. it was about may of 1940 through 44. and it focused around the city of paris and of the events that led to the nazi capturing of paris but also the liberation. >> it was a lotot of fun. the problem with writing taking paris was the worldwide pandemic thing. i couldn't actually go to paris to write about it. i use to cover the tour and i had all of the notes from the towns and the cities.

i was able to lean on those for descriptions, but as any writer willhe tell you there is nothing that defeats the actual travel being at the location to tell the story best. so as i got through that with taking berlin. so, it tells the story about the the war. of paris was liberated into there was a war going on. we had more fighting to do. but also in the big scheme of things, it shapes everything about our modern world ever since 1945 and especially right noww with the things going on in ukraine it is a carbon copy like right out of the stall and playbook. so it's nice to kind of visit to some history to see that. so, when i was writing this book, paris is about paris so i

could do events in paris and these things happened. because berlin is a different book, it is it could have been a thousand pages because we've got all the big battles, d-day, the battle of the bulge, the russian operation which was immeasurably bigger than the d-day landings but those b are books in themselves so with this book, but i tried to do is show the action through thean eyes of individuals, so george patton. we have bernard montgomery, winston churchill, the third wife of ernest hemingway who was a phenomenal journalist in her own right and she was crazy brave. she literally stowed away in a hospital ship so she could come to the d-day landings and literally went ashore even though she wasn't supposed to be there. a phenomenal journalist and also james galland, the two star general at the age of 371 of the

first in history later had a very unfair and not often you get to write a war book and have ae romance in the middle of it that is o kind of cool. so, for those of you who don't know me and maybe for some of the students here that have wondered how do you become a writer and what that life is like, i always wanted to be a writer ever since i was a little kid but i remember at 6-years-old telling my mom when i grow up i want to be a writer and the first thing she said is don't be silly, riders don't make any money. find something else. so that formulated my thought process and i am a bad example of how to go into your career path because whengo i go to college my favorite thing to do was skip classes and go to the beach and read two or three books. that is what made me happy.

but having said that, i knew i couldn't become a writer i wasn't allowed because that wasn't a viable career path so i graduated from college, got a corporate job. we had a condo, two kids and i came home every day fromwa worki was just miserable. wife said maybe you will see a career counselor. what are you supposed to be doing with your life and i paid this woman $350, an enormous amount back then and she had to do all these tests. i came back a week later and she said have you ever thought about becoming a writer and here we are. it was one of those things i couldn't up and leave the corporate world so i began writing and i would write in the morning before i went to work. ii wrote at work when i was supposed to be doing other things. i started very small.

i coveredra triathlons and marathons for publications and it grew so i started working today with competitors but also became sports illustrated and i got to the point where i had to pick one or the other and i got the chance to go to madagascar for this big journalist assignment. came back after three weeks and my boss takes me to lunch and fires me. i think that he thought i was going to be devastated, but i was the happiest guy in the world. i told my wife i got fired today. it's amazing. she said one of the most profound things ever. she finally said if you're going to be a writer, you're all in. i don't want you looking at the want ads or other careers. if you're going to do writing, you're going to be writing so that's informed the last few years of my life when i walked out of the corporate world for the last time i'd been writing. my writing days it is pretty

simple i get up every day about 6:30 and edit what i wrote to the day before. d about 8:00 i sit down and write. i might take a break for a workout at ten or 11 then i go back to writing until two and go coach cross-country and track then i do that six or seven days a week. it's been that way and the one thing that i've learned about writing is it is a feast or famine profession but it is revitalized me. i was reflecting today one of the things when i was working in the corporate world i remember 25, 26 or 27 every day i would go y to lunch in the cafeteria i would hear these people in the'r 60s talking about i have four more years to retire, two more years. when you're 25 you don't want to hear people talking about starting to live their life when they are 65 because that's what they talk about, when i retire

that's when i will start to do really cool stuff. it's been great because of writing i have traveled the world, i've flown around. i've covered the tour de france and i've met amazing people. so i've been able to live that life for all these years i would have been in the corporate world just kind of withering away. i would be one of those guys that he drinks too much coffee and smoke cigarettes and is angry at the world. writing has transformed me and the thing is i'm 61 now and instead of being 61 saying i can't wait until retirement, i'm saying i've got way more books to write and things to do. i've got to sharpen my skills so i've got the best jobb in the world so i love it. the great thing is when we do all this travel for a book like taking berlin, my wife has to come with me so we see these

cool places. for instance when we were doing the latest research trip it was kind of frantic because we were about halfway through this and i was working on the taking of the legends w book with bill at the same time so i wrote these books concurrently so it would be literally three hours with me and then bill and he's calling all the time to get me to edit his stuff and i'm trying to write two books. it was like a slow walk through hell because it was six months of just creative craziness. so in the middle of all of this, valentine's day was approaching and i thought it would be cool to go to paris for valentine's d day. that would be amazing and i could dress it up as a research trip so we flew to paris and it's not like we are going to stayc and do romantic things it was let's go see a battlefield,

that's kind of our thing. and for the bridge too far stuff we went to dunkirk and normandy and then in the middle of all of this i'm still doing this book withl bill and he doesn't know i'm in paris working on my own thing so he's calling me and he goes let's get on the phone and work right nowpt and edit the lt chapter so we were literally in this beautiful little french seaside town captured by the germans in 1940 so i'm sitting with myve headphones on so i can hear bill, we are editing and people are walking past like what is the meaning of this, why is this man in the back of the car talking and it was just one of thoseth things that reminds u how the world has changed because the fact that i could edit a book at this seaside

place was kind of surreal, a littlele different so you've got to be flexible with it. so for people who have read the killing series you know the style of the books. they are when we started, bill kind of unleashed me and said basically come up i with how the book is going to look. it was going to be a one-off, killing lincoln. i set in stone the formula we would use. short chapters, a cliffhanger ending for every chapter then a big opening with a couple of sentences. everything was in a chronological order. we use that for all 12 of the books to great effect and what i

found some of the chapters were a littlele bit longer. i did work with james patterson and he was like no chapter should be longer than 1200 words. that's like three pages. i need more i need to breathe a little bit more when i write. so i try to keep all the chapters to 2,000 so that is about six and a half or seven pages yet i think that works well for this but the whole goal is i love history in addition to this writing thing. i've been a fan of history, in history nerd if you will ever since i was a child. all the books that made me want to becomeha a writer i have some at home, the little fisher-price history books. i ended up writing a book about 30 years later like a little 4-year-old handwriting in the book so it's very real for me

and one thing i feel history should be something people are just drawn to. they should be fascinated. instead a lot of academic history writing and traditional history writing is just very slowit and dole. put as many details on the page. you're not telling a story anymore you're just throwing facts at the reader. i was reading a book last night and i have like 20 pages left. i'm not going to say the name or the author but at some point i realized the author stopped telling a story and was just throwing research at me and with 30 pages left i just want to put the book down and walk away from it. my goal is i don't want anyone to feel that way about anything i write. i wanted to read like a thriller like a stephen king book. i want people to turn the pages and i don't want this to be a book where you open it and read

two pages and then you fall asleep on the second page. and i get e-mails it makes me so happy people e-mail me and say thanks to you i was up until 4:00 t reading your book. that's what i i want to do. history should be like that. something that as you read it you get transported like fiction you turn the pages and can't stop and you just want to know more and more. then maybe you put it down after a couple hours but the next thing after work you can't wait to get back to it. when i'm not writing history i don't read history for the most part. i usually read like really good fiction because i think when you read other authors stuff you can seeyo what you're doing well personally and what you need to do better because sometimes a writer will turn a phrase in a fiction piece and say how do we transfer that into nonfiction, just ways to try to get better and again it all goes back to

making history books something that you want to read and that is what i try to do with taking berlin. it is we open may 17th 1944 whichh is a little-known moment in history where all the top generals and admirals and officers gathered in north london to hear the plans for d-day so you have all these people in the room and if hitler dropped a bomb on that h room tt today they would have destroyed the allied war effort and interestingly enough we were back there a few weeks ago. we went to that place and i will tell you this is how much of a nerd i am. iha want to go to that place and see what it was like and what the room was like but in the opening line of the book i describe the room and i talk about it but i describe the wooden doors going into the room and i did my research and they ar' gothic, not a victorian but

i was thinking maybe they were maple. maybe they broke. okay london, big oak doors but s then there was something about the paneling in the room they were fine so i finally settled on fine but i wanted to go back to see this to make sure i made the right choice. i read the plans and it seems but they weren't there anymore because the nazis did blow it up years later so just kind of a nerd thing but it's fun and that is the kind of detail i like to bring to the book but i don't want to overwhelm you with it so let me read the opening chapter. it's short. hang in there with me. 'you've got to listen closely because my voice doesn't carry that well. so may 1940, 1944. we introduce a few of the

characters. my wife is sitting over there. prologue. may 15th, 1944 londondo england, 9:50 a.m. winston churchill is on time. the entry doors are thick fine, victorian. the prime minister doesn't stand in the long line nor does the king of england. they know better than to be late. this morning's presentation at st. paul school is the most important audience event in western history. rules to be obeyed, doors closed and locked at precisely 10 a.m. late arrivals denied admission. general bernard montgomery of st. paul's alumnus and host for today's event has made this very clear. as everyone entering the room knows monty always gets his way. military police blocked the

entrance. a large man not smiling, polishedne helmets, sidearms, generals and admirals stand single file to present their engraved summons in the 100 officer strong. no invitation, no admission. every important military figure and european theater weights in the queue except for the french. they are not invited and also the russians but they have plans of their own. churchill makes his way to the front of the room wrapped in a black coat, double corona in the corner of his mouth. inside the panel walls cigarette smoke, british and american accents and intriguing visual display. on the stage was a map of the normandy beaches and and her landsat and a slope so that the audience could see it clearly and constructed so the high officers explaining the plan could walk about and point out the landmarks.

students and staff have relocated to the countryside for the duration of the war. four months ago montgomery transformed the building with peaked roofs, stained glass and chimneys everywhere. into the purcell headquarters for the purpose of planning the invasion of france. the headmaster's house is now his personal corridors. he is organized today's event down to the minute. each officer takes a a seat on e wooden benches more. often used by teenage schoolboys. the heater is broken. theow pre- minister montgomery american journal dwight eisenhower and sovereign king george the sixth. could have killed every british

officer with a single case. it's hardlye. a surprise. the world knows hundreds of thousands of allied troops have been assembling for months training for the purpose of the control of europe sometime this summer. coincidentally on this very day, general montgomery graces the cover of life magazine a vivid portrait of the character runs alongside. also playing at the generals lifestyle he lives in complete simplicity. each has no recreation except that of novels and detective stories he is often inpatient of human frailty. but an equally large headline and eisenhower, montgomery and churchill in thick coats and

gloves against the chilled as the soldiers prepare to the drought from the sky. they do not know the exact number transported with other naval vessels kind of going down the rabbit hole, bear with me. will wait on the stretch that had been subsections into smaller landing zones. paratroopers go in first and then the biggest in history accompanying a photo of 100 parachute canopies i over the british countryside during the practice jump. a subsequent story is more pragmatic. how to treat the disabled of the war when they return to civilian life. hitler is well aware of the allied forces would soon attempt

to land but the fear doesn't know the date. d-day as it is known. nor is anyone a shivering inside this whole. the only man that knows the answer is general eisenhower and even he is uncertain right now. at 10:00 close and lock the door. montgomery is famous for giving an audience, quote, two minutes to cough, sneeze or blow your nose and after that there will be no interruptions. those words are unnecessary this morning. the room quiets as eisenhower rises to begin the proceedings. he's every officers boss, supreme commander of the allied expeditionaryy force. the audience is impatient to hear each o last detail of this plan. naval bombardment, a real assault, paratroopers captured in the dead of night and location of the landing beaches where the soldiers would confront the well-trained highly disciplined german force that has fortified the coastland with guns big and small.

intelligence reports confirm the field marshal germany's notorious is personally overseeing and atlantic role designed to throw the invaders back into the sea. eisenhower on the eve of a great battle. the generals speech is immediatelyis cut short as a thunderous pounding on the doors fills the room. general montgomery stairs and fury as he gives no indication for the police to open the doors. the pounding resumes. most everyone in the room knows who might be on the other side. the most audacious of them all the one man whose absence was noted is monty's main rival. eisenhower remained silent. he could order the doors opened or even have the perpetrators sent away but this is his show. the favorite of general isn't backing down and must make the final call.

more pounding, louder, inpatient. reality setser in. the carefully scripted presentation remains a slide show so long as the hammering continues. whoever stands on the other side of the door is a fool or force of nature so determined to walk through the doors when he's unafraid of offending anyone inside the lecture hall supreme commander prime minister and king of england among them. bernard orders the doors flung open. to no one's surprise a six-foot 6-foot toamerican general wearir of ivory handled revivals, riding boots and immaculate overcoat l tailored strives into the whole unrepentant smilet on his face. winston churchill recognizes the officer immediately and willl order him a whiskeyto over lunch to celebrate this bold maneuver. so doess georges patton makes hs entrance. so the thing is that is now the prologue. when i first wrote the book it's

tough to find a way in. you always want to know, you have to start the story at the beginning but where is the beginning so my beginning originally was the fall of paris picking up where it left off. when you write a sometimes these people you are writing about they want to tell their own story and they kind of yell at you as you research so we don't start with august 26, 1944 we start may 15th 1944 and go through the d-day so chapter one which i wrote was about that paris moment is now i think chapter 14 because all these people and it's w funny when you write these things i could hear patton's voice telling me he wanted to be more of the story and i could hear churchill saying let's go back to d-day. it's the biggest event in history. so that is the wonderful thing about writing these stories.

you had this dramatic event. you think of taking berlin and it just sounds like a very blaée military book and yet another book about how they capture berlin and the board is over. but i wanted to make this more human. that's why when people spoke to me, churchill, eisenhower, gavin, even stalin. they will say stuff like i never heard of this, she is amazing or who is this james gavin. also to kind of introduce these people, and again when i write about these people if they walk into s my office i wouldn't be

surprised if the physical embodiment be able to introduce them to the world and hopefully tell the story in a really fast-paced intriguing way. and how we oversold the demise on those rainy days of world war ii and was so saddened and then rallies next year these great speeches in missouri where he predicts everything that's happened, the irondi curtain. he predicts the soviet empire and the war between the east and the west for the control. all that stuff is amazing and fascinating.

i want you to say this reads like a w piece of fiction and something to read more. so that's my thing. let'sgo take some questions. remember the microphone guy is here. so when you're doing your research and you traveled around to germany, was there anything particularly impactful that stands out that said i really feel this? >> for this book, two significant places. in the dutch city where the 82nd airborne famously if you've seen the movie a bridge too far, robert redford is the hero and they've got these flimsy collapsible abodes acrossss the river where the enemy is waiting on theem other side they don't

have enough paddles. theif way these people died was horrific. it was a shooting range for the enemy because in plain sight they were barely moving and it was a heroic thing. so for me, it's fun to research before the travel like the cherry on top of the cake there. so i think from brussels that morning it's's a pretty good dre and then on theseha side roads i researched it and i knew the bridge the 82nd airborne they

had to capture and i knew that if i followed the roads outside of town 10 miles later it's been rebuilt since world war ii but i wanted to see where the paratroopers crossed so i just kind of did a little study to figure out that it had to ber about a mile down river next to and factory and the factory stil stands. so we get there and it's one of those things where literally just my gute, told me he stopped the car right now. i stopped at the monument and said this is where they launched the boats, and i was so happy. it's the sign of a crossfit gym right now. they walk 300 yards down to the water and i did all that and

i've been to normandy before and was there one time it was a cold misty day that stayed with me but on this occasion i wanted to see exactly where like chapter four let's let them lead the way. i stood on the road where it all took place. the road i was standing on was barbed wire and landmines and the soldiers were cowering because the germans were everywhereo here and because te

barbed wire all of a sudden this very brave general says we need to get off the beach or we are going to die so let's go inland which is what we said and standing in this exact spot. you think it is going to be this scene of devastation but the houses that are still there are the ones that survived the war. it would be like if someone had a place on the beach on the water, that is where people went for their summer vacation, it had that feel to it and it was hard to imagine a place that was so inviting and the air smelled of salt of the english channel and wonderful. it's hard to imagine this was the site of such travesty and bloodshed.ot it's one of my favorite photos

ever. >> [inaudible] it had a lot to do with charles de gaulle. we talk a lot about charles de gaulle in taking paris and i like that nobody writes about him and he is very influential 20th century figure but he was so arrogant and awful and insistent on getting his way. he was so sure that they need to beik liberated and not to bypass paris like they were going to. they didn't want tofl go around but at the end of the day they

didn't need him but it made it so if he insertedd himself into the discussion about two months later i was watching bridge too far last night. i started the book tuesday. they were talking about what would happen if the troops decidedd, to and they said who would they send, patent or montgomery and they said of course it would be patent. the other says eisenhower is not that stupid. mymy question is the whole markt garden thing. did they think that there was a chance of going around berlin that way.

south of paris and germany. patent g style was just go. montgomery he liked to takes his time and gather his men and have all his armor men and only then would he attack. so that was the downfall was because the whole thing was planned and executed within a week which wasn't his style so he needed to behave like that to win this battle and he was incapable of being like that. anar interesting sidebar, and is in the book. it's one of those great battles

the dutch were college had done a study if an enemy is going to come in and trygh to get throug, which way should they go. by any stretch of the imagination when he left so it kind of failed. it didn't fail horribly but a lot of people died so they came out of it looking very good. >> any other questions? i would like to get your opinion on thisst and a two-part questi. one, why do you think people like kyrie irving are getting

slammed and going back to the war, is it true for their arts d culture? >> why is he in trouble and i will start with the second one first. they took everything out between september 1939 and june of 1940 when the nazis came in so they use the time to hide them in the country and thatat is why althoh the nazis did lose a great deal of art they didn't get as much as they wanted to. the troubles right now go back to 1933 when he coined the term.

if you make up a lie and it's big enough and you say it often people will believe it. that perpetuates and by the way because he loved it so much from hitler, putin is using the lie right now for the american politics. all those things that happened all the way back then are here with us n right now. history does repeat itself. it's going on right now. thanks very much for coming out. thisis is fantastic i see very

many wonderful people. thanks. appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible] jefferson, martin luther king, abraham lincoln not that i believe everything at the liberal arts has to be a base

but the viewpoints and ideas