Does it Take a Twisted Mind to Write Twisted Stories? | Better In Person
Harlan Coben doesn’t think so. The mega-best-selling author talks suburbia, impostor syndrome, and what he learned from his college friend David Foster Wallace.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
- Duration
- 44m
- Broadcast on
- 04 Aug 2026
- Audio Format
- other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
Harlan Coben doesn’t think so. The mega-best-selling author talks suburbia, impostor syndrome, and what he learned from his college friend David Foster Wallace.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
This episode of Better in Person is presented by Chat GPT. Put Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Download the new Chat GPT Desktop app today. Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. You are about to hear an audio version of a new TV talk show we're making called Better in Person. Our guest this week is the mega best-selling author, Harlan Coben. As thriller writers go, Coben is particularly generous. He nearly always heals your nerves, at least a little bit, after he's done shredding them. If you would rather watch this episode, go to the Freakonomics YouTube channel or you can watch Better in Person on Apple Podcasts. You can watch it on your phone, but really it is a TV show, so I'd suggest you use a bigger screen if you can. But like I said, this episode you're about to hear in the Freakonomics radio feed is audio only. As always, thanks for listening. I always love this question. If you weren't a writer, what would you be? And one of my friends says, "A U.S. Senator." I'm like, "Oh, please." I'd be a duvet coverage dude. I got like no other marketable skills. This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Harlan Coben. If you write books for living, even if they turn out to be very successful, which is unlikely, it's even more unlikely that you will have enough leverage to turn your own books into films and TV shows. But Harlan Coben has done that. He has produced 12 series on Netflix. His books have sold 90 million copies and he still seems to be at the peak of his powers. You know, I've known you a little bit for a while and I like you a great deal. Thank you. I like you a great deal. I appreciate that. Can I re-turn the cameras off from here? We're done. Feels very into it here. But... But, wow, I love it a but. I'm a little bit edgy and I'm edgy because I've been reading a lot of Harlan Coben. Uh oh, wow. You got your hooks in me because there are all these characters where they're placid on the surface, but very turbulent inside where you think something is one thing and it turns out to be another, where there's some fear unknown quantity lurking and it has the state of deep. I'm not going to say anxiety. I don't feel bad. I just feel, like I said, on edge. Yeah. But I want to know how you feel about making people feel that way. It's interesting. That's a different response than I usually, you know, because at the end, usually the world comes back together. It does, to be fair. It may not be... At the end of each book.
Transcription truncated.
Harlan Coben doesn’t think so. The mega-best-selling author talks suburbia, impostor syndrome, and what he learned from his college friend David Foster Wallace.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.