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I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

I'm a huge fan of the Navy. My father was a Naval historian, and I've been studying Naval battles forever.

Linda Svendsen's 'Marine Life' was important. I was nearly 22. Larry Mathews discussed the book in a creative writing class. We examined her stories, figured out how they worked.

I collect books, primarily first-edition 20th-century fiction.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history, for instance, because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.

I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years.

As an author of narrative history, I read a lot of history books.

Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.

I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir 'Goodbye to All That,' and a civilian memoir, 'Testament of Youth,' by Vera Brittain.

I've always been fascinated by books. When I was young, my grandfather used to hand out a book - which would be anything from a biography to a classic - to me every week and ask me to write a piece on what I thought about it. On the other hand, my mother used to love reading thrillers and bestsellers.