Well you know. Simon and garfunkel. Lennon and mccartney. Gilbert and sullivan. All of the cathedrals. Most of the cathedrals in europe. The internet all of those. Theyre the result of collaborators. Many of his titles have been turned into movies including the summer 2015 release of the Television Series zoo, based on a patterson thriller. Its a fable. And its a fable about really what man is doing to the environment. And in this case animals start to respond. Theyre threatened. But now patterson is expanding into childrens publishing. A regular kid becomes a super hero and to promote youth literacy hes partnering with some big names. If i go to a school its like. Yea if i go in with lebron or dwayne or whatever. Its like yea you know. So the kids are paying more attention. He says hes loves his fans. But there is one he is still waiting to hear back from. I sent flowers to the studio for marge, and this day ive never heard back. Patterson talks about love and loss his son jack and independent book stores. Also find out what prompted him to say this. Finding you very thrilling. As a stimulus. We recently sat down with James Patterson at the book expo in new york city. Is it true that your path to reading and books began when you were working in a Psychiatric Hospital . Yes. Hows that for an answer . In boston mclean . Yeah, mclean. Its actually in belmont mass. And it was the place where i worked my way through college. And i worked a lotta night shifts. And there mostly wasnt anything to do during the night most nights. Some nights it got a little hairy, but so, it wasnt the inspiration for . many of the people who were being treated there, per se. Its just time no. I just start reading like crazy. And it was all serious stuff. I was a literary snob at that point. So, it was serious books. And i just loved it. And then i started scribbling short stories. And i loved that even more. And people will say, you know you work so much. Are you ever gonna stop. And i dont work for a living. You know i play. Its play for me. So some of the play now involves childrens books. You have a childrens imprint thats coming up. Tell me about that. Yeah, were just announcing a childrens imprint called jimmy. And the mission its a very simple and, i think, an elegant mission which is that when kids finish a jimmy book they will say, please give me another book. And that sounds a little simple minded but i think its the way to get kids reading. Thats the way we whether its food or movies or whatever we eat a certain kinda food, like the first time we have pizza or you know whatever broccoli whatever your favorite food is and you go, oooh, i really like that. Give me another piece of pizza or, give me another carrot, or whatever or movies. So, same with books. If kids dont if their experiences arent good they say, i i dont really want books. A lot of authors, though, have tried that and have said, well, im, you know, into childrens books because its a way a pathway for kids to read. Whats different about this that makes you think that it can be this sort of noble goal . Well, i already know that my books work tremendously well with kids. Its right in my sweet spot, allows me to be funny, which i cant be in the adult books with the adult books. And kids gobble up my books. And i think the cool thing about the books that i write is theyre funny and theyre engaging but theres also something for kids to think about. The middle school books are about a kid who doesnt really fit into the Education System here. Hes a bright kid, though. But theyre really because his talent is more on the arts side and illustrating and drawing, theres nowhere for that to get out in the school system. And hes not as interested in things that theyre interested in. He doesnt particularly care about algebra and so its about recognizing those kids and not calling them stupid and not making fun of them and engaging with them. So theres a serious side even though it was a funny book several of your books have gone from literally literary world to movies or tv. The latest thats coming out premiering this summer on cbs zoo what has you so particularly excited about this hollywood adaptation . What i like about the zoo projectone i always felt it had the potential to be a terrific movie or or tv series cause its so visual. Its a fable. And its a fable about really what man is doing to the environment. And in this case animals start to respond they theyre threatened. And when animals are threatened things happen. It tsunamis coming, and all of a sudden the animals take off for the hills and the humans dont kinda get it. In this case the animals start to react against human beings. And in some cases there are animal attacks. And theyre just threatened by what humans are doing. And its very exciting. I mean we have lions on the middle of these big fields chasing our heroes in africa. And it reminds me a little of jaws because you cant quite see them coming. We have bats in Rio De Janeiro just storming all over the city. We have horses acting strangely in boston. So, its very visual. And is that the kinda sorta visual drama that, at least in this instance, works better in a visual medium than it does people reading it . No, the book was great. laugh laugh but youve said that the series will be even better. The joke or the old saw in hollywood or around the world is a book is always better than the movie. And then the screenwriters will go, well, we only had two hours in the movie, and the book was much longer. In this case in terms of it of a tv series, they have 13 hours. So, theres no excuse for all of your accomplishments, all the records that youve broken in terms of publishing and bestseller lists youve described yourself as an entertainer. How come . I think thats what i do. I mean i early on as a writer realized that you know having read ulysses a couple a times that i could not be james joyce, i could not be Gabriel Garcia marquez. I didnt quite have that talent level. But i did think and i started out as a little literary snob but i read a couple of bestsellers back then. One was day of the jackal and one was the exorcist. And i went, well, these are kinda cool too. And i think at my talent level i think i can write books like this. I think i can write books that will keep people turning the pages. Vanity fair described you as the henry ford of books. Did you take that as a complimentor an insult . Its a funny quote laugh some headline writer just said hes, you know, the henry ford of you know, books. And all of a sudden i mean people will bring that up, oh, y you know . Its just some headline writer. But but, you know there is some truth to it in the sense that i do a lotta books. I do work with cowriters. And sometimes people well how can that be . Well, you know simon and garfunkel, lennon and Mccartney Gilbert and sullivan all the cathedral most of the cathedrals in europe the internet all of those theyre the result of collaborators. So, its not really that weird. You were in the advertising business for many, many years. Yeah but ive been clean for over 20 years. Your first book the Thomas Berryman number a nashville newspaper man whos on a murder trail it was rejected by 31 publishers . First book, Thomas Berryman number was rejected by 31 publishers. It then won an edgar as the best first mystery of the year here in america. And i still keep a list of all the editors who rejected it. And sometimes they ask me for blurbs for their writers, which i give them. Did you think that book was very good . Yes i did. And what was goin through your mind when you were facing rejection after rejection . One, in those days, it happened quicker. They would send it out to or the agents would send it out to a bunch of publishers at the same time. And a lot of the rejections were quite nice. Send us your next book, we almost bought this one, you know. So, the rej most of the rejections were kind as opposed to form letters and we got with little brown very quickly. So we we were we were safe within a couple a weeks. Another one of your early books, season of the machete, you have now that season of the machete is terrible. Did you know it was terrible at the time . No. No. Thats a book where you know it i guess its a sophomore jinx. And i wanted to sort of follow up on what i thought was a good book. And i just messed it up, badly. So, dont read that. aanyone whos watching if it . happens to show up, even like a used in a book in a beach house with the cov do not read it if it says season of the machete or if they change the title. Somewhere theyll have to put season of the machete. Dont read it. But that confidence early on of thinkin wow . my stuffs pretty good and im gonna get there, is that what carries people through who are especially successful . I think confidence is huge. I mean you know, weve done a couple a movies with morgan freeman. And when you work with morgan, you just feel it. Morgan knows hes gonna knock every scene dead. And he does. Hes so confident about his ability as an actor. Did that confidence hurt you at all early on in your career . Did the confidence hurt me . I dont think so. I think the confidence was always, theres always something in the background going like youre not that good, or, you need to work on this, or and look i wasnt an overnight success. My first hit was in, i think, 93. And that was you know, when t Thomas Berryman was published in 1976. So, it w di it wasnt like you know wow boy, this guy is great, and off we go. Still ahead on the program, James Patteron talks about losing his first great love to a brain tumor. Stay with us. Youre watching talk to al jazeera im David Schuster speaking week with best selling author James Patterson and your first early love Jane Blanchard you knew her for six years. She had a brain tumor. She died three years later. Well i think it was my first great love. I think it taught me that that men and women can have wonderful relationships because it was a wonderful relationship. And i think thats a great lesson. I think a lot of men and women young w men and women, dont believe that. I think they get very cynical about it. But it is possible. And im very lucky now. I have married to sue. And weve been together for, you know over 17 years, gonna be 18 years. And its a wonderful relationship. Its a love affair. It still is. But i think that first relationship taught me that it is possible for men and women or w whatever partners to have you know, great loving relationships. But for everybody who loses somebody at an early point in their adulthood grappling with life and death at a younger age can have a searing impact on yeah, ive never been big on that grappling with life and death. I mean its just a given. I i dont think about it much. You reacted to her death by pouring yourself into work at the advertising agency. Tragically, i did. laugh yes. Yeah. No, i di i just didnt i didnt wanna go on vacation. I didnt wanna do anything but be busy. And i went from writer to creative director to chairman in a few years. So, i did throw myself into advertising for a few years. And it was helpful. And in all the while you were writing. You would come home from work and you would type out on the typewriter and keep goin. Yeah. No, and i would write on the side. And that was a part of whatever, keeping me moderately sane or whatever it is that i am. Was it cathartic in the mix of the midst of the advertising world . Was it cathartic in the mix of what you were doing to be typing each night. Was it a release . Was it just someting you were interested in . Somebody said youre lucky if you find things in life that you love anything. And then its a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. And that was my thing with writing. I mean i was getting paid to write in the advertising agency. I was getting paid to write with books. And i loved . that. I didnt love the advertising thing too much. You know primarily because it was just too many chefs in the kitchen or too many people telling you what you could or couldnt do or what the rules were whereas in in the on the book side i got to do pretty much what i wanted to do. Was there an ah hah moment in the midst of your advertising career when you said, okay, enough with advertising. I wanna write full time . Yeah i dont think it was an ah hah that had anything to do with advertising or books. I was wri at at that point i was very successful with the books. The ah hah was that it dawned on me i h the best thing that ever happened to me was to be in love for that six or seven years. And i was doing nothing to try to make that happen again. So, at that point i said im gonna im out of advertising, which was just incredibly timeconsuming. I have enough money writing books, and i was successful enough at it, and, im gonna try to find somebody to be in love with again. And i was very lucky because i found sue, who id actually known for quite a long time. And you know we got married soon after that and had a boy, whos another joy in both of our lives. Do you think that woulda been possible had you not left advertising . I think that theres just so much pressure and that advertising does take up so much time i think it woulda been difficult. I think it puts its a kind of job and therere a lotta jobs like this it put a lotta stress on relationships. And i was in a position where i could really make the focuses of my life a relationship and writing books. When was the moment that you realized i mean, was it your first bestseller when you thought okay, i can i can be successful at this . I remember when i won the edgar award, i remember standing up and not having much to say but saying and feeling and i was 26 at the time i guess im a writer now. And, you know, if youre writing and but you havent been published and people say w what do you do . You go im a writer. And theyll immediately say, well, what have you published . And if you say i havent published theyll look at you like youre a mad person like, what how can call yourself a writer if you havent published, which is kinda crazy because i think you can be a writer if thats what you do and you do a lot of it. I write. I write. I dont publish. I or i publish on the internet or, i publish on my blog, or but i think for me having the book published and then winning the edgar i did feel okay, im not just kidding myself now. Im a real writer. This is a real thing. Have you ever been surprised by the Financial Success . I dont really think about it. I mean if i if i if i do stop to think about it ill go, there was a lotta luck involved here a lotta good bounces. And i was smart enough when a good bounce happened to to really go with it. Do you like meeting your fans meeting people around the world yeah who wouldnt . Absolutely. No, its great. I mean, you find people that like what you do its exhilarating. I mean and also i mean i didnt go through li i wasnt like a child star at eight. That might get old after a while, you know. Im ron howard and ive been you know its funny ive ive actually spent time with ron howard. And every time ive been with him people will come up. And every time theyll say i loved you as opie laugh on the Andy Griffith show when he was a little kid. And hes so gracious. And he never goes, well, you know, i have won an academy award, laugh and, you know, bah bah bah bah. So, i dont know what that would be like to deal with it for your entire life. But to to have it happen in your early 40s, im not bored of it. Its okay. I talked to a lotta your fans in getting ready for this interview. And every one of them wanted to know, how are you able to be so prolific so many different storylines so many different projects . Well i think part of it is i mean my strengths are ideas. I have so many ideas for books. I have in in my office a folder this thick with ideas for different books i mean literally hundreds and hundreds of ideas for books. So, thats a big strength. And im constantly you know and i can tell a story about anything. I could tell a story about this. I could turn this i could go from here and turn this into a novel all right lets suppose that your novel not gonna do it started with an interview. What what how would the storyline develop . Well, im sure its gonna be a thriller this particular one im sure because y im finding you very thrilling as a stimulus. laugh i i dont know where i would go with it. But thats its but you have that ability in your mind to take any situation but those are the strengths. With . it. Those are the strengths. The weakness is, i dont have the patience to polish as much as i should which is one of the nice things about cowriters. Because if i do a cowritten book ill tend to do it with somebody who is more of a stylist so that the combination is good. One superior talent, at least in the basketball world, lebron james youvepartnered with him a while back. What was that like . I yeah i did a couple of webcasts with basketball stars Dwayne Wade Lebron JamesStephen Curry dirk nowitzki. And theyre all interested in getting kids reading as well dwyane wade, in particular. Hes got three kids, and hes really just on them about reading all the time. And lebron. Lebron is a pretty big reader himself. And in doing a webcast with them, when these went into schools and we got em into thousands and thousands of schools encouraging kids to read if i go to a school its like, yay if i go in with lebron or dwayne or whatever, its like, yay you know . So so the kids are paying more attention. Also in america, for a lotta kids and this is you know unfortunate but it is what it is a lotta kids dont think reading books is cool. And it is cool. Its cool on a lotta levels. Patterson says on of the greatist accomplishments involved the simpsons and that story just after the break. Inside story takes you beyond the headlines, beyond the quick cuts, beyond the sound bites. Were giving you a deeper dive into the stories that are making our world what it is. Ray suarez hosts inside story. Only on al jazeera america. Im David Shuster this week on talk to al jazeera literary giant James Patterson your support of independent bookstores is particularly interesting given that your traditional books are probably the least likely to help those independent bookstores. I dont know about that sentence in the sense that i think my books sell well in bookstores. I mean theyre not i like any other book i mean its not gonna make or break a bookstore, what they sell of me or David Baldacci etcetera. But its helpful. But my thing is really to try to shine a light on problems. And one of the problems in this country is less and less and less bookstores. And thats a real problem. I mean it may all happen on the internet 50 years from now. We need great books in this country. The country needs a literature. We need bookstores. We need places where people can go in and talk about books with other people who are interested in books when i when i put out the Million Dollars to help independents you know the the response was unbelievable. The unfortunate thing is a lotta these people that are very emotional about the town bookstore do not go to the town bookstore. Its kinda, oh, yeah i was there, like three years ago. Well, no. Gee, i mean if you really wanna support them and you want me to support them, go there and occasionally buy a book. And the same with Public Libraries so if you support your public library, you should go and send your kids there and get them to check out yeah. I i mean, this year were doing a big thing, a couple Million Dollars with School Libraries. And once again just i wanna shine a light on the fact that a lotta schools the school i the the libraries have almost no books in them and no librarians. And the funds for School Libraries keep getting cut back. And there used to be that saying its the economy, stupid. I think a good saying right now that i wish politicians would get in their heads, and id love to see when the president ial debates that in every debate the notion of education is the future of the economy, stupid. So what are we doing . What are we doing for education . Because that is the future. And these people that you know that theyre living for, like the next week no. I mean, the reason that we have so many problems or a lotta the one of the big reasons is, we havent done a good job educating the populace here. Your son jack is 17. Hes soon gonna sort of leave home youve been through the experience of trying to get your own child to read. For somebody like me ive got a twoyearold at home whats the and for other parents get her going. Beat her up. Use the taser on her. We do a lot of goodnight moon and but whats the whats the thats great. Whats the trick for kids as theyre getting older to get them is it parent reading to them . I just think its parent involvement. Whatever it is, some kids, theyre just gonna take you know thats really really useful, a lot of people dont have any books in the house. Try to you know, get books that the kids are responding to. Dont force them stuff. Its for whatever reason its not you know, but i love baseball. But, yeah, but your kid doesnt. laugh or whatever. You know so let them tell you what they like for a while. And at a certain point oh when kids get to be seven or eight thats a point where if its not working, you can force the issue. And what we did with jack and jacks a bright ki he wasnt a big reader when he was eight. And that summer and summers a great time to do this. This whole thing of, go vegetate for the summer . No. No, no no no no. Were not gonna do that. Yes, you can relax. Yes, theres no school. But with jack, we said, youre gonna read every day. And, you know his response initially was do i have to . And we said, yeah unless you wanna live in the garage. You know we read in our house. Thats the deal. And but were gonna go out and get a bunch a books that youre gonna like. So we went out and got a percy jackson, and warriors, and wrinkle in time and a dozen or so books. By the end of the summer jacks reading skills had improved dramatically. And that can happen in most households. You just keep doing it. If you have to. If it has to come to it, no screens untill you read. I mean, no television, no internet, none of that stuff until you read. No screens until you read and you also dangled some carrots. You said no mowing the the yard this well yes. We yes we did. In the s in the summer we said, you dont have to mow the lawn, but you do have to read. And try not to make it feel like a punishment. You know, try to make it feel and it is a joyful thing. And thats where that making sure you get books that theyre gonna like is initially. Youve said that one of your greatest accomplishments was an appearance on the simpsons. Yes. I was a cartoon. And i still am a cartoon. Yeah. laugh no it was great fun. I in in this particular segment, marge is on the beach and shes reading one of my novels. And shes, oh, i just love James Patterson. And then in the background i ride by on this white horse on the beach. And then they cut and shes on the back of the horse and were sort of whispering sweet nothings. Then then she says do you wanna write nursery rhyme titles for some of your books . I used to have some of the alex cross books had nursery rhyme titles. And i said, marge theres more interesting things we could do than that. And then this alarm clocks rings and my eyes go back and forth. And then it the film cuts, and homer comes into the bedroom. And homer says that was great last night marge. But why did you keep calling me james . laugh yeah so that was fun. It was great fun. I then after the episode ran, i sent i sent flowers to the studio for marge. And to this day ive never heard back. They havent responded . Marge has not responded. Oh, but it was the epitome of pop culture essentially. It was cool. It was it was a lotta fun. It was fun to do. James patterson thanks for being on talk to al jazeera thank you. Are we done already . Were done thats it. Daaaamn. Thank you thank you because i was African American i was trying to fit in. Misty coplelands journey wasnt easy. Dancing gave me the opportunity to grow into the person. I dont think i could be without it. Now, this trailblazer is opening the door for others. I wanna give back to ballet what its done for me. Time to bring back the firing squad. And is the millennial generation just as racist as their parents . Hes not part of a movement. Movement. This is a young man that dropped out. He is sick and twisted. Hes not sick and twisted. Hes a lone wolf. Hes not a lone wolf