NOTEBOOK

"It's going to be a history of Nazi Germany based on the captured secret documents and on my own personal experience in Berlin in the Hitler time. It's an opportunity, Stanley, that comes once in a lifetime, if that. With any luck, it's bound to be a pretty important book."

Stanley listened patiently, but to my surprise his face grew cold. I had thought at first that he would leap up from the table in great excitement at the news I had just given him. But instead he was frowning.

"Dear Bill," he finally said. "Please don't ask Little, Brown to publish a book called 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'. Really! We're not interested!"

William L. Shirer, A Native's Return, 1945-1988.