![\"Harlan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2.76455812.jpg\")
Author Harlan Coben said he thought only bad writers believed they were good (Jordan Pettitt\/PA)<\/p>\nThe 64-year-old, who has seen novels such as The Stranger, Fool Me Once and Safe adapted for the screen by Netflix, said he thought only bad writers believed in themselves.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Desert Island Discs, he said: \u201cI actually think only bad writers think they\u2019re good.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have a little bit of that imposter syndrome, and what\u2019s interesting is it sounds like a paradox, but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
Author Harlan Coben said he thought only bad writers believed they were good (Jordan Pettitt\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause on the one hand, I\u2019m always like, \u2018I suck, I\u2019m terrible, I hate this\u2019, but at the exact same time I have the hubris to think \u2018you\u2019re going to spend 20 pounds, and you\u2019re going to spend five or six hours reading it, or listening to it on audio, and you should\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd those seem to be a complete contradiction, but they\u2019re not inside of a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on to say that he calls his books \u201cthe novel of immersion rather than crime or thriller\u201d.<\/p>\n
Coben explained: \u201cI want my novel to be the one you take to bed tonight, it\u2019s 11 o\u2019clock, \u2018I\u2019m just going to read for 10 minutes\u2019, and the next thing you know, it\u2019s four in the morning, and you\u2019ve been reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I love that feeling as a reader, and I love to give that feeling as a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The author picked Bruce Springsteen\u2019s Thunder Road, Ain\u2019t Nobody by Rufus And Chaka Khan and Teddy Swims\u2019 The Door among his records to take with him on a desert island.<\/p>\n
Coben\u2019s The Woods is set to be the latest of his books to be adapted by Netflix when it is released next year, starring former Coronation Street actress Michelle Keegan.<\/p>\n
The full interview can be heard on BBC iPlayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 64-year-old, who has seen novels such as The Stranger, Fool Me Once and Safe adapted for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-665081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}