Larry Olmsted, Photo Credit Allison Olmsted
Larry Olmsted is an award-winning journalist who has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College, where he taught nonfiction writing. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Real Food / Fake Food and Getting into Guinness, a history of the Guinness Book of World Records, a book for which he broke three world records himself while researching, and the new book Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Understanding. He currently writes online columns for Forbes and USA Today, and he appears regularly on television and radio.
On May 25th, Larry will join Amber Hunt, Gabriela Garcia, and Nancy Sherman in our next edition of “Seriously Entertaining” where they will each tell stories tied to the theme “I Scream, You Scream.” Register here for the show!
What are you reading right now for solace or escape or entertainment?
The new Equalizer reboot with Queen Latifah. Oh wait, that’s a TV show. I bought the new Stephen King book If It Bleeds at the start of pandemic but never opened it. I have stacks of unread “to read” books. Frankly I’ve been too busy with interviews and writing spin-off op-eds for own new book Fans, and I just listened to it in its entirety as an audio book which is a really weird experience because it’s not me.
If you could live inside a fictional world, which one would you choose?
Fernfield, the small town where the Disney Buddies movies are set. I love Golden Retrievers, have two, and it would be so cool if they could talk and have adventures like in Fernfield.
Are there any quotes you use to inspire you?
“You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take,” Wayne Gretzky
“Not all those who wander are lost,” JRR Tolkien
“Good teams make their own luck,” unknown
What writer would you like to share with the world and why?
Tony Hawks, the British comedian not the pro skateboarder of same name. He wrote Round Ireland With A Fridge, which is the funniest travel book of all time yet largely unknown even among travel writers. After making a drunken bet, he sets out to hitchhike around all of Ireland while carrying a dorm fridge. He and his fridge then have real life adventures. What could be better than that? His follow up, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, is aslo quite good,. Now that I just googled him I see he has a newer book I haven’t read so I am about to buy it – just shared with myself!