Читать книгу The Double Dangerous Book for Boys - Conn Iggulden - Страница 7

INTRODUCTION

In 2006, there didn’t seem to be many books of the kind I used to love. I wanted adventures, catapults, crystals, knowledge, history and craftsmanship. I wanted to read dozens of chapters, each different from the last. In short, I wanted a book I could hide in a treehouse – after I’d used it to build one. With my brother Harry, I worked for six months in a shed and wrote chapters on all the things that interested us – from cloud formations and astronomy, to juggling and tripwires. When it was finished, we sent it to the publishers. We didn’t set out to write a bestseller. We just wanted to celebrate the wonderful, daft ideas of boyhood – when all doors are open, the future is unwritten and summers seem to last a really long time.

Thank you to all those who recommended it to friends and family. You made the publisher reprint that red and gold hardback over and over. You gave the book to a wider audience – to sons, grandsons, nephews, brothers and fathers. We said it would appeal to ‘every boy from eight to eighty’ and that was about how it turned out. If I am remembered for just one book, if my tales of Caesar and Genghis and the Wars of the Roses are all forgotten, I don’t mind too much if someone dusts off the Dangerous Book in an attic and settles down to read with a smile.

I wrote this one with my two sons. One has become a young man since the original Dangerous Book came out. The other has reached the age of ten. He runs around like Huckleberry Finn and should wear shoes more often, probably. I thought for a while that I’d covered everything in the first book, but there’s nothing like raising boys for surprising you.

Twelve years have passed since I first roughed out a chapter on conkers for a publisher. I wrote then, ‘In this age of video games and mobile phones, there must still be a place for knots, treehouses and stories of incredible courage.’ That’s just as important today – though how we missed picking a lock, making an elastic-band gun and learning sign language, I’ll never know. In the intervening years, I wrote down a good idea whenever I heard one. Perhaps I always knew I’d go back and do another book. These are all new chapters, from casting things in resin, doing table tricks and wiring a lamp, to learning strength exercises, the twelve Caesars, stress balls and ancient ruins. There is also a design for a paper aeroplane – and, yes, it’s even better than the last one. The world is full of fascinating things. You’ll see.

Conn Iggulden