Dan Brown's new book, "The Secret of Secrets," is perhaps his most ambitious to date: "There's no bigger theme than human consciousness." (Cheryl Senter / For The Times) Writing is hard. Writing books ...

Writing is hard. Writing books is harder. So as a mere plebeian author interviewing Dan Brown for the first time, I needed to know: After you've sold 200 million books, does it get any easier? "It's ...