Conn Iggulden - The Double Dangerous Book for Boys

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

NOTES FROM THE TREEHOUSE

For us, this has been a chance to act like boys without consequences: to make catapults, build igloos and mix chemicals. We spent two days casting our grandfather’s beans in resin to preserve them for ever, and who knows how many evenings playing cards with our family. We learned to make a paper frog jump and to polish shoes like the British Army.

Yet it was also a chance to show our dad some of the things we knew and he didn’t. Those sunny afternoons the three of us spent learning sign language or struggling to teach him how to solve a Rubik’s cube will be some we never forget. For all that, we are very grateful.

So when we have sons of our own and we pick up this book, what will stay in our minds and our memories will not be individual triumphs and disasters.

No. In the end, what matters most is that we did these things together.

Cameron Iggulden Arthur Iggulden

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