In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature nonfiction writer David Grann on the release of his new book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

Grann’s literary journalism combines archival research with in-person interviews and on-the-ground investigation, and it’s said that he’s obsessed with stories and how they are told. Grann has said, “Stories and narratives are always the way I try to make sense of the world. I think that’s why we all tell stories. …I think it’s interesting how reality can blend into myth and fiction—and how we tell these stories can shape us as people, and shape us as nations.”

Those themes reverberate in his other work, including as a New Yorker staff writer and in the National Book Award finalist and bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, which was recently made into an Oscar-nominated film of the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese. In fact, Grann has been called “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading.” His first book and two of his New Yorker stories have also been adapted, with at least two more of his projects in the works.

New York Magazine declared Grann “one of preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today,” and he was named the inaugural Barnes & Noble Author of the Year in 2023.

David Grann is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z. Killers of the Flower Moon was a finalist for The National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of The White Darkness and the collection The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. Grann’s storytelling has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York.