Does Jon Meacham sleep?

The New York Observer asks a question that often occurs as I scramble to do my job(s) and maintain a family life -- and occasionally do something zany like read a novel or catch up on a two-year-old episode of "Deadwood": How does someone like Jon Meacham, who edits Newsweek, a job that is theoretically 24/7 in these Web-dominated days, manage to simultaneously write books? His latest is a well-received account of Andrew Jackson's White House tenure.

Academics I know find it hard to block out time to write, even though such time is supposedly built into their day jobs. "What I write [during the academic year] is letters of recommendation," one professor told me recently. He was cranking out dozens of law-school and grad-school recommendations at the time, while of course also teaching, and grading papers. Academics write during summers off and on sabbaticals, when they are explicitly freed from all other duties. The Observer makes no mention of any book leave for Meacham.

Meacham, meanwhile, finished his book while overseeing coverage of a Presidential campaign in which reporters put in 18-hour days with the candidates. Those reporters, it is safe to say, were not simultaneously researching and writing biographies.

The question remains a mystery, because this is the best the Observer comes up with: "The Newsweek editor said he wrote on long summer days in the attic of his vacation home in Tennessee."

I was hoping the cheeky pink newspaper would tell us what vitamin supplements he's taking -- or is the answer Red Bull? Power naps? Delegation? Servants and governesses? Whatever it is, I want some.