ways has been the one a non-issue, sociable part of his life. that and his marriagely. right. for all the kind of political calculations he's else, any time he felt presre to distance himself from his faith abandon his faith, he pushed back hard in 2012 or 2008,cal advisors, some of them him, to distance himself ome this big speech at the bush presidential library that. i think it is his north star in it it has helped him espouse actually. one thing he said to me early on in this process was growing up mormon oh, you get used to being different in ways that are important to y i that he's drawn on that experir of his political career when he has become a pariah side of the political aisle ishe has drawn on that experience of differentha i that's influenced him a lot. the book is romney ang. our author is mckay coppins

mckay. thank you so much thank you thank. m&mr.at the new york times and a winner of the pulitzer prize for criticism. he's the author of what were we thinking a brief history of the trump era and the co-host of the weekly matter of opinion before joining the times in 2022, he 17 years at our post. the nonfiction book critic editor, economics editor. ign policy magazine. he studied economics and political science at the university of notreame and did graduate studies in public at princeton university and journalism at columbia university. if you're here today, we know re an avid book reader. if in this tent, you're an avid collector,

a avid imagine if your job was to read about politics and write it. i we could all love. so he, carlos will be presenting the washington book how to read politics and it is really a fabulous compilation of essays and reviews that really bring together disparate historical events andisparate and sometimes desperate leaders, a poadñers and. it's really results in a really great literary guide to just talk about some of the craziness thhareally that. and the perfect moderat washington insider christop cillizza, political commentator who worked for cnn and rollpost, a frequent panelist on, meet t ac political analyst. he is also co-host of the tony kornheiser show. another poll, washington favorite up the sports podcast and also blog on substack.

his freelanthe atlantic that excuse me, slate. so for all of us political, this should be a really fabulous discussion. so, gentlemen,ank you. thank you. hello, eve thank you all for being here. last year, i was in carlos's spot, and it was a out, so i'mnest, this is great. i was, like, trying not to sweat . so thank you all for being here. this is hard core. we appreciate you both that. people who like politics and people like books. so we're going to talk about carlos's book obviously but one of the things that carlos that i really value is to take things that are in the news that everyone is writing and find an angle or something thoughtful and interesting, insightful to say that everyone isn't saying which to me is sort of coin threalm stuff in politics. lots of people look at something and be like, this happenedple can tell you

why. important give you historical context make you say like i :s thought of that. carlos does that regularly. which brings me ' . she is someone who is mentioned as aential vp for donald trump. she is someone who i'm sure carlos will appreciatike carlos has written a book. and in her book and this kind of hers is selling better. yes, right. that's true. she things, but one thing that got a lot of attention, obviously is the kill;0inpuppy named cricket. w,ou know, if you follow politics, you probably know this. but carlos wrote about this ondon't even know when anything out anymore because even two days ago and he carlos actually the whole book as opposed to just that little and he read the broad. so want you to just before we jump into the tell to walk us through that piece, talk about the dog situation, what you learned from it.rom carlos that i didn't learn from everyone else.

gothank chris. starting with kristi noem. this so i mention chris and i were were were coll the post. the best career i've ever gotten came. chris, you won't remember this. i do. but at one point. mbi've. yeah, when i was thinking of like moving froming a book critic, which didn't seem like a logical choice at the time. and he said, look, the trick to lane really narrowly and then exercise it really broadly. that was absolutely true. i was the nonfiction book of my little corner, just, you know, reading my. but under thatut anything. i could. all over other people's beats. i could do anything i wanted to do. i covered the supreme. i cover of, you know, history. economy. under the heading of the so thank you. thank you, chris. so. okay christina i was not planning to read that. u know any other than that there's a lot to read. and i vp nominee, then i'll read the like i had kamala harris and susan rice's you know ready

to go on my desk. whichever one got the nod, i would read that i was rooting for harris because her book is a lot shorter. and and so you. thank you, joe biden. but then s you know, the news explodes, right. about kristi book and you know it's two things ith her shooting her dog and her goat and also this this meeting that she claimed to have but didn't have with with kim jong un and. it was everywhere. right. i just like broadcast every s like kristi noem shoots dog. i was like, what? what is this? and so i thought like, now i have to read this. you know, i don't particularly want to read this, but what, w is that the book was you know, 260 pages and everyone was focusingthink there's got to be something there, something else there. and and so i read it on a on a flight, you know found a few things that were utterly fafirst, we could swhole hour on christine and we will not. but she you know, the reason she shot the dog, right? she said this was an unruly dog on trainable. adown. but really, everything about

that the events leading to up to the, you know, the death of portfault right in her own telling. so first she was having this fancy hunt at her lodge, a kind of hunt where they like they kind of bring all the pheasants to like one central place for like ease, slaug, and and cricket, you know, who knew wasd dashed ahead, roused the pheasants. the hunts we ruined hunt. so she was embarrassed right. she first -- at crickets because she was embarrassed. right. , driving. she's about to drive home and she's putting had lots of d putting the various dogs in their kennels in the back of the truck to know go back home. and she she realizes she's short one kennel and she's u just going to stick leave cricket in the back of the truck. right if cricket jumps out. riddance. well, she's driving by. you of this these neighbors. and that's when cricket, lo and behold, jumps outike murders all these chickens, you known the yard. right. and and so it was sort of her own fault that cricket was

loose, able to do this. but then you know she was angry at cricket is like, god, i hated dog. and so s kind and then she sees the goat over there. she's like, you know, always write that go. it's always been a problem. right? so. g soover to the same gravel pit.nd she she kills cricket. now the context is. this story was right in the middle of a broade'd written about her leadership and decisiveness in foreign security. right. and that to me was something that no one had kind of picked up on because i was just telling the story of like, the dog, you know. and so she's telling the story to prove like how she makes decisions. right. and she's you know, she brings up ronald reagan lot. you know, we have to kind of get through with ronald, you know, ronald reagan. but it more reminded me of like w bush like invades afghanistan. he's like and there's a rock. ityou know, i'm going to i'm going to go after iraq as well. that guy's always giving me ble. and so i was i was kind of perturbed, rig this is how she

proves her. for bona feett r her decisiveness. and the last thing i'll say about it is much of it feels like on in an audition kind of and the notion that like shooting ae to not just but sort of brag about in this book, as an example of only in a world where the of the kind of like faux tough guy vi that everyone feels they have to project. you know is is is of the realm. right. and so there's moments when she kind of gives a vibe of like old school bipartisanshi really more than anything you know, the reason the story is there is is part of the kind of new a obligatory you faux tough guy rhetoric that. anyone who aspires office on the right in the trump era kind ofow natural to her in the same way that katie

britt's. state of the union rebuttal didn't seem natursomething that people feel they have do.and there was a sense that due to fondness in this book that was very striking me. and that's why i'm glad i'm glad glad that she kind of revealed herself in in and no this book. and i would i would commend you like wha that book is chock full of i would say we w texting. you said this is the cut that norm piece is of piece that would have had if the book had come out like six months later. the known piece would be in it, right? yeah. so i'll say i want to say two things. one, sorry, i'm looking at my watch because i want make be mindful of time. please your questions because i do want to leave time for that because i think that that's far interesting than i mn questions i have so we will make sure we leave time for it. okay. iht that we were kind of imaginingst me, but we were kind of imagining like what carlos says, a content creator or as opposed to an editor would look like back when. and i will admit in the the best ideas deceptively simple. i did say you should read books.

that was not advice i gave him. and yeteading is, you know, i mean, all of our kids learn school in whatof, i guess i would call it sort of reading you've defined a career and obvioly been rewarded. pulitzer prize and all these things by reading. so how again, it doesn't strike me if someone came up to me and they were like, you know what, i'm going to do for a career i'm going to read book you. that sounds wonderful. what? mortgage? why? reading and explain sort of how you came to it and of how you approach it? because i don't think it's just like reading a it's it's it's like i said, deceptively simple so talk broadly about your yoursure. so i've been a journalist in washington fi've covered a presslike, chased a member of congress, capitol hill, you know, like youraju. you know he's he's great at it by way. he's so good. it is a hard he thinks on his

feet. era day or two ago that he was in the middle of like doing a thing e member of congress walks by. he's like jake wait a second. i'm goi you know and he just like off the top of his head was able to do like it was masterful.can't do that stuff right. i've never covered like campaign rally. i don't like to meet secret sources in parking garages, you know? and so instead, this is what i do. you know i read books. i've been an editor at the post for many many years, and i felt like a total poser because i'd ver been great writers, teams of reporters, really talented r done it myself. so i figured aroundi've got to try something, have to someday put my ownand. the longtime book critic at the yardley, announced he was retin know, bulb belt inser , i immediately that's it. like i was very ofuo myself. i'd done a few book reviews just on a freelance basis for the places, and i immediately was sort of drawn to it, but i knew i wanted to day, you know, and was this exercise that i often do where i

either read everything one person or read many books on one topic by different authodive deep into them, you know, rummage like one or two ideas worth holding the first time i did that was with cosby. when in theike all the the sort of controversies and saga and revelations about, bill cosby's very sordid other life i went and read all his sort of adorable, funny from the eighties. you know like about relationships and mrier and. in hindsight, they were incredibly had left there that once once the slight shift in vantage point can be revol did it with i did it with cosby's books did it when donald trump was suddenly an candidate in 2015. it's actually a bunch of his books. and one of the very first essay that i wrote about trump is is washington book. and i remember i approached my editor, and i said, hey, if just read a bunch of trump's books? this is when he was first leading in the pollsyou just to see

what the books say about marty great idea. but like but hurry up because iss noknow like, who knows how long interest will last. i agree. i thought the same thing, you know, a lot of us thought the sat note a very brief aside, one of my least favorite things about the political media is on whatever day 2016 election was,ov whatever the day after run was like i toldys like, no, you didn't tell us. we all thought that,! yes she anyway. yes, yeah. now. so, so that became the thing that i did. you know i started, i started reading and because i realized all the battles of the trump era would be litigated, books like the white working know, the resistance, you know, immi democracy, all these became little subgenres on their reading, you know, just deeply in each of those areas that led to my first book to what were we thinking about the sort of the debates the trump era through books. and it's funny, i was still working at the post, but the new york times, that book, and they gave it a really nice on the

cover of the book review. i was so thrilled and it was joe kleinavorable review, he said, my reading all these politics was an act of transcendence, people people think it's like to read political bks actually i get a lot out of the experience becau i i don't sort of go like the five takeaways from obama's memoir.o that very well and and, and i'm give me signposts to, to focus on. but i tried to lrevelatory, someone's character about someone's politics and and what i have found is that even in these especially political memoir, where politicians, you know, try sanitize their records and their beliefs and their lives. and they present themselves in the most favorable or confirmable or light. they still end up revealing themselves, not necessarily what the big news is stuff. but in it could be something they say a little bit too often a line they could be something in the acknowledgments section of a book acknowledgments sections of political memoirs are a goldmine of of revelation. can you can you just briefly

just tell the marco rubio one be favorite it's in it's in the book just because it's so telling so marco rubio wrote a book or published a book i d in in 2015 called american way, titles like american dreams the truths we hold, you know, the subtitle, always my american journey. you in the in the the nts of american dreams, rubio startsch of people and the first two people he thinks by name i think are noteworthy. the first one you've all heard of, he thanks my lord and me eterna wonderful second person, my very wise lawyer, bob barnett. right. and i thought that was so perfect.i thought that that captured exquisitely sortf the inside outside game politicians like to play you know you beat your chest or your sweater vest about about about god in one in one sentence. but you'washington lawyer in the next sentenyo know, and he and he theologians in the crowd,

it's like pascal's, you know, that like like just case, believe in god here. believe god. but just in case like, have a lawyer, you know, on, on, on on retainer. but he's not alone ine like joe biden's book me dad the book about his years as vice president and the the illness and death of his son beau incredibly newsworthy, even though it came out years ago right after the report by the the whole report by the special of classified documents that that famous line about he comes ac with a poor memory if you read because he couldn't alle beau died if you read the acknowledgm very first paragraph i'm going to i'll just paraphrase i don't have in my head he says like look this a very difficult period for me to revisit. and as such, some of my memories were had people help me kind of reconstruct the period and and that seemedme.

any one of us of any age who has through the the slow illness andhe mind plays tricks on you. you don't want to remember you know did. my sister die in 2009 or 2011. i remember. i don't know. right. and and i just think of being so fiery and defensive about that moment. i thought if had said something like that, that he had already understood it really well. so i think section is like can tell you a lot. sometimes it's it can funny or it can be profound. i want thso1< obviously i think you read better and more deeply than the average bear. i, i i also one of the things i again, carlos, i have known each other for a really long time and many thehave like, hey, chris, that's a good idea. i'm like it. my idea it be honest, i mean, he is an ideas guy. one thing that i'm always struck work is it's not just about reading what's on the page, right? it's also asking questions about what's not there, like the

negative space and. can you just the one that stood out to me in the book and i re is about mike pence whichconsider. i'm still very interested in mike pence, like why he what he does effectively. so you walk us and again i think a people i'm itys's process like how do you think like, okay, well here's re particularly in a political book. here's what they want me to read or think. and then like, what's over here that's just off camera that i'm kind of interested in. yeah, no that's a that's a that's a good point that that you political books people often ghostwritten, right? why should i care? why should i believe this propaganda is super propaganda tells y a about how someone wishes to be perceived. right. an real about them. even if the material not right. also says something about what they think of you and all of us. right? to certain audiences, right? in that sense, it can be super the the pence story, pence wrote a memoir. in 2020 to called so help meand he

revisits january six quite a know and deservedly take something of a victory lap about how for for the accurate results of the and even if you really that but he tes donald trump's video message when trump finally called leave the capitol. right. and you trump kind of late in afternoon and, you know, put out this this this video and he he quotes him and and he quotes him. says, here's how pence quotes trump. you we know, i know your pain. i know you're hurt because but we have to you have to go home now. we have to have peace. right. and and trump did say, right. that is that is accurate. but remember, looking at it and wondering like whatt little ellipses, you know, like what what else did he say? c-span. i, i sort ofand and in the of that

paragraph that pence quotes, trump had sahia t landslide, that we won, it was stolen from us. especially other side. right. but you ha now. we have to have peace, right. and so it was remarkable to me where pence is laying down his message for history, right where he's standing up for like what he did th day, where trump was not helwhere people were calling to hang mike pence that pence was still covering for the boss. right. by skipping over the, you know less charitable and that to me, like, that's allth i remember from book, even if i reviewed the whole thing so much of pence's vice presidency, for me is in that agree i of course just rolled right over it. that's why you're you and not me. i want i want to geto yquestions, your questions pretty quickly. i do. there's one other oh things one that

i want to bring up is i think sometimes people are l, like he'll read the like politicians books. but of most value and i would recom to people if you have not read carlos, this piece about project 2025, which is the sortf conservative think tank effort to it, i would argue, to donald trump some level of a blueprint for ideas what actually to do beyond winning you should because7 pages of it, right. but government produces or, you know entities produce that a lot of other people don't read including the january six report, which i think is a huge because. lots of time is spent on it, lots of invand don't want to say he reads it so that we don't have sort of a watch to borrow my game of throneslike who is reading this? can you talk about in particular and again i just think that this shows your approach and your uniqueness and your value to this political conversation. talk about the january six report.

whrnou can touch on the cassidy hutchinson on of revealing about how a little here or there can change meaning. go ahead. this similar to the elpses story and i do i've been talking a lot about politicians books but i love i wallow in kind of government reports to the 911 commissi report. you know, the torture report s committee you know all these and i read it the january report and and one thing struck me, you may remember cassidy, the the young ma worked in the trump white house, you knowavely step forward. and her testimony when a lot of other other people would not and she was close to trump that day on january six and was able to really tell you a story of what she saw struck me in the reading of that report she she t going to give his speech at at the ellipse outside the white hous he was annoyed that they weren't letting all the peopne they had the the metal detectors. right. and had different kinds of weapons and they weren't letting them in to be

near the president. right. and andz/ he wants a bigger crowd always. and and so he saw millions of here watching this panel. the the people say this was the is the biggest scandal ever. right. this is the best attended event at the gaithersburg book festival ever. people are saying people are many people that so they to me sir yeah so so hutchinson quotes the president as saying you know something like get rid magnetometers as you know let my people in they're not hurt me right. and i read line, i immediately thought where sentence? they're not here to hurt me or they're not here to hurt me. right. because those are two different sentences, aren't they? right. they're not here to hurt it's sort of benign, right? they're here to praise me and support me. it could be, you know, anything .me means. i'm here to hurt somebody else. right. even history with a running transcript can still be ambiguous, right?

so i you know, there video of this conversation, but there's video of hutchinson's own testimony to the committee. so the when you see it, ral the way she says it. maybe a slightenign interpretation which would be hurt than me. but to different ways once just, you know, words written normally, once with italics on me, which is thee lt minsidious. and ultimately, i don't know which one it is, but sometimes it's the things say, the things people omit, and sometimes it's, younow, how pronoun and rendered in print can be transformative. and so those are the kind seize on and focus on it's super idiosyncratic you know, very in the weeds. but, you kyort of pull that lens, it it kind of covers the world right. and and so that ambiguity can be frustrating to me as a journalist, but kind of delicious to me as sort of reader

citizenink that's just such a perfect example of sort of like i journalism is not necessary in meritocracy all the time but carlos has succeeded because of that. and i will add, being a brilliant and beautiful writer, the book is really beautifully written. i know we don't sometimes the trip to washington book to of rip and read skim through it it's would like if you all have the one thing i will say is it is going to be on c-span. so they need to to you. i can hear you, but we want the world to hear you. so wait until. the microphone comes to you, so goanyone like to ask ai've actually read your book a couple of weeks agoand it's all excellent but your essays on barack obama. yeah are among the most extraordinary i've read in any context and i'd like to share

with the audience a littleout your views about president obama. and i will add that i think that carlos as he's going talk about this, he knows this because i've piece he wrote about barack obama that is in the the single best analysis sense of who he is and why he did whatad carlos. thank you both. how's that foryeah that's yeah. raise the. yeah, noressure. so lot of the a lotvalue or sort of a benefit to reading and of weird connections different books right. oh that little anecdote here speaks that anecdote over there. i remember reading a book, michael eric dyson here at georgetown or used to at least about it wasiknd kind of what the presidency of obama meant. and i think he was talking about i can't remember what was talking aboutjeremiah.

i think it was it was it wasn't jeremiahght was it was you 's i should i should look it up. but it doesn't the the precipitating matters less than said that obama often presents himself as a stan in for the american black therefore you know, things are getting better for, you know, if if able to achieve, it necessarily meant that things were getting of better writ large. and when i read that i remember, i, i sort of my books are just full of like tons of writing and margin n it's very messy. my wife who like has great respect physical books is like appalled, by the way, i treat my in the notes and in the margins saying like everything. and i wrote theonger essay question, you know, and left it there. an i went on and finished reviewing this book right. butted digging into that and. what i realized is that throughout his presidency, kind of used for for his message,for the

country. you know the if you 2004, his famous 2004 convention speech for right. and no other country on is my story even impossible like my became the overriding sort of symbolism of the obamapresidency, you know because of his background growing in indonesia. he could improve relations with therld. right. because of his background as a constitutionalhe would always stand up for the rule of law because he was such sort of an honorable person. you could count on him to make the decisions about drone strikes. right there was this kind of incessant personal ization of of the presidency in that moment, is great if you kind of trust the guy and like the guy. but it's not grea're kind of handing that over. maybe someone else who is no less confident and no less sort ofre referring to? and sk me a year to write that that piece.ting other things along way like the post wouldn't feel like spend.

the year to write it. yeah, but, but, yo you, i spoke to some people who had covered obama. i just asked him about different s presidency. and once i sort of had the through that lens, then it was just everywhere. i sort of saw, you know, i looked at all aspects of my presidency and i realized that, you know, there was that moment early on during during the transition when he was appointing all these hillary clintonr clinton administration staffers. and people were like, where's the you're it's it's just another democratic administration. and and he would sayright? i'm enough. you so people have seized on that essay suggest that i'm like this vociferous obama hater or critic president. i'm not i just i just wrote it of the obama retrospectives were coming out and they were all many partizan against him, were were gushing. and i just didn't i didn't sort of i so i am i am proud of that particulariece called it the self-referential presidency of barack obama. and and that's the first time i've heard that that's something

that struche book. so thank you. okay. who else who else has questions, sir? i i'm looking forward to reading yourussion here is really around at the audience here, the skills skews older and i'm justor our future of our couet this kind of dialog and like jeff jackson down in north carolina the how do you reach the tik-tok on, youtube and instagram? how does this connect and open up a dialogad of the us versus them? how does it become you know, we just hadin here about mitt romney. i have zero interest in mitt romney, but i came in here to hear else am i going to learn from this biography about a political figure that i really don't feel connected at all. and i' how, do you take your books on? fascinating to me. it with my daughters and their twenties, they would not read it. i'm just going to be candid.

but if there's a tick video or an instagram, like i'm saying like jeff jackson think is connected with a lot of beyond the political dialog is able toi'm wondering is there a way that you would reach out to incredibly intriguing, interesting here i'll revert to another cillizza piece of advice which is he told me once that i used to teach a journalism undergraduate tosely, you know, a lot of a lot of young young students and brought chris to speak to them one time. and he said, you know, have to be like like a las vegas you have to you want korean korean barbecue 3 a.m. you want peruvian ta.m. you can get that at three. i mean, i sort of everything is there for you and and you want to be at as many of those buffet stations you i, i try to reach ways. was just speaking at dartmouth lastac read christine romans book on my flight, come to le to new hampshire and a bunch of

the undergrads came up to me and i like, why are they so interested in this? they knew me from my podcast right? they knew me opinion. this weekly opinion podcast, i have within you, which is great and people should listen t it's not just carlos, although that would be enough me. douthat, lydia polgreen and michelle cottle. the four of us sort of discussedthe news of the day. and so that was to me, i'd never you know i they were here for my book and for my great column. right. and they were there because they listened my podcast. right. and so realized a different audience, right? and that's a way to reach a different kind of audience. chris mentioned that i wrote about the proje for second trump term, and i wrote a column about it we did a podcast discussion about it. i went on morning joe about i did an audio essay about it and a new york tech talk about it right? trying to like fght. so that you happen to get your news. they were going to about. this at the same time, you have

to be who you are, right? ke i going to do a tick tock dance videos. i mean, i could they would be veryn i feel comfortable, you know, doing, doing access different kinds of audiences in different ways, but i also just have to be true to myself. i think what i'at i'm most comfortable with is, is very old school is rea i think we are. do we have one piece? oh, yes, i am high. know especially as we get older, that people are very complex no matter how well known or not known, famous or infamous. so as you're doing a research and these words, have you felt that some people more consistently reinforce the ant to be portrayed as whereas you know their of their complexities their contradictions as and then interpret that's such a greatd that one i just do that that's we that i thought of that question weeks ago. well i just you know i didn't

know whatever we wrote that years paragraph 18 of a story. yeah ben the old new york washington editor used to call it defensive crouch. like, you know, like i had that, you know, i think one answer to your question is depends on the stage career, you know, in which they're wring what they're writing. so. what was the name bob gates? he was cia director, defense secretary under both g barack obama. he wrote a memoir and the nineties, i think about his time in, the cia or something like great right? years later, he wrote a memoir at the end and got. he told you exactly what he thought of everyone. exactly what his experience in washington had been. same guy but one was written by a man with many years left in his career. another was written by a man at the end of his career, right.

and and and therein lies the difference in in that let's just go with presidential for a second the closer a president the closer a president time in office almost less interesting that book is going to be time in office. either long before or long after, or the better the book tends to be dreams from my father. book. biographers have found that, you yes, obama compressed some characters, played fast and loose with some stuff. still book, audacity of hope. when he' lik you know. i think he was already a senator and running for president. i'm not a great book, right? a promise, an interesting bk. you know, looking back on his presidency, but still verytoobama will always speak of obama. i think it will. all his books will always suffer in comparison to his first one which is just a really wonderful book jimmy carter has written. you know books among

them, some memoirs, his white house memoir, i think keeping faith or something like that. they all have these kind of titles, not particularly, it's like right after his presidency he's still too close things that don't seem to matter that much. youlater called an hour before looking back his childhood growingis father's farm in georgia during the depression is i recommend it like no, not like it's like good for a know. and so i think foua pretty consistent theme among especially politicians at vet, you know, that the closer they are, the material that they'rehe cinime. i mean the revelatory they often are. we have like a minute or two. and i want to take a point personal privilege, because i've always wondered about this and of reading, right? because it's a job, right? i mean, most of us hobby. your work is.ob all day. yeah. so how do you i mean, you know,

think that that's i personally always that and never asked you so now i have the tv and in front of a crowd. yeah. it' terrible process, but i'm stuck with it now, like th.o stop doing it that way. it's very painful. i d,deadline, like i have a day or i just got comey's memoir have like a day to read it and review it and i usually have j: time. and so what i do is i read each booki' write three times. i tiugh with pen, you know, and like that'sm asking questions, i'm like underlining stuff like going into the footnotes and finding things and then when i'm done with that, i set aside, come back to it. like after a day. this time i ask how long does that first read roughly usually takes on the book, you know, like write a 200 page book versus an 800 page. yeah yeah but i mean, you know, three days maybe, you know, to read it carefully and slowly if it's like if it's a long again.

the highlighter, you want it you want it in the weeds. and. i read it again a little more quickly. kind spending most of my time on the that just since my scribbles that clearly struck me the first time around. and i think like why wa's here i start like doing a few highlights here and there and i read it again that way. then i come back to it a third time this, time with my laptop open. i have a file. you and i go through the of read around it, try to see and try to ke connections between. the different chunks of the book that struck. i just put all of that in the file. quotes, questions, ideas, you know, and it usually breaks down to abouthousand words of material per hundred pages of a it's like a 300 page book would have 3000 words in the file. you00 page book might have 8000 words in my file. and then i'd set the book aside. i never look at it again, and i slowly on that file as like my raw material for the review, and then i start looking amongt's my own little mini version of the book. then i start looking. i do the same thing again and connections.

but those ideas i find like here's a couple of themes that leap out at;< understand the book until i have that version of it, right? buh with it at that point that the actual writing doesn't take asg because i've absorbed it so but getting to that, going through those three times, typing up the note forever, it is such a pain. i hate ' i'm like, oh god, much more to go. but then i have and i have those printouts and those computer files of every book i've ever about. i g