what are you reading? >> susan weinberg, publisher of public affairs books -- one is under summers reading less? >> the first book is a change of pace because republish nonfiction and i read a lot of nonfiction but i would hope i get to read in the master, it is a book that i know the publisher and and she gave me a copy and she gives me a copy and very often we trade books and talk about a two others' books but once you've found out i have got around to reading it it she was quite vexed and i thought publisher believes in a book that much i have to read it. i also just read it and am going to read another one of our books this summer, we happen have two books coming out that are wonderful about the islamic world, one called destiny disrupted in the history of the world through islamic eyes and

in this -- it is a wonderful narrative history, we know the western narrative, the ancient greeks and romans but this is the islamic world narrative and how in the 19th century they came to class so tragically. and our loved every word and i read the book and recommended to my reading group which i really do as a publisher but they are loving it so will be discussing in next month. another book in that vein is a new york times united nations the bureau chief, he has had other jobs and for 20 years reported in the cairo bureau chief, reporting on his lawn in the u.s., and neil actually grappas and we'll brought in libya he actually. >> two this country and as i did he want to go back and learn arabic and understand the area where he had grown up and he has written a wonderful book, the media relations department of

hezbollah wishes you a happy birthday. i have read some of that but as he was the balloting but did not have time to read the whole book but i loved so much what i read that i decided to give the whole thing a great read here and i love hearing what people are saying about that buck. the third book that i have to and it has been next to my bedside many summer that maybe this is a summer when i will finally bring the power broker by robert caro, his book on robert moses. i wanted to read it for a long time it is the kind of book or you needed several months to find the time to read it he mack to seymor summer reading lists and other program information visit our web site at booktv.org

>> the letter spanned 300 years from benjamin banneker's letter to then secretary thomas jefferson protesting slavery to a series of notes between martin luther king jr. and correta scott king in the 1950's and a letter from alice walker to barack obama the day following his election to the presidency. new york university in new york city hosted this event, it is 50 minutes. >> thank-you and thank you for being here and i thank you so much my wonderful friend, dean barrington. thank you also to 19 and the college of arts and science for hosting this and thank you all for being here at this time. i'm sure there are many things you could be doing, students home work. [laughter] faculty grading and so i am honored that you chose to be here with us. i will bring up to people who

will help me read it -- lee kirk who is also my aunt and an accomplished actress. please, parrot [applause] and joshua here is a junior year at the college of arts and science. [applause] so as the dean said, this was a labor of love and it is one that for five years i worked on, going through archives an anthology is an addict trying to find a letter some african-americans that could help sketch a portrait, an intimate portrait of the people from the dusty plantations to the white house with the election of a barack obama. in during this time i was surprised by the wall of existence i recounted by many

who saw these letters less as documents of a people's history and more as personal possessions so i had a really difficult time in one that i did not anticipate securing permissions to publish many of the letters that are in our times, but fortunately there was enough support for this project that allowed me to read to gather more than 200 letters that span from the 1700's to 2008 and we will give you just a piece coming a glimpse of the letters that are in this book. but what i tried to do when is weave together in letters that trace the footprints large and small of the people from bondage to self-determination, from the civil war to the war and iraq, and as i said from dusty plantations to the glistening white house.

the correspondence of unsung slaves, soldiers, lovers, fathers, mothers, artists, activists are woven together with those of historical giants from phyllis wheatley, paula dunbar, langston hughes, james baldwin, alice walker and toni morrison to benjamin banneker, sojourner truth, frederick douglass, w.e.b. du bois, wells barnett and colin powell. the likely missive of the extraordinary are matched by the equally poignant letters of the ordinary to the pen in hand that shared their joy and pain in coming ecstasy and heartache. with this letter is from hand and grover to her son, kato, who has written june 3rd, 1805. >> my dear son, kato, i've long to see you in my old age. i called well with grover the

minister of the place. my dear son, i pray you come to see your dear old mother or send me $20 and i will come and see you in philadelphia. and if you can't come to see your old mother, pray, send me a letter and tell me where you live, what family you have a and what to do for a living. i am a poor old servant. i long for freedom and my master will free me if anybody will engage to maintain me so that don't come upon him. i love you, kato. you love your mother, you are my only son. in this from you're affectionate mother, hannah bus kirk, now a cannon grover. ps, my dear son, i have not seen you since i saw you at staten island at barker's about 20 years ago.

if you send any money, send it to dr. bonner and he will give it to me. if you have any love of for your poor old mother, pray, come or send me. my dear son, i'd love you with all my heart. hana on the bus kirk. >> this is a letter from a man to diana, september 19th come 1858. i take the pleasure of writing use these few words with much regret the. to inform you that i am being sold to a man by the name of pearson, a trader who saved the orleans. i am here yet by and i expect to go before long. and when i do go, i want to send

you some things, but i don't know who to send them by. but i will try to send them to you and my children. give my love to my father and my mother. and tell them goodbye from a. and if we shall not meet in this world, i hope to meet them in heaven. my dear wife, for you and my children this pen cannot express the grief that i feel to be parted from you all. >> we are taken behind a public façade of scholars and activists. dr. martin luther king jr. letter from a birmingham jail is along with five it misses to his wife who in 1960 he writes from

a state prison. >> this is a letter from dr. martin luther king to his wife correta scott king come on october 26th, 1960. hello, darling. today i find myself a long way from you and the children. and i am at the state prison and reads bill which is about 230 miles away from atlanta. they picked me up from the dekalb jail at about 4:00 a.m. this morning. i know this whole experience is very difficult for you, especially in the conditions of your pregnancy. but as i said to you yesterday, this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people. so i urge you to be strong in faith and this will in turn strengthen me. i can assure you that is extremely difficult to think of being away from new, my little

yogi, and marty, for four months. in but i ask god hourly for the power and endurance. i have the faith to believe that this excess of suffering which has now come to our family will in some little way servant to make atlanta and better city, georgia and better states, and america in better country. just how, i do not yet know, but i have met the faith to believe it will and if i am right and then our suffering is not in vain in. >> w.e.b. dubois, the eminent scholar and activist and mourning the doting father about and the curiosity of race and

her boarding school in britain. >> a dear little daughter, i have waited for you to get well settled before writing. by this time i hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly. of course, everything is a new and unusual. you missed the news this and a smart as of america and gradually, however, you are going to send to the beauty of the old world, it's, an eternity and you will grow to love it. above all remember dear, that you have a greater opportunity. you are in one of the world's best schools, and one of the world's greatest modern empires. millions of boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything they possessed to be where you are. you are there by no desserts or merits of yours, but by lucky chance.

deserve it than an. study, work hard, be honest, frank and fear less, and get some and grasp of the real values of life and. you will lead, of course, curious little annoyances. people will wonder at your dear brown sweet and crinkly here, but that is simply of no importance. and will be soon forgotten. remember that most folks laugh at anything unusual whether it be beautiful, fine, or not. you however must not laugh at yourself. you must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkly here as straight though it is harder to comb. the main thing is that in the you beneath the clothes and skin, the ability to do, the will to concord, the

determination to understand and know this great wonderful curious world. >> and the beautiful actress freddie washington morphed into the activist. >> friday washington to dora sneath, august 2nd, 1949. der torre sneath, a exurbs from your column stated it july 15th 1949 in which you quote from an interview with alfred worker director a lost boundaries has just been brought to my attention. i am so appalled and not a little fighting mad to think that a so-called intelligent adult could be so viciously in durant was to give as his reason for not testing negros in the

above mentioned pitcher matt quotes, the majority of negro actors are the uncle tom show shuffling dancer type of performer. well, i would like to say something for public printing on the subject. in the first place, neither an offer of a worker north lewis -- what ever his name is -- from the beginning of the production plans never considered using negro actor is to betray the rules of the johnson's family. therefore, negros having the physical appearance in an ability needed for those roles were never interviewed. there are many negro actors and actresses who are constantly turning down plays and screen affair on the excuse that they are too fair, too intelligent,

to modern looking etc.. i know because i am one who falls into this category. if it was i to play the role of the neurotic sensitive it fair and negro girl in universal imitation of life. putin alfred worker give me an interview for either of the two female roles? no, he did not. he simply was not interested in learning what he evidently did not know, that there are many legitimate negro actors and actresses who are far more intelligent than a worker proves himself to be. >> and in 2008 following barack obama's historic election, alice walker rode him to express her pride as an african-american and as a southerner.

>> alice walker to president elect barack obama a come on november 5th, 20008. dear brother president, you have no idea really of how profound this moment is for us. us being the black people of the southern united states. you thank you know because you are thought: and you have studied our history, but seeing you deliver the torch so many others carried it year after year, decade after decade, a century after century only to be brought down before igniting the flames of justice and of law is almost more than the heart and bear derek bell and yet this observation is not intended to burn in new before -- before you are of a different time and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you north america is a different place.

it is really only to say well done. we knew through all the generations that you were with us. the best of africa and of the americas. knowing this that you would actually appear someday, that was part of our strength. seeing you take your rightful place based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character is a balm for the weary, warriors of hope. previously only song about. >> what emerges is a multi dimensional portrait of black life. in life long fraud to be sure with hardship, despair and injustice but spain by prayer, faith, humor and love. in the end it is apparent that while america often fell short

of its ideals african-americans rarely gave up on america. here they love their families, serve their country is in war and civilian life, expressed their humanity in the arts and fought a valiant an uphill battle for equality and elusive acceptance. remain on the soil they had killed and on which their blood is spilled to determine to some day reap the benefits of their efforts. we all have much to gain from the wisdom, passion, courage and uncompromising commitment to justice contained in these letters. it was a privilege to assemble and contextualize them and is my hope that this volume will help inspire a greater appreciation but a collection and preservation of african-american letters. they you for your interest and i hope you have questions. [applause]

any questions? >> [inaudible] >> let them into a microphone. >> thank you so much, this is absolutely fantastic. >> thank you. >> i'm interested in knowing how did you go about this? how did you get the letters and the voices? >> well, the letters, many of them thousands are deposited in archives around the country and i traveled to many of them and i also have taken two trips to the data and which time i also visited the archives. addition to the archival research i launched a public appeal for letters so i sent

appeals to people in academia and medicine and long. domestic workers, veterans, so i try to do a pretty widespread appeal. i went on list search, put ads in newspapers. i am appealing to many people in public life to contribute so it was a pretty intense effort to. >> like to know obviously must have read hundreds of these letters, thousands. >> but who is counting? >> how did you decide which ones should be included? that is a huge amount of correspondence and was supposed

to be representative sample. what were you looking for? >> is a pretty quirky process. first i tried to move adds the ark of history so i tried to sign the earliest letters that i could find and also look at the high and low points in american life and when african-americans were doing at those points. so and looked at the time during slavery, and that after slavery and reconstruction. i then tried to look at all of those high and low moments in history and where i believe we should have some sense to the voices of the people who live to that history of what was going on so there is no way there were 200 some odd of letters you could hope to match the full history of african-american life but i wanted to end these suggest that this is what was happening in the lives of real

people during these great moments in history. and then there was also the matter of what i give it permission to publish. >> i have to do acknowledge the presence of david levering lewis, he was one of the people i reached out to early in this process and was one of the kind people who actually responded and contributed a very moving letter that his mother wrote to him while he was in the ghana right after graduation school and in that letter for those of you who don't know david levering lewis is the w.e.b. dubois, who won not one but two pulitzer prizes for his two volume set on w.e.b. dubois and in the letter his mother and to lay talks about w.e.b. dubois and sent you probably don't know him now, but years later he knows him better than anyone else. but thank you for being here, david.

[applause] >> hi, i have a question, he spoke briefly about facing opposition and publishing newsletters, to speak more about that and may be why you feel like they want these voices to be silenced? >> yes the reasons are so varied with some of the state's. i got the sense that they did not appreciate the importance of legacy and as i said they saw these letters more as personal relics in nine important pieces of a puzzle of a people's collective history. and so it was just that they did not see how this been in to the story african-american life. they signed as their own prerogatives and their own possession. for others it was a question of there wasn't enough money on the table i have to say.

for many i feel it it was a resistance born of the kind of a trail of african-americans throughout history. there is a deep mistrust of sharing in contributing to any kind of public records. many african-americans have been burned so i believe that for many it was just a lack of faith, they didn't know how these letters will be used and if they would be properly contextualized and i have to say since publication of the book a few weeks ago some of those people have expressed regret. >> did you get a sense in the shape of the research that there was a moment that rich african american letter-writing took off? can you say something about that? >> well, obviously during

slavery writing a letter was an illegal act and i guess i was most moved by the letters written by slaves because it took an act of courage and also its shows what they had to overcome to acquire the skill to write a letter and what it really took cannot just write the letter but somehow get it across the plantation and the county, across state lines. this involved a lot on their part in the part of those who helped them so the letters of slaves are, of course, we're because illiteracy was legally mandated. but fortunately there are letters in archivist and archives around the country periling because sometimes slaves, there is a letter from a woman named any davis you wrote to president lincoln and and

this is after the emancipation proclamation that she was still being held as a slave and and she said dear president lincoln, are we free? can you tell me what the story is because my master did not get the m'aam basically. [laughter] so those letters are rare but they are not to give you a sense of the striving of african americans not only to be free of but reunite with their families. no letter after letter you heard a this yearning to be reconnected with children, to be reconnected with husbands, wives and is a part of our history that we don't often hear about it because there is the assumption that slaves could not write and and they weren't writing to their families and loved ones and expressing views human desires for love in connection so that is a long way

of answer your question. the slave letters are rare. reconstruction, during reconstruction you had a highly educated and all kind of a political posts and there was that shining moment that david and flaring lewis couldn't speak far better than i can but there is that time were you had african americans writing from the hallowed halls of the greatest universities and writing each other beautiful verse, beautiful prose and so the road many letters during that time not just an african-american life but in american life because before the popularity of funds and the kind of technology that we now take for granted people love letters and not on the rope ladder south but these letters were eagerly anticipated and there were savored and cherished by family jewels of people kept them here

go in with something that you pass down and passed along so there were many letters. i would say from that time during reconstruction of to the 1920's is when you saw a kind of a drop in the length of the letters and they continue to get shorter and shorter after that time because, of course, once the telephone took off people were communicating that way and then you saw also telegrams and aesop postcards and i include some of them. of course, we all know what is happening right now. we stay connected through e-mail and text messaging and twittering in god knows how many other ways. the art of letter writing has taken a real slide. i don't think any of us would

want to be judged by the e-mail that we right -- i know i wouldn't. so the quality and the quantity, the letters took a dive with the emergence of the technologies that we have had become accustomed to which makes the collection and preservation of these letters more important than ever. >> i'm thrill, of course,. i want to know whether you came across quantity wise letters written by parents getting their children into colleges and universities at a time when they might have been the first to get there and the parents were struggling to do that. did you come across any number

of letters and if you did. >> the letters written to universities? >> to college presidents because i remember singing and expedition when allison and tying long time ago where there was an exhibition of a number of things with letters factoring into it and there were letters written to college presidents, whoever that was, with parents who are struggling by here is $5 for my son. >> i actually did and more so in the collection of booker t. washington where there were always these public appeals to help this to and pay for her scholarship. i did come across those but not so much from parents. mainly the people who were being reached out with students you're trying to stay in college.

>> you have written other books and i wonder if writing those books whether there was a connection or something like that? was made to get started because i think it is on a full and i want to thank you for that. >> that is an inside will question. people see the range of my work and say how did you get from being a journalist to writing about face in a media and doing a collection of african american love letters, seems to make no sense, it actually makes a lot of sense. i think it is because i spent some money years as a journalist struggling to try to present this multi dimensional portrait of black life and is such an uphill climb in the newsroom to do that because for so many people the perversity of black life is more authentic than what i know to be true. and so that is one thing.

another thing is i grew up in a home where the history of african-americans was revered. we learn about people like benjamin banneker and phyllis we've made, as long as i knew -- i knew that african-americans made important contributions to american life but i also knew i did not see those contributions fairly reflected in my history books and the library, a lot of my peers didn't seem to know about the people who i thought were heroes. and so i knew that there was a need to fill in those gaps so is a gap that i tried to fill in as a daily journalist. i wrote about race in the media to try to kind of talk about this information gap and this shortfall in the way we present america online, african-american life of. a lot of of this history is not

african-american history -- it is american history. there is a letter that benjamin banneker broke to thomas jefferson in 1791 and basically in thomas jefferson of the time a secretary of state and he was an astronomer who helped plan the blueprint for the nation's capital. view is this accomplished man. the published annual almanacs that with striking position predicted crops so he was this accomplished man. he was making clocks. i can go on and on about his accomplishments and he was thomas jefferson insisted that african-americans are intellectually inferior and would never be equal to whites. so as benjamin banneker writes this letter that should be a part of our education because he's basically appealing to him as an american, as a scholar, as

a christian, and he is saying my skin is as black as night, but i am equal. how could you see otherwise? we are equal. ashore, we are integrated in circumstances now and so you don't see us in full flower, but the potential is there -- look at me. he sent him his almanac and so the need for me to help fill in that information deficit because i thank you have a peephole to assume that african americans weren't contributing because is not reflected in what we learn and i know they are just like i know that the but trails i often saw the african-americans in my newsroom were in sharp contrast to what i knew in my own life and so that is the connection.

the love letters but was an attempt to present an underrepresented at passage of african-american life and analyst just a pure and simple -- if these letters have been fairly integrated into the many epistolary collections i had seen it would not be needed for my little volume, but because there was an absence, that erasure, that book was an attempt to end based show this little glimpse of the african-americans have struggled, they have marched and down all of this but they have also loved and i have romantic lives and i have that too. and then this book as i said it is an attempt to at least suggest then death and the breath of african-american life in the words of the people. thank you.

>> hi, and granted in the letters are pertinent was there one that stood out to? >> there were so many that stood out. they become like little children and it's like i like you, no, i like you, but i think the one that so deeply resonated with me was the one that joshua redman by a w.e.b. dubois written in 1914, trying to prepare his 14 year-old daughter for what she would encounter in in this boarding school in britain as an african american parent. all i know that i too have to sometimes prepare my children for the curiosity of race and i just think that that letter speaks to the agents. its still speaks to me now.

>> professor, i hear you talk about the discourse between benjamin banneker and thomas harrison just crystallized for me how important and monumental your work is and so just as a commendation it really overwhelmed me in a way that you could capture all of that history and really the energy of what you described by one letter. i guess my question would be the first did you have any sort of measures for authentication of authenticity to sort of verify and validate the source of where it came from because i know there is literature out there and there is a movement that question ability to even comment to we right were produced this letter so i wonder how you're research soared in bob that and then secondly did you have any mechanisms to sort of validate the town of the letter?

were you able to speak two any of the more modern day officers and have and never relayed to you what really the heart of their message was and how you're able to incorporate that? >> thank you. i had to read a lot for every letter in addition to reading the thousands of letters that i read to breaking down the 200 or more that are included, i had to read and lot of history to entice july as the letter so in terms of the authentication of the letters many of them are in the archives and have been researched and studied, so i did not have to go back and reinvent the wheel. the benjamin banneker letter is well documented, it is just that it is not widely shared. some of a like professor lewis knows about so many of these letters because he spends a lot of his time in archivist. historians know about it, it is just not well integrated into

the telling of american history, so the authentication was not an issue for me because i use many of the authoritative text to have contextualize the letter that exists, but i have heard this question before particularly regarding the letters of slaves. many people say had and they read those letters -- they could not read those letters, and it is true that for some of the letters they were translated be high as they did not have the ability and they found somebody on the plantation who would help them whether it was a kind of mistress or one of the children or another slave who had somehow acquired the ability to write about when you read the letters the question of authenticity, i

think it just flies out the window. when you read and mother writing her son, well, just thinking about it tearing up. mankiw. >> hello, i know your work is ever a bawling and i was just wondering, kind of jumping the gun a little -- >> yes asking what i'm doing next? >> how are you going to represent the black community in history? >> i will tell you, this is one time i have to say i'm a little stump on that question because this is still so new. the book came out two weeks and now and i kind of a lurch from one bogeymen to the next and there are many other events on the calendar i'm happy to say that there is interest in the

work, so i would imagine that for the next year i will still appeal of very closely with this work and anchor that i have a lot of ideas but nothing really tangible yet. another question? >> thanks again, and was a pleasure to be part of this great event tonight and i thank you, joshua for being a part. what a great reader you are. [applause] >> i have a question regarding your journalistic background. and black in america came out with talks about how in the

media increased amount of the information regarding blacks is mostly --, violence and homicide, and attitudes to the stereotypes that americans create involving blacks and he said it is an insane enough like 70 percent of the information you see in the news is entirely negative for blacks. can you talk about that and confirm that -- what are your thoughts on that? >> well, i don't have the precise figure. there have been many studies on this that blacks are routinely portrayed as criminals and entertainers or somehow engaged in half ology. i think that has been found to be two year after year that this year with barack obama's ascendancy, his election, we will automatically see more

positive portrayals of african-american males that is a biggie to see every day an african-american in a positive way is something that is still in different and i think it is new for all americans black and white. every year in and teach a class, i, so called because minorities even in the majority, but that class even at my students do a content analysis of a publication over a time because rather than be forced ahead and tell them that the media does xy or zi would rather than tell me what they found in their own content analysis and every year i am hoping that a student will prove me wrong. i'm hoping that will show african-americans portrayed in in the wondrous variety of ways

in which the action les miserables. i hope that they will show the representation of african americans outside the realm of pat ecology. i hope that that will be a more common for trail. in 1968 president johnson or 1967 actually empaneled a commission to look at race in the united states and one of their charges was to look at the media and the role that it may have played that have a grip this country during the 1960's and what that panel found is that the media report from the standpoint of a white man's world they treat the negro as it the is a mere nine and intends pta meetings in. and was the stain critique of that media and one of the other

findings was that african-americans were sorely and represented in the media. if we flash forward 40 years since the kerner report african americans and other people of color are still sorely under represented in the mainstream media this by many efforts to integrate them and we still have a problem with the trails which we are all a little hopeful right now that some of that will change. for the better. >> i don't have a question but i do have a statement and out like to make publicly. >> don't make me cry. [laughter] >> i am so proud of you, bamela. [laughter] [applause]

make you, -- make you cry, make me cry. when i look back at you as a little girl, but i have to say this publicly to you. the uncovering that this covering of the greatness of our people comes to be acknowledged by anyone is just fabulous, but for me to particularly the for it to, from my niece, i applaud you, i love you and keep on. [applause] >> thank you. >> are there any other questions that won't make right? one more and while the microphone is going to him out like to knowledge of the

presence professor derek bell. [applause] who also was one of the wonderful people who early on in this project contributed to some a few letters and fax. i went to the nyu library where there can so graciously given his papers and he has the most amazing collection of letters. i have looked at many collections and his is one of the most thorough and it is some purely tracing the civil-rights movement. there is a letter in the book that. wrote to thurgood how marshall which he begins, dear boss', and because he worked with verne and marshall. he helped them in the efforts to desegregate public schools throughout the south so he has a letter that he wrote saying dear boss' writing to tell you that

you are now working at harvard university and that was 1969. anyway derrick became the first tenured african-american law professor at harvard university. and then that wasn't enough. then i also have a letter that. wrote to the dean of harvard university in 1990 which outlined his protest against the university for its failure to hire women and people of color so what an arc he is such an activist, and man of great humanity and in has been a blessing for me to learn it from him and be his friend and his colleague. we are lucky to have him here at

nyu as we are two have david levering lewis. >> that was a fantastic plane, i was very moved by the stories and i want to know 100 years from now when we do to preserve this impact? what will people be referring to -- is that writing letters, dying -- what we do to preserve it? >> i think the most important thing we can do is to reserve the letters are many in our midst. so many people who i reached out to told me about these incredible letters they had a. i spoke to adam clayton powell's first wife who recently passed away but had an hour-long conversation and she tell me about these amazing letters that they wrote to each other every day what she was in new york and was sent to europe to study. she was a showgirl and they rode every single day.

i said if she had me so excited i could not wait to see the letters and by the end of the conversation when we got a divorce i burned those letters. [laughter] so these important historical relics have a way of getting away from us and i think it takes a lot to step outside of ourselves and to see them as more of it as i say our personal possessions but to see them as a born historical documents because that is what they are, that is what historians like david levering lewis used to help stitch together the history of a person, of a country, and i ain't think the african-american because of our turbulent history in this country don't fully have a sense of these letters as

historical and documents they are because they were undervalued and many were even collecting them and on in recent times has there been even in interest in any of these letters. on not just the letters of the high and mighty but the letters of the common person because it is all a part of the story. so i think the most important thing you can do is to save you're own letters to make sure that the letters of your grandparents, great grandparents if you are lucky to have them that they are properly preserved and that if you have a really important collection for instance if you know of anyone who has a nice collection of vietnam war letters they are almost impossible to find a especially from african-americans. more letters after world war ii are almost impossible to find and so i'm not going to tell you

to start writing letters. i would say make sure the letters that have already been written are preserved. thank you so much. [applause] >> pamela newkirk is an associate journalism professor at new york university, the author of within the veil which won the national press club or for media criticism and editor of "a love no less". for more information visit journalism did and why you.edu. >> we are at the 2009 book expo convention in new york city and the both of plumes perry and walker books, the family of books and i'm here with peter miller. what do you have coming out this fall? >> the most ambitious an exciting book is the one over my

shoulder, it is a graphic novel. we don't normally published these but we decided because it is in a store called biography of the purchase of russell and it is an interesting idea and the two people behind it are mathematicians and computer science experts and so they decided to approach to the idea of of the foundation of mathematics in the life of bertrand russell as told in comic-book form because the big indiana of what russell was pursuing was actually as heroic in his life and death as anything you find in a super hero tail and so it is a book that has been getting a lot of attention before the convention and a lot here getting a lot of of the galley. everybody seems to be excited to embrace this medium for that particular subject. >> what else is coming out?

>> the other interesting work of nonfiction in the fall is in this book called the age of copper two, she is a scholar, it takes a look at the time in the late 17th century when public life became sort of interior rightist and this place like ursine which is lewd the 14th grade creation was not built for comfort but for enormous blunder and public events and grander, but these are not private spaces and all. this was all meant to be lived in the open. after lewis the 14 died and his son takes over, there is a movement because new technologies are coming in in domestic life is changing, that suddenly things are starting to be designed around the idea of comfort. everything starts to get turned into a sort of secondary private

area and this is a perfect metaphor because it is retrofitted by louis the 15th and his mistresses and of the women in his court who create two worlds, the world of the public sees in the world behind. things introduced such as this over and a flush toilet. the private bedroom. in 17 with that -- suddenly with that comes the idea of having a private life so this is an import order of scholarship and that tells it completely new way -- not just a book about design but an important moment in european history of. >> the tenth anniversary of bloomsbury usa and bloomsbury books was originally based in the u.k., was the decision to start in the u.s.? >> i think at that point they were growing segment enemy in the u.k. and fell like they needed an american printing and

we didn't want to just sell the rights to a lot of their books to publishers in the u.s. and the u.s. is one of the largest markets in the world for book publishing so they were taking that next down. there were a publisher of harry potter in the uk so they took that opportunity and established a foothold here. in a small way 10 years ago and now it has grown considerably and george tipson who is the publisher can talk about how it has expanded in those 10 years and all the different divisions and now encompasses. >> also john yes, publisher of bloomsbury press, what is the difference between an bloomsbury press and bloomsbury usa? >> bloomsbury press is a small and thin and that is devoted entirely to serious nonfiction, we have a lot of history, politics, biography and turn of events, economics and that kind of thing. so it is much less general and focused than the bloomsbury list which is a general audience.

>> peter, what is coming out this fall? >> one i am excited about is half moon. henry hudson and the voyage that redrew the map of the world, september is the 400th anniversary of hudson's discovery of the river in new york harbor and that was an adventure that you're really changed the course of history in north america. it was a very daring voyage during the first one being that he was supposed to be going in the other direction. commission to sell to china over the northern coast of russia and he sort of took a left turn and came to north america instead of which led him to his discoveries here and exploration of the river. in the author is a terrific writer and research and a sailor so he has done his own forensic navigation and redrawn the map to plot hanson's lawyer and to give us new insights into what that trip was really about.

>> finally we are joined by george tipson, publisher of the walker books celebrating its 50th anniversary. who is the founder of walker books? >> is a division of bloomsbury usa fountain in 1959 by sam and beth walker, completely independent company and in 2005 when we were acquired by bloomsbury so we are a division along with bloomsbury press and the main division, we are one of them. >> how long have you been with walker books? >> i have been with walker since 93 as the publisher of walker and then begin the publishing director of bloomsbury usa last summer so that is a much more recent development but i've been involved with walker for the past, what is it now, 15 years. >> so what books are you excited about this fall? >> a couple of walker books -- a book called an artist in treason by andrew