keep your eye on the prize, hold on, hold on. >> guest: yeah. this comes from an old gospel song. it speaks of the black struggle over the years. and the notion that people have voice -- i mean, to me so much of the books i've written i draw on the idea that individuals really stand up and make a difference. against great odds. when all good sense would s when all good sense would say you don't have a chance, who are you have any money or any political position, you have any connection and yet those people somehow stand up and transform a society in the case of the civil rights movement and accomplish the greatest social movement the country has ever seemed to me this is astounding american history, it's reaffirming of america in terms of its values and ideals and the power of the constitution feared that to me

is the greatest joy for any writer and journalist and that's the story and try to tell in my books. >> host: we talked about the books you have written. what is next? >> guest: and house -- i am fascinated with malcolm x and wondering if it is time to look again at malcolm x and also given the tremendous diversity of the american population today i'm interested in the founding fathers of this new america. we have seen books about the accounting bothers of america as it emerged in 1700's. i think this time again is to look at a founding fathers of this new america and one represents to the world. >> host: dui d.c. to read about these issues or is it a challenge? >> guest: writing is the greatest intellectual exercise. my -- trained a boxer's nose around people the exercise and had to show tremendous courage on their side, but remained engaging in a buck and the ideas getting those ideas to be real

on the page so others can understand that and engage them to me it is my maximum energy and a maximum game. >> host: we have spent three hours with juan williams, thanks for joining us on booktv. >> guest: thank you, for having me. i appreciate it.

journalist and author nicholas basbanes has written seven books about the culture, but people and places. his first work "a gentle madness" published in 1995 this had a 20 printings during his most recent books are "every book its reader" en "a world of letters". yale university press 1980 to 2008. booktv visited the north massachusetts home of nicholas basbanes to tour his vast collection of books and to learn about his writing habits. he is currently writing a book on the history of paper. >> hi, come on in. welcome to the of this. >> things are allowing us into

your,. >> they give for having the courage and fortitude to come and take a look at some of our books here. >> i understand have books and almost every room in the house. >> , no, in every room of the house, we're surrounded by books, we are engulfed by them and surrounded by them and very much a part of our life. >> where should we start? >> we just came in and i guess we could start with the books over the fireplace here because my very first book that i wrote speedwell was a book -- ostensibly about the passion to collect books over 2,000 years or so the books i got me started as a writer of books and my own collection and so if you to look at these books and it is a small selection of this particular subset of books and to look at

them you'd say one in the world did they have in common. there is a book up there by david halberstam and a book by isaac asimov and a book by chuck yeager, a couple of books down here by tom wolfe in david mccullough and sue miller the novelist from boston and i could go on and on. but if i ever to open one of these books and to take one i random here, let's say the tom wolfe and and there are a number of them, but this is a bonfire of the vanities, a great novel of the 1980's and if you open you see that it is inscribed. it is great to see you again, i had to read some of his one of the handwriting. talking about my writing style, tom wolfe, november 2nd, 1987, boston. every one of these books is inscribed by the author. and break a number of years, 22 years, in fact,, i wrote a

weekly literary feature which first was in a worcester, massachusetts not former island in north grafton, massachusetts but over a time syndicated as many as 30 newspapers nationwide and from the very beginning of this procedure i used to go out into these interviews in boston or new york or wherever the office would be an all is without exception of the end of the interview out ask the author to inspire my copy of their book so this was shaped and formed. and as i say these are some of the high squads. there is no way you could put them in this little mantel. i think there are a thousand in excess of a thousand of these copies and i became kind of the incentive brimming to begin researching a book that became a gentle madness, my first book which was published in 1995 and the subtitle was bibliophiles,

people are maniacal about them and eternal passion for books was about a history and some journalism about 2,000 years of the passion to not only collect books but gather them and pass them on and in the process preserve a portion of our history and our culture and literature so it all starts from these particular books here. but as you'll see we go off into a number of other denarius. will really show you some of the pop-up books. i love pop-up books and shameless the rotates of what they call paper engineering. and these are just recently arrived, recent arrivals. robert is regarded as the king of the pop-up, they have a studio in new york city and there are some of the most

remarkable pop-up books will find anywhere in the world. it has become quite a collectible and i would send i just love them. i love everything about them, and increase at the kid out in the soviet. the dexterity, the work that goes into them, the imagination. look at that -- this is fabulous these are all together were a piece i'll be writing, an annual survey of what is new and pop-up books. i would say there are perhaps 300 or so give or take pop-up books for outhouse. i'm writing a book about paper and i will talk later about that but what i find very interesting about this is it is handpainted and this is a book that is done entirely, the page has no printing on a but it is all cork. and when i saw that ice and i have to have that, and lovely

painting on there. it is greek actually. i am not sure. here is in the case of an instance of a bookcase, they are kind of dedicated i guess to subject areas. what you see here are all of the releases of the library of america which is now 26 years old and i guess it is 130 or so books that are double shelf year so actually the library of america's down below. they are back after as we used to say in an aviary so these are all library books, it is one of their most remarkable publishing programs in the history of the united states. absolutely wonderful. authoritative editions, what constitutes the canon of american literature and i find them so useful all the time. i never know what i'm going to need something by abraham lincoln or henry james or

longfellow. and did a piece on long bill last year for the smithsonian magazine, quoted some abraham lincoln letters and a little piece i wrote about abraham lincoln's reading. they are marvelous books and the other books in his bookcase are largely but not entirely analysts say most elite literary biography books about authors, primarily books in their work in dallas say however many there are year, there are a couple hundred, there are at least three times as many additional volumes about other writers and various sections of the house. so here we are in the library, and guests were one of another name. i do some of my riding up here. there is a computer.

e-mail and whenever. i was a i write a book reviews, pt james which i'm reading for the los angeles times. i am a great p. d. james fan. what i am not reading from my book every for entertainment and pleasure. as you can see i did our these things but am just trying to write but this little shell right here, this is the nicholas basbanes shelf with an exception of a few over here with a few spaces but there is "a gentle madness" a paperback, "a gentle madness" hard cover. this is, this weighs about 6 pounds but that is the three in addition of with "a gentle madness". and there is a chinese edition of of the works -- my second book is 10 copies at of that and that looks like little ego

serving back there and those have a purpose, there were a different conditions of "a gentle madness" and when you say editions because sometimes if you have a a subtle change and actually had to go into the text and make a change in a correction and put something in the southern great distinct additions of "a gentle madness" appear in a song had one of all the feedback fair in each of them had to copy some of the two editions. i think it went from "among the gently mad" why do i have rhineland's book knows here because he had a vice -- a very nice interview with me after "a gentle madness" came out in 1996. this was his first volume and i am so thrilled that when he

decided to put various writers in different categories he put me under storytellers which is kind of cool. i like that. >> on the cover of this book you have a would cut. what is that? >> it is, in fact, it would cut come a very famous one in this 500 years old executed, it is called the book of will and it was then the original ship of fools. and the first pool of a whole navy, the fool at the home and i have always loved that particular engraving and it shows the dust jacket given someone buys this book which sells for $35, which you pay full price, which you get? >> they get a book i hope that they will keep and enjoy and pass on to others and i think

they will have a passion for not only collecting books but preserving knowledge over 2500 years. >> were you get the idea for doing this? >> and ask if i'm a bibliomania myself in that mine stock answer is i'm on the cusp of one review of my book recently suggests nicholas basbanes may not be a bibliomania but he is at risk. i have been committed to books all my life and am a professional writer and journalist and knows a book review editor in massachusetts for 13 years. i have interviewed many many authors and i have just always loved books, read them just a natural kind of a thing to want to read about this passion. >> that interview with c-span it really didn't so much to help this book takeoff from the very first printing of that book was with the 800 copies. it really wasn't expected to sell a lot, but is sold out

within two days and by the end of the month we were in our third printing in the last i heard buber well over 27 days and 120 vs thousand copies was not bad enough. i love this book because it's the kind and never thought anyone would ever want to publish. why someone clinton think that my literary journalism over the 20 years and i've been writing and math books and literature in doing criticisms but this particular volume covers 20 years of my literary journalism of various newspapers and magazines in "the new york times" and los angeles times, the washington post, smithsonian, whenever. it's kind of fun and i ended it and spent a lot of time brigid up to date. this is my very latest book just published, i'm very proud of this. i was approached and

commissioned to write a centennial history of the yale university press and i really enjoy doing this because and i say it kind of tongue-in-cheek but one of the actors that and try to me to doing it is that i that everybody has such low expectations on the service. you think that the history of a university press over 100 years would be very boring and tedious but they've had a very thrilling likely exciting history at yale in my view an outstanding university press in the united states and it was a lot of fun. i think a very worthwhile book because we are in a time in the early years of the 24 century when the whole future of scholarly publishing has really been discussed. 85 percent of the university presses in north america operate year after year in the red in. yale and operates in the black. how did they do it? that was part of the focus of what i did so i really believe that every book in this house

even if i haven't read it and have owned for 25 years in the may not have ready yet but i pretty much know what i have here and i know where it is and how i get my hands on it. i might not always be able to do it right away but i knew you were coming over to the end and i thought as better take a look at what's behind these shells so i've gone over here and here is her body of secrets by james. i have been looking for this book for two weeks in an it was an out front here, it was back there and know so thrilled if i tell went to the boston library and i burma this and said i can't afford any longer. i know i have here but instead of wasting time looking for it and will bar with and then i was preparing myself for your arrival i found it. this is a book about the national security agency and this book i'm writing about paper and paper making which we will talk about later if you

like, we have a little rough on the nsa and the cia last year. i went down to the national security agency and it took me four months to get clearance and approval to go in there and they send one in the world do you want to go to the national security agency for if you're writing about papermaking. the nsa has this huge enormous unbelievable paper pulp and plant. this is pulled, they gave me a bag of a process to highly classified in, it is still more is coming off a committee and they gave me this medal of the national security agency which i took back and we never have and never will, national security agency so i can put that, as a memento. but this is pulp, highly classified documents which once

rd plus and they do i don't know how many hundreds of pounds a day of this, but then when it is complete and they sell it to wire house-senate which in turn in makes pizza boxes and bathroom tissue i am told so you never know what kind of a product you are using. >> here is what you call your library. >> for want of a more discreet word. >> in you have told me that these books are all double shelled. so my question is how you know, double shelf means there are books behind the books but how you know what is behind the books in the front? >> well, this library has been here for 20 years and i don't know it is particularly related but someone once asked charles lamb who had a lot of many books in his library early 19th

century books in uniform binding. how can you tell one from the other in use and has a shipper and of the sheep and i kind of know where all my sheep are. especially like of people down the stack of books here and put this up and we kind of real my little collection of tennessee williams. i love tennessee williams, a lung trauma. i love to collect material written to the stage but as it appears on the page so this is a really wonderful first edition of the glass menagerie. collectors will tell you this is just a marvelous -- look at the clock on this. in this is a superb copy of this book and first edition. it is arguably his best novel, best play. outstanding tennessee williams and you go here and you'll see

that absolutely is the press printing right there. that is a pretty nice copy of this book but equally as scarce is a streetcar named desire. it's very common for this particular title, the sun on this binder. in the sun has set this paper in this paper is rated a little bit on this binding so whoever owns this before me have it before the sun and a kind of faded, but most copies of this are much more than that. i think anyone -- any bookseller will tell you this is an outstanding copy and far better than most and it's really a very good copy and wonderful condition. the designer, a famous book jacket designer. this is all tennessee williams' back here. cat on a hat -- cat on a hot tin roof. the red devil.

i really love reading him, i love his work and we have everything that he did in first edition and one of the reasons this that is behind coverley i started putting the williams behind because mainly to protect the spine of this book. i don't want any son to get on, not much sun coming in any way but it's not about to get any back here. it then we just put these other books up their and they stay nice and safe. >> ms. e the scrapbook here on the table says government exhibit 12 on a. can you tell me about this book? >> what you are looking at are the scrapbooks' maintain the by the notorious book field, stephen blumberg and i will show you a picture of stephen. this is my first book "a gentle madness" and here are some pictures of stephen that i took a hammer when i was out attending his trial in 1991 in des moines, iowa. there he is coming at a dumpster

down below. in the upper left he is in a room he called the california room in his ottumwa, iowa house. stephen was quite an unbelievable extraordinary figure. in addition to having stolen something in the order of 25,000 rare books, conservatively estimated to be worth about $20 million over 20 years coming he had collected in and produce a collection it with a collection and the clinton within the collection it were in these bookplates. these are entered into evidence at his trial. you were wondering how in the world did i get these bookplates -- i got on quite legitimately legally, i pay for them. after he was convicted in hear his defense at that trial by the way it was not guilty by reason of insanity. and they did not buy that and he went to prison. but after he went to prison

would have been the residue of what had been left of the library, they cannot determine were all the books that come from. these books that were left over in a few of the artifacts were donated to bring university in omaha because then help them determine who owns the books and a lot worse sold to the booksellers who acquired his materials and called me and he said if there's any person the world who should have stephen blumberg's place in his nicholas basbanes so here they are. and everywhere he went in the united states abroad slowly, these are not all of the book plays but everywhere he went he would remove, after he took books he would remove the bookplates and then he kept them -- >> a bookplate is a common term were you but for the layperson is a mark of ownership? >> is a label as you can see. some of them are people who collect plates and am sure there

are bookplates collectors who would just go crazy over this. especially given what it is and what represents so here is a bookplate. he went to stanford university, but these are bookplates from books that he stole from stanford and and he put them in in these scrapbooks. and as you can see hanley was a very famous collector who gave the books into a number of institutions in the rest -- university of arizona being one of them ucla. there are two volumes and is really quite remarkable. you go through here and you really appreciate the kind of a cultural felony he committed when you realize and everyone of these plays represents a stolen book how you're actually removing something from society, from the people who will have a need and desire to see these books and use them to amend the

books used ellen, how many have been recovered? >> the roll recover the day he was arrested. as with the chapter is about. it was quite remarkable about stephen blumberg which is what made him very interesting to me as a writer is a that not just that he stole the books. there have been a lot of but thieves and document the use and manuscript fees and matthew is an assembly very worth while to study and writing about, but was of particularly interest about stephen blumberg is that he stole the books to keep them because you love them. he built a collection of these 25,000 books and kept them in this house in ottumwa, iowa. he did this over 20 years. if the day he was arrested, 95 percent of the books that he had stolen were never known to be missing and of the day he was arrested so it became a very interesting story for me. it was to lead a study in

bibliomania, an examination of a book collector who literally falls off the cliff and this is kind of where i read over here -- my reading chair. these are the books i am working with him now. the bottom line is a library book for the work of progress but these are -- i like to read books in tandem. i am not a person who passes are one boat and go through all the way to the end before i start another one. and so this book by simon winchester which i put up at the strand bookstore in new york as you can see is about a great china scholar who i'm writing about in my book about paper. it is joseph neumann and so i'm very interested in in the take on him. this is a book that both my wife and nine are enjoying

simultaneously but this is a remarkable book. this is kevin hayes spoke about thomas jefferson and his reading in the books that shaped his life and health books shape his life. this is a brand new book from yale rating matters, this is a book from a hitler's reading, very interested in this even one of those in my books, the day of the empire in south carolina, supposedly an illiterate but actually it was a remarkable maker of pottery and he would write these messages on the pieces that he made and it's very interesting and learning more about him, these are the books that we are working on. before we go downstairs and like to show you a couple of things just for fun. most of the books, 95 percent of the book's artwork. they represent some aspect of my life with books as a writer

about books and book culture but there are a few things here that become targets of opportunity when you see them and you have to have them and so when i saw this first huckleberry finn, not sure what i paid for in. this is a first edition of huckleberry finn with the tissue. isn't that lovely? mark twain, there is talk over there. and what have we got here? this is a book that made me really transformed me into a book collector. now i have been writing about the books in doing these interviews but i think i really began to develop to acquire an antiquarian sense what i found this book in a garage on martha's vineyard. my wife's parents lived on the vineyard and they had acquired this house with contents and the garage had a whole book is full

of old books and into. so i went out there one day and opened up -- it's not in the best of shape i have to say -- but you know, we have a first printing of arguably one of the three or four great american novels of all time. scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne. you have something very interesting. all the points are here, you don't want to repair this. you want to leave it just the way it is. it's a little loose, but again that's not a bad book to start your book collection with. and then two others i will show you briefly. these also found on cape cod. my wife, god bless her, you have not met her here yet today. but she's always been very supportive of this and river down in the cape fear is gone to be 22 or so years ago, we had two young daughters in the backseat of their little shares.

i only stopped office secondhand bookstores several, connie was out with the girls, and i said you're not going to believe this but they have a, first of all, tom's cabin in there. this is again, totally first and all the points are here. just look at the shape of this, 1852. we could go through a number of the bibliographies and just go point by point. ..

to built by bibliography. so i crossed the bid geographical handle. thomas was the person whocoined the word biblio media. -- after he printed this book in 1817 he destroyed all these cuts. it would be very scarce.

>> your books are in so many places, you have them in the bathtub. >> before we take a right to go downstairs, let's go in here. my wife left the door open. i put these up. this is what would happen to the floors. that is not only double shelf, a couple popped ups. >> is there a certain category that makes it into the bathroom? >> it fits. of necessity, when you have this many books, you shall accordielg

to what is available. you eliminate most of the air. if i go any higher we will have a situation on our hands. we are going down into the abyss. i call the whole house the of this. this is in new england seller. you could say i have converted it. it is what it is. most of my working library down here, and i like to regard this as the book warren. these books over here, what they have in common is they have contributed in one way or another to several of my recent books. i would like to move them someplace else. as you can see, space is a consideration.

these books still are relevant. i remember many ways i don't even know yet. there comes a moment, you want to lay your hands on it, here is. this is the oxford english dictionary. >> to use that frequently? >> a you all the time. the other volumes are down there and back there. there are supplement on a lower shelve. the regional english dictionary down there. the other volumes are back here. i was just writing about identity. that is why it is out here. i like the oxford english dictionary, i don't like the miniaturized books, i don't know how to use it on line.

archives, figuring into the paper book, collections of paper and history. i call this the book warren, it keeps going around. my wife actually put up these guerrilla shelve the. we are in the basement which is very reassuring because there are no issues about the house collapsing which could happen if you had all of this weight on an upper floor. my first book, this file cabinet, this file cabinet, this whole file cabinet, these are transcripts, 250 interviews for that book. these are transcripts of the

interviews. a lot of the archival information, or histories for general madness. this took eight years to right. an awful lot of research. these are my old bylines. various newspaper pieces, bylines. it is hard to get your camera in here, but there is some significance to this. other than a few paperback copies, everyone of the books in here appears in the bibliography of general madness, pretty much all of them, all useful to

general madness. this is one nice place to gather them all together. my first book. more of the same over here. double shelves. i have hundreds of cassette tapes. the forget about all the interviews i did. i have all of those tapes. women's history in terms of literature, very nice books, reference books, books on new york, new york city, history, all sorts of aspects of new york

city, library history, civilizations, archaeology and another lifetime, i think i could happily be an archaeologist. a series of oxford companions, oxford companion of literature, classical dictionary, you can see these, this represents a spot that i went in, it was useful. another one behind. the same applies to over here. this is -- i don't know how many people in america can claim to have a complete line of the book collector. this is the great quarterly, published in the u.k. established by ian fleming in

the 50s. four of the year, double shelve, starting back here. they have been so useful. a wonderful article, essays, articles, reviews. you want to know what is going on in the book world, these books are indispensable. this shelve here really is an assembly point, gathering point for booksf here really is an assembly point, gathering point for books that will have relevance. i pick these up that secondhand bookstores, free-market, online, books that i think will have some relevance to the book on paper. i am having a chapter of paper in the creative process. you have to have the united vinci, a number of books,

engravings, from the sketchbooks of the great artists's drawings. the old television commercial, this is how we make the donuts, this is where i make the donuts. we are in the abatement. upstairs in the library, across the street, a nice view out back, i am living very comfortably, working down here, reminds me of my old days on the aircraft carrier when i had my office on the third deck. i had a certain comfort level in here being amongst my stuff. >> you were telling me about this note booking your office before i started rolling. >> i have been working on a

chapter in this book on paper, a trip i made to china in october and november of 2007. again, really remote villages in the sichuan province, a lot of these papermaking villages, really where the pure water is, and in any case, one of the places we were going to visit, went down a pretty good hill, it was raining like crazy. i had that running as i went down. i fell on my butt, i slipped, you can hear the thing, i had my camera up in the air, my notebook on the right hand side,

i slid all the way down, all you could see was red clay, these are handmade paper samples that i picked up. part of a chapter i am working on now. a typical day is to get down here as early as i can, several cups of coffee, find out what is going on in the world, shortly before 8:00. i like to go over what i did the day before. i try to keep a log, i am an old newspaper man. i can't really work with any kind of -- i hate to say anxiety but i like the little attention, attention is the right word. i get that from the deadline.

i keep a log and feels that i have to produce a thousand publishable words a day. that his subjective judgment, i might write 2,000 words a day but come the next morning i might kill a thousand of those. i like to have a net advance. i come down here and go over what i worked on and pick up what feels right, i know a book is really going nicely when all of the chapters are in place, i write the same way, i like to read the backs of books on my reading chair, or ten mobile, i like to go in on a number of things simultaneously. whatever feels write that particular day, today it feels like china. i am working on china so i take a lot of photographs. the digital camera has become an

essential tool. i have thousands -- i will show them to you later -- thousands of shots, photographs i have taken. the reason i did this, i was doing the call, these photographs, these are pictures that i have shot. this was a lucky casino of st. benedictus. this is in the years before the digital camera became so important to me. all the pictures i took for my books, all piled up of here. with a digital camera you can get a memory card and put 15,

17, 100 images on it. you can carry a laptop with you and download a free night. i shot 3,000 pictures in china. i have got my recordings. this gentleman i am writing about right now, 86-year-old man whose family has been making paper in this village in china, had a place for 600 years, 600 years, his son makes paper. we were there in november and it was totally coincidental, we learned that after 600 or so years, they were closing down the operation. that makes paper by hand commercially. mechanize papermaking, 99.999% of the paper made in the world,

just kind of fun when i am writing about the man and here it is. other than the tour of duty many years ago, the old man is 85 years on earth, defined by the time he spent as a maker of paper in a tiny hamlet not far from china's burma, known today as myanmar. the name of his village, i had to put it in because it is in my notebook, would translate to english as jade spring. the art of translucent minerals for centuries and the pure water that flows from the earth is an essential part of the task ahead. spoke no english at all. he led the way to this extraordinary anachronism in the

heart of the uconn province, a place where paper was made by the success of generations of the same family for 600 years or so in a traditional manner. i will be talking a little bit about this man and his decision to get out of the papermaking business, china is now in the twenty-first century, progress is taking over the country. like a tidal wave. a grandson is not interested in making paper. he was working on the highway. it makes for a nice entry into this segment on china. we are talking about paper, paper was invented in china. it is one of the great inventions the chinese have from antiquity. gun powder, the magnetic compass, printing and paper. >> do you start your first draft

on the computer? >> yes. however, while i was traveling, i take notes. when an idea hits me, some ideas come. >> is that in your notebook? >> it was. >> the idea, we were there for 18 days, two provinces, who knows how many papersmakers, why they choose this in the first place, if it struck me one morning, i didn't adapt to the time change, i would like a very early, filled with ideas. this is where you start. this man, very nice, has been making paper all his life. >> in writing this paper, what

other things are using now? >> technology in china. i can't get a copy of this, a $300 book. i had to justify do want to spend $300 for a book i can get from the library? most of the libraries around here in central massachusetts, none of them that i know of have it. boston has a copy. i borrowed it. i am talking about these papers, the principal fibers that they use in this particular

province of china. the reading is -- all of these books, there are books everywhere, paper behind you, books about paper, these two cabinets, lots of material on a paper related subject. this is a form of handmade paper, really remarkable. look at this paper. look at the fiber. it is made from a plant that is poisonous to insects. it is a very complicated latin phrase. one of the reasons this paper is prized by bureaucracies for recordkeeping is because insects can't damage the paper.

this is a spirit paper than they make. they are for things to your ancestors. this is very high quality, artistic paper. this is bamboo paper. upstairs, there is a whole bunch of japanese-made paper. i spent a week in japan interviewing papermakers. this is handmade paper. i will be opening this when it is time to write a chapter about paper, about japan. i am really excited about this, this is one sheet of paper, i haven't taken it out yet. the person who made this paper is a living national treasure, paper andmaker in japan, i spent the day with this gentleman talking through an interpreter about paper. his approach to paper, the meaning of paper.

his approach to paper, the meaning of paper, gathering these artifacts. you wonder what this is, a piece of cardboard, it opens like that. is a paper hinge. this is how the japanese and chinese and koreans, they use different forms, it is a paper hinge that allowed for the making of screens, the glass window to coming to japan until the nineteenth century. this is very small paper with 35 her. a metal hinge couldn't do this. he gave this to me. it was very decent of him to do that. so. >> you are traveling all over the world. >> basically. >> how are you able to do that?

>> i have a track, a book that has been commissioned, so i have an advance to do that. in addition to that i was recently awarded an endowment for the humanities research fellowship, really allowed me to take this and focus on the research. >> you read a lot of books. >> i transcribed all of my own, nobody does that for me, it is very time-consuming. that is what i do when i am tired. if i am too tired to write, i will transcribe an interview. i think i love having the actual recording because it can be a year since you have done it and talking to these people, you replace it, it is fresh.

it really does come together. and a narrative emerges from a. >> all of these elements, how do you keep track of it? how do you keep it organized? >> in the beginning it was impossible. i lost weeks looking for stuff. i always prided myself running across the passage in a book. wonderful, fabulous, justice denied will know where to find it. it is so frustrating, so upsetting, spend a day looking for something, might have been in another book. i try not to write in books that

have value. if it is important i will write down -- of lot of really nice little refs that really come out of the notebook. all of these books are on paper, they really do, they are broken down, chapters they are working on. it was a waste of time. finally, it took 26 weeks, forever, because such a rush to write, i wasn't taking note of where i was getting the

citations. where did i get this piece of information? if i can't find the citation and the passage comes out. if you pull something out of the book. what it comes time to gather your citations' together, in general madness, a history of collecting it over a thousand year period. i did have the first chapter so

often my first shot. everything i have learned was wonderful. how long have they been working on it? the answer is longer than i should have. just to finish the original thought, i had 250 hours, i never used all of it. i became more efficient as the book went on. the last trade book, i use 95% of everything that i got, that is pretty good. for the paper book, it will go

back to general madness. three or four times, the material of gathering, that is okay. you have to have a critical mass of information and i always felt as a journalist, i need to go -- i need to know ten times as much as i am going to write in the article. i can't know just as much as is going in the article, i need to know ten -- ten times as much. >> one more time, you are busy writing this book now. how long are you going to be busy writing it before publishing it? >> it all depends on how much work. i am proud of the fact that editors don't have to spend a lot of time on my material. should i submit it in june,