>> one thing that i have always wanted to read that happen, i have a list of books i want to read. there are different periodicals because they allow me to read those books. that was spencer's the fairy queen. he loved it. i read it at the wrong age. the book i would like to read is one of the late -- great classics of literature, not quite as sexy, i love the tail of ganges from the same period, the great japanese classic, early novel. exploring other literatures than the western is something that interests me. the story of the stone, dream of

the red chamber, all these chinese/japanese/indian classics, a lot of them tend to be spiritual books. something i have read off and on. keep exploring, keep trying new books. we also come to a time when you want to go back and read books. i was a kid and i read an occur retina, 8919. what did i know about marriage or infidelity? these are things you only experience as you grow older. you have gone through a certain amount of living, you can go back and read these books and see much that you didn't the

first time through. some people said you can't understand henry james in to you are past 40 because his books are all about regrets. things i should have done and didn't do, feelings that assail us as we get older and older and we know our time is running out. >> the book is "classics for pleasure," the authors michael dirda. >> thank you. >> at the virginia festival of the book, book tv sat down with ariel sabar to discuss "my father's paradise: a son's search for his jewish past in kurdish raq". this is 10 minutes. >> ariel sabar, are the jews in iraq? >> as of last count, there are all of eight. the new york times did a story last year saying there aren't

even enough to hold a religious service. the remarkable thing is iraq used to have the largest jewish population in the middle east, 135,000 strong. now they are down to their last seven or eight. >> where were they? >> all over iraq. largest concentration was in baghdad. this was a striking figure what i can across it but after world war i or world war ii, 1 third of baghdad's population was jewish. much of the population lived around baghdad and this was the area we think of as babylon. there was another, far less known community of jews who lived up north in the mountain kurdish region. that is where my father family is from. >> your book is called "my father's paradise: a son's search for his jewish past in kurdish iraq". where exactly are your roots?

what did your family do in kurdish iraq? >> my father grew up in a town which is five miles south of the turkish border. is very far north. the jews in iraq live pretty hard lives and have unusual jobs. they were not primarily merchants and shopkeepers but we farmers and river rafters and black markets smugglers. these were tough jews. my grandfather started out as one of them. he wrote a donkrode a donkey to and made blankets. >> what was your father's life? >> my father was the oldest male in the family. my grandmother had 12 pregnancies, six of her children

survived childbirth. the eldest male live the strange life, he believed in angels and demons, he swam in the river, the same river mentioned in the bible, this is a biblical land. he only sort of knows it as a child. one of my favorite images he shared with me when i was writing this book is he could cross the entire town by leaping across its rooftops. he knew where the flat roof tops came close enough for a little boy to play hopscotch from one to the next eddie had this aerial view of the town, not very high, he could look down, very much a carefree life. but he left kurdish iraq as part of the mass exodus of jews from iraq in the early 1950s. 1 hundred twenty thousand jews including the kurdish jews leaving iraq as part of what was then one of the largest peacetime airlift's in history. they got on these planes, a

bogus airline, their figurehead was the man who ran alaska airlines agreed to be their figurehead. basically an israeli operation to evacuate the largest jewish population in the middle east to israel just after its founding. >> why? >> this is one of the tragedies, one of the things that moved me about this book. iraq was a place where for a long time jews did very well. even in the 1940s you had jews in the iraqi parliament, you had a jew in the iraqi cabinet, a jew on a high court of appeals and all of a sudden everything falls apart. you look for returning point, the founding of the state of israel, iraq is one of the arab countries that goes to war after israel declares independence. once iraqis start coming home in boxes, jews and muslims who had lived together as neighbors, as friends, as business partners for all those years, can't locate each other quite the same

way. the place had been very hospitable to jews for very long, nearly 3,000 years. babylon was ready talmud was written, the great bulk of jewish laws. suddenly is a place where jewish life is no longer comfortable. >> was the reception in israel? >> it is interesting. israel was an experiment. thousands of people converging on this ancient homeland, jews coming from every corner of the world. once they got there, they were not all treated the same. israel was largely founded by europeans, early leadership was largely european. the europeans went through the horrors of the holocaust and had a well-deserved status in israel. jews who came from muslim lands didn't quite get the same reception. they were regarded as savages, hillbillies, primitive caught and moreover, they came from

countries that were now sworn enemies of israel so they retained by that affiliation and unfairly, sometimes. >> your father got to the states, how did that happen and what was your life like? >> my father when he got to israel didn't have an easy life. he had to work during the day at a factory to support his family. but he went to high school at night. he went to a hebrew university in jerusalem, and because he cares so deeply about his native language, for folks who only know it from mel gibson's movie, the ancient language of jesus, the jews and christians who lived in the kurdish part of iraq were so isolated, they still spoke aramaic. it was a miracle that aramaic survive that long, he cared so passionately about it, yale university offered him a full graduate scholarship to more formally document his mother, because this language was only city by outsiders, a language people knew from the inside

because most scholars had written it off as dead. my father gets a scholarship to yale and a teaching job where he still teaches to this day. i grew up -- wanted nothing to do with this funny looking dad growing up and trying to be cool in 1980s los angeles. >> when did that change for you? >> i hope it doesn't sound too tried, it is very sincere, the birth of my own son in december of 2002. i was reporting as a reporter at the baltimore sun, newspaper journalist, trying to be the guy, i saw my dad, never was in ventures, risk-taking, then you have your own son and you begin to ask yourself questions about your own relationship with your own dad and i began to wonder whether there was anything i could do, it might be too late, or maybe not, to make amends for

the bratty kid i was. >> what did you discover about your father's paradise? >> i began to understand little bit why he had such a strong attachment to this faraway place, a place most people had never heard of and why he still dreams about it. even in los angeles at some food court in the mall, he didn't look at the palm trees, then he said to me i feel like i am sitting here drinking my tea and reading my books, i feel like i am -- that sounded as are the first time i heard it but one of the things i understood is he was taken away from this childhood paradise at the very moment that jewish law made him a man. he is believed to be the last bar mitzvah before 3,000 years in jewish history went out the door. he was never able to see his

homeland other than through a child's buys. that left a deep and profound impression on him that he would never forget. maybe he is sentimental about it but i finally understand that. that was one of the things i would not have gotten if i had left my job to write this book. >> when people sees this in the bookstores they will see it as a little sticker because you won the 2008 national book critics's circle award for autobiography. >> i hope so. i am still in a state of disbelief but it was a wonderful honor and i am grateful to the book critics for plugging it out, there are a lot of fine autobiographies. >> what will that mean for you? >> this is a group of people who are so obscure. the jews, most people are shocked, even well-educated people, there were jews in iraq? how can that be? this is a place full of hatred

towards israel, that is not so. the kurdish people were a model of how you could speak your own language, you could believe in your own god but the part of a larger community and those are values that are much broader, that people do need to hear, that this isn't just a story about those people but about immigration, identity, what it means when you leave an ancient culture and moved to israel and to the united states. the highest aspiration is this is an american story about immigration and identity and what it means to leave the past behind, what can you take with you, what do you have to leave behind? >> the book is my father's paradise, the author is ariel sabar. >> thank you very much. >> we continue with programs from the 2009 virginia festival of the book in charlottes ville,

with a panel discussion on the civil war. it features david low, the author of meade's army, and peter cozzins, author of shenandoah 1862, stonewall jackson's valley campaign. this took place at the university of virginia bookstore. it is an hour. >> we are really fortunate today because we have two really special books and two wonderful authors. david lowe is the author of need's army and he is a historian for the national park service in the district of columbia and virginia and also authored several sites in the shenandoah valley of virginia and civil war in loudon county. the book he has got has got some special features to it that have some personal interest to me because he discovered these journals that were tucked away, historians had seen them just

briefly, they hadn't done anything with them. david low, i am sorry, david is going to present that. peter cozzins is the author of shenandoah, 1862, stonewall jackson's valley campaign. this is probably the most comprehensive work on this subject, as jackson was given the shore of fighting in the valley to draw away some of the union troops from the richmond campaign. what we are going to do, the format is going to be david will present meade's army and peter will present shenandoah 1862. each will have 15 minutes to discuss their work. and then we will have questions and answers, just some little housekeeping, these little sheets are for you to fill out. you should have them. before you leave this session you should do that. you be