finally, he was adopted by the childless american couple, neither young nor rich, just big hearted. and less than two years after landing in new york, he was enrolled as undergraduate in columbia university. the story i first time i heard it, it instruct the remarkable features by its dramas. among others, it opened up for me to wonder having heard what they felt or any way i hoped that i were again to look at enormous faces in the way. the faces with people with foreign accents in places like new york, janitors, motel maids, young men delivering groceries.

who are they, really, what memories and dreams. what abilities they may never get to use. what drew me to the story, first of all, what made me think i might want to try to write about this was something rather small. telling me about his time of homeless ness. he mentioned before he headed for bed in central park he'd look all around to make sure that no strangers were watching. because anyone who saw him entering the park at that late hour would guess that he was homeless. when he told me this, i thought of my daughter. who once years ago when she was a young teenager on the trip to new york. she started across the busy street. my wife yelled at her. in cold furry, my daughter said thanks a lot mom, for ruining my reputation in new york city.

i knew the story was true. more than that, i recognized his feelings, and not just in my daughter. i could imagine myself in his place. not fearing the eyes of strangers, fearing not the darkness of the park or what might happen to me if i surrendered myself to sleep there. but the destain or pity of strangers who would never be anything but strangers. feeling this, i thought i could find a way into his story if he decided he would let me tell it. as he did. somehow it seems important to say that i don't deserve that compliment. others do, others that have the

grossly inequitable distribution like civil wars and genocide aren't accidents with histories that can be unearthed. these writers focused their books on large group of people. they may cause individuals, but as a rule they do this in order to illustrate points that they want to make about what seems more important to them. which is the fate of populations. i respect the motives that often lie behind that kind of writing. i've learned from people who write theoretically. i'm forever in their debt. but i have a hard time bending my mind around generalizations. often, all i can think about are the exceptions. to me, the sheer scale of big subjects like genocide and war and epidemic disease make them presencable through any single approach.

i don't think one could claim to understand or begin to understand like the great depression only by reading about a fiction corral family's experiences like in the grapes of wrath. i don't think i could have an experience of what the holocaust was just reading about one life. stories can be a window on the enormity and enormousness. a means far from william blake to see the world in a grain of sand. we're born responding to stories, i think. one way we pass the information on from generation to generation is the best stories are living monuments to memories that have to be preserved. they don't need justification. by training, my mother used to

read my dickens, i understand the world best through stories. and probably -- because the engine of any story is human character. spent most of my years as a writer looking first of all not for subjects but for characters. a small town cop whom i first met because i was speeding. my wife got pulled over for the same reason. he didn't give her a ticket. i soon discovered that he didn't usually give women tickets because he didn't like to see women cry. it was a pair of old men who were spending their time in that eternal doing something interesting not playing bingo

but making friends. the team of engineers who were trying to build a new machine against their company's interest. i remember my interest quickened when one the team took me aside and began to tell me stories about the wars. he used all the martial language. they talking about people who shot from the hip and said there was blood on the store. as near as i could tell, he was talking about the creations of plastic boxes. i set out to find an elementary school teachers. once i found her in a grubby school, what i set out to do was to tell the story of a year inside her classroom. that story happened to reveal some general youths about the problems in education in america, so much the better. but it would have been impossible, at least for me to generalize the teacher and her

class with them so vividly alive in front of me. i once wrote a box about the building of a house. an idea that i got having been my own competent and nearly suicidal carpenter for a time. what fascinated me once i got into that project were the carpenters and the homeowners and the architect and relations among them. my book mountains upon mountains began when i ran into paul by accident in haiti. my new book became in much the same way when i met dale. i was interested in the issues not interested the men but the outlines of their lives which seemed eminently suited to story telling. i probably shouldn't admit this. but what i aspire to -- aspire

to, is art. art has the great power to transform the experience of suffering and injustice into something beautiful. and i think others have said this of course, that art is created with a certain obliviousness to commerce and didacticism. the great story teller once said, and i think i have this right. if you have telling a story about time, the one word forbid season the word time. when you talk about the book that you've written, you're expected to responsibly say what it's about. yet, when it comes to this book of mine, i don't feel entirely confident about any of my answers. i do know it's not about africa, conceived by so many of us americans as one vast country. i know i didn't want to make burundi seem exotic. i wanted to make it presencable. we hear about distance

countries, and we imagine that murder and mayhem define those. i wanted, in the back of my mind, i hoped that the story would humanize our view. it would also open up a part of new york that's designed to be invisible, the service entrance that people make in the park. certainly, this book has to do with war, genocide, and with courage, endurance, the generosities of strangers, and memory. but we already no the basic truths about those subjects that war and genocide are deplorable, that human beings are capable of resilience, charity happens. what i wanted without ever telling myself this exactly was to allow readers to experience those facts, not as truisms, but as we experience them in our own lives. to experience them through

dayo. they make the word new again. i think the story tellers central job is to catch the reflection of individual human beings each by definition, unique on the page. but the richest knavetives always have something in addition. if you are drawn, first of all, into the characters. you'll also drawn, of course, to try to understand the world that they inhabit, especially the subjects that preoccupy them. and in dayo's case the main subject were and are public health and medicine and the state of his country after 13 years of civil war. his story has a story that amazes me. when i first began following him around he had permanent residency. he was soon to become an american citizen. even know patients who can't pay their bills are detained in

burundi in the hospitals where they landed. and prison would food or care. but mainly because of those ills, dayo returned continually and amid the post war with the help of his lee sequence of american friends. building and stamping in clinic in a desperately poor country was easy. the clinic was a pile of rocks when i is visited with it dayo. by the fall of 2008, it was providing food to hungry and clean area. it was also a medical center

that treated 28,000 different patients in the first year, most of them for free. it was -- from still is nothing like this operation elsewhere in burundi. people come there for help all over the country. some people come on week-long treks from other countries too. and some visitors have come not for medical help, but only to look at the clinicking. one traveler was asked why he e had come, the traveler said to see america. when i heard president obama's speech in ghana, i thought a little differently. as you recall, he imagined a new partnership between the united states and africa. one that would be grounded in mutual responsibility. village health works seem to me one small example. a model of african and american

cooperation. obama's lofty vision embodied in instrument of peace. burundi is a country that was torn apart by two different groups of people. differents that were exaggerated. dayo has inspired an anecdote for the beginning -- or the beginning of a potential anecdote which is common vulnerability to illness and injury and our common hope for life. personally, i find this enterprise of his very moving. in part because it enjoys tremendous support from its local community. especially from the women of the village who have a large say in its operations. i'll finish by reading you a short passage from near the end of my book.

speaking at a fund razer, he told the story. this past summer, we needed help to make a road. there's a great construction company that builds in burundi, rwanda, and congo. i went to talk to the representative. they estimated a cost of $50,000 u.s. dollars. not to pave, but to widen it. i went back frustrated. wondering how to tell the community the bad news. as i was explaining this to them, one women with the baby said you will not pay a penny for this road. we've with become sick because we are poor. we are not poor because we are lazy. we will work on the road with our own hands. people showed up with with other tools. one the volunteers was a women

who came to work with a sick child. when the friend of mind looked at the baby, we saw the baby was sweating. she said, well, i've already lost three children. i know this one is next. whether i stay at home or come to work here. it's better for me to join others and make any contribution which will help to save someone else's child who is sick but alive. the entire road, six kilometers was rebuilt. the same day the road was finished, the representative of the road company called me to negotiate the price. you can imagine how i felt to get the call. i said to him, thank you so much for your call. but it's already done. he was obviously shocked and said to me, what do you mean? who did it? we are the only road construction company in the entire region. and i said not anymore.

[applause] >> i'd like to show you some photographs from burundi if i may. this was the pile of rocks. this just to give you an idea. this is the operating room in the nearest district hospital. the district hospital nearest the clinic. pretty dreadful. this is a woman with goiter, easily prevented. i think she's been treated since then. terrible. some terrible photos. sorry. this is. i don't know if you can see this. i'm a little blinded. those are burn marks. this boy has a enlarged spleen

from repeated bouts of malaria. it's very painful. what parents have traditionally done in burundi and rwanda, poor parents, was to heat a pipe in the fire and to make burns around the painful spot. dayo's father did that to him once when he had an abscess. it's horrifying form. but all that's available. or has been all that's available to many people. dayo made much of this philosophically. people relieving pain with pain. this is the picture of dayo's picture of a woman detained in the hospital. he bailed her out. then he took her to meet the minister of health. he got her in past the security guard by saying he's the minister's aunt.

the minister will be so glad to see her. but the policy is still -- i think, still in place. i'm not blaming the current government, frankly, but nevermind that. this is the typical hut in the village. you can see the woman who lives there lost four of our children to stupid illnesses. you know? things that can be easily prevented and treated. here is the kids of the village being told once, yet again that there was going to be a clinic. they were always ready to party. and here just in case you thought this was madeup story. here they are going to work on the road. and the women who was working on the road. and more working on the road. they got a little carried away here. there we go.

this is the beginnings of the clinic. here are the kids. helping pitch in. this is the 50,000 litter water tank with its own internal filtration made in germany that is now supplying clean water to almost the entire village and to part of the bigger village downhill. this is the piece of the clinic. but it's much bigger now. getting bigger now. as we speak, they are building what will be the first and -- the first maternity clinic in all of burundi. >> that was a picture for some reason that came out of the production and demonstration -- various local people have created.

both to feed the malnourished and also to try to improve local al choral practices. this is the first electricity ever in this village. the money came from a generous american. nay are made by the nonprofit organization that has 10 kilowatts of power. this is a training of community health workers. that's the farmest wife actually back to us. just the typical cue in the morning outside of the clinic. the pharmacy, the lab technician, these are all pictures of dayos. there's the farmer treating a patient to the clinic that has been transported to the capitol, a little boy with tuberculosis.

this is the burundian doctor was in charge. a fine doctor. this little boy was abandoned child. someone working at the clinic found him and brought him back there. i'm not current on this now. for a time he was certainly a ward of the place. but he is severely malnourished. you can see the picture afterwards. all they did was feed him, mostly. isn't he cute? this is a picture from the clinic. and that's another one of my pictures in here. here are the children. here's the pitch. thank you all very much. i'd be glad to answer questions if there's time. if you have any. thank you. [applause]

>> what's the population? >> the population -- no one is sure. something around 7 to 8 million. maybe more. roughly the same size at haiti and rwanda. [inaudible question] >> the mariners are working in -- partners are working in burundi. he has been of lending support to his project. he has been there many times. partners in health has given them assistance. yes? >> hi, my name is stephanie, i go to miami college. i mapped to read "mountains beyond mountains" over the

summer. it inspired my cause. we did an event for haiti. i'd like to say thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> but i wanted to say because i want to be documenttarian. i'm sorry, i'm getting choked up. your book serves as a literary work of document. it's basically a documentary in writing. even his travels in miami and france. one the things that really stuck out to me, and would really help me pitch like we did bake sales. no, i'm on a diet. i remember something that you wrote in your book saying, you know, we have the luxury to say we're on a diet. you know, when there's people who can't even eat. sorry. and i just wanted to ask like

how did you get to follow paul? >> i met him, i was doing an article for the "newnew yorker" magazine about american soldiers. i ran into him. i got interested in him. although six years past, i kept vague track of him for six years. it's odd that i didn't pursue him write away. he was so clearly interesting. i think the reason was haiti. i was shocked by haiti. and i think when i came back, i was -- i tried -- a spent a lot of time and energy trying to reconcile the fact that haiti was my own privilege to american life. trying to hang on to my conviction that i had earned all of my privileges. the problem like that, it it falls apart the minute you take it.

i think i knew from the start if started following him around, if he let me, it would disturb my peace of mind. zp around 2000, late 1999, i got in touch with him. and he invited me to come and see him at the women's hospital in boston. and then he invited me to follow him around for a month. a i did an article about him. i later learned -- and then after that, i asked for access to go on and write a book. which he granted. although it took him a while to do that. i don't think he really wanted this. what i've heard since then from a couple of his closest colleagues when i post the magazine profile said something to the effect of, we're broke as a usual. not enough people know about the work. why don't you take a chance.

there was the long-winded answer. thank you. >> can i add that there's nights where me and my executive board, there's only six people doing the collegewide event. sometimes it got so systemic trying to convince people, trying to raise awareness. we just always referred to your book. so i'm really glad that you wrote it and he gave you the opportunity. thank you. >> thank you. >> tough act to follow. great presentation. great, great slides. i just wanted to know, beyond writing a check and sending it to this address, which of course is a noble good thing to do, can you get into what you can consider, two to three short-term to long-term solutions that might be applicable to reducing the problems? >> on the continent of africa?

>> yes. well, let's make it more to your specific country. or your microfinancing do anything. whatever you suggest. >> i'm not a great expert in this. i do think that international aid as it's currently practiced is so filled with flaws that -- the amount of money never seems to get to -- that would be helpful. i don't think there is any one whole answer a to any of these problems. and sometimes i think it's a big mistake to look at them in too big of form. she was 18 and she was in

haiti. she was looking out the window and put the press over the huge slum. he felt this wave of hopelessness. i don't see how they can do anything to fix these problems. and all sort of put his hand on her shoulder. let's see what we can do in one little place. so he started there. now i treat about 1/6 of the country. they have partnerships with everyone that will be partners with him. i think may be as a general principal, i should shut up soon because i don't know much about it. there's a real problem of integration of the lack of the integration among all of the various projects. there are something on the order of 10,000ngos, working in haiti. look at the results. it's horrific.

until it has it, every significant brainstorm will continue to drowned lots of people. thank you. >> if there are no more questions, he will be signing books. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> for more information on the work of tracy kidder, visit tracykidder.com. >> joe scarborough, what arer currently reading? >> let's see. i'm actually reading harold evans. which is a remarkable story. harold cracked spy cases. he discovered medium mean. he had a remarkable career with the times of london.

it's a great book. and i'm rereading a couple of other books. abslom,abslom. also seven ages of paris, which is a great history of paris. it is about as enjoyable of a history book as i've ever read. >> your book came out early this year, when's the next one? >> boy, i don't know. we got in the top ten for two or three weeks. that was great. but it's kind of tough riding political books in this environment. unless you want to write a polemic. that's not really my style. so i don't know. you know, we add -- actually the best part of writing the book was the book tour. because we would go out and we would actually have these great

crowds. it would be republican and democratic and independent. we had a great pride. it was like having town haul meetings all over the country. what we were hearing back in june and july is what's showing up in the poles now. that was the fun part of it. i love writing too. but just the whole process of people on the right calling you a socialist. like my mom. and people on the left, you know, calling me a nazi. it gets tiring after a while. i think next time if i write something, i'll write about my dog. >> is" going rouge" on your reading list? [laughter] >> no. nothing against sarah palin. who knows if she gets elected president, i may read it after that. >> joe scarborough. >> all right. >> every year they host author

night. tonight i'm with pamela. >> yeah, since the consolation of african-american letters spans from the 1700s to 2008. what i try sad is black life through their own letters. it includes the letter ofs extraordinary people who many have heard of, like dr. martin luther king and also unsung people, slaves, just ordinary people throughout history. >> can you give me an example of one of these unsung people? >> oh, sure. there are several letters from slaves who are just writing to each other, to families members from whom they've been separated. letting them know how they are. trying to find out how they their loved one are fairing. not people we would have known of. >> how did you come upon this proct. how did you select the letters? >> well, that was pretty insane. i went through thousands of

letters over the course of five years. and some of the themes naturally emerged. so i wanted to look at black family life through letters. and so after a while there was sort of organizizing principal through these themes. then i arranged them chronologically. i tried to create a narrative to show the historic ark. so the book beginning with the letters of people in the 1700s. some were slaves and some like benjamin, who was free. one the last letters of the book was written in 2008 by alice walker who wrote president obama to say what his election meant. it has this amazing art showing the history of african-americans enslaved in over three centuries. >> you're a journalism professor at nyu. what surprised you in your study

of these letters? >> i guess one the things that surprised me is the extent to which enslaved african-americans continued to communicate with their loved one. or even that african-american -- that slaves wrote letters at all. but the extent to which they maintain bonds or cost plantation across states, of course this was an illegal act. they somehow managed to stay in contact to the best they could with their loved ones. >> now regular booktv viewers may recognize you. we shot a program of yours earlier in the year which you can watch, go to our web site and watch that program. what are you working on right now? >> right now i'm still here with this book. this is probably my 40th event since february. and we've also been doing a number of dramatic readings around the country. we did a reading recently with ruby d, the incredible actress

and anthony. so we've been working on a dramatic production as well based on the book. i have not even got ton my next writing project. >> between your teachings and between your promoting of this book, do you have time to read? >> i do. i usually read more than one book at a time. two books, i recently reread barbie doll's lincoln, which was a great read. because in new york there's an exhibit on lincoln in new york at the new york historical society. so that was an incredible way to look at that exhibit. and i also read "ida." the book of idab. wells. right now i just started the help. which is totally different. it's fiction. i don't normally read fiction. but it's a good read. >> the author, she's the editor of "letters from black america." thank you so much.

>> thank you. >> author robert, give us an update? >> well, i'm doing the fourth one. third one i got the international book award here. and well, this is a long book. and i'm sort of in the middle of it now. you know, lyndon johnson, president, civil rights, vietnam, turning points in american history. that's an interesting book to do. interesting for me to try to do it. when do you see it being finished? >> i think i have two more years. >> how many years have been devoted to lincoln -- lyndon johnson? >> well, i started, "power broker" came a out in 1974. i started in '76 on lyndon johnson. i want to add it up, 33 years.

>> what first sparked your interest in lbj? >> good question. i never look at my books as biography. i never want to do a book just about a great man. i'm interested in political power and how it works. and using a man's life to show it. with robert moses, i tried to show how urban power works in cities. with lyndon johnson, he understood national power better than almost anyone. if i can take his life, i can show how national power works. >> i say you want for the third in your series, you won the national book award. what's the effect of that? >> the effect on it -- the effect on me was terrific. i was happy to win it. >> did. change book sales? anything? >> i'm not -- not sure i know or remember the answer to that question. to be honest with you.

he did very well. you know? that book did well. i can't remember this. i had an impact on it. >> author robert. >> author ann. we're a into the obama administration. rate it? >> i'd say, worst than carter on policy, and worst than domestic policy. other than that, i think he's doing great. >> in what way worse than president carter? >> i now understand the look on my father's face was carter was president. everything that obama does is the wrong thing. you don't know what's going to happen. but he's pouring gasoline all over the world, in russia, iran, iraq, afghanistan, in china. and whether the match will be lit, we don't know where it's going to be.

but you can count on obama to do the wrong thing. every president is living off the foreign policy of the predecessor for the first year. we're about to move into the obama foreign policy. i think there's going to be disaster. i don't know where or how or what it'll be. but i know obama is going to do the wrong thing. >> congress? >> well, congress. is there something below an f. the only good thing is they are not really getting things done and passed. they passed the crazy cap-and-trade bill. which really, i mean it went over to the senate. this isn't just senate the speaking. they looked and said this is insane. and it's just been sitting there. so that may not get passed. i like it not being passed. but in the middle of the recession and the housing bubble, they have the massive

energy taxes on homeowners, manufacturers, you'd have to have an epa inspector to come to your house to make sure it's green before you sell it. this is why when it went to the senate, which is oddly the more sensible, they made, i think we'll wait. the health care bill i think is a caster. they have a majority in the house and senate and in the oval office. the odds are it will be passed. i have a nickel bet running on it not being passed. i don't think americans wanted -- their premiums are going to go up. their taxes are going to go up. most importantly, perhaps, the chinese don't want it. and they are keeping this country afloat. they are the only ones paying for our deficit. so they don't like the spending under the health care. that's why the obama administration keeping talking about bending the cost curve. they have to say that for the

chinese. the chinese are going to stop buying our treasuries if we don't get the spending under control. they don't want the big spending program. unless as you keep hearing, don't worry. we're going to bend the cost curve. bending the cost curve is ray rationing. >> your most recent book "guilty" came out in 2008. now a new -- >> paperback. >> is there an update in here? >> there's no update. but it's a lot cheaper. >> what's your next book? >> well, that's top secret. that will probably include my award winning meat loaf recipe. so stay tuned. >> ann coulter. >> in 1972, tony morrison first edited "the black book."

up next, the panel, barnes and noble union square host the hour-long event. >> good evening. i'm porscha, i am the editor of the 35th anniversary edition of the "the black book"." in 1974, "the black book" was her project. she described the book to create something that might last. thank you all for being here in your part of continuing the lasting legacy of of "the black book." dr. cosby had a scrapbook.

this is the scrapbook. everyone associated with it has been inspired. from dr. morrison who was likely inspired to write beloved from the article on page 10. it was written in 1956 entitled a visit to the slave mother who killed her child. the esteemed collector is middleton harris, and roger, and obviously mr. smith, who's daughter we're lucky to have here tonight. the production team who kept such detailed records that 35 years later, i could still trace the right folders. it inspired our senior editor here who brought this project to my attention who years ago. our production team headed, so inspired that they made this

edition crisper and cleaner than the original. using just film. who recognized what a treasurer there was and published it in hard cover. this book touches everybody who touches it. that includes all of you inspired to be here today. and our panelist who are so excited to introduce. up first is dr. roscoe c. brown. [applause] >> the list of dr. brown's accomplishments are really enough to fill a book of their own. most notably, he is president of the bronx community college and creditor at the city university of new york. he sits on the board of several community organization including the boys and girls club, the funds for the city of new york, the urban issues group,