production. >> you have one other to patricia less are you excited about? >> is the book is the 1927. i think this is a fascinating look of american culture and it shatters this idea that the twenties were the roaring 20's. in fact says ravenel with this exes and frivolity we are really struggling with our identity whether we were holding on to a glorious past of trying to increase this brave new world of technology and celebrity and entertainment culture that we have now. >> michael briggs, ranjit arab, university kansas press. thank you so much. ..

and i know you to both work for "the new yorker" but i was looking for deeper connection to ask you about your writing, and i noticed in david's new book, "the devil and sherlock holmes" in a piece about obsessive conan doyle who is mysteriously found dead, dead in writing about sherlock holmes you say arthur condon doyle, the author, in

1906 began to turn his powers of observation to solve real-world mysteries including the case of a serial killer and it seems to me what both of you do and perhaps all reporters in general is that you have something in common with detectives, that you turn your powers of observation on the world to solve real-world mysteries. so i guess david if you could talk about that and then i'll come you too. >> i think that is very much the case, that many of the stories are about the art of detection and the protagonist in the story of "the devil and sherlock holmes" even sluice himself even if they are not professionals lose. there's a story of a con man who is worried about being can't. there is a story about scientists trying to unravel the mystery of this semi-mythological creature, the

giant squid. there's a story about a working-class detective who is investigating whether a postmodern polish novelists may have planted clues to a real murder in his novel. and in the sherlock holmes story, the main character is this great scholar who is found dead in a series of circumstances and he had become obsessed himself with trying to write a biography and trying to tell the story and piece together the narrative of conan doyle and in the process is driven mad. in that story, you have both the story of the protagonist trying to unravel the mystery of conan doyle and who he was and kind of be his narrator and to some extent i in the narrator as the sleuth try to tell his story and figure out what he was after, what he was searching for to unravel the mystery of the

character and find out he was in the certain circumstance. >> as you will go about a story like that,-- [inaudible] how do you map your way mentally and physically to research the narrative and come to your conclusions? >> in that case, and in almost all the reporting cases, the stories often began with almost a clue, a tantalizing clue and i'm sure this is probably true of malcolm too where you hear somebody say something. in the case of sherlock holmes, somebody had mentioned just in passing this great scholar had been found dead in the serious circumstances and that was just very tantalizing. so at that point i began to try

first but there is available in the literature about richard branson green but then a treasure map to go from one person to another person or one document to another document so trying to penetrate richard branson green, and his circle and i knew about him. the case had been taken up by all of these amateur sleuths who had been conan doyle scholars who saw the cape as a real mystery that was greater than anything conan doyle had invented so they were all working the case in their own way and that allowed me both to try to follow them as they investigated the case and it also allowed to kind of go into a world you wouldn't ordinarily see, a subculture, hidden world and in this case who knew there were these people who were utterly obsessed and fanatical about sherlock holmes and conan doyle.

[inaudible] >> there are two clubs the sherlockian to pretend that conan doyle did not exist and therefore will never refer to him by name. sherlock holmes is a real character and they produce more scholarships and probably all of these books in the bookstore. one person said never has so much been written for so few. to try to look at the story and basically threw any consistency to show they are church stories as opposed to fiction and then the conan doyle scholars are those who recognize conan doyle as they author. the thing that was interesting about richard branson green, the protagonist in the story, he is one of the few--

[laughter] [inaudible] he talks about one person he met in the '90s. what he says is he was drawn to the intellectual as well as physical assets in the world. [inaudible] [laughter] >> david has to go to amazon. [inaudible] [laughter]

[laughter] >> did i answer the question? you said you came up with your ideas-- [inaudible] >> actually i grew up-- i grew up on a steady diet of british

murders. that may still be ali reed. all the paperbacks, i read every one of those. dorothy sayers, and agatha christie. i must have read 50 agatha christie books by the time i was 10. so what do you do if you love mystery stories and you can't write fiction? you write some kind of facsimile , which is what-- nonfiction mysteries, but the minute i think i can write dialogue i am gone. [laughter]

[inaudible] >> i wanted it to be a little less chilly so i made a conscious effort. partly from reading people like david and thinking i could go in that direction as well. i try to write more about people in the story as opposed to-- [inaudible] what do you do in the content of the dialog? do you make it sound real? >> their reason-- you may notice

this if you read them, and we quickly revolved. in fact one of the profiles-- the profile that begins with the appeal. he proved so chatty that iran out of tape essentially. iran out of tape and it was so unburied singh. i had to make up an excuse that i had got more bad and i had to make up an excuse that i had an appointment. by job all the way down the hill because you have to drive 5 miles to get to anyplace. i bought cassette tapes and came

back for the interview so that was a rare case. [inaudible] >> you would have thought it would have had a tape romantic of some kind. >> david you were saying people not might find the dialogue convincing. i read that you made a distinction between persuading the reader and engaging the reader. you want to engage the reader. >> it is persuasion and convincing, so this is a distinction not that i make up but rather it is a very famous where he talks about two very different modes that when you convince someone, you marshal a series of logical facts and assemble them and that argument that often is persuasive to anyone who is of sound mind.

kind of a first general, to persuade someone is not about marshaling the facts to a broad general audience. it is about using emotion and stories for a specific audience worry narrowly characterized audience. i convince people of things are now all i want to do is persuade them. [inaudible] you poe a lawyer who is-- a lawyer does not really believe his client is innocent so he is working to persuade in the way you were talking about rather than convince in a child, sort

of what you are talking about. you said that you first wanted to be a lawyer. >> i think in both levels, i think we both believe in telling stories. malcolm stories were engaging in intellectual. he goes on this journey and that is what makes them much more satisfying and picking up a scientific journal. in my story similarly i really wanted to tell a story. i want to take the reader on a journey and i really see my job as a month action writer as gathering the facts and presenting them and showing them and i try to have faith that the reader can interpret them and clearly i make judgments of time organizing things but i am a terrible op-ed writer. i just don't think that way.

the way i see the world is in stories and characters, moving through stories and really my job is to show the reader what i have seen and what these characters have seen. i grew up on the prairie fiction and i love sherlock holmes when i was young but the things that draws me to the stories is that they are not, while characters often inspire and guide inspired to be sherlockian we are inevitably immortal and we don't always see the picture perfectly and you write a lot about this in your stories about misinterpreting data or too much information. we can't see as clearly as we wish we could what we want to pretend to be so they stories are not-- and without that kind of sensitive--. >> how do you balance as a

writer that sense of when you are obsessed, both of you in writing your introduction. [inaudible] you become obsessed with it and you don't wash and you don't shave etc.. you have an idea and it becomes obsessive to you. you became obsessed with the idea. hard hard is that obsession, work? the long-term obsession versus the observational? does it always prove over the long-term as writing? >> the reason it is necessary i think is that to tell the kinds of stories by would like to tell and david tells us well, takes a

lot of time. it takes a lot of time because most of what interests me about the stories you don't figure out for a long time. you discovered at the end or it is because of some serendipitous turn in the middle. i think of saying x but then i end up saying y. you only get those kinds of twists and turns you are willing to kind of let go and play with the something for a long time. some stories have been in the back of my mind for years. they were things i had been thinking about. of all of the stories, i think in at least one case there were six or seven years between having the idea and actually writing the story. in that case, there is a story in here about the greatest

prison escape artist of the 20th century, including alcatraz. he broke out of san quentin and he rubs his last bank when he was 78 years old. when i initially read about that, it was several years before the end of the story. i wrote him a letter every month in prison. i said if you ever change her mind, i am here. i would write in and they would change one word. he decided he was willing. [laughter] i think at that point he was about 80 and he figured he was never going to get out. but to go to the other point, not knowing where you are going

to go with a story, the stories are journeys and for example there is a story in the collection about the search for the giant squid and i found out there were these great giant squid hunters obsessively trying to find this creature which at that point had never been this-- seen alive by scientists. there were dead carcasses, 30 feet long with tentacles and eyes and the size of their head. no one had never encountered one of these things alive. eventually i track down those wonderful author and i convinced her boss that it was worthwhile. he had the spirit of capturing a baby and growing it in captivity. so i went out with him and spend weeks in new zealand with him.

going out in a cyclone with this guy trying to capture this baby giant squid and there came a point in the story when i was with him where it looked like we captured this baby giant squid, this man had been searching his whole life for and i had the moment where he said thanked god this trip wasn't for nothing. we got it and we are going to take it home and we are going to grow it and i'm going to watch it. this is going to be huge. [laughter] just like that it slipped away. we both were looking at the container. we had been up for nine straight days in extreme conditions. it was there and we lost it. it was like an illusion. i remember thinking to myself, but my god, what am i going to do? i have done this journey and in other words i had hoped for the past and suddenly i was looking at why. i went back that night and i

thought about it and by this was the way the story was supposed to be. here was this this man who excessively try to find this thing. nobody could ever get it. the emotion of that moment was so much more shrewd than the artificial construct i had in my mind. [inaudible] >> certainly many of the characters are chasing something that is elusive. what is interesting about these characters is there a possession because it makes good storytelling. they are fascinating characters and there is a reason why ahab

is one of the greatest characters in literature. but what also intrigued intrigued me about the story is what they are possessed with. in other words i don't just say this person ... that's-- obsessed. the object of their obsession is the school he fascinating. the case of the giant squid. this incredible creature opened up to how unexplored the sea was. i had grown up reading all these books but tell me there could not be a complex society in the amazon. it had to be very primitive. it was too hostile and environment to survive. it was equally fascinating. [inaudible]

do they seem to be less open-ended? how do you work bad and how do you work through the uncertainty a lot of the times in your work? >> i mean, what you try and do is find a principle or an idea in science and illustrated with a story. keeping in mind that the science is always a level of-- so you are choosing a particular path both interesting and kind of thought-provoking path to take and yet-- [inaudible]

readers understand that. what i tend to be doing is posting a question. 90% of people are i think understanding. you can go in another direction for a while. it means you don't ultimately agree with the conclusion. you are not interested in winning comfort but provoking people to think about it. [inaudible] do you have a way of crystallizing an idea that people can take away?

i remember reading the books as they came out, as you are reading them-- you have that chief ability. [inaudible] what i'm interested in, you are talking about it dog. you are in search of a very old

dog and a national library. [inaudible] if you could just tell us about that. what leads you to do things like that? >> usually it is not preconceived. usually i kind of poor in and if there is a piece of information, i am very focused on getting it. i don't know-- i guess part of it is like a lot of the characters in the story i really want to make sense of things. i understand what i am investigating. it is frustrating to me to have some clue that is locked up and

i can't see. and i really want to get that, so when the case with this document, i was in a brazilian library. i had looked at it and use it as a clue to come up with this theory that there might be ancient civilization in the middle of the jungle. i usually, i guess if you just kind of hang around long enough -- i don't get the stereotypes of being a great reporter. i really don't. i just try to observe people and let them be. i kind of hang around and if you hang around enough that bank robber-- there is only one left.

>> you were refused access to this. [inaudible] she is the hero in the book. but i'm wondering welcome, you have such a famous name for doing what you do. do the people that you want to be with, write about their work, are they-- then you could have been 10 years ago? >> i don't know. because my stories have always been about someone that that

person isn't happy with and readily confrontational. i am usually interested in finding what is interesting about something first and celebrating it at some level. i have never, it because it has always been my approach it is never been difficult to get people to talk to you. because i have always been interested in academics i have had a conversation with him. i don't know whether, things were very much civilized the way they are now. [inaudible] >> and not at all. not in the slightest.

i knew something about the psychology. the reason you go to in academia is that you are not-- [laughter] [applause] the nice way of saying it is that you are intrinsically motivated, not extrinsically motivated and in transit we motivated is a far more useful way of looking at the world. so good for you. [laughter] >> you right in the beginning about your father who is a mathematician and you were always so intrigued as a child that he could spend the day working inside his head and other kinds of thoughts, but how much is a writer and you said he

goes to new zealand in the amazon. how much in both cases are you working in your head and trying to make it come out right? even though you are spending a lot more time on the trail? >> in terms of-- like malcolm said they often have reconceived ideas or some intuition of what a story might be. but you often find yourself in different places, and i think some of my-- comes from insecurity and feeling like if i just work harder and get the information, can betty-- get a better story but for the case of the willingham story which is about this man who was executed for setting fire and killing his three children and may affect been innocent. when i began the story i call this defense attorney and he mentioned this.

his defense attorney said oh yeah, he definitely did. i hung up the phone and i said well he has to be guilty. his own defense attorney thinks he is guilty so that is kind of where it began and then i went on a journey that began to really raise serious questions about the reliability of the evidence in the case. >> in so many, and that story in particular is about crime and there is another story about, i don't even know if it is identity theft. it is a french man, just so haunting, about this man, a frenchman who poses as the lost son of the american family and convinces them against the evidence. it is just chilling how he sort of euros in 10 groups these people, but i am just wondering especially with the story about

william said, are you at all conscious of others like truman capote? are you aware of the tradition of reportage of lillian ross? the names could go on and obviously, truman capote. david remnick himself. what is that legacy as you go into "the new yorker" where there is such a rich history? [inaudible] when i am working on a story, i really try not to think about those things because if i had it in my head, truman capote while

i'm trying to write my story i don't think i would get a single word out. i by use of this information-- inspiration and i will look for certain stories and read them which provides inspiration. perhaps it is about a character getting inside of a cure or. i look at these and they help me and when i'm working on a story i try to use all that stuff. i would be paralyzed if i was using too much truman capote. >> malcolm do you have writers who inspire you? [inaudible]

i have been very inspired. [laughter] also i have had a huge impact on my writing. the thing about adams, i regard him as the quintessential practitioner of "the new yorker" because the stories he does and maybe you have to be a writer to understand it, the degree of difficulty is so high. you are taking something which is not even dare. it is just sort of-- and he has is turn it into gold. to do that, i read one paragraph 4 times to try to figure out, how do you do that? there is an incredible level of that idea, something that is a

missing component in critical analysis. critics look at something and they make a passive judgment and they will say this is good at this is that. that is the first question you have to ask in the second question you have to ask is how hard was it? if you are telling an extraordinary story, it is a good point. what happens is you open the possibility to the rider. you can take just by virtue of your own ingenuity and i don't have this ingenuity but he allows me to believe it is possible to do it with ordinary material. that is incredibly powerful. >> there are stories that i find i could never imitate them.

i just kind of know that. i've never figured out how he constructs the story and they maintain their power because they are not chronological. is kind of like what you are saying. they are great stories but how he managed to put these facts in the syncretic order they come together with such power. i look at them and i read them periodically and i'm hoping at some point you will find that is the key, that is exactly what he did. there are a lot of writers who look at what they did and there are somehow just kind of-- [inaudible] i had that same thing breyer was just struck.

[inaudible] in a weird way part of me is what motivates me in finding a story is a believe that if i can find a great story, if i can find the girl, then i can tell you a great story. part of my motivation is i just want to get the gold because it is a lot easier if i can find the gold in the treasure. [inaudible] >> i read that a lot. [laughter] >> somebody asked me the other day at-- [inaudible]

>> it would be a very very boring decisions. >> what is your confidence in the future of publishing in the magazine industry, the publishing industry, the magazine industry to be able to support the kind of long stories you are talking about, the six years, the reporting you do going around the world with "the new yorker" and other magazines that you have funded. what does the future hold for that kind of reporting when you talk about going back to world war ii and before? >> i am very optimistic. because all that has appeared to go away is the kind of, is the

viability of the existing business model for supporting a certain kind of journalist. the need for that journalism hasn't gone away at all, so when i was talking about adam, for example if you read adam's story revenge of the mattress lloyd's which i think is one of the most incredible stories ever read, at the end of the story you cried. the human being to be moved by something that they read is a constant. we need to be moved by literary experience a thousand years ago and we need to be moved a thousand years from now. so as long as all we are doing is serving fundamental human needs, they need to be engaged by a story is fundamental. it is never going away so sometimes you think while we are going to have the world just of tweets and blog entries and 300

word web site entries but you can't have that because none of those satisfy the need to be moved or the need to be engaged in a the story or the need-- so we will just find a new model to support. that is all. people are assiduously working on this problem right now and they will solve it. when they sell that we will all be fine. [laughter] >> i finally figured out the essential difference. i actually agree with him on this notion which i think in many ways of what we do and also what our stories are about and what many of our stories are about our people, i am piecing together their narratives but they are trying to piece together their narratives and trying to make sense of their lives and arrange the facts in an order that has a certain logic in meaning and emotional meaning whether it be the firemen from 9/11 has suffered

amnesia, who is the only survivor from his group. he is trying to make sense of what happened to him but also this larger calamity and i do think that is something that is wired into our dna and goes back, whether you look at why the bible is powerful, if you look at any kind of forms of literature and i don't think that is going to go away. i do worry about the economics of it that he is a smart guy and hopefully he will come up with a business plan because there is a cost of this stuff or go there is. the willingham story, i spent six months at least on that story. whether trying to get records, tracking down a jailhouse informant who didn't have an address or a phone, and i could not have done that without "the new yorker"'s backing. so, that does concern me because

right now we are in this moment of chaos but i do think the desire does not go away so hopefully malcolm's version of the paradigm that support this will come into play. it is just at a moment in crisis. [inaudible] >> a lot of people believe that the amazon was so inhospitable to human life that there was no-- what you he described as a human need and you come to that city and then leave at the end an open question about whether they were capable. it seems even they are there was a kind of push toward a pleasant buildings. >> without question. without question and just a few

weeks ago, it is just been astonishing to me, i discovered these geometric earthworms which spread out nearly 200 kilometers and were connected. they looked from the sky like somebody tried to put a geometric equation into the earth is spread over this huge area. we don't even know what the purpose of these were but they get to the question of people are trying to find a purpose to make sense of religious purpose and maybe even-- in the stars but the people trying to impose some order and some meeting -- make meaning. they talk about the dangers of miss perceiving. in the willingham case-- thank you. [applause]

>> malcolm gladwell worked at "the washington post" firm 1987 to 1996 as a science writer and leader of the new york city bureau chiefs. he is currently a staff writer for "the new yorker." david grann is the author of the lost city of z a tale of deadly up session in the amazon. he is also a staff writer for "the new yorker." for more information visit new yorker.com. >> it literally means the mandate comes from outside and that is what the translator in the book would call, you difficulty pronouncing my name malcolm so he would call me kara g..

>> where were you? >> in kabul afghanistan? i went there in november of 2001. i was working at the "kansas city star" which was part of a large newspaper chain and the editors of the cheney to people to go overseas and i volunteered i hadn't worked overseas and thought-- saw it as an opportunity. >> what were writing about before you went over there? >> i was doing daily stories. afghanistan was certainly quite a jump from what i've been doing. >> how did that decision change your life? >> i hadn't even known where afghanistan was to be candid with you so it gave me a perspective that leaves me across the globe outside of my day today nine to five existence to see a culture that is radically different from my own in a country that experience 30 years of warfare and had just been devastated, a kind of devastation i had only seen in photographs in world war ii

where there are pictures of europe after the allies victory. >> due to embed? >> i did in 2003 with the 82nd airborne. >> in 2000 after 9/11 where were you in and what to do cover? >> i arrived in kabul toward the end of november of 2001 and i connected with a gentleman whose name was holly did he would correct me because they thought i was not pronouncing it correctly. i started calling him roe when he started calling me khaarijee. >> how did you connect with them >> it was really by chance. i mentioned to him, he spoke english and i mentioned him i was looking for a translator. this was my second day and i was pretty much on my own. i had to fend for myself and he told me his nephew could speak english and thought he would be

available and that is how it started or go that is we met. roe was a little suspicious of me as an outsider but we got together and as i describe in the book we chose sorter fumbled our way in. we just stumbled our way through the country looking for stories and writing about it and trying to not to get ourselves killed in the process. what kinds of stories free writing in 2001? >> it was really talking about where the country was after the taliban had left northern afghanistan, what the country was like, how people were attempting to rebuild, the efforts to create a new government which is now the karzai government. >> how many times did you return? >> since 2001 i've been there seven times. pretty much every year after that. >> why? >> i was just sucked in. it just captured my imagination. i formed strong bonds with roe and his family and i had a hard

time leaving. i didn't feel my time there was done. it had such an impact and coming back to the united states, i felt discombobulated. i have is experience that was radically different from anything i'd known and i felt the need to go back there to learn more about the country and also for my own sense of balance. i think i felt like they needed to stay there. i felt somewhat lost in having coming back to place it was so different. >> was your reporting done in the "kansas city star"? >> initially was done primarily for knight ridder newspapers which of at that time owned a star in 32 other newspapers and then i started freelancing and began working for smaller magazines such as the virginia quarterly review and the misery we do submitting personal essay some of which are revised in a book about my personal experiences in afghanistan and my thoughts about people they are in the country. i thought normally don't go into a daily story because i'm being more reflect in reporting is.

>> give me an example of. >> or example there is one story in the book about some children that we took under her wing so i talked about the process of getting to know them, taking them for lunch everyday and enrolling them in schools and the problems i faced when i left and i had started this process with them and how to continue that because they created an expectation for them that i felt obligated to attempt to fulfill. >> who was funding all these trips? >> some of them were funded out-of-pocket, my pocket and mindy were wanted by knight ridder newspaper. >> this book, "the khaarijee" a chronicle of friendship and war in kabul, what period does it cover? does it cover all seven trips? >> it does, yet. >> walk us through it. >> the initial chapters are just my immersion into the country in 2001 and my reaction to that and

then i return in 2002 which was the beginning of the karzai government. there was a process involved where he was assuming that leadership of the country. then in future years i did and embed and then followed up when the country started to kind of devolve into the violence we are seeing now and most recently and this isn't in the book, cover the election in august's. >> where did you stay when you were at there? >> initially we stayed in a house that was rented by the newspaper chain and then after that i began staying in a hotel called the most of h-hotel. >> what was it like? >> it used to be a place we could exchange money and then the whole tell him to recognize with all the journals coming and he got to make more money turning it into a hotel. the problem with that is all the

rooms were class on the winter you froze because there was no central heating and nothing but glass between you and your sleeping bag and it was a very eclectic group. you at all sorts of people who were drawn to were for whatever their reason, to journalist to people who are wait working in paid organization's. >> when did you get a book contract? >> that happened in september of 08 and it was serendipity. i'd written a lot of these chapters is individual essays suggested to me to put them into a book and then i began sending them out there an agent. >> a lot of hooks on afghanistan and people's experience over there in the last couple of years. what makes yours different? >> i think it is a very personal book. i don't get into a lot of talking to the leadership of the country and i'm not saying that is about thing but my book i approached afghanistan from a grassroots perspective. i come from a socialist background. i used to work with homeless people in san francisco so i talked to people on the street.

i went to their villages and talk to these boys which is referred to. i really try to talk to so-called mainstream afghans to get a sense from them how they feel what is happening to their country, no matter what the politicians or whomever may be saying. >> what does he do in his daily life when you are not there? >> now he is working for a bangladesh ngo or aid organization. he said he is very satisfied and that is great that we stay in touch through e-mail and then when i kobach obviously i see an. >> he has e-mail connections. does he have to go to an internet café or does he have a son computer? >> usually goes to an internet café. he lives in south kabul and a large house with his family, his wife and he has three children. >> a large house? is he a wealthy man? >> i wouldn't say he is a wealthy man but because the whole family lives in the house they are all chipping into support the house. the income bayer is radically

different from ours. his father makes $200 a month and he feels that it's a good salary so obviously their cost of living is different from ours. i'm not saying they are having an easy time but the comparison is radically different from ours. >> how did you get around when you were at there? >> we drove. >> what kind of car? >> it varies but usually it was a toyota van is the best way i can describe it. it was pretty beaten up and battered. the tribe in afghanistan is like number pool. there is a lot of honking and a lot of cars. i always thought we are about to have an accident at any moment because everybody converges and ships around to try to get through. >> how often were you personally afraid? >> oftentimes i was afraid after-the-fact. there was a time when we were out after curfew early on in 2001 and we were just so frantic to get back into kabul so we could get back but checkpoints.

at the time i didn't have the time to be afraid that when we finally got through the mess we had to get through i thought back and i thought we had some close calls. >> who was on the front of this? what is the picture? >> that is actually a picture of an afghan man on a motorcycle on his way to the airbase. it is on the road that leads the bagram airbase. whether or not he is going to bagram or not i don't know. a colleague of mine took this photo from the car. >> how large is the u.s. military presence there in kabul or around afghanistan? do you see constantly? >> you do. what you see a lot of his vehicles. you will see some soldiers on the street itc a constant string of military vehicles. you are always aware there is a military presence and even with the afghans to see a constant stream of security personnel of the afghan forces so you are

constantly aware even if there is not exciting going on that this is a city under siege. >> where are you living now and what are you doing? >> i'm living outside of chicago and i'm a freelance journalist. [inaudible] you left kansas city? >> i left kansas city. >> do you miss it? been not so far. i just recently moved. >> do you plan on being in afghanistan anytime soon? >> be i planning on being there this summer. >> doing what? >> following up and seeing how the american surge is perceived by the afghan people, continue doing a little more looking into women's issue in staying in touch with the country. >> j. malcolm garcia, his book is "the khaarijee" a chronicle of friendship and war in kabul.

>> welcome to booktv's coverage of the 2010 annapolis book festival. we'll begin with the panel and global security moderated via benjamin wittes is senior fellow at the brookings institution that include shane harris author of the watchers, the american surveillance state. pw singer author of wired for war and bruce rydell author of the search for al qaeda. the second panel which starts in about an hour and 15 minutes is on the world's water and features are kurlansky author of fight for the day and orrin pilkey professor emeritus of the nicholas school of the environment at duke university and author of the rising sea. starting a 2:for guy that look at the financial market with william cohen author of house of cards a tale of hubris and wretched excess on wall street. finally, a look at the new america foundation's barry lynn and his book, cornered the new monopoly and the economics of destruction.

>> we are going to get started. can people hear me okay? thanks for joining us. it is a wonderful thing that so many of you want to spend a beautiful saturday morning in a dark gem talking about cheerful subjects like al qaeda, terrorism, robotic soldiers and warrantless electronic surveillance, but welcome. i have been asked to remind you to turn off cell phones and to emphasize that.i'm going to ask if any cell phones ring that the camera turn on you to be as humiliating as possible. i am going to be brief and introduction so we have as much time to talk about the books in question which are all fascinating. to my left, since two of my

colleagues and actually three colleagues, one of whom is honorary, bruce rydell who sits to my immediate left is a senior fellow and foreign-policy studies at the brookings institution and has been, had a 30 year career as a cia analyst. he is the author of the search for al qaeda, leadership ideology in the future. to his left to shane harris who i think most of the biographical information you have in the little packet is now out of date shane, since this was published his move from national journal to the washingtonian where he is going to be doing expanded feature coverage for the washingtonian on big media issues like the ones he used to write about for national journal. he is the author of the watchers, the rise of america's national surveillance state and to his left is peter singer who is also a senior fellow at the brookings