i'm always interested in great hope. [laughter] the great hope of ours. president bush said might be necessary to the bomb iran and take out the nuclear installations and whatever they are doing and what would your position on that. i support the president totally, said the great hope. so that was my first sighting of him and i just felt instinctively that this was a guy who was going to try to please come and he was weak in many ways and is not going to push through some tiny shifts in domestic or the global policies. >> to watch the sport in its entirety, go to booktv.org.

simply put the name of the title with the author name in the top left of the screen and click search. good evening and welcome to book tv live in prime time. areas t we have three topic areas of discussion. number one, we are going to look back at some of the nonfiction books of 2010. number two, we are going to review some of the changes in the publishing industry in the past year look at some of the books coming out in the early 2011. joining us live from seattle is jenn risko of self awareness. she is a co-founder of this publishing industry newsletter and website. first off, jenn risko, what were some of the big selling nonfiction books of 2010? >> guest: certainly the biggest book of 2010 was decision point by vw. we are seeking sales on this one off 1.8 million copies, and it has only been out since the beginning of november.

in addition to that we have seen 200,000 copies in e-book only so that is topping the list for sure. >> host: can you give a reason why decision points is topping the list?s toppin the president left with a very low approval rating. >> guest: he did and it's interesting that this book would do so incredibly well. in fact there is a number of people in publishing that aret,m thinking that bush's book is going to surpass the sales of s clinton's book which is an interesting thing to think about. why is it done so well?l? if you have watched bush on his tour at all all, and he's pretty amazing. he's relaxed, having fun with it. he reveals to us many personal things and also how he got to the decisions in his administration that really shaped our country. he shows than -- prompted an

incredible job with this. to watch bush being interviewed by mark zuckerberg is a pretty incredible thing to embrace technology to get the word out there. >> host: jenn risko, there were several bush administration books including george w. bush's book of hours, then there was laura bush's, "spoken from the heart," condoleezza rice, extraordinary, ordinary people. karl rove also had one, courage and consequence. any comments about those other books classics >> guest: i think what we can read about is a lot of people want to understand how that administration made the choices they did. it almost more importantly, you know, there's always going to be a bit of contrariness on. so if you got one set of folks in the white house, you want to understand the other side of things. so i think that's what we can read into it.

plus, they're pretty compelling books. condoleezza rice's book of growing up in alabama. and you think karl rove has 600,000 in sales on that one, pretty huge. postcodes of condoleezza rice's book to pretty well? >> guest: at some numbers about 150,000, which is nice. i think there's a chance of the next one farmer might actually do a little bit better because that is drilling more into her time in the administration and that should be coming out in about a year or so. >> host: right, i should just mention it otb either interviewed all of the authors of the bush administration memoirs or recovered an event with those authors. they are all available on our website at booktv can't work. if you go to the upper left-hand corner of our home page, you'll see a search function. type in the name of the author of part of the book title. it will pop up window be able to watch it online at your leisure. by the way, jenn risko will be

with us for the next hour or so and we want to get your calls as well. what did you read in 2010? what comments you have about books achaemenid 2010? numbers are on the screen. "spoken from the heart" for those of you in the eastern sense to time zone. 202-737-0002 if you live in mountain pacific time zone. also, send us a tree. twitter.com/booktv is our twitter address. jenn risko, as a stick with local books here to start, and other political memoir came out 30 years after u.s. president and mrs. jimmy carter's white house diary. and this is quite a thick book and very comprehensive, a day to day accounting of his life in the white house. do you know how this one did? >> guest: yeah, i saw the numbers were about 180,000, which is very nice. he did an incredible job to rain

for the pope. in fact, just when i was sitting in the city, bob and the control room told me that jimmy carter sat in the sea. i was happy about that. he did an incredible job touring and at one point he got a stomach flu or something and landed in the hospital and is maybe 11 or two days. but otherwise he toured everywhere with us and he's such a charming, engaging, lovely guy. this diary is the first time the public has seen it in every day of his administration he wrote in his diary. and as i mentioned before, you know, we'll think pitching is quite a bit of a poet, so it's a pleasure to read. >> host: when he did get sick and ended up in cleveland he missed his taping of afterwards that booktv and we had to reschedule for a month later. he just came a few weeks ago with historian doug brinkley and it's aired already and put tv. but again, and another one you can find on our website and watch at your leisure.

it's one of our afterwards programs. in fact, he told us when he was here that date that his entire diary will be released at the jimmy carter liar free in atlanta next year, so that historians will have the chance to go through his entire diary. >> guest: this one is edited. so yeah. >> host: jenn risko, tony blair also put out his political memoir. >> guest: guess, he did. and he also missed a couple of his book signings, but it wasn't because he had the stomach flu. it was because, you know, there was than protesting going on. we actually weren't releasing the numbers on this one, but when it did the us over in the u.k., that is sold close to 100,000 copies within the first four days on sale, which is a record breaker for a biography like that in the u.k.

of course you have to think about the fact that there wasn't books around the time of margaret thatcher, so we don't have the numbers to compare in that. feels over there has been great. i yield the sales have been great, but no numbers on them. >> host: let's look at the top five nonfiction books for 2010, according to nielsen bookscan. number one, george w. bush as of december 19, 1.4 million. janine ross, women, food in god, 640,000 copies sold what is nielsen book and, jan? >> guest: neil finn bookscan takes data from rethink its 75% of the retail market.

so every time you see the back, there is a on there. nielsen captures the skills of books at the point-of-sale moment and feed them into a database that we get to look at so we can see what everybody is selling of everybody else's boat. i mean, they started as a doing it for a record if you remember for sales of records and only moved into the book part of things. it only has about 75% of the market. i believe it does not include sales from costco and djs and sam's club and also hudson news, which runs all the stores in the airport. >> host: well, for the top-selling nonfiction book, the number of weeks they appeared on "the new york times" bestseller list. here they are. malcolm gladwell

if we could, malcolm gladwell. if he puts his name on it but today, is it going to be a bestseller? >> guest: the thing about malcolm gladwell is he would never do that actually. you know, it is so interesting how he came to write these books. he kept wondering why outliers, for example, one of 40 weeks on the times list, why people are so successful. why is there? is it that they were carted to the rest of us? he really ties into well, no. in fact some of the hockey players from these teams happen to be a little bit older than everybody else and that might be why they score a few more goals than the rest of the kitties on the team. just a fascinating book. in my mind if he puts his name on it, will sell incredibly well? i think he did come out with a collection, a collective

gathering of new yorker essays. and did they do as well as last in malcolm gladwell's? i don't think he did some of the two always do well because he's malcolm gladwell in his amazing. >> host: here's a look at 2010 nonfiction books and also a look ahead to 2011. >> host: here's a look at 2010 nonfiction books and also we look ahead to 2011. , 202-737-0002 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. fantasy tweet at twitter.com. we are obliged with jenn risko. i want to ask you about the second book on that list, jenn risko. kind of an odd story, raybestos collude. >> guest: what an amazing book, really. this is the story -- this is the immortal life of henrietta?

this is a woman who in the early 50s, a black woman went to johns hopkins. she was deistic nosed with cervical cancer. unbeknownst to her some researchers in the lab to two times they pieces of her and put them into a lab and crew the first immortal cell that has ever been grown forever. and what has come out of this -- if you can imagine -- these are called tequila cells. they are responsible for 80% of all the cells that are in laboratories today. how we find, you know, how we get different cures for different medication, for different ailments. these cells are everywhere. and it is the story of how they took the cells unbeknownst to henrietta for? and her story finding out about

it 20 years later. it's this amazing moment in the book where sun -- sorry, her daughter, deborah goes and sees her mother's cells in an actual test tube in posted chica to this and that mommy, you're famous. it shows no one knows it. it's this billion-dollar industry growth out of this woman's cells and their daughter is looking at this test tube. and his daughter, deborah, can't even afford health care. i mean, think of the irony of this. just an amazing, well-written story. quite the adventure. i believe it's just been optioned by hbo and oprah and alan ball, the guy who did six feet under as well is true but. we also just heard that oprah herself will be planned to daughter, deborah. it'll be an amazing adventure and this book will just keep on going. >> host: in fact, tv interviewed rebecca split in

march at the virginia festival in charlottesville, virginia. this was before all the attention -- the full attention of the book came out. of course the cells are known that way. this book won awards everywhere and also found a notable list this year as well. it's one of her favorites of the year? >> guest: gas, one of my top three for sure. an amazing book. >> host: what else is in your top three? >> guest: i would say once of other signs. >> host: isabel wilkerson. >> guest: isabel wilkerson was amazing. there were many nights i was supposed to be asleep, but a state of reading this lovely novel. and the other is cleopatra.

>> host: both of which were covered by booktv this year. go to booktv.org. upper left-hand corner is the search engine, type in the author's name and the title. you can watch it online at your leisure. now, these are books that spent the most time at the top of "the new york times" bestseller list in 2010. number one, justin halpert, stuff my dad says. eleven weeks on "the new york times" bestseller list as number one. john holloman and mark halpert, game change, seven weeks. michael lewis, big six weeks. george w. bush, number one for five weeks. i'm laura bush, number one for four weeks. she went on a pretty extensive book tour as well, didn't she? >> guest: she did. she did. her book has been out since may i believe. and bush's book has only been

out since the second week of november i believe. so keep in mind some of these books have and how that went to go. "the immortal life of henrietta lacks" has been out for a few weeks. >> host: before we get the calls, let's talk about game change by john heilman and mark halpert. >> guest: i'm sorry, i'm not that familiar with that boat. >> host: one of the political bios of barack obama in the campaign of she doesn't need. another one that came out about barack obama, and other biography was david remnick scum of the life and rise of rock obama. this also came out in 2010. greenwich, connecticut. good evening, u.n. put tv with jenn risko of self-awareness. go ahead with your question.

>> caller: high, one of the game changers this year that everyone was talking about was e-book and how they were affecting the market. and a lot of authors say they don't be publishers anymore. they can just sell published books and use amazon and borders and barnes & noble online and to with publishing. so where do you think that's going? what does that mean? >> host: before you answer, and j. from connecticut, are you an >> caller: yes, i am. what is given up his mass markets. i tend not to buy those. at rather by the electronic version and buy what i call a throwaway book. >> host: are you in the publishing industry? >> caller: im. i am a writer. >> host: your name? >> caller: my name is mj rose. >> host: what kind of books do you write? >> caller: i have her recent

book, the reincarnation and the hypnotist. >> host: okay, thank you for calling and this evening. jenn risko. >> guest: what i would say about this is i think peter, you guys covered this extensively, the book matterhorn. so, there is a perfect example of why we still need publishers. this is a book that parmalat case wrote in 1977 after he served in vietnam. at the time it was i think the first draft was a non-believable hundred pages. when he finally got it to a tiny, tiny nonprofit publisher in burbank california called leo but rarely are, he finally whittled it down to about 1000 pages. i believe the deal for his novel took in 30 years to write was

that they would print 1200 copies and then they would pay him 120 books to sell as he wished. well, with this, i have to give myself, my company a little plug because the woman who is in charge of book reviews for us, marilyn tells got her hands on it. and when she told me she was going to read a 900 page book about vietnam i thought okay. and as well, cecily hensley at barnes & noble got her hands on it and these two women champions this book and called work and intricate at globe atlantic. and the rest is history. it's gone on to be one of the fiction books of 2010. it is 180,000 copies and has been 150,000 electronic books. there's no way this would've

happened without a publisher who knows booksellers, who knows the buyers, who can know the book reviewers and handed to them. i know it's special, but please read it anyway. it's an example of why -- why there was a lot of problems with the idea until it up online and if somebody wants to buy a copy they can printed up pod, you know, so i think that's a classic story that illustrates why many public stories. carl marley tears was on the afterwards program. you can watch that online. another book about war, a national book award finalist emma john towers, cultures of work. someone else who has appeared on booktv. now, patti smith won the national book award this year for just kids. e.g. read it, jenn risko?

>> guest: i did not read it and i have to tell you i'm sad that i haven't read it because it's totally my kind of book. i know that john mutter, our editor-in-chief read it and he said that he was just entranced. and i've spoken to the folks at atco a number of times. what a cool thing for patty smyth, write? just amazing. >> host: we have a tweet here that is related to the last caller's question. how will the rise of e-books -- it will give you a chance to talk more generally about the industry. how the rise of e-books affect the future for editors, authors and book sellers and publishing overall? if you would come and take the e-mail and talk about the changes in 2010 and how it affected the industry. >> guest: there has been a lot of change. i was thinking recently another book that hit the times list was the sir palin book. an interesting thing about this

was that last year when pearland came out with going rogue, they delayed harpercollins delayed the electronic book of days for three or four months because they didn't want to cannibalize the hardcover sales. this year they came out with the e-book and her new book at the exact same time. you know, we are showing numbers that electronic books are maybe 9% of the overall industry. how does it affect things? is going to affect discreetly. but none of us believe that it's going to make the printed book go away. how it affects editors? i actually don't know how it would affect editors. i think that the biggest people that it could affect would be the booksellers actually. and i think that gaming the google e-book store is going to help them out a lot on that.

so we're looking forward to seeing what happens. this is the wild west. people are still trying to understand how to market and sell electronic works and there's still some market confusion out there about different pricing for different works because of the different models. so we're still feeling our way around it if it, but certainly the technology is both has been embraced and i think that -- i mean, certainly e-books are getting a hair. i think the way it would probably go, which is why the google e-book store is so pivotal is that we'll probably moving to more of a device agnostic environment. so, we will see what happens at that, which means you can read your e-book on your laptop and on your phone and on your typepad and everything else. and yet -- go ahead, sorry peter. >> host: i was going to say

google e-book launched on december 6 and they've already had 3 million free books downloaded and hundreds of thousands -- they have 3 million books on site for free and hundreds of thousands of books for purchase and are readable on any browser as you mentioned. what is going to be the effective google into the bookmark it? >> guest: i think that -- you know, it's anybody's guess on this, really. it's a whole new frontier. mica is again that if you buy a book like matterhorn, what i would like to see is you buy this 800 page book on the vietnam war and maybe you don't want to schlep it on the train that day. so what would be nice is to be able to read it on your phone or read it on your ipad or on what other device that is while you're on the train so you don't

have to shut the book around. i think that if that's the way things are going to go and that's what we called abilene, where you buy, you know, you buy the book and pay a few dollars more and you get the e-book for free or something like that. that that the way the industry is going to be going, i think google is a front runner for the understanding what consumers want. >> host: when it comes to digital books, here is some information about some of the devices you can use to read him books. kendall. kendall three has become amazons best-selling product ever. and while amazon does not divulge its numbers, and sources say that over 8 million kindle have been sold this year alone. that was reported by bloomberg. 8 million. >> guest: 8 million. >> host: that is a lot of kindle three. >> guest: that's a whole lot of kendall.

you know, it's interesting. it is a best-selling product ever. you know, i always wonder little bit how we -- i think the numbers can be a little subject is, but 8 million is a time. something interesting to think about on that 8 million number, which is keep in mind that very few electronic or e-book reading devices are sold internationally i think there is -- you know, there's a lot of reasons to be wowed at the 8 million number that purportedly amazon has done. you know, a lot of it is domestic. i think it would just be good for everybody to understand that most of that is right here in the united states. >> host: well, ipad. about 7.5 million ipad now been sold. it started at $499. and a barnes & noble milk. according to len riggio, about a

million of those have been sold so far. how does the nook compared to the kindle. pasco we've heard higher reviews for the nook. fixing a lot more positive reviews for the nook in the kindle, especially because of the color aspect, that the nook has color and that the kindle doesn't. but you know, distribution matters a lot. and certainly cnn has a captive willing audience, but amazon's audience was a heck of a lot bigger and also they were first to market. selected a lot of it right there. >> host: a couple more 2010 books, both of which booktv covered. cars are, steven ratner, an

insider's account of the emergency rescue of the audio industry and murder profits written by erik the taxes. laura bush told us that the national book festival this year that this is the book that george w. bush was reading and september into over. now, to your calls. 202-737-0001 for those of you in the east and central time zones. 202-737-0002 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. karen in detroit, you're on with jenn risko of shelf awareness. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm curious for the publisher to ask, will writers begin to consider putting hyperlinks into their book to take readers to other spot or other locations that are relevant to the text of their reading? i think that could create a really dynamic reading experience.

ten comments more than just reading the book, but then maybe a platform of going to a higher hyperlink. >> host: jenn risko. >> guest: i believe we can party to this this, can't we? for instance, if you're reading -- let me think about this. if you're reading "the new york times" on your kindle time you can click on it to link to other websites, right-click so if we take from that -- it gets a publishing thing about whether or not we want people to be leaving the page. i see no reason why not to do that. i think we just have been embraced yet. but i can certainly see that happening. >> host: by the way, we did have this tweet following karo garlington's book, matterhorn. i believe this was a big part of his success. >> guest: if i left that out, please forgive me because it was

the indie booksellers for sure that really handful despite the thousands. please forgive. i just knew he was one of the first people to see this. >> host: how did indie hinksellers to this e ..booksellers did pretty well. what we are hearing is this is a much better christmas than last year, which is what would like to hear, so we're happy about that. >> host: a couple more books have come out this year. james buchan, arab voices. stephen breyer, justice stephen breyer, making our democracy work. actuals would cover came out with his 25th book. joe biden, a life of trial and redemption. in another one, laura ingram, the obama diaries. this was one of the best-selling conservative books of the year. how did conservative books due this year? glenn beck came out with two, et

cetera. >> guest: i believe conservative books did incredibly well. there's like a lot of stuff mytive books and then >> i think it's, you know, either way. it's either conservative, or a look at the financial crisis, or the fun book. it's really interesting. i heard from a lot of book sellers that nonfiction really did top the list moreover than fiction -- even more so than most years. >> host: was that a surprise? >> guest: i think it is a little bit of a surprise, yeah. but a nice one. >> host: all right. next call. cranford, new jersey, scott, you are on the air. >> caller: hi, jennifer. it's scott. risko, how are you? >> guest: good, how are you? >> caller: okay. we're at the riverside. i wanted to sit there and say hello to you. and say that we are all proud of you in "shelf awareness." i wanted to thank you for

getting my child book, little mailman from may berry lane and get me that copy. >> host: jenn, that is somebody that you know? >> guest: yes. >> host: who? >> guest: my brother. >> host: what's the book that you got him? >> guest: this was years ago. it was mississippi favorite childhood book that went out of print. i believe it was back when ram mcnallly was publishing children's books. it was his favorite, favorite book. i had to find it in a used bookstore. it was the "little mailman of mayberry lane." anyway. my brother is having fun with me there. >> host: all right. speaking of children's book, there's one book that sold over 5 million copies. "diary of a wimpy kid." >> guest: this is for sure the biggest print of any book that we know of this year.

that was the initial print run worth 5 million copies. >> host: 5 million? >> guest: 5 million. you know, think about this. we talk about how kids aren't reading any more today. well, they are reading wimpy kid. for sure they are reading wimpy kid. i mean there was buses and stores and people waiting up all night long. eight, nine, and ten-year-old kids waiting up all night to get their mitts on "diary of a wimpy kid." i'm guessing on this, but i think this is the top selling book of any book for this year is "diary of a wimpy kid." >> host: how does that 5 million sales compare to some of the harry potter books? >> guest: it's close. but not quite as close. i mean i don't remember -- i think what was -- the last couple of harry presidenters were maybe seven or eight million.

something like that. initial runs. could be more. wimpy kid is not up there with harry potter or "twilight" even but it's a huge undergo. >> host: nir rosen "aftermath." and also "bloody crimes" james swanson's latest on the civil war. abraham lincoln. don, yuma, arizona, good evening. >> caller: my question is regarding the ebooks. >> host: please go ahead, sir. >> caller: i have a nook. and i -- i was wondering if they'd ever thought about bundling -- if you bought the ebook, the electronic portion

and the -- if i could buy the whole book together as a bundle. >> host: all right. jenn risko, you've kind of addressed that. but if you'd like to repeat it for him? >> guest: sure, don, i agree, i think this is the way it should go. if i buy the book, it should be in both electronic and print formats. you should get a discount for buying, you know, a discount on one of them or both of them for buying them collectively. because i think that, you know, as i mentioned before, it'd be nice to read your book at home, your paper book at home and when you leave to catch the train, it'd be nice to read your book on your phone or on your ipad or whatever it is. i think that -- you know, it was a couple -- a year ago or so that bob miller who was at harper studio at the time talked about doing more of this. i think we are going to be

seeing a lot more of this in the future. i'm looking forward to it. books can be heavy. yet, i still like reading a physical book too. >> host: well, two very heavy books that came out by two historians. edmond entitled "colonel roosevelt" and simon winchester his most recent historical book "atlantic" great see battles, and a vast ocean of 1 million stories. christina in bloomberg, new jersey, our on the air. go ahead. >> caller: hi, how are you? >> guest: good. >> caller: good. good. i was admiring jennifer. she's so pretty. this has to do with books. i was -- i just read almost 600 panels in oh the last two weeks. a week and a half.

and i'm like really high on the power of books. i think that, you know, it's a form of entertainment. you know, it's -- i like tv. but this is even better. because it ties tv to books, you know? >> host: christina, what book are you currently reading? >> caller: eckard tolle. two books "power of now" and "a new earth." those are spiritual motivating books. he talks about some form of spiritualty to stay in the now. you know, i think it's very powerful because with so many changes in, you know, on the planet and the world this gives you a little bit of basic information on, you know, how we see the earth, how do we see human kind, and even it brings

everything back to yourself. so i like him, i think he's great. my brother passed the book on to me, and then i read it, and then i passed it on to somebody else. i think sharing books. >> guest: this is an oprah book. >> caller: it was. it was. i felt neutral about that. i felt just neutral. [laughter] > guest: unlike jonathan franzen. >> caller: i guess by reading, you find out what really is a great book. i wish that, you know, the author gets the proper credit and that's great. reading is so enjoyable. i hadn't read books in a while to be honest with you. you know, i've seen them around. but, you know, -- i've even given some aware. reading is so beneficial to yourself. it stimulates the mind and it tells a story.

>> guest: thank you for calling in this evening. jenn risko, any comments for her? >> guest: i agree. reading is good. you know? >> host: oprah is going away. what affect that going to have on the book industry? >> guest: well -- you know, i don't know that she's really going away. she's going to be doing her own show on her own network, and the network is called o.w.n., oprah winfrey network. it's business as usual, she'll be talking about books, but not on network tv. it'll be interesting to see what affects that has. of all of the forces in the universe, oprah is at the top. >> host: okay. this is not a set up question. jenn risko, if you were a book publicist and couldn't get on the oprah show, where would you

get people to publicize their books? >> guest: man, it's not a trick question? >> host: it's not a trick question. you do not have to say book tv. [laughter] >> guest: i'd give it to peter. okay. i think -- here's my feeling on this. it's that there's very few one person outlets that make that big of a difference. to me what really makes a difference is, you know, as we said before like with matter horn that you get the gallies in the hands of the book sellers out there. that you get them in front of the librarians, that you get them to people who are going to review it online, or on good reads, or whatever it is. i think that, you know, i can't really answer it. because i believe in more of a grassroots kind of thing. the more people you have talking about book.

just like when christina said in her phone call that her brother gave her her book. oprah may or may not have influenced that decision for her that she felt neutral about it. i think that the best way really is you get as many people talking about you as possible. >> host: here's a tweet. >> guest: i just saw with keith richard, it's 900,000. >> host: that's a lot of books. >> guest: that's amazing. it's a lot of key. if you know what -- if we think about -- in another book that came out as well was the jay-z

book "decoded". that book has sold over 3,000 copies. why are the books so important? i don't know. when we tacked about the list and it was a lot of conservative books and a lot of funny books bike "stuff my dads says" and "chelsea, chelsea bang bang." we have the serious side and the pleasure side of things. certainly it's a pleasure to read about all of the brush with deaths and cops that keith richards has had. who wouldn't want to know about that. the guy has a lot to say. how did he lay the risks down? you know, so many of the great musicians like patty smith and keith richard, not really jay-z, he's younger. a lot of the people are getting older. it's nice to hear their stories now. >> guest: here's noah feldman

"score -- scorpion." we'll start with publisher weekly. they put out the best book of 2010, they included patti smith, who won the national book aware, and lauryn hill brand, "unbroken." what was the reaction to lauryn hillebrand. she wrote "sea biscuit." >> guest: she did. "unbroken" is next on me. we were all waiting for her next. i loved "sea biscuit" and in fact the story of unbroken is about a guy who was running in

the olympics in the late '30s in east berlin. he was just a rabble rosier, troublemaker. i believe after he ran the olympics he ran up and grabbed the german flag off of the reich 3. then he was preparing for the next olympics. he went into the army. at one point, he was stations off of oahu, and his plane was shot down and crashed. he and his co-pilot were on a raft for 47 days. for 47 days they were on a raft. you have sharks coming in, they are punching the sharks on the nose to fend them off. they finally see an island in the distance. they get off on the land. and it is low and behold, the japanese p.o.w. camp.

so the spirit of this guy really and what he had to endure to fight back from those experiences and also the endurancing speed of the horse "sea biscuit" i think it's interesting to note this. especially because laura hillebrand suffering from a syndrome, and she said she gets to live through the stories. >> host: because of that, she does not go on book tour. "the new yorker" put out their list of notable books. it includes peter, "icarus syndrome" and by the way, both of those books were covered on book tv in the last year. booktv.org, go to the upper left

hand corner, use the search function, type in part of the book title, you can watch them all online at your leisure. jane in woodbury, connecticut, thanks for hanging on. you are on the air. >> caller: hi, i have so many different things that i want to talk about. for one thing i'm a book reader. i want to say that i have a book club that i started long before oprah. we read classics and new books. i want to say, jenn, i think one the reasons that "kite runner" ever took off was because of book clubs and women who talks about, you know, that whole thing. >> guest: sure. >> caller: i listen to books on cd many my car, i also have an ipad where i download a book because i just can't get enough of it in the car and now i want to read it on what i call my ebook. but the other thing is i really think that a lot of people, you know, they read it in different

media, if you will. there's a book with the paper. and then there's the cd in the car, and then there's my ipad where i can download classics for free. >> guest: yup. >> caller: my question to you is, though, basically two things. one is i want to stress that fact that book clubs and women talking and i shouldn't just say women, but it usually is women, who promote a book, it becomes really popular. but the other thing is, what about people that can't afford ebooks that don't have a kindle or a nook or, you know, even sony has kind of a nook kind of thing. >> guest: yeah. >> caller: what happens with those readers? >> host: all right. we got the question. thank you. go ahead, jenn. >> guest: well, i think the answer there is that there's thousands of free ebooks out there that you don't need a device to read on. so if you went to your local

independent book seller and asked them about the google ebooks edition, they could show you right there how to download a copy of jane ayer. i think it actually frees up a lot of books. that's why i said earlier that i think what we are seeing is that the industry -- that things will move away from being device specific so that if you don't afford a kindle. although look they just came out with the new kindle, it was what like $139. >> host: $139, correct. >> guest: yeah. the estore has opened it up to right now read an electronic book on your desktop computer for free with internet. >> host: a couple more books

that came out in 2010. this is by rose mary and ev venn hon han "a few good women: america's military women from world war one to the wars in iraq and afghanistan." and louise nights "jane addams" spirit in action. both covered by book tv. st. louis, you are on the air. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. >> host: st. louis? yes, sir. >> caller: appreciate you do. i have a two-part question. my first question is how does a person who writing has the limits of writing songs or papers were class or transitioning into a book writer and they have to transition to a book seller. and my second question is what is the important own your own publishing company? thank you. >> host: jenn risko?

>> guest: okay. i'm trying to see if i understand the question correctly. i think what he's getting at is that how does he go from writing papers in school to being a published author? is that your understanding, peter? >> host: yeah, if you could speak broadly about becoming a writer. >> guest: look, i think what it takes is talent and perseverance. and a willingness to put on a shell and be told no. [laughter] >> guest: and keep going. we talked about matter horn before. again 30 year that is that gentleman worked on that amazing book. that takes a hard shelf being willing to say that i'm going to do this no matter what. and it also takes imagination and it takes some talent. so and then i think the second question is what is the importance of owning your own publicking -- publishing company? >> host: the importance of

owning your own publishing company and becoming a book seller. >> guest: the importance of being a book seller, i wish i could grab any of my book selling friends and have them say it. what i would say is the importance of being a book seller is, you know, you get to put ideas out into the universe. and get people to engage on that. and, you know, words lead to deeds. so i think that there's book sellers. these people -- it felt like book sellers make tons of dough telling books all the time. i mean we do this because we love it. we love to read good books and put books into the hands of people and to just turn on the world with different ideas and words. the second question about owning your own publishing company. my guess is that, you know, you own your own publishing company. so you can publish what you want. and that you are less

susceptible to somebody on a board of directors saying what the bottom line should be. i have friends that move to seattle these two young guys. they are just wonderful. they started the press called dark coast press. and they just publish what they want. basically their editorial meeting are do we like it? does it matter to us? do we want to put this out into the word? do we think the writer has talent? can they be developed over time. mostly, do we dig this? what a cool thing to be able to publish what you want. >> host: well, epublishing, can't anyone publish what they want? i think i saw some stat that self-published books ten to one were published over -- than books with publishers? >> guest: you can. and i think that number is only going to grow.

you can publish -- you can publish your book by yourself tomorrow. how does it get out there? how do book sellers -- >> host: jenn? >> guest: go ahead. >> host: what about the "the shack" it was self-published, wasn't it? >> guest: i think so. i haven't read that myself. >> host: did you read any self-publishing books? >> guest: i think we did. some small press, micropress stuff. i'm sorry. what was the other question? >> host: that was it. we will move on at that point. the economist in their political books recommends both game change and the bridge to biographies of barack obama. by the way, our next call comes

from denver. anthony, go ahead. >> caller: yes, first time caller. i love book tv. and i got a quick comment. number one if i was on a bed that i want want to watch book tv and have my nook. i have a nook. it's wonderful. that's that. my question for the guest is how do you keep up? how do you read so much to know what's going on? thank you. >> host: jenn risko? >> guest: how do i read so much? because it's a pleasure. to read. reading is one the best things and it's always been that for me. but, you know, look. i have a lot of help. everybody at shelf awareness they are much better readers than i any day. marilyn dole can read a book, and john the same, in a day.

we have readers that help us know what's out there and what's coming in. we also have amazing publishers that give us advanced copies, that put a book into our hands and say this one is incredibly special. so we read a lot. all of us do at the shelf. but we do it because it's, you know, because it's fun and we learn a lot and we love it. >> host: financial times best of 2010, they include the book by david kirkpatrick "the face book effect." also covered by book tv. all of these lists that we are siting, all available on our web site under our news about book section. you can see it there. the center column. news about books. all of the different lists by newspaper and magazines and publishing news letters. they are all right there in case you'd like to review them

yourself. good evening. >> caller: good evening. how are you? hi, jenn. >> guest: hi. >> caller: hi, i would like to ask you about self-publicking a book on ecommerce. my question is do you have any advise on how to go about doing it? and are there any self-help books or information that would help one publish their book on e? >> host: jenn risko? >> guest: let me understand the question. the question is how does someone go about self-publishing a book on ecommerce? is that right, peter? >> host: what advise would you have for that person? >> guest: if you want to go the way of self-publishing, i would just google, you know, how to publish a book. i would be careful about places that ask you for lots and lots of money.

[laughter] >> guest: if you are going to self-publish, it shouldn't cost that much money. it depends on whether or not you want to have it printed and distributed or just have it be an ebook only. there's certainly markets for that. if you are publishing a book obvious ecommerce, my guess is your audience is techy and geeky enough it would be fun. that's the route i'd go. >> host: and books coming out in early 2011. here's another history book. "ratification." the people debate the institution, 1787, and 1788. she's also the author of "american scripture." by the way, she will be a guest in march. you are on the air with shelf awareness.

>> guest: i'm retired. i own 100 shares of apple. i bought an ipad. i've been so pleased with it because i can download so many books, carry so many books with me, and with my eyes, make the print larger. and barnes and noble from the ibook package makes it a wonderful investment that i made. i appreciate it. >> host: james, did you say that you were 86 years old? >> caller: yeah. >> host: okay. your friends in your age group, are they also using the ipad or another electronic reader? or have they stuck with hardback? >> caller: well, i think some of them do. and the others calls me a nerd.

[laughter] >> host: all right. james, what are you currently reading? >> caller: i'm currenting downloading some f. scott fitzgerald, and those kinds of books in that era. and it's just so much fun to read them. a friend of mine, troy lee davis has been teaching courses. it's so much fun to read about and hear and go through these books with my ipad. thanks very much. >> host: thank you for calling in this evening. jenn risko, i want to add a tweet that we got to his comment for you to respond to as well. are there demographics for ebook reader purchasers? are they being adopted by folks above 50? james, of course, was 86. >> guest: so james is. [laughter] >> guest: yeah, actually, you