they are their own religion, and the lds is their own religion. >> sam brower, this is his books, prophets prey coming out in october 2011 published by bloomsberg. >> now from book expo america, the annual trade show for the publishing show in new york city and michael moore discusses his book. it's about a half hour. ..

>> so you're sitting in a state that has a big election. and the democrat one. i think is open for democrats elected there since the civil war. so, it was quite something. my suggestion to the republicans today is don't stop with medicare. the next thing they should propose is getting rid of the veterans administration. i think that will go over really big. and after that the elimination of traffic lights. [laughter] and then kittens. get rid of kittens. just go all out and get those

two little kittens. you will do well a year from november. [laughter] enough picking on them. they've got a rough road ahead of them, and you know, i was saying last night, it just resembles, they caught this great cat back in november. but then they started running in the opposite direction down the football field away from their goal. and you know, it's like democrats and liberals, everybody is a peace loving and understanding. we're on the field going no, no, turn around. no, i have the ball. i'm going this way. yes, but people like their medicare. i don't care, i have the ball. so anyways, what can you do? i assume most of you work at

bookstores? the librarians are here. [applause] >> and teachers? great. no, i mean, of course, teachers are to blame for everything, right? you know, all that money they're taking from us. i have a new book coming out, and it's cold here comes trouble. the stories from my life. it's the book of about two dozen short stories. but they're all nonfiction. all of my life. and i go through a number of interesting incidents and things that happened to me before i made my first film, this takes place in the years leading up to roger and me.

and so it was a short story about getting lost inside the capitol building 11 years old. my parents had taken us to washington, d.c.. i got lost and i walked in this elevator and i didn't see. the door shut and this man reading a paper he puts the paper down and i like got tears in my eyes. i've lost my mommy and daddy. added senator robert kennedy. and so the story is about his effort to help me find my parents that day and the capitol building. there's another story about, i asked my parents if i could leave home when i was 14. and they said yes because i said i wanted to be a priest. they didn't want to get in the way of god's calling someone to the seminary at 14 years old, and this is a story about being there at the seminary, and i

have of course a lot against the catholic church as recovering catholic. so there's a whole bunch of things like this, and i found myself present at a terrorist incident that took place in the 1980s, this particular day whether we 19 people killed and probably about 120 or so injured from bullets and grenades shrapnel. and i was just coming in to the airport to change planes, and so i write about what it's like to actually be present at one of these terrorist incidents comment and live. so the book has a lot of these experiences and stories that sort of maybe explain how i got to be where i got, or why i ended up doing the things i did.

and they are interesting and wild, summer fun and some are not so funny. but i begin the book in the present, and i thought maybe i would read just a little -- i don't know what our time constraints are here, but do you want to hear a little bit of this? i have not read any of this to anybody. it's still on the pages. that they were typed on. this is a quote, begins with a club from limbeck. -- glenn beck. i'm thinking about killing michael moore, and i'm wondering if i could kill him myself, or what i need to hire someone to do it? now, i think i could.

i think he could be looking you right in the eye, i could just be choking the life out of him. is this wrong? i stopped wearing my what would jesus do band, and i've lost all sense of right and wrong now. i used to be able to say, yeah, i would kill michael moore, and then i see little wristband and say what would jesus do? then i realized he wouldn't kill michael moore. or at least he wouldn't choke him to death. and you know, well, now i'm not so sure. glenn beck's radio program may 17, 2005. i can't remember who asked me to question, but i remember the moment very well. he said, aren't you surprised you are still alive? there's lots of people that want you dead.

he was trying to get a reaction out of me. we were standing on the floor of the democratic convention in 2004. used tone of voice was one of, how shall we say, hopeful. i looked at him, i didn't know how to respond. i tried to make light of it. when the interview was over i couldn't put it out of my head what you said on national television. that there are those who want you dead. i can guarantee that no go make a political person has ever been asked that question live on national tv. it had been a rough year for me, the threats, the assaults, the man who planned to blow up my house. and now this journalist had to go and plant the seed of an idea in a few more deranged hamster i stood on the floor and i just stared at him and he stared back. even with other reporters asking me questions i would not take my eyes off them. and then i lost it.

for the first time in my life i decided i was going to punch someone right in the face. i walked back up to him, and with dirty harry called, i said, this is absolutely the most crazy thing either been asked on live television. he could see what was going to happen next, and asked me to wait a few minutes until he was done talking to this guy. sure, punk, i can wait. and then he slipped away. but there will be nowhere for him to hide. he took refuge inside the arkansas delegation. the refuge of all scoundrels. but i found him and walked right up to them. within an inch of his face and i whispered, you made my death mean acceptable. you just told people it was a day to kill me. he tried to back away but i blocked him in. i want you to think about your action. and don't think my family will come after you because they will.

he mumbled something about his right to ask me anything he wanted. and i decided it was worth breaking my lifelong record of never hitting anyone, certainly not some weasel from cable news. save it for "meet the press" tonight. he broke loose and got away. within the year he would become a star on fox news where he should've been in the first place. to be fair to them though his question was when i heard before. though maybe not posed quite so easily. it was not immune to be asked usually by perplexed europeans, how is it you are still alive? or for fans of my to randomly come up and hugged me and say, i can't believe you are still here. and they didn't mean in the building. why was i still hear? in the first year of the war i was told by security expert who is often used by the secret service that, quote, there is no one in america other than president bush with in more danger than you. how did this happen?

i decided that i brought this all on myself beginning tonight at march 23, 2003, 4 days prior george w. bush invaded iraq. a country that not only not attacked us, but it was, in fact, a pass receiver that much military aid from the united states. this wasn't a legal and moral stupid invasion. but that's not how americans saw a. over 70%, including liberals like al franken, and the 29 democratic senators who voted for the war authorization bill, including senators chuck schumer, dianne feinstein, and john kerry. plus the future "new york times" editor bill keller and editor of the liberal magazine "the new yorker," david rennie. all supported the war. the times ran many bogus front-page stories about how saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he later apologized for their

cheerleading. but the damage had been done. they had given bush the cover he needed, and the ability to claim in a liberal paper like the times says so, it must be true. it must be true. so here it was, the fourth night of a very unpopular war, and my film "bowling for columbine" was up for an oscar. i went to the ceremony but was not allowed along with the other nominees to talk to the press on the red carpet. going into the kodak theatre. there was fear that someone might say something and in wartime, we need everyone on the same page. the actress diane lane read the list of nominees for best documentary. the envelope was opened and she announced that i had one. on the main floor, the actors, directors, writers gave me a standing ovation. i invited my fellow documentary nominees to join me on the

stage, and they walked up with me. and i spoke the following words. thank you -- i won't -- i won't give my speech impersonation. thanthank you very much. i've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us. they are here in solitary with me because we, like nonfiction. we like nonfiction, yet we live in fictitious times. we live in a time where we have factitious election result that elect a thick tissues president. we live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alert, we are against this war. we are against this war, mr. bush. shame on you. shame on you, mr. bush.

and anytime you've got both the pope and the dixie chicks against you, your time is up. [laughter] that's the first time i've read those words out loud since that night. about halfway through those remarks, all hell broke loose. there were boos and very loud boos on the upper floors and from backstage. the producer of the show ordered the orchestra to start going to drown me out. the microphone started descending into the floor of the stage. there was pandemonium and i was whisked off. a little-known fact. the first two words every oscar winner here is right after you win the oscar, come from two young people that the academy has high. they are attired in for more and their standing in the wings to greet you. they young girl said to me, champagne? she held out a flute of

champagne. the young boy next to her said, breath mint? [laughter] and he held out a breath mint. champagne and breath mint are the two words all oscar winners here first. but i got to hear a third. and angry stage and came up to me and screamed in my ear, as whole. other angry stage and started toward me. he ever of the security backstage saw the rubble that was about to break out, and they quickly took me by the arm and moved me to a safer place. i've was shaken, rattled, due to the overwhelming negative rejection of my speech. instead of this being the moment of a lifetime, i was convinced i had let everyone down. my fans, those against the war, the oscar organization, my crew, my wife, my dad was sitting in the audience. anyone who meant anything to me. i had ruined their night.

i sadly sunk into despair. an hour later we walked to the governors ball, the place could immediately sign the. and people stepped away from the for fear their picture would be taken. i stood there alone with my wife in the incident, shunned by the hollywood establishment. only one person dared to approach me. her name is sherry. the head at the time of the paramount studios. she saw what was going on and so she walked up the center aisle in front of everyone to where i stood. my shoulders hunched over, my head bowed. she came right up to me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. thank you, she said. it hurts now, someday you will be proved right. i am so proud of you. and then she kissed me again. that was pretty much it for the night.

we sat quietly at our table and ate our roast beef. we decide to skip the party and went back to the hotel. i couldn't sleep so i turned on the tv. for the next hour i watched the local l.a. tv station to their oscar post game shows. and as i flipped through the glass, i realized i listened to one commentator after another question my sanity, criticize my speech, and say over and over in essence, i don't know what got into him, i can't see him having an easy time getting another movie made in this town. talk about career suicide. after an hour of this, i had a sick feeling in the, i believe that they were right. i got to listen to more booze over the next 24 hours walking from the hotel, going through the airport, it was like i helped the russians through the olympics.

being well back home in her home in mission, the local beautification committee had done three truckloads of horse manure in our driveway place tie so that we wouldn't be able to in our property. a property, which by the way, was nicely redecorated with a dozen or so signs nailed to our trees, get out. commie scum, traitor, leave now or else. it was time to call in the navy seals. and that i'm going to skip to the end. i hired a group that essentially our ex-navy seals and army rangers, and they became my security. i go through this chapter and ago to the very incidents of people assaulting me, trying to assault me, and finally somebody attempting, planning to blow up my house. and these navy seals basically

say to me and kept me alive. i in the book describe these incidents really for the first time because you're not supposed to talk about these things in public. so here's the end of that chapter. one night in florida, this was after basically as part -- i started training with the navy seals, and lifting weights and walking and then running with them, and they should all these various things, how they can take you out with a piece of dental floss, and things you probably shouldn't know but anyway, i was like no, i was in condition. one night in florida, along with a friend were walking into the mall to see a movie. a young guy in his 30s passed

by me, and as he did, he had this to say. shit had. he continued on his walk. i stopped and turned towards him hey you, come back here. the person i was with said mike, let it go. but letting it go is what i used to do and that didn't help the hater kid. the guy kept walking. hey, don't run away from you, i shouted loud. don't be a chicken. come back here and face me. chicken is a dish not well served with a gender with testosterone for their fluids. he abruptly halted and turned and headed back toward me. and as he got i.t. from me i said the following in the gentlest voice i could much. hey man, why would you say such a thing to me? he sneered and steel himself for a fight. because i know who you are. you're a shithead. now, do you go again. using that word. you haven't the foggiest idea of who i am.

what i am really about. you don't -- you haven't even seen one of my movies. i don't need to. he replied. confirming what i already suspected. i already know the kind of stuff you put out there. okay, dude, that's not there. you can't judge him based on what someone else has told you about me. you look way smarter than that if you look like a guy who makes up his own mind. please watch one of my movies. i swear to god you may not agree with all the politics, but i can guarantee you that you instantly know that i have a deep love of this country. and you'll see that i have a heart, that i care for people, and i promise that you'll laugh a few times during the film. and if you still want to call me a shithead after that, then fine but i don't think you will. he called down and we talked for another five minutes. i listen to his complaints about the world, and i told them that we probably have more in common than not. he relaxed even more and eventually i got a smile out of

him. finally, i said i had to go our we will miss our movie. hey, man, he said, holding out his hand, i thought i told you that name. you're right, i don't know you. at the fact that you stop and talk to me after i said that, well, maybe i should. please accept my apology. i did, and we shook hands. i had taken a risk for sure, but i had enough of this. they would be no more disrespecting or threatening me. and that was the attitude that made me save him are as safe as one could be in this world. from now on if you mess with me they would be consequences. i may make you watch one of my movies. [laughter] a few weeks later i was back on the tonight show for the first time in quite a while. when it was over i was leaving the stage, and a guy -- the guide was operating the boom microphone approach me. you probably don't remember me he said, i never thought i would get to see again i get the chance to talk to you one more

time that i can't believe i get to do this. do what, i thought? i braced myself for the men. i never thought i would get this chance to apologize to you, he said, as tears started to come into his eyes. and now here you are and i get to say this. i was the guy who ruined your oscar night. i'm the guy who yelled asshole right after you came off the stage. i -- i -- you try to compose himself. i thought you're attacking the president, but you are right. he did lie to us. and i've had to carry this with me now all these years. and i did that on your big night. i'm so sorry. right now he was shaking pretty bad. at all i could think of was to do was to reach out and give him a huge hug. it's okay, man, i said. i accept your apology. but you don't need to apologize to me. you did nothing wrong.

what did you do? you believed your president. you are supposed to believe the president. if we can't expect that, as just the minimum for whoever is in office, then we are doomed. well, he said, relieved, thank you for understanding. understanding, i said? this isn't about understanding. i told this story for years about the first two words i hear and then i got here a second work, don't take that story from me. [laughter] people love it. he laughed. and i laughed. there aren't many good stories like that, of course there were. i had a ton of them. and i didn't want to tell these stories for a long time. but they don't begin here in burbank. burbank is the end. they begin at the beginning, before i had even begun.

[applause] >> so, thank you. that was really cool. i got to do this for the first time. they submit time, just a couple minutes for a couple of questions if anybody would like to ask me anything, or say anything, or whatever. you are welcome to the. yes, sir, in the front row. >> i will repeat the question if you can't hear. [inaudible] >> the question is, what have i been doing that abbott recognizes me. ice -- [inaudible]

i set out in the truck listening and i've got a piece and i will repeat the question that way so that i can at least conduct the interview. obviously some people will not talk to me now. but i found ways. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> i talked about what? >> being an nra member. are you still? >> i had a lifetime membership to the nra, and i think they had a special vote to excommunicate me. [laughter] so i don't think i may never any longer. but i still have a nice leather jacket they sent me. yes, sir come in the i'll. [inaudible] >> what do i think i've been -- what's happening.

the republicans, they are very good at organizing, and in some ways they are smarter. they know how to get the job done. they took of the statehouse, the governorship, a huge swath of the country in november. and it didn't do it just so they could put it on their resumes. they came in with a plan. the plan was to go after public unions, go after teachers, take away people's pensions, et cetera. i think they shot themselves in the foot and i think those senators in wisconsin, hopefully, will be recalled. they got a taste of it last night. can you imagine if you are a member of congress and republican and this morning you can't get elected in a district that only those four republicans? only votes for republicans. the woman who was one be was behind 20 points a few weeks ago before the medicare vote. but this is -- the republicans

-- if we were smart as they are, this is what we would have done. as soon as the house took a vote to get bit of medicare, senator reid, the democrat, should have immediately called for a vote on in the senate. it would have passed if we'd gotten the votes. put every republican senator on the record of wanting to kill medicare. [applause] >> yeah, well. i think you are uploading great idea, but that won't even get us over -- why don't the democrats do this stuff? why? wide? white? i mean, there's a cynical and you can which is their bought and paid for by the same people. and then there's the weird answers, they just don't have -- they're missing the backbone. and i for the life of me i don't understand because the other side would never behave this

way. and i guess what makes us feel better about ourselves, you know, we don't want to hold a vote here in the senate and embarrass them, you know, so let's not do that to them right now. i mean, yes, i like the fact that we are the peace loving and understanding group, but for crying out loud, we are going to lose the country if we don't stand up and stand up against this madness. yes, ma'am. [inaudible] >> what gives me purpose in life? i don't know. i don't know. that's a good question. i don't know. i get up in the morning. i'm a citizen of this country. you know, it almost -- it's redundant to say that i -- i've never called myself an activist because i think that if you say you are a citizen of a democracy, it should imply that you are active.

that democracy doesn't exist unless you're active. so i never really kind of viewed myself as that kind of way. yes, in the middle. [inaudible] >> what do i do if i don't have my resources and if you're involved in some sort of struggle? i didn't have these resources. i was a guy with a high school education but i did know anybody. i made "roger and me." just follow your conscience and your heart, and don't despair and realize you'll be alone through a lot of this. into some of that you may have to put up with -- i tell the story of a guy in fort lauderdale, nicely dressed guy coming out of a starbucks, sees me and you can just see the sort of limbaugh, back chip go off in his head. in his face turns red and purple

and he takes the lid off his hot scalding coffee and throws it in my face. but fortunately because i had these navy seals with me, the guy, the seals sought happen didn't have time to stop the guy so he took the hit for me. he got second degree burns. they took him to the hospital but not before he took this guy down on the sidewalk and handcuffed him and called the police. so, you know, i do want to encourage anybody to have to deal with all of that. you know, not pleasant. yes, ma'am. [inaudible] >> what happened to the health care? >> she's referring to my film sicko, and that's something nice about it. and what has happened with -- we got the first step of it passed. i hope it is just the first it

because it's not -- it's not the real thing when he. we need single care universal health care for everyone. [applause] >> this is where the republicans are all wrong. we don't need less medicare. we need more medicare. medicare for all. the countries that have medicare for all spend -- france, germany and japan spend half of what we spend per citizen on health care. that's with free health care. they've got the american mind work in thinking members will pay for this, oh, my gut. break the budget. know it will likely save you money. and people will put off going to the doctor. if you catch something to it doesn't cost as much later if someone puts off going to the doctor because they can't afford the deductible if they have insurance or they're trying -- is a story last week of how people even with insurance are not going to the doctor, even to pay the deductible, the co-pay is crazy. i mean, i'm opposed to

deductibles and co-pays, all this nonsense. look at other countries like we are crazy. i have health insurance, and there is no deductible. it's like, that is -- when i talk to the insurance company, they're not exactly my best friend, you know. i said what would it cost -- here's the 2000 our deductible and the $1000 deductible. what would it cost for no deductible? he said no deductible? hang on, i never get asked that. and he says $17 a month per employee. i said you've got to be shooting me. 17 more dollars per employee per month i can give them no deductible? >> yeah. and i'm like, man, this is crazy. so i hope that we have a canadian style system someday. and, you know, the right wing will point out what's wrong with canada, but try to find a

canadian who will give up their free health care card in exchange for a blue cross card in this country. they will never do it, no matter all of their complaints about they wished this, that or the other. every country that has free health care lives one, two, three, four years longer than we do. japan, even more i think. one more. who has the best one? [laughter] [inaudible] >> do i think the government will -- [inaudible] >> i don't even know what that means. [inaudible] >> i will repeat the question but i don't understand. the government will come back for the witnesses of 9/11. [inaudible] >> union will become a come back to new york?

[inaudible] >> why would they do that? [inaudible] >> this is too early in the morning. [laughter] >> who has a last real one? [laughter] yes, ma'am. [inaudible] >> was the subject of my next film. it's about -- [laughter] >> and it should be out sometime next year. [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information on the book expo america, visit bookexpoamerica.com. >> what are you reading this

summer, booktv wants to know. >> michael moore, what's on your summer reading list? >> i heard there's a new book out, a "new york times" reporter, excellent writer. he cuts right to the floor. i just heard about it and i want to get -- i don't know if it's out yet. this summer. a wonderful writer. and writes very passionately about the times, you know, in which we live. there's also a book i just saw called the good cheeses and a scoundrel christ, and it's a dark satire. imagines if mary had twins on christmas day. we never heard about like the bad twin. will know about the good twin. so this sort of imagines the story of what the other guy did. so, so that sounds -- that's

right up my alley as a recovering catholic, i'm looking forward to reading that. >> tell us what you are reading this summer. send us a tweet at booktv. >> zaheer ali, what was your involvement in this book, malcolm x? >> my involvement in the book malcolm x began before the books life began as one of as a student. i came as part of my program in history at columbia university, and i was interested in researching the history of the nation of islam in harlem. and when he heard this, his eyes opened up, a smile came across his face, and he said you have to work with me. and he told me that he had for years been wanting to do work on malcolm x. and because of his duties as

director of the institute for research in african studies which he found at columbia he had not had a chance to get involved in it, but shortly after i started, he commenced working on a comprehensive research project on the life of malcolm x called the malcolm x project. and i worked with him in several capacities on that project. one as the associate director of the project for four years, then as one of the lead researchers on the project, and, of course, as one of his teaching assistants for his malcolm x courts. so, all of those activities fed into the work that would become this book. >> what is there about this book that is different than the co-author alex haley autobiography of malcolm x? >> anyone who sets out to do any work on malcolm x has to contend with the autobiography of malcolm x. it's such a powerful and moving into states of malcolm x.

but the autobiography of malcolm x is a powerful literary story of personal transformation. it is not a historical study of malcolm's life. certainly there were aspects of malcolm's experiences that he had no idea about when he was writing the autobiography. the decision when he worked on the autobiography, he sent out initially to write a book that would demonstrate the transformative power of the nation of islam and his life. and so certain aspects of his life preimposed nation of islam were highlighted or emphasized or deemphasized to highlight the contrast between his green -- life of islam. and then there was the filter of the voice of alex haley, who has a liberal republican integrationist, was not a fan of malcolm x is politics as a black

nationalist or black africanist. and resolve a malcolm story, a cautionary tale for a white american, innocent this is what happens if you don't take the race problem. and that isn't what the best frame to understand malcolm's development, his political development, his space development, his relationship with africa and middle east which is not covered at all in the autobiography. the level of surveillance that he was under by the federalists state agency of the fbi and the new york police department. so these are all insights that are missing from the autobiography of malcolm x. what the doctor a couple shows in this book is giving us not only the life of malcolm but the social architecture that framed that life. >> were archives and records available that the doctor used for those that were not

available? >> yes. i'm glad you asked that question. there hasn't really been an attempt to do a conference of bile on malcolm for over 20 years but i think the last major attempt to do a biography of malcolm was bruce perry in 1991. and so, there hasn't been much work done on malcolm for that long. in doing this book, dr. marable took advantage of material that had become available only in the last five to 10 years. he is one of the first scholars to engage malcolm's travel diaries, which gives us a richer understanding of malcolm's experiences abroad that were instrumental in his political and religious development. this book is one of the first to engage the manhattan district attorney? file on the assassination of malcolm, of highlighting some of the unanswered questions that linger around malcolm x is fascination and what other agencies may or may not have

known about it in advance. this book also is, i think, it is the only, only book to utilize speeches that malcolm gave within the nation of islam context, such of what people understand about malcolm has been based on speeches that were made available after his death, speeches that he gave in the last few months of his life that were from the time he left the nation of islam in march of 1964, or maybe slightly before. but very little had been known about what malcolm x said as a minister, as a pastor, as an administrator of the nation of islam for the 12 years he was a member of the nation of islam. in fact, dr. marable gives us a fuller picture of the level of work that malcolm put in traveling the country, speaking and organizing building temples

our behalf of the nation of islam. so these are just some of the, and this is based on the archives that individual. so i think these are some of the new and fresh insights that are in the book based on those archives. >> zaheer ali, are there some archives about malcolm x that are still not available? >> well, yes. there are thousands of pages of fbi documents, and new york police department documents. in his research, dr. marable utilize over 6000 pages of newly declassified material, freedom of information act request, just this last month the fbi put on the website a new batch of fbi files on naca max. so there is still much more to be known about what our government knew about malcolm, what they thought about malcolm, and how it involved the work. one of the interesting things we found was that malcolm, the

first page of his fbi file began in 1950 while he was in prison. he had just come into the teaching of the nation of islam but he written a letter to president truman protesting the korean war. and based on that letter, the fbi began their file on him, the first file. another interesting insight on terms of how deeply embedded the fbi was and all of the order stations of malcolm was involved in. in 1954, malcolm was traveling the country thank temples for the nation of islam. he's in boston holding a small meeting in a family home. maybe 10 or 12 people's independence. one of them was an fbi informant who reported on the need to visit in 1954 before the nation of islam had received any publicity or much publicity at all, before it had achieved the numbers that it had achieved. that is how early and are deeply embedded the nation of islam was, the fbi was in the nation of islam.

so, you know, that raises some of the questions that i think dr. marable asks us about, what more can we learn when these files grow gradually as they become more and more available. and then, of course, much of what the babel is redacted which means people's names and certain identities are crossed out are blacked out, and so as a scholar you kind of have to corroborate with other materials. the fbi would have certain reports on meetings that malcolm had where we could come we could corroborate those reports with newspaper accounts, oral history come with other accounts and try to figure who they were talking about when they were redacting. these are some the things we still have to learn about malcolm x. but i think this makes a a significant tradition towards that objective. >> the subtitle, a life of reinvention, where did that come from? >> this comes from -- unit, malcolm went through several stages in his development. he was born malcolm little, and

throughout his life, you know, his family was -- his father was killed by many, killed by what many believe to be racist violence of the black legion which was the kind of ku klux klan organization in the midwest in the 1920s. his family fell apart as a result of that. he was moved into a foster home. in eighth grade his teacher kind of dashed his dreams of becoming a lawyer, say those unlisted or him as a black jumper key kind of loses his enthusiasm for school and he was a great student. he was elected class president. and any moves to boston and lives with his sister. and takes on the persona detroit red. he wasn't from detroit red. he was from lansing, michigan, but detroit was a better city so he becomes detroit red and participate in the kind of culture of the time. he becomes a bit of a petty

criminal, and then, of course, he goes to prison. and while he is in prison, he encounters through his sibling the nation of islam teachings, and takes on the name of malcolm x. the ex was in the nation of islam, even to isn't members signified by their loss, identity that was taken from them by identity. and that's then he came to prominence with. when he left the nation of islam he went to the pilgrimage which is one of the five pillars of islam, enduring the title al hodge, the arabic name that event was topically known by, and so these are several stages of malcolm's evolutionary development. as his political ideas begin to grow and evolve, as his religious faith deepest. but even through the reinvention, the recasting that he undergoes, there's some consistent characteristic about malcolm. he we need someone who is incredibly defiant, challenging

all forms of authority from his parents as malcolm little, to the prison authorities, as malcolm x and then coming out in the nation of islam, challenging the authority structure and the nation of islam at times, and serve as shabazz wanted to bring the united states before the world court at the united nations for human rights violation of the rights of african-americans. so he was someone who was always challenging authority. he was someone who was deeply disciplined and committed, and had incredible integrity throughout much of his life. so even though he goes through changes that signify political and spiritual identification, there's certain core characteristics that i think are consistent throughout. >> this book published in april of 2011. dr. marable died when? >> dr. marable sadly and unexpectedly passed on april 1,

2011. and the book was released on april 4. he was someone who was a scholar and activist. he had written over 20 books focusing on african-american history, politics, black leadership, the criminal justice system, hurricane katrina, the aftermath, the leadership of president obama. and he do to all his academic or intellectual projects as social justice intervention. and he was very excited about this book because he hoped that this book would reignite interest in malcolm x, any issues that malcolm x represents. that this book would cause people to revisit the ideas of an african is an and islam that malcolm so deeply was committed to. and he hoped that the conversations around this book would cause people who want to reopen and re-examined the case and circumstances that led to

malcolm's assassination. so for him, this was not just a book to peddle. this was an opportunity to have very important conversation around the life and legacy of malcolm x. >> zaheer ali, one of the critiques of this book is that dr. marable made assumptions about malcolm x his life. >> well, i think what dr. marable sought to do was give us a comprehensive, a portrait of malcolm's life as well as available based on the sources he consulted. and as a researcher, i think he was very careful. he was very -- he wouldn't based anything he wrote on just one source. you try to corroborate as much as he could with multiple sources. and in addition, i think it's important to note that he grappled with what he found about malcolm. there were certain things about malcolm's life that he was absolutely in awe of.

and the research things about malcolm's life that he had criticisms of. and there were certain things he don't we just need to understand the complexity of malcolm as a human being. in a sense, this book is a kind of iconic classroom. he challenges the -- a challenges the iconoclast, the autobiography of malcolm x, and kind of takes malcolm off of the pedestal so we can see them as a human being as he struggles through the political and religious current. >> did the shabazz family participate in the research of this book or were they willing to talk in the discussion? >> early on dr. marable work with the shabazz family on the malcolm x project in fact, dr. marable was answer medal utilizing calamity and ready to help reopen the site that was at the, the former site of the audubon ballroom which is now the malcolm x memorial center.

because columbia was part owner of that site. and so, dr. marable felt very deeply towards making sure that malcolm and his family deserve justice, and the kind of memorial that was worthy of malcolm's work. as a historian, and he also felt committed to, again, giving us a comprehensive portrait of malcolm in all his humanity. and understandably, this is not a hagiography. this is not a saint story. as malcolm would've been the first to tell is, he was no saint. and i think dr. marable's a portrait of malcolm, even with his human complexity, is one that is still sympathetic. it's critical, but it still gives as malcolm as a deeply compelling figure. >> zaheer ali, what is your background? >> i am a researcher, a student

at columbia university, who's been as enthralled with malcolm probably since high school when i read the autobiography of malcolm x. and throughout college and grad school, much of my research has focused on the history of islam in america, especially in african-american committee. >> where are you from? >> my family is from trinidad and i grew up in maryland. >> now that the book is finished what are you doing today? >> i am unfortunately, dr. marable was the chair of my dissertation, and advisor for my dissertation. so i'm in the process of reconstituting my committee and looking forward to do something that he was committed to sing me to come at this complete my ph.d program at columbia university. >> we've been talking with zaheer ali about manning marable's last book, "malcolm x a life of reinvention." thank you. >> tom allen is president of the

american association of publishers, former congress and, democrat from maine. congressman alan, described if you would the state of the book industry as you see it today. >> exciting would be one where. it's a time of enormous transformation in this industry, primarily because of new technology and the movement of content from being ink on paper to digital. and so what's happening is that people are able to take him, to read our material in a lot of different ways on a lot of different devices, wherever they may be. and it's a very exciting time because the industry is changing so fast. lots of opportunities and some significant risks. >> are people reading less than they used to? >> i don't think so. i think in some ways that proliferation of the readers is leading them to read more. certainly people can be impulse buyers 24 cylinder car lease those hours when they are awake.

and we see a very dramatic rise in the number of e-books in revenues from e-books. and i think the reading is picking up. you've had the example of some young adult books, the harry potter series, the twilight series that just for a whole generation, a younger generation have gotten them into reading long books, and that i think is a healthy development. >> tom allen, the advent of e-books, hasn't hurt the publisher's? >> no. the publishers are really -- they are neutral about how people take their material. and what you see is, some decline, probably because of the recession. less so probably because of the e-book, the increase in e-book. partly, some decline in hardbacks, but you do see a significant rise in e-book, e-book revenues and the number of units sold. so i think the publishers are

feeling, as long as they can get the business model right, they're going to be okay. and i would say also, they would say as long as piracy does not come, become the kind of problem that was to the music industry. >> tom allen as a former congressman, what kind of involvement do you still have with the hill, particularly now as president of the american association of publishers to? >> i'm involved in making the case occasionally to members of congress or to the executive branch about what the needs of the industry are. to give you one example, digital piracy is a significant problem for the industry. it could be worse in the future than it is today. so we really need legislation from congress that would allow the u.s. attorney general to go after some of these rogue websites. what i mean by that, websites and basically make a living by

uploading copyrighted material and then allowing others to take it down for free. and i will give you another issue. we are very worried about one part of the consumer product and safety commission, improvement act. which affects children's books. we are trying to make sure there is a reasonable testing program for children's books that won't sort of early disrupt the market and still make sure that our kids are safe, which they are because frankly, books are not a threat. >> what's the issue? >> the issue has to do -- you remember a few years ago when there was that big scare about lead in children's toys from china? i voted for the bill and a lot of others did but it doesn't say children's toys. it says children's products. and that is so wide that it brings in clothing and books and a whole host of other products that are really don't contain lead. and children's books is one example of a product that poses no risk to children, but you

can't say that it never contains the tiniest amount of lead. so you have to figure out how to work with that legislation any practical way to. >> tom allen, what's your view on the unsettled of the google books settlement? >> is so -- is so much i can say about that which, consider another way of resolving the matter. there are ongoing conversations and that's about all i can say. that's about it. >> how long do you see the publishing industry being in the transition it's been in for the last several years? >> a while, because books as you and i know them, whether their educational books or books we buy in the bookstore are not going away. we're going to have printed books for as long as we are around. on the other hand, the transformation movement to digital is providing customers with ways to read novels or

study occasional material in all those different ways. and that's going to continue. i think that one of the most interesting and most fundamental differences is that 10 years from now, the way our students first and higher and ending in the k-12 and under will be dramatically different, much more that will be with the computer on an interactive program so students can learn at their own pace, get feedback from the program itself, with the instructor getting all sorts of help from the publishers materials, all of them. that i think is going to transform and improve american education, and so that kind of transition is going to go on for quite a while. and in the consumer sector, where people are reading fiction and nonfiction, these elite as are contained to get better, more varied, and i think you see at some point different content,

more of a multimedia experience sometimes coming in what was traditionally thought of as a book. >> former congressman tom allen now president of the american association of publishers. this is booktv on c-span2. good to be with you. >> we conclude our coverage of book expo america in new york city with author michael nouri. .. >> i'm going to talk for maybe 20-25 minutes max, and at the end i'll open the floor for

questions, comments and, hopefully, discussion. just to give you a little bit of background, we're primarily known for our independent analysis of the book publishing industry through our publishing report which has been around as bp report in some form or another for the past 35 years. we've also recently introduced a web component with some content, but also searchable archives for subscribers. we also do a number of syndicated research reports, and some of the ones you've probably heard of include trends in trade electronic book publishing, and we also do some consulting and specialty research on a very limited basis. if there's anything i want you to remember about simba is we are truly independent. we don't have any backing from any publisher group, any retailer group, any software group, we don't have any stake in any action that you take. so whenever you want independent and hype-free analysis, you can

always turn to us. now, in order to start talking about what's actually going on with e-books and retailing as it relates to physical stores, we have to look at e-books specifically, and we really have to learn quickly how much we're misreading about what's actually going on in the market. because there's so much hype, so much conjecture, and there's so much speculation i even can't keep up with it sometimes. and a couple of the ways it's actually been, it has been misread lately just to name a couple is that we're overstating the influence of new gadgets as they're coming onto the marketplace in terms of where they're going to sit with e-book consumers. now, we actually did a proprietary, nationally-representative study when the ipad first came out, and we discovered that only about, about 40% of adults who own an ipad, 40% of them haven't accessed or bought a single e-book on the device. so in terms of the transformative power of devices

themselves, it's a little bit, it's a little bit hard to get a read on that. and the other area where things get misread is when a company, oh, i don't know, say an online retailer says they're selling more digital books than they are print books, and it gets parroted all over the mainstream press, i have never seen a press release from an independent bookstore that says they are selling zero kindle books for every 100 print title because it really is that specific way of looking at it. and the other problem with that kind of comparison is that e-books, especially in some stores like the kindle store, are very different from that of physical books because simba does or did -- i think we're still doing this -- is a list capture of the e-book best seller list once a week, same time. we record all 900 books that are -- 100 books that are on

there, and at the end of the year we've got 50, 52 weeks of data. and just in the most recent list capture we found about a quarter of the books on amazon's top 100 list were $1 or less. when you're talking about selling more e-book units than physical book units, i have no doubt that amazon is telling the truth, but we really have to look at it from a fresh perspective all the time. um, consumers aren't as hungry as we think they are. i'm actually going to cover that a little bit more later. but the other thing is, and this is actually increasingly hard to quantify, is the mechanism of book discovery is very much interconnected between print and digital. now, i always bump into people who own a kindle, they love it, they evangelize about it and say how transformative it is to be able to download a book at that very moment and start reading it at that time. there's no doubt that that is transformative, but it's only

transformative if person with the kindle sees somebody with a print book in the first place. [laughter] so just -- and, also, i can't tell you how many independent booksellers have mentioned to me that they have seen people walk into their stores to browse, maybe take cell phone pictures of books, and walk out again presumably to buy the book elsewhere, possibly electronically. but there's also people who when i call elm street books in new canaan, i have amazon open to make sure i have the author's name spelled right, because i'm worried i'm going to get it wrong when i'm ordering the book. the whole world of discovery can't be looked at in individual piles, everything is related, and it's really important to think about as we talk about the overall health of the industry. now, whenever i give a presentation, i really like to start off with some great consumer research from

experience simmons. they do an outstanding national-representative survey about every three months. and the data has always been reliable, t been consistent, and we absolutely love looking at this every time it congresswomans -- comes in because this is where we all have to start anytime we want to look at books. did you buy a book in the last 12 months? any kind of book, any format, whatever? did you buy any book in the last 12 months? and all of us are this in this room right now because we're passionate about books in be some form or another. but about 100 million people in this country didn't buy a single, solitary book in 2010. and that number has actually been ticking up slightly over past years, and that really worries me. because if we're talking about ways to grow this market, i really think that we ought to start looking at the people who aren't giving us a second thought.

it's also the people who don't care about three for the price of two, it's also the people who don't read or follow author blogs at all. it's a lot of people that just don't care about this content, and we've got to figure out ways to reach them. now, to switch back to simba's proprietary study, i wrote a question on the white board of my office about three years ago, and the question was who buys these things any? and that was, basically, the start of what became the trade e-book publishing report series and the 2011 edition just came out last month. but one of the things that we do is that we have our own nationally-representative study. we're now doing it quarterly. and we ask, do you buy e-books? yes or no. and after they answer, we'll say, what devices do you use to read, how many e-books have you bought, what are you buying and so forth, and it really

provides, i think, the proper sense of scale that the market so desperately needs quite a bit of the time. now, we also because it's a quarterly survey, we get to tweak questions and add things here and there. but the e-book question's always been consistent, and we're also asking about consumption habits too. and it's very interesting to realize that print book buyers outnumber e-book buyers about 5 to 1. and we spend -- i'm not standing next to the podium, so i can't point it out to you, but we spend an awful lot of time on the far side, don't we? because, frankly, there's quite a bit happening in that space. and we always want to discuss it, we always want to go over it, and we always obsess ant the new -- about the new technologies that are involved. the questions at the end. >> [inaudible] >> 2010. >> [inaudible] >> 2010, yes. but it's really important to consider the perspectives,

especially when there have been so many amazing advances in digital books over the past few years. because there's still a large number of consumers that just are not giving up on print, and i don't think that the industry should as well because i've been watching a number of different data points about the percentage of people who identify themselves as book buyers, and i've been watching print books mostly stagnate or decline, and i've been watching e-books grow. and i think this industry owes it to itself to make both of those segments grow without letting one pillage consumers from the other. as i said, one of the things that is simba survey is we actually ask what devices do you use to read and consume your electronic books? and we break these out a little bit further in the report in terms of individual devices, but when we first came out with this

report, we surprised a lot of people when we showed that the personal computer was the number one most popular piece of hardware used to consume an e-book. that was the whole year of 2008, and it was leading again in 2009. the thing that a lot of people forget is that print, is that e-books have been around for a good, long time. and the other thing people forget is a lot of people have a very casual relationship with print book content. that means a lot of the readers that you think you have, they're very -- they'll buy one book here, one book there, and they're not the most active participants in the market, but they're still active. they still plunk down money at some point or another to buy books. and if they're only going to buy a small number of books, it makes perfect sense they're going to read on a device they already have. which in this case, it's -- and in this case it's the personal

computer. the personal computer's lead has noticeably fallen over the past couple years, and part of that has to do with the plethora of new devices, less expensive devices, very well made devices that are coming out, and they're marketed in very different ways sometimes. and i'm desperated interested in what's going to happen with the mobile phone category. we have the new quarterly survey coming out -- actually being administered, literally, as we think. and probably in the june or july issue we're going to run this information again because the mobile phone category is something i'm particularly interested in in terms of device growth. but it's also incredibly worth noting where barnes & noble sits in all this because the nook, and the nook color -- let's start with the nook, rather, has only been around for a very shot prosecutor. -- short period of time.

and when you're looking at this information, you really start to think about how these devices are sold and how they actually make it into the hands of the 20 some odd million e-book consumers there are out there now. now, this sounds incredibly obvious, the first bullet, but if you buy something on amazon, you can't touch it first. the, i think the most overlooked story in e-commerce over the past few years has been amazon's move to push the kindle into stores like walmart, target and best buy. it is, obviously, an incredibly intelligence retailing strategy but it also says to me that there are certain areas of the shopping experience that e-commerce does not cover. so part of it has to do with amazon just wanting people to be able to handle the devices and get a feel for the quites before they have -- devices before they have a chance to buy them. we did a survey of kindle only, the kindle hardware owners, the

people who own the devices, in late 2009, and we found about 60% of them bought the kindle pretty much as a leap of faith. they researched it aggressively, they saw it on the web, and they decided to get it. anyone else saw it with a friend, got it as a gift and so on. and the other thing about devices, and this actually feeds back to the early earlier slide. consumers aren't always asking the questions about them that we think they're asking. and this obviously feeds back into what i was saying about the consumer not being as hungry or sophisticated as we think they are. and one of the places where i think, you know, some stores have gone wrong with this is borders group's approach to e-books last year. at one point, i don't know if you remember, they were carrying seven e-reading devices. and last year, of course, is the year that just about every new

site in existence had these, you know, i think wildly optimistic speculations about where e-readers and devices were going to go. so what borders did, and i actually have it here for those of you in the back, you're out of luck. but they had all seven of the readers lined up at the top, and all this excellent, you know, really nerdy information like connectivity, memory, battery life size, weight, everything you could possibly imagine is just right there at your fingertips. and i'm not going to say how the strategy played out, but i'll let you all draw your own conclusions. [laughter] but the thing is, the thing the is that consumers aren't always cg these sorts of questions about the devices. the thing that i found amazing when i put on, like, jeans and t-shirt and walk in a barnes &

noble and feign interest and understanding in e-books is how emotional the questions are when people are actually standing around the tables, handling the devices, and they're asking themselves how's this thing going to feel when i'm lie anything bed at night? is this going to fit in my favorite pocketbook? what if i dog bites it? there's a lot of little questions they have in their head that doesn't have a whole lot to do with battery life, screen size or resolution. so the thing was that this is the kind of thing that you want if you've already decided that you want an e-reader. this is exactly the kind of thing that you want. but for just about everybody else, or at least the people who have, you know, purchased a nook or a nook color at barnes & noble, the device they could handle it, they could figure out how much it weighed, they could imagine themselves, you know, using the interface to shop for a book, look for a book and buy one, and, you know, it worked

for quite a number of people. now, the relationship that a consumer has with print books offline often, i coffer that just a little bit here. a lot of people in this room are very passionate readers, and if they are passionate readers, chances the excellent they're going to shop like passionate readers and buy books one right after another. not everybody necessarily works that way. and it's just going to be really porn to remember that as -- important to remember that as, you know, some of the devices actually get cheaper. now, as i said, there are about five print book buyers for every one e-book buyer, and if you are in the physical store business and you do have presence or you are starting to enter into digital, it is really important to try not to make the two sides appear as separate islands and not to jump up and down on

borders once again, but an issue that happened with that company was that they created an alliance with amazon back in, i think, august of 2001. and they, basically, outsourced the entire e-commerce solution to amazon. so if you went to borders, you'd get borders team with amazon site, and they'll handle everything about the transalaska, and borders got some sort of cut or commission about the deal. so that's an effective way to build up an e-commerce strategy without spending a lot of money, but the amazon/borders side had no reason to feed the physical store side and vice versa. and i have no idea how effective this has been for barnes & noble, but one of the things that they've been trying to do is, actually, encourage the people who actually already own the devices to reenter the stores for exclusive content, exclusive coupons and some other

gimmick key things because as everybody who's bought a book unexpectedly knows, if you're in, you know, a really good quality store and you just happen the come across a book that you think is a perfect gift for your sister or the like, you're going to buy it, and it was a completely unexpected purchase, and you just fed into the multibillion dollar publishing industry we all know today. [laughter] >> now, i was talking about how the print book buyers do mimic e-book buyers. like, i remember seeing e-book best seller lists from seven years ago, and it looked very much hike a print best seller list, but people at the time appreciated the search about of electronic books. but as far as the buyers themselves are concerned, we have to remember that they're a very different animal from time to time than a print book buyer. and one of the things we've found is that people who buy e-books, when they make the decision to buy, they want as

little to stand in their way as possible. i cannot stress that enough. because when we go into bookstores or if we're, you know, tooling around online looking for something to buy, you know, we'll check out the different links, we'll hop from one place to another, we'll flirt with the bookseller, we'll talk to some of the people shopping for a book next to us, and we'll really just take a lot of time doing that. but i've found with e-books it's a little bit different. and one of the things that we found, actually, back that up, comes from some psychographic information that we compiled, and i can't remember the exact figures, but i think there was a statement that went somewhere along the lines of i return to web sites and make it easy for me to find what i need. and i think 60 some percent of adults agreed with that. but when you narrow it down just to people who buy books, i think it went up to about 75%. and then we did something a

little different. we narrowed it down just to the people who only buy books online, print or digital, only loyal to the online channel, and the number went up to something in the high 80s. so when a person is online and they're at the cash register online, they're going to be impatient. and if you have an e-book solution, all kinds of technical discussions about e-book solutions at this conference, but if you have an e-book solution, you've really got to see how easily it responds to a person going in and shopping. and part of that involves buying an e-book from your own store and then going to amazon and doing the exact same thing. and then going to barnes & noble and doing the exact same thing and asking yourself objectively which one you like the best. and finally the last bullet, all the pieces matter. i like that because it's a line from david simon's series, "the wire," but also we really do

have to remember something important, and i actually brought it up at the conference, at the presentation i did last year. nobody buys e-books for interesting reasons, all right? that's a really unfortunate truth about the most fascinating area of the market. to one buys books for interesting reasons. and just to give you an idea of this is that my wife reads books, e-books on her iphone only. she hats no interest in getting a device d she has no interest in getting a device, but she has expressed interest in using one if i'd buy it as a gift. [laughter] however, i've had her use different e-book interfaces and tell me what she thinks of them. and one of the things she doesn't understand is that when she buy as book from be one site, she didn't turn the screen and look at the text and landscape. it's a little 99-cent feature that we all -- everyone knows

an iphone, this is not an iphone, but it passes for one anyway. all of us understand, and we expect. my wife has small hands, she hates holding her phone like this. so if solution does not involve the ability just for that little rotation, she's not going to shop there. and if e-book reading solutions do not have that, i don't think it's a very competitive solution. i don't think it's up-to-date enough, and i think it really needs to be corrected. now, just to wrap up, you're going to hear a lot of very enthusiastic tech consultants say other side, -- otherwise, bt we are always going to have print. we're also going to always have e books, and we're also going to have this kind of conversation trying to figure out where one relates to the other. and if you are a retailer, whether you sell e

books around, whether you have no interest whatsoever in digital, you've got to work really hard to communicate your value and be completely noisy and unapologetic about doing so. because if you don't define your value, somebody who doesn't like you will. and, finally, the last thing i wanted to bring up is, um, you know, we are going to talk about where e-books are going to be next year, five years from now, what have you. but we've got to remember that all of these technological changes that we've had, that we've seen so far tends to involve just shortening the distance between the consumer and the cash register. and the thick is books are -- the thing is books are sold one at a time to one person at a time, and a lot of that involves individuals talking passionately about one book to one person and, actually, selling the value of one book. because that's really the way this thing is moving forward.

and that's all that i had for you, and i'd love to take any questions if you have them. yes. >> how do you read the -- there was a story in, i think, "the wall street journal" yesterday about the nook color being a very important vehicle for women's magazines. how do you read that? i mean, it appears to me that the e-book vendors are concentrating now on periodicals and things like that, and books become lower and lower on the, on the scale. >> well, that's manager that i'm watching, definitely, because i saw that story as well. and i think that, you know, the u.s. consumer culture, especially the tech culture, nobody cares anymore what a device does. they really only care about what else it can do. so there's just a lot of pressure on all these hardware manufacturers to create one extra capability, you know, one

extra free decision of angry birds, one extra free this, one extra free that, and it just kind of keeps adding up. and -- >> [inaudible] nokia's sold, now, a million and a half yearly subscriptions to women's magazines. that seemed like a pretty significant step in the direction, in a different direction than books. >> well, i can't really speak to how magazines are going to perform in the future, but i think it says more about the actual consumer themselves than the actual books because if you have -- because i haven't had a chance to review the nook color. i thought it was an okay device. to its credit, magazines do look good on it, and a lot of people find it very easy to subscribe to things that they like, and the pictures look great. we'll just have to see how they take to it in the future. yeah. >> on the survey where 105 million americans didn't buy a book in 2010, was there any

follow-up question as to whether they were using the library or anything like that? >> no. that's actually good that you're bringing that up, because that's just people who buy. and one of the things i, admittedly, should have mentioned when that slide came up is that all numbers that you see about the publishing industry only tell half the story at best. and books from the library and books as gifts, because a lot of people in the 118 million consumer category who do buy books, the 54%, they'll give books to, you know, everybody else. so it is definitely a tricky area when you're talking about how people are involving content and actually getting to books. yeah. >> the fiction e-books, divide by total fiction sales of all fiction books. what would be the, for example, in the nonfiction area, what would be the percentage of e-book sales on regular trade

nonfiction categories? >> we covered that in 2011 because we actually expanded the category analysis. i don't have that off the top of my head, but fiction has, obviously, been a huge area for e-books. i don't know if that's really a function of them being e-book, i think it's a consumption of consumer mood. during times of economic stress a lot of people, you know, continue to turn to books for escape. and the other thing we've noticed looking at a few of nonfiction category very carefully is some of them are very vulnerable to the pressures of the web. more so than others. and, specifically, trade reference, travel, and also everyone's wondering what's going on with cookbooks because there's the potential of a lot of that content going online and consumers forgoing that segment. >> any approximation, though, of -- >>

>> i don't off the top of my head, i'm sorry. any other questions? in back? >> [inaudible] is it going to matter -- from home to travel to -- can and they want to change the devices. how do owe sue that impacting? >> yeah. i don't know about the cloud, i know it's a term that everyone is sorting around. the cloud has always been around, but it's sort of defined like clean coal in terms of the actual observation, it's very broad. [laughter] but there is definitely something to that because there is a problem with, you know, consumers just adopting these gadgets, and then they just have this increasingly shorter shelf life. and i think that, you know, the cloud is being pushed as sort of a solution to a problem that they created. i hate that some of the devices i buy cannot have their battery changed and can't, you know, and can't be upgradeed.

and sometimes they can't be serviced or fixed anymore. so there's definitely something to that, but i'll -- we'll have to see where it goes because it's still very early in the development. >> i'll elaborate. one of the things that has always been floating around is when a person actually has a device, they buy more. and like i said, a lot of the gadgets do definitely shorten the distance between the consumer and the cash register, but i've really got to caution people to not, you know, read that data the wrong way because we have to remember the people who plunged down whether it's $114 or $399, you know, for the first generation of kindle,

they're already committed readers. so we already know that they're going to buy a lot. so if i don't have look at -- if you look at people who buy a nook or a nook color, you're going to get completely skewed results. the other x factor is the relative cost of the units because if people are buying more kindle singles as, you know, that program's been a huge success for amazon, that, obviously, pushes the number of units that a person is buying up even though the dollars they're spending on books is going down. so it's definitely really complicated to look at. yeah. >> has there been any research done on geographic purchasing of e-readers? because i probably saw more on the subway coming in here than i've seen in western massachusetts my entire life. >> we actually have looked at data in terms of metro markets and region, and we also have to look at some of the devices themselves and see how they're being marketed and how aggressively they're being pushed in cities.

i rode in the bike tour a couple weeks ago, but also the year before when the ipad first came out, and i pedaled through all five boroughs of manhattan, and i literally lost count of the ipad ads, these e enormous displays. and if you are a commuter, if you are a traveler and new gadgets are your thing and you have -- are well educated and have a disposable income, you're going to tend to want to look for that. but, like i said, the relationship the consumer has with books is very complicated at times, and a lot of people buy where they buy because they have a store they like. and if they choose to buy with an ipad, it's just because of some other little boring thing about their lifestyle that makes sense to them. but there's definitely a lot more, i think, activity with, you know, tablet devices in cities than there are elsewhere. any other questions?

yes. >> um, i'm wondering -- [inaudible] which have tremendous -- [inaudible] any strategy -- [inaudible] >> i didn't hear the whole question s. it about how e-readers are being used in libraries? >> yes. is there a possibility that for -- [inaudible] they never -- [inaudible] finish. >> yeah. i think some libraries have definitely been doing that on a limited basis. they've been getting, i know some of them have so many readers, and some have other

devices. and also when it comes to content, there's also a device called -- company called find a way world with playaway which is an individually-loaded audio book which comes with headphones and you can actually check it out of the library. so it's definitely something to watch. but, once again w the technology changing as rapidly as it does, there can probably be a lot of resistance because, you know, no one wants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to outfit a high prayer with a device that might be obsolete or by the time people get around to using it, you know, nobody's going to care anymore. >> i'd just like to follow up on that question. i'm also from the library, and, you know, we have less problems buying the devices than buying the -- [inaudible] we have a very difficult time finding anyone that will sell us e-books.

>> yes. >> what is the most popular price point for nonfiction e-books? >> well, i did a whole presentation on prices last year, and i don't know if you remember what it was called, i'll never pay more than $9.99 for an e-book and similar lies. and, um, there has been a lot of pressure on prices. but in terms of an actual average price, there are far too many variables to consider out of the, you know, tens and tens of thousands of books there are. i think the price point at the end of the day needs to be set by the publisher, and the thing that everyone needs to remember is that if value of the content is, you know, splayed out right before the reader, you know, they may not balk at a price

that's more than 9.99. i saw a book that was advertised, and i had no idea how much it would cost, i just knew i needed to have it right then. the kind of a mindset that i wish i would have more often. yeah. >> a lot of what you had to say kind of makes a point that there's a lot of room for physical books plus the e-book combination. but people like mike shattkin are saying if 20% or 15% of the physical bookstore market goes away, the physical bookstore is in financial jeopardy. the question is, the research that you've done, does it indicate that, number one, that could happen. and, number two -- >> what was the scenario again? >> basically, 15-20% of the market for the physical bookstore went away because people are going to e-reader, kindle, nook or whatever, get anything without any kind of physical connection. if 15 or 20% of the existing market goes away, then the

bookstore is in financial jeopardy or unsustainable, and it goes away. >> well, i'm very reluctant to paint, you know, bookstores' financial picture with such broad strokes. i mean, obviously, there are stores such as barnes & noble that are, have been trying aggressively to increase their done tent. not content, but their offerings to include games and other things and also being more selective about what they choose and what they stock to make it so. i've got to tell you, this industry has always had its share of harold campings, if you know what i mean. [laughter] so having been studying the industry for seven years, i've literally outlasted some reporters who have asked me where do you see the print book in five years? i think the future of the bookstore is up to the bookstore, and the future of the print book is up to the consumer. in the back. >> so far the e-books that i've read have simply been

translations, you can look up words. but do you think publishers are beginning to administer flexibility, more content, such as the ability to look up factual material found in fiction books -- [inaudible] >> yeah. there's actually a few presentations about enhancing books, and a lot of publishers are willing to talk about e-books that have a little bit of extra content, what is in the form of video or other kinds of things. the issue that some of them are running into has to do with scalability because some of the solutions, you know, they're very, very costly, some of them, to implement. and i think that's a huge mistake for a publisher or an author to tailor content for a device. i mean, you've got to tailor the content in a way that makes sense for the person who's going to be using it regardless if it's a paperback or on something like an ipad.

because as i was saying before, i definitely see the appeal of those kinds of functions for thicks like cookbooks. -- things like cookbooks. finish it'd be mice to actually click on -- nice to actually click on something that plays a video of what it's supposed too look like. that's one thing where it would possibly make sense. i don't know if you're reading something from dan brown and you just click a thing to find out, ooh, what's the new land rover. [laughter] i just don't know if consumers are going to take to that. any other questions? yeah. >> in the, i believe it was 60% of people buying paper books? >> paperback, yeah. >> paperback. did you have information of that, what number are buying exclusively paperbacks?

>> yeah. it's actually kind of interesting because, you know, most of them -- partially because paperback is so huge -- most of them are exclusively buying print books. we also have different format combinations like paperback plus hard cover plus awd audio, minus audio, that kind of thing. but what we found is very interesting, at least now there are very, very, very few consumers out this that are completely monogamous to one format, and that includes digital here. and the other thing we found that was kind of interesting when we were looking at book channels is that, you know, we have a report called trade, trends in trade book retailing. and we study bookstores, book clubs, the internet channel and the big, ubiquitous other which is sort of like walmart, costco. and when we look at all of them individually, we've actually

found that if a consumer exclusively buys from the web, they're not as active a consumer as somebody who buys from the web and a bookstore. and it also works the other way too. a person who shops only at bookstore is not as effective as somebody who shops at both. so it speaks to the need for a very diverse and active retailing system pause i just don't see -- because i just don't see a future of 100%e-books because we are always going to be print. does that answer your question? >> yes. >> yeah. [inaudible] do you have any idea what percentage are from, like, the big six, what percentage are from any -- >> yeah, we've got that, but it's a big, complicated pie chart because, frankly, there are just so many small

publishers and small books that sell up on the best seller lists of amazon, sony and barnes & noble. they make a splash, and they disappear. we don't record them for the rest of the year. obviously, a lot of them are coming from, you know, the big six publishers because they have been in the digital game the longest. >> do you have any sense how that breaks down? if it's a 40-60? >> i wouldn't want to say a number, but i do know a good chunk of it is the big six. yeah. >> do you have information about -- [inaudible] e-books in spanish? >> no. actually, our information is limited right now to north america, but we do wallet to, eventually, you know, get things worldwide and also explore different kinds of markets, sorry about that. yeah. >> [inaudible] >> it's definitely a start.

i mean, i've had a couple of issues signing on to, signing on to a bookstore's site. just on the experience of signing on to be a little bit clunky and confusing. there are other stores that have, you know, figure out ways to make it a little bit less arduous. but it's definitely a start, and like i was saying or like i started to say, rather, is that i don't think this industry has much of a future at all if a small number of retailers are the toll collector between the consumer and the content. i just don't see that, you know, lending it its way to a healthy atmosphere. so whether it's a qr crowd so that a person browsing can just whip out their phone, you know, there are obviously things that haven't been tried yet. but in terms of, you know, in terms of a start, you know, it's definitely worth exploring. yes.

>> i wanted to -- [inaudible] is it just sort of a fun thing to do for the moment? >> well, we've actually -- no, that's actually a good question because we actually were looking at data from the idpf last year, and there was something really extraordinary that we noticed that didn't seem to get much mention. i think the the second quarter because we've all seen the idp finish chart that shows everything going up and up and up and up. one thing that was interesting about last year is that the first quarter was up like this, and the second quarter was down like that, and the third and fourth quarter as if nothing had ever happened. and i think as long as people are buying these e-readers as gifts, we're going the see the same pattern this year because i thoroughly belief in the knight sand effect. [laughter] i can't buy any more books until

i finish reading the ones i have. and i think that what identify seen with the idpf numbers and also other things is consumers do buy a lot, and eventually consumer bandwidth becomes the boss, and they start reading the things they already have. but like i said, we've only been tracking this for about three years. so for some people that are on their third or fourth e-reader, you know, it's something that, you know, we'll have to watch further so to see in the use of simba goes up. >> [inaudible] i'm sorry? >> [inaudible] >> self-publishing, i think, has always been just great in terms of people being able to figure out ways to bring their books to market. obviously, there are some books released that never should have

been released, or they're only sold to immediate family and nobody else. i think self-publishing for the publishing industry is a nice thing because it's another way of filtering content. every once in a while we'll see a story of a person who became very wealthy publishing their own book, and they, you know, eventually got a contract with a large publisher. and because companies like amazon and barnes barnes & nobld others have made a big point of self-publishing mat forms, i just any it's going up. >> well, i think the only impact i can see so far is from a pricing standpoint. like i said, a lot of books are -- a lot of e-books are very inexpensive. and like i said, we've only had a if years of data we're able to look at. if they have 900 -- if they have

one hundred 90-crept books on their device, it's hard to think about. >> you mentioned very few readers are monogamous. do you have any data about readers going back to the worst fife? i mean, an anecdoteally are goig to say, yeah, but i hate it. i tried it fur a while, and i hate it. signal actually, the actual number of people who are using these devices are two small for us to really get into it that way because we would love to ask, you know, what are your initial impressions about the dice or what did you think about this. there was interesting, too, because i walking a end l last -- i bought a kindle last year from ebay. and the description of the device was kindle i with damaged screen, can be used for parts.

everything worked before it was sat on. and i asked the buy -- after he shipped this $32 d.c. to me, i sent him a note and said, are you losing another up with? he said, yeah, i bought a kindle are, but i've also heard of people getting carried away with the alleged transformative power of the devices themselves, and thai giving it to their kids. and, you know, a child's attention span only dose so far, and some of them might put it down. so it's completely subjective, and it fends on one individual's relationship to the device. [inaudible] >> i wanted to take it apart, and, you know, count the microchips and write down the manufacturerrer and see if i could find out anything about how many of them had been made. i just really want to see what the device buzz, and i -- was,

and i thought if there was some clue i could learn, it'd be interesting. so i took it apart, and i use it as a coaster now. next question? any other questions? any other questions? is all right. well, thank you all so much, please, fill out your comment card, and thank you so much for coming. [applause] >> for more information on book ec poe america, visit bookexpoamerica.com. >> well, one of the large displays here at bookexpo america 2011 is the perseus group book. several different imprints are under the perseus name, and one of them is public affairs. and the publisher of public affairs books is susan weinberg who's going to tell us about some of the new books coming out

by public affairs and some of the future books. where should we start? >> hi, peter, thank you. t always so good to see you at expo, and we can start with a book called the philanthropy of george soros. this is a book about george soros' work. he has given away billions and billions of dollars through his open society foundation. which is based on his principles and putting his philosophy to work in the real worth. it covers his programs from around the world, and he lays out his principles and what enemy he's giving. this really turned out to be his major business at this part in his life. >> now, right next is poor economics. >> poor economics ask is one of the exciting bigged the books we've had in a while.

they're the founders of the mit poverty lab, and they have really pioneered the idea of let's do some on-the-ground work to learn what really works in development, what we were put our perfect, where we should put our money. and they are award winning, acclaimed, cary net who are really being embraced now. when i read the proposal, i felt this most important work on poverty i've head since we published professor eunice on finance and social pez. and we just felt we had to have this book too. >> now, iewn wine lerg, husband -- this does have some about microfinance and microlending, and some of the research on the ground that they've done on it. but it has lots of other techniques too. it looks at how poor people really live and what they will

choose to spend their money on, how they make decisions. and then does almost like controlled experiments to see what will help in the long run. for example, what's the best way to distribute bed nets to protect against malaria? we're asking mess when people who asylum to be not having money for food, why did they buy a tv instead of more nutritional food. >> and i want to ask you about the cover of that book, very interesting with the knot down there in the corner. >> i think the idea there is untying the knot of poverty in the developing world. and it seemed kind of a good motif. but really we felt the words on that cover were so strong that we didn't want any illustration to get in the way of it. now, you were very excited about this book. >> unnatural selection, again, when i read it, it was like, this is what we're here to do.

and i call her a scholarly journalist, mara, and she's worked at the caron hall of education. she's going back to beijing to be the leading editor of science mag zien. but the at -- but a lot of us say one-child policy in china, and we say, huh, that's funny, baa he's iek go happen this? well, mara didn't move on. she said, what does it mean there's so many missing girls? how will they create families? what will society be like? and she has sed questions both about society and what's going to happen, but she also went back and researched how did this happen. and some of it is things like a one-child policy, but some of it

has to do with zero population clothe and an enthusiasm that has had great unintended consequences and i think will surprise people. >> and that book is unnatural election. two books about some troubles nations -- troubled nations. >> yes. dancing in the glory of monostores about the congo with jason sterns. our editorial director got this book in from, actually, a friend of mason's, the person who knew the director, and she said, you know, this is nobody who knows as much about the congo as mason sterns. clive read it, and he said, this is a real book in here, we're going to find it. the claim is you can't understand anything in the newspaper about the congo if you haven't read this book.

butbecause the story is so comei prettied. and the reviews is have born this out. "the wall street journal," the noaa new york book review, i could go on and on and on, but the reviews of this book have been just an amazing response. and we're really seeing people not backing away, but i sawing i want -- but saying i want to know more about this story, i want the hear for about the tango. >> dr. paul farmer. >> well, paul farmer has corked with -- has worked to sort 40 develop health care in haiti, has an interesting medical school organization and passing information on the ground in places like haiti and rwanda. and he had, you know, the effect of the earthquake in haiti and

the work that they have done and the level that they got to know haiti, he just said, i want to write about it i want to rib what happened, what is happening, is the response what it should be? is the aid being used in the best way he could do? he talks about how he gets different people involved in haiti that he has known often for many years to write about this, too, so paul is not only talking about the experience in haiti, but he has also been able to give voice to people in haiti who, in all the brouhaha and all the cup police si have not necessarily been hurt from. >> susan weinberg, the cover is powerful. >> it really is. we looked for something that would mix the emotions when you think about the recovery, and it

is such a mixture of hope and maybe despair. you know, grand plans, but also understanding that everyone is so vulnerable. >> we are talking with susan weinberg who is a publisher of public affairs books, and over here on your board i want to talk about sally jacobs' new book, "the other barack." when is this coming out? >> it's coming out in july of this year. and this is a book, as the subtitle couldn't say it better, the bold and reckless life of president obama's father. sally jacobs said she kind of did a profile of obama in the general ca and all through the phone. and she said, if he's elected, i'm going to go and pursue this story. she'd never done a book before, he'd never felt a story she was that cometted to.

but she has been to kenya many times f she has put together his life story in a way that is riveting, arresting, revealing, and i say i can't really know this, but i say, you know, i think if president obama read this book, he would learn things about his father that he doesn't know. and i think it's an amazing contribution to our knowledge of the president and his family. >> what's it like editing a journalist? >> well, it's an interesting process. um, journalists on the one hand can write very fluid my, and thai tasted to the ideas of changes and rewrites so they're not kind of hugging their precious prose. but sometimes the arc of a book versus the arc of a feature of serious stories, and i think our ed door often finds that a the

majority of the time they work on. the focus is where it should be on barack obama sr.. it's his childhood in kenya, t his time in the u.s. and then time at harvard. it's the story of how harvard and the immigration service decided, you know, maybe you're in a lot of trouble. maybe you should leave. and then what happens when he goes back to kenya. >> and very quickly, three more books we want to preview from public affairs starting with peter thompson. >> heather thompson's "the wars of afghanistan, "is an epic book. and that's because peter sharpson's knowledge goes very far back. he was involved both through the soviet period, the american ininvolvement. he has had roles in afghanistan on the diplomat ec level. he speaks russian and push tune, he's a very gifted linguist, so he was able to read sometimes documents in their original

language that not many people are able to master including archives from the second period never reaches in their work. and he brings a passion and a level of both detail and scope to this story that we think is unique. and it's quite an effort getting a look like this together, but worth worthwhile. >> two books on the media that are out or coming out. the deal from hell, and inside "the new york times". >> the deal from hell by james o'shea is a story about "the chicago tribune" and sam sell and what has happened to media businesses from an insider. jim became the managing editor of l.a. times, so he's had both the ground work as a reporter and the experience of being not quite the other