forward motion and progress. he wasn't seeing that. >> sara weinman, who did the delay benefit if anyone? >> guest: you know, that's a good question. i suspect it possibly might benefit google more because they seem to have the least to lose. afterall, so many of these books have been scanned, in a related development they are selling ebooks, it's not really, i suppose, a necessarily in their interest to see something happen. but at the same time, i'm not really sure it's in anyone's best interest. ultimately, everyone would like to see some sort of resolution. nobody really wants to see another trial. no one would like to see more dollars spent, perhaps niecelessly to keep this going. so ultimately, it remains to be scene. i have a feeling we'll have greater answers, one would hope on september 15th. >> host: and booktv will

continue to cover. sarah weinman, news editor of "publishers marketplace." publishersmarketplace.com is the web site. thank you. >> we asked what are you reading this summer? here's what you had to say.

>> we're back live now at the langston hughes auditorium. this is booktv live coverage of the 13th annual harlem book fair. up next, a panel discussion of the late manning marables recent biography of "malcolm x." >> good afternoon. welcome to the 2011 harlem book fair. my name is mr. williams, i'm associate professor at fairfield university and chief his touron at the jackie robinson museum. i want to welcome you to this forum. we are here to discuss manny marable's recent book "malcolm x" and the recent impact on the life and legacy of the african-american icon.

manny marable first began the study as a corrective to the autobiography of malcolm x which stood as one the most important works of african-american literature produced. dispute the widespread influence and claim, there has been questions concerning it's authenticity. published nine months after his death, for instance, it portrays a neat portrait of his life in a realty tale. but it's always been at odds with the complex individual that many knew malcolm to be. the liberal control that the press enjoyed over the final draft begs the question of what malcolm himself may have excised or concluded if he lived. one scholar, the late manny marable, like many, ask the question, how much isn't true? how much hasn't been told? end quote. for more than two decades,

marable made answering those questions the life work. the product of that work is "malcolm x: a life of reinvention." from the outset, he contends the primary goal was to uncover the truth divorced from any personal or political agenda. quote, the great for the biography of iconic figure is to portray him either as a saint without contradictions that all human beings have. i've devoted so many years in the effort to understanding interior personality in mind, marable conclude that had this temptation disaperiod. the work he produced has been inhaled by some as the most important book on malcolm x written. other have denounced it as careless scholarship, an attack on the legacy, unproven facts and speculation. end quote. our panel today will help us sort through the controversy as we examine the legacy of malcolm

x and marable's interpretation. there are matches up -- microphones up front to take your questions. however, given the turnout, please limit the remarks to question from our panelist. having said that, we have with our this afternoon a distinguished panel of scholars and activist to discuss the book. let me briefly introduce to move on to our discussion. they are award winning author, journalist, co-author of "civil rights: yesterday and today" and co-author of "forthcoming" herb boyd. [applause] next aware winning historian, university history professor and author of "dark days bright nights" dr. peniel joseph. [applause]

>> next we have former associate director of columbia universities malcolm x project, and research assistant for manny marable on reinvention, historian zaheer ali. [applause] [applause] >> last but certainly not least, we have award winning author, activist, playwright, poet, african-american icon in her own right, harlem icon and national treasure, dr. sonia sanchez. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> now let's move right into the discussion. we'll begin with zaheer, since you work so closely with malcolm on the project. what questions drove malcolm -- excuse me, manny's research. how do you think he might have responded to the mixed reception the book that has received? >> first, a lot of us began to make the mistake aligning malcolm and manny's name.

he spent so many years working on the project. this was a dedication of his for over two decades. the actual work on this book took concentrated effort of about 12 -- 12 years. what set him off on this discovery, initially, he wanted to do a political biography of malcolm. as we began to read more closely, what he discovered is that while the autobiography is a very powerful story of personal transformation, it is a deep politicized and decontext chillized story. personal transformation does not take place in isolation. our stories don't take place in isolation. what malcolm experienced, it takes place if a specific, political, cultural, social, religious context. what manny set out to do with this biography is map that architecture of malcolm's life. in doing so, we begin to see that malcolm's life is one of

certain continue -- continuities and themes. we see a robust and detailed substitution of his family's history. which is something that malcolm itself does treat in the autobiography. that lays the foundation for understanding what malcolm experiences in prison. you know, the nation of islam. it's his sibling that introduce him to the nation of islam. and for malcolm, joining the nation of islam was as much, you know, part of a religious, spiritual conversion as much as it was coming back home to his family. it was a kind of family reunion, because many of the ideas that he taught in terms of building black owned institutions and black independent movement and reorientation towards africa and the third world was something that he heard echoed in the teachers. that's just one example of how a

contextualization of malcolm's life gives us a rich understanding. he didn't just pop out of nowhere. i think what's important when we look at the black freedom movement, if we look at any social justice movement, a lot of us have the initially tend to look at these heroic figure, the great men as though they made everything happen on their own. i think what the biographer sets out to do, and what manny set out to do was to give us a sense of the world within which the person worked and struggled. >> thank you. sonia, you knew malcolm, who would have been 86, had he lived. is this work accurate of the man you knew, or does it fall short of the african-american icon? >> i didn't brother malcolm has a dear cherished friend. but i knew malcolm like other people had known malcolm, by following him, but, you know,

listening to him, going to universities, listening to him, i do talk in very real terms about the first time that i finally spoke to him. i believe to new york which we felt we were the most militant organization on the earth. you name it, if it wasn't doing right, we would try to shut it down. when new york corps had taken that vote to come back to a place called harlem to engage harlem with change, a note came from brother malcolm that said simply that we were going to have a demonstration that you cannot do anything in harlem without me. i am harlem. i'm not a revisionist. what does he think he is? can you imagine saying us to; right?

he was racist. uh-huh. he was. that day i went in front of the hotel theresa, standing on the island where brother malcolm came with the foi and spoke. i was with some corps members on the island who said after he finished speaking, i'm going to leave. you know how sometimes you are on the cloudy day, you watch the buildings gain color from the dullness of the day and i watch malcolm's face gain color from the dullness of the day. and i jumped off of the island and because i'm so tall, as you can see, i was able to manage to go in and out. and the foi and actually touched him on the shoulder and said, mr. x, and he turned around. he looked for -- he was looking for the person that that tapped him on the shoulder. he looked down. by that time, the foi was getting ready to remove me. he shook his head.

i didn't agree with most of what you said, my brother. and he looked at me and said one day you will, my sister. and the thing about that, i looked at his eyes. we should always look at people's eyes. he had the most gentle eyes on the planet earth. i read the book that our brother, dear brother manning wrote. every now and then, we came across the idea of this man who was a kind gentleman, jimmy would say, in the book. when he expected malcolm to tear somebody up, you know, because they were like, you know, he was just this aggressive man, this righteous man. he looked at the person with gentlemanness and began to teach. the point about me and the book is that i don't think that brother malcolm reinvented himself. i think he continued this river, this journey that he was on and he went from change after change after change. it was not reinvention. reinvention means at some point

there's something underneath there that you are reinventing yourself for some kind of, you know, end. i think this brother was the -- one the greatest intellects of the 19th -- of the 20th century that he in no uncertain terms has the ability to look at what was going on in the place called new york city and the country. he has the ability to look and say simply i am going to get this information. i am going to change. i think like dubois life, we teach the same. we should give malcolm the same benefit. he wasn't reinvented. he also like other great thinkingers, he was able to reimagine what it was to be an african-american. reimagine when it was to be a black man in the place called america. and that is to me most -- very

important than his reinvention. you reinvent yourself you are doing it for ulterior motive. i don't think there was one here. the other thing, i taught the autobiography of malcolm x. those of us who taught him for the years did not teach just that. we came with information also that manning had. we came with information of garby and the history of the dear brother. we also came and understand that part of the book was not just written by the brother. that there were other people also came in and wrote that book. and we taught it with an understanding that within we also had to add to the book. and the edition was that what malcolm did after his return from mecca, how he had set up the various organizations, and that was very important to us and how he had changed. and the most important thing

when i taught autobiography is how alarmed people were around him that he was changing so very fast. manning was right on that. he was changing fast. that people were looking up and he was making other statements and people had -- could not keep up with them to this day. to this day, people still want to fixuate at the point that he was in the '60s. right there in the early '60s. you and i know when you do a close reading of his work, you understand truly he had moved to another place. >> thank you, sister sanchez. peniel in "waiting for the midnight hour" malcolm x is in the narrative. you talk about the effect on american democracy and black power movement. what are the greatest insights and how does it change the intellectual landscape in which we understand him? >> certainly. one from the outset, manning

really taking malcolm seriously as an organizer, intellectual, and as a global figure. so right now we're in harlem. we think about harlem. harlem is really a city within a city. when i refer to harlem, i think of it as a city. some people say it's a neighborhood in new york city. but it's really black mecca, black metropolis. when we think about malcolm x. he stands along side people like marlin luther king jr. and he's that big of a figure. usually when we think about the postcivil rights, he's written out that have script. that's important for us to understand about malcolm x, he at bottom is an organizer. what's great about the book, the

malcolm x biography, it shows the inner workers of how he transformed the nation of islam. there's always been a dialogue with the nation of islam and the malcolm x. they say he could not been what he was without mohammed. when you look at how he was and the nation, you see the relationship. nation of islam has few numbers before malcolm x. he's patrolled from prison. for the next 12 year, he works day and night to transform the nation of islam. not just for -- as a religious institution, but as a political institution. so when we think about malcolm x, malcolm is the consistent

essential organizer. he had helped organize a group that was under the scope. in the last years of his life, he tried to organize two organizations. what's so important about malcolm is that malcolm is a local organizer who transformed the black freedom struggle, but he also impacts what we mean by democracy. he has a long running dialogue with people like martin luther king with organizations like snic and he's transforming democratic institutions. if we exclude malcolm from the civil rights and human rights landscape, and if we exclude malcolm as one the most eloquent

critics of american democracy and imperillismist, we do him a disservice. where we are now in the age of obama, malcolm could have been a critic. because malcolm was a critic. he even criticized the nation of itself -- islam and the honorable mohammed who saved him. whenever he found wrongdoing, he spoke truth to power, even under the threat of death. that's the example that we need to follow today. [applause] [applause] :e] >> many critics including activists and former associates have denounced the book and accused manning parable of tarnishing his legacy. what is your position on the book and the controversy and do you believe the book has elevated or diminished malcolm's

legacy? >> let me say from the start that nothing can diminish malcolm x's legacy. [applause] >> one of my friends said he is beyond that. welcome to the new york sauna. this is an intergenerational thing and that is absolutely necessary. the kind of dialogue leeboard has stimulated, we need even more than manning parable's book. there are other books we need to consult and read in order to frame and contextualized malcolm's life and legacy. i had a chance in 1958 i met malcolm and he changed my life. heaven only knows what i was on my way to but he showed me a direction and i was eager to follow him. first time i went to the mosque

in detroit i was mesmerized. my cousin took me and we were sitting there and he would have a lectern or blackboard on the stage. he is writing all the time as he is talking to people and he misspelled word. i nudged my cousin. do you going to tell him? not going to tell him. no way in the world by will correct him on that and after it is over we have a chance to meet demand you stand in the aisle when he goes up and down shaking everybody's hand thanking them for coming out. later on in life i shall will chamberlain's hand but i remember malcolm's hand. one of the most powerful groups i ever experienced. like you can pick up a flower and point down a road with it and the strength of that hand and his integrity has lived with

me all these many years. i knew ahead manning parable very well at the same time. .. one to point out the positive aspects. for me i think that what we are going to try to do with this upcoming book is kind of sort that out of it. put 100 reviews from this book. i've had a chance to read most of them and working with dr. ron >> and daniels we have come up with a book titled by the means mea necessary looking at the theersations and reviews and critiques around his book andngr looking at a going over theng

reviews and everything and trying to gather the impressions of people with knowledge josephe will be part of the i think i ni saw dr. burrows come in and is coming to be a part of this particular effort. and it's an attempt as i here to keep this zaheer, to keep this dialogue going. i think it's a very important discussion. those of you who may have seen this morning's new york times in terms of erasing, a possibility of reopening this case and looking at some people who for according to manning have escaped their prosecution, and some people who were unjustly accused who had nothing at all to do with that assassination. so you've still got a lot of work to do to sort out exactly what's going on. and i think i'd like to be a part of this whole pursuit of the truth. one of my students asked me, says is this book, is this fiction or nonfiction? and i say, well, and i thought about, you know, alex haley and the whole "roots" thing, and we

end up saying that was faction -- [laughter] because he had to create a whole lot of things that's impossible for him to know the kind of discussions that they have gone on with distant ancestors and that sort of thing. well, i don't want to go that far in terms of putting manning's book into that kite of category, but it warrants discussion that we can talk about the the infidelity and the homosexuality which, of course, triggered discussion around the book. so i stand right in the middle, i'm prepared to take it from both sides. >> great. and picking up on that. i want to direct this question to sonia, but everyone on the panel's welcome to debate this. manning argued memorably that a black scholar has a specific mandate to produce scholar that is descriptive, prescriptive and

corrective. did manning meet the responsibility in this particular book, did he meet that standard in this book by writing a study of malcolm that is descriptive, prescriptive and corrective? >> i'm not too sure that he did all of that. um, you see, i come from a generation that truly believes at some point that we learn many things about people when we write about them, but we're not necessarily obliged to reveal them all or to talk about them if it does not, if it will not benefit the people, if it will not benefit, um, the scholarship. and i think that at some particular point, um, i don't think that if i had been writing the book, that i would have, in a sense, included some of the things that he included when with it did not benefit be our knowledge of this man called malcolm and our knowledge of sister betty.

i mean, that's just my opinion. i do know, however, my brother, is that what manning did do in this book is that he did show us that malcolm demystified, that manning demystifyied the sense of malcolm, and he also talked about how malcolm demystified, also, white america. i think that this is really crucial. because i think the young people sitting here you've got to put this in context at some point. to read this book in 2011, you know, you really have to in a sense have been in that place to understand what it was to have a man like malcolm on television.

people who should be challenge inside washington d.c. i think, by golly, malcolm would really put them in their place or, you know, he would tell them exactly what they should know at some particular point. so i guess what i'm saying on some levels when i look at what manning was attempting to do with this man called malcolm that i wish at some point that we would, he would not have, in a sense, become a voyeur to this man's life. i think that we are so attuned even as scholars and writers to this voyeuristic part of people's lives; whom they slept with, who came to the hotel, who didn't come to the hotel. that's unimportant as far as i'm concerned, as far as this man is concerned, and i don't think it should be our concern. i think what we could truly -- we should truly understand at some point, and i'm suffering from vertigo, so if i go off a little bit, it's because i do go

off. [laughter] it's a disconnect, vertigo. it's the very -- i was in the tornado in alabama, and i come back with ears that still hum and hurt, and the head that still hurts. and be also the body -- and also the body that is not on balance, you know? so at some point i just want to -- is this man malcolm who asked, who taught you to hate the color of your skin, who taught you to hate the shape of your nose, who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? who taught you to hate your own kind, to hate the race you belong to so much? malcolm liberated our minds by dissecting america transforming police, integration, liberals, our government. he did all of this, you know, in

no uncertain terms. and he made us also begin to look at the idea that it was possible to challenge white america, um, you know, this political murder, this economic murder, this social murder, this mental murder that happened. he showed black america posture, the private emphasis beneath the public words. and he called at a very early time along with people like kwame for a black united front which many people are not really talking about again at some particular point. and i think what i'm looking at in this book what -- is that the conversation that will happen now again about malcolm, the conversation by the black united front, the conversation, also, about america, the conversation about what does it mean to have a black president in america, you know? the conversation that we don't have someone like malcolm necessarily talking. i don't mean people who respond to what goes on, but you see the point about malcolm, he was an initiator.

he initiated. his life was not just response at all. and i always called him and the people in the freedom moment the thunder of angels. that's who they were. they were about reconciling us with ourselves and helping us reclaim our histories. because i wanted to begin by saying there's an ancient saying if you want to create a new body, you must step out of the river of your own memory and see the world as if for the first time. and our brother malcolm and martin and the freedom fighters, the brothers and sisters in the south and the north helped us see the world of our foremothers and forefathers and ourselves as if for the first time. this man, this man, this man, this careful crafts person of words. and you see, what i wanted manning to do always is to be as careful a craftsperson of words as malcolm was. you have got to be a careful

craftsperson talking about him. this aristocratic sourcer is or, this man, malcolm was, with a communist eye informed us that activism and work that flows from the heart is god-conscious activism. his eyes went back to africa and the caribbean and america and told us to take god out of the sky and put god in our hearts, our feet, our hands, and we did. and we are forever grateful for that man for doing that, for teaching us, you know, what america was truly all about. and i think that, you know, this man, manning, you know, attempted to do this in some uncertain terms, but i think also, too, um, his idea of always that this man was reinventing himself, that this man was always packaging himself, you know, for america and for his, you know, for blacks, i doubt that he was doing that at all. he was not packaging himself, and he was not reinventing

himself, you know? at all in this place called america. >> well, i'd like to tackle that because i think that one thing many people have not read the book, some of this criticism of the book in terms of there's two pages of the book where, that talks about homosexuality and suggestion. there's deferent points where -- different points where it talks about alleged infidelity with sister betty she because, the overwhelming terms of that book is really the political side of malcolm x and how malcolm little -- i won't use the word reinvention -- is transformed into malcolm x and changes over a period of a very, very short time. >> right. >> malcolm x is the quintessential self-made african-american of the 20th century, and that's a huge tradition because we have got frederick douglass, we've got david walker, we've got harriet tubman, and these self-made

black men and women talked about self-determination. so the bulk of that book is a dramatic example of the way in be which malcolm's call for political determination was also reflected in his personal life. because his family are actually pioneers of black nationalism sent to omaha, nebraska, and who are run out of omaha, nebraska, by racial terrorists, by white supremacists who are eventually run out of lansing. and his father is killed and lynched in lansing. so when we think about malcolm x, malcolm x transforms himself over time based on the situation that he finds himself in. he finds himself growing up in an america where small d democracy does not exist, and even though he joins the nation of islam and talks about armageddon and says that the whole country is doomed, malcolm spends the rest of his life trying to transform these institutions even to the point, like sonia sanchez said, when he becomes this human rights activist which he always was, he

becomes a global evangelist for a human rights version of islam. he becomes a revolutionary pan-africanist that people like kwame carmichael are going to pattern their own lives after. so malcolm is always on the cutting edge of transformation and self-determination. and the book we're talking about, manning marable's malcolm x, the life of reinvention, it's important for everybody out there to read it for themselves because manning is getting a lot of criticism from people who didn't read the book. >> right. >> and, remember, in the black community we cannot have sacred cows. malcolm had no sacred cows. everything was open for criticism if it was corrupt, if it wasn't helping people. that's why malcolm is the quintessential black working-class hero of the 21st century. so we can't say we can't criticize malcolm x. we have to be able to criticize all the icons that we look at. now, when we say that, is it

constructive creatism or deconstructive creatism or destructive criticism? i think you can have constructive criticism. so personally i think -- do i agree with everything in the book? and no, like herb said, it's not a perfect book. but the bulk of that book, 95% of the book is about malcolm as a political figure, right? and the personal biography in the book is about malcolm as this gentleman that sonia said. the other stuff that we've talked about, issues of infidelity or suggestions of homosexuality form a droplet of that book but have overwhelmed the reception of that book. the bigger, the bigger revelation of that book is that malcolm x is this quintessential human rights organizer in the 1960s whose impacting dr. king, who's impacting the civil rights movement, who's impacting the state department and cia who's following his every move because they're scared of what he's doing in the north africa and the middle east.

and malcolm's revolutionary approach to islam is something we should all think about now in this age of the war on terror. malcolm had a different conception of islam. malcolm looks upon islam as this global human rights philosophy that can be melded with anti-imperialism, a critique against capitalism and a human rights revolution. so he goes to both conservative and liberal muslim clerics and says how can we refashion, um, islam in the united states and build these bridges for a human rights movement? >> can you comment on that as well, please? >> yeah. well, first there is, you know, manning marable taught that history is a con testation of interpretations over facts. so there is, you know, think of how many books there are on abraham lincoln, on george washington, on john f. kennedy, on martin king. there should be no one book on

malcolm. there's always going to be an ongoing conversation as more materials become available about how malcolm was, about what he did, about who he spoke to, about what he meant. so manning clearly expected, you know, a vigorous discussion around the issues that he raised -- >> and it should be. >> absolutely. because malcolm was not a sacred cow, and neither was manning marable. and manning marable writes with, to me if you read the book, great humility where he can be definitive, he's definitive. where he cannot, he is not. and people have criticized him for the should have, could have, would have, must have, might have, but this is the thing. history is not -- a historian doesn't deal with, often times, certainty. you also deal with probability. and your job is working with a string of artifacts that maybe you have maybe three artifacts to cover a month of activity. what is the meaning of these

three artifacts in kruking the subject's life over -- in constructing the subject's life over the course of that month? we don't know exactly what he did day in this and day out, but you can approximate it based on patterns that you see from these artifacts. so when manning set out to do this biography, he began building a chronology. and i just want to give people a little about it because i don't want people to think he approached it in a flippant way, right? there are some points many where i think the language may be a little flippant, but for the most part i think people should know that he approached these issues, including the sensitive issues, with great gravity and grappled with how he should represent it or if he should represent it at all. so he compiled this massive chronology, drawing on letters, correspondence, bureau documents, manhattan district attorney's case file, oral

history interviews that he did, that were archived here at the schaumberg, at columbia, at the research center at howard, um, you know, so muhammad speaks newspaper, amsterdam newspaper, i mean, he -- so, you know, drawing on all of these materials begins to plug them into this chronology. and where you find or where we found and where he found clusters of these sources, those events, those items became sign posts. they, obviously, were significant if they generated three or four newspaper articles. i'll give you an example. in the autobiography of malcolm x and in malcolm's popular narrative as we know most people believe his first international travel took place after he left the nation of islam. that is not true. malcolm travel toss the middle east and africa in 1959. now n his biography it's one line, and then he moves on, right? manning gives it three to four

pages of detail because malcolm wrote articles from khartoum, from saudi arabia, the bureau of special services and fbi documented this trip. while he was in egypt he met with anwar sadat who was not yet -- and this was before he became president. nasser invited him to a meeting. he said, i'll hold on that, you should meet with elijah mohamed first. he writes this article in the pittsburgh courier about all of these connections he's make anything 1959 while still in the nation of islam. fast forward to 1964 when he's traveling, guess who he begins writing? guess who he begins contacting? the people that he met in 1959. so this is the kind of work that is done in this book. so you get a fuller sense that what happens in 1964 doesn't come out of nowhere, it comes out of this longer engagement malcolm had with the muslim world. now, as to the, um, the human

side of malcolm, you know, malcolm, um, most of us who have studied malcolm, read his autobiography, read his speeches or listened to his speeches captivating -- one of the best speakers of the 20th century, sharp political thinker. but he was not a political machine. he was a human being. he was, i mean, he really tried to be a machine at one point according to what we have in this book. he has to check himself into the hospital for exhaustion. and, like, a few days later he's back out the hospital on the road again. but what's important, you know, and this may be a generational thing in terms of historians, and manning really tried to debate or really tried to come to an understanding of what was public and what was private, and why with was the private important in certain instances. in the case of malcolm's challenges that he had with his marriage with dr. betty she because, i think -- and what this comes across is the head of a religious community that is

patriarchal, right? that promotes a certain gender-constructed gender roles of men and women. >> all about -- [inaudible] >> right? that's true. so he is trying to impose this part of the challenges in his family is his trying to impose this, these gender roles and expectations in his personal family. malcolm as much as he was a dynamic political thinker, we have to be critical of him on the issues of gender. in his own autobiography, you know, he says of his wife, like, i think i trust her, right? maybe 75% of the time. in the his evolution as a political organizer, it isn't until he's with the oaau that he appoints a woman or several women to lead up his organizing. so, i mean, i think one of the reasons why we have to explore his personal relationship to gender and gender roles is because as we move forward as

the black freedom movement, we have to have a conversation about gender. we have to have a conversation about -- and it's not just about, you know, protecting women. that is part of it. but if you're protecting women only if they submit to your understanding of what women should do, then we have to be critical of that, right? and so these are some of the areas where i think, um, manning -- and people have said humanizing, and now humanizing is, apparently, a bad word, called a human being. but manning's humanizing of malcolm, i think, gives us a couple of things. one, it tells us that you don't have to be perfect to accomplish great things, and malcolm was not perfect and accomplished great things. see, when you have this vision of an unblemished hero on a pedestal out of reach and then we try to present that to ourselves and to our children who know we are not unblemished, who know we have human failings, we're like, oh, that's somebody to be worshiped, that's somebody to be adored.

that's not somebody like us. and and i think what manning tried to do is give us as comprehensive a view of malcolm and all of his complexity. and we can debate different aspects of this, but i think manning would have welcomed that debate. he was not perfect himself, and like i said, a historian oftentimeses has to rely on probabilities where certainties don't exist. and if you have, like, if you have to construct the life of someone who lived 39 years, and you, you know, think of your own life. how much of your life is documented so that if a historian came along would they really be able to compile an accurate accounting of your day-to-day activities? probably not. they would go on maybe two or three letters you sent, a few christmas cards, a few birthday cards, a few e-mails. think of, my god, what you've posted on facebook. [laughter] do you really want somebody building your life story off of that? but this is what historians try to do.

and in some cases they succeed admirably, and be i think many cases manning does that using malcolm's diaries which are here at the schaumberg. he's the first scholar to publish a critical investigation of malcolm's life based on his diaries. you see malcolm writing islam is our bridge to africa, and african-american is the bridge to islam. i mean, you see him working and trying to make these connections. and so i think, um, those are the ways that this book really -- and i just wanted to convey that. because, unfortunately, manning is not here to convey the spirit with which he worked. and those of you who know his work, race, reform and rebellion, capitalism underdeveloped like america, this was a man who was a committed activist. nothing was too big or too small for him to do. i saw him speak at universities, i saw him speak at public libraries before ten people. he had a deep commitment to social justice for black people, and be he did not set out to

smear or take down or destroy malcolm. he wanted to bring malcolm closer to us because he felt that malcolm had been taken too far away from us. and malcolm needed to be closer to us to inspire to do what we needed to do in the 21st century. [applause] >> go ahead. >> and this is what happens when you have a dynamic panel, and i want to in the spirit of malcolm make sure we have enough time for questions from the audience which will be in about six or seven minutes. i want to direct the final question to herb. herb, malcolm is perhaps the most authentic lead freres the black working class who ever lived. in what ways did his personal biography offer hope to the urban under class and society's margins? what cowe take from that example? -- what do we take from that example? >> beautiful question. let me say a couple of thing before we get to that.

zaheer, you talk about -- how many people out there have read the book? show of hands? i should say in the process of reading the book since we're talking about 600 pages, you know, so it's a pretty huge upside taking. but -- undertaking. but i think you have that responsibility, you know, listening to what we have to say up here, you have to arrive at your own conclusion about this project, about this book. no investigation, no right to speak. you've got to get into it. in fact, one of the things you can do is check out the exhibit that's right upstairs here. i think one of the coordinators who helped pull that together, christopher moore, is here. by all means, visit the exhibit before you leave because you can see, you know, some of this here kind of so-called reinvention. transformation is fine, you know, but i like political evolution. i think that malcolm was ever evolving. it's like a process, you know?

new information is coming in. again, zaheer, as you say, think about your own lives in the terms of how you've changed from, you know, one year or from one incident, you know, or from one meeting to another. and begin to get a better feel on who you are and where you stand within the context of all of this here matter in motion. so i think it was a political evolution that malcolm was undergoing, and he in 1964 and 1965, those are the most important year of his life as far as i'm concerned. because he had reached a certain kind of plateau of awareness. can you imagine here's a man who's traveling all over africa and meeting with some very important revolutionaries, people who had changed the whole dynamic, political and social dynamics of their country. that's high cotton. he's in real high cotton.

it's kind of like in a process of learning on the run too. because he hadn't read all these things and gone through all of these kind of changes and a kwame, you know, julius, nasser, and he's sitting talking to these individuals. can you imagine at certain moments it must have been a little bit of intimidation, a bit terrifying for him to meet with such important individuals and be his own sense of preparation. however, you are talking about someone who was a quick study. you look at that diary. i remember when the two crates first came in here to the schaumberg, and we opened those crates up. i was fortunate enough, howard dotson invited me and the late james gilbert, photographer, to come over, and we opened up these crates and saw all of this

here, a plethora of information. tremendous stuff. it had gone through a circuitous change because one of the daughters had put it in storage down in florida, it had been auctioned off. a man had bought like a pig in a poke, he didn't know what he had. my goodness. he sent it off to san francisco to butterfield's where it was going to be auctioned off. the family stopped that process with a court injunction. all of it came here. you must understand that. zaheer, you mentioned 1959. that's a very important year because that's the year, march of 1959 is when punitively he, malcolm x, wrote a letter to elijah mohamed about troubles he was having in his marital relationship with betty. what malcolm said in that letter and, of course, that letter has to be challenged because it's only one reference that manning

gives to that letter, and it's coming from that gary senate. the same man who claimed to have had the original letter and be put it up on ebay for, i think, $125,000. it was the same man who supposedly had the letters of adolf hitler, original letters from hitler that turned out to be a fraud. so we have to question then, you know, the reality of that letter, the authenticity of that letter because it stimulates this whole discussion about the so-called infidelities. the other concern about the homosexuality comes from a man named malcolm jarvis that who was fingered by malcolm as part of his burglary crew and went to prison. so you understand here's a man who may have had some grievance about, you know, being fingered in that particular ordeal. so, again, you know, all of the things we see we have to go back

to the sources, go back to the sources of these concerns in terms of infidelities and homosexual allegations. take it back to the sources and find out, like, can they stand scrutiny? are those worthy and authentic documents? >> i'm going to let you respond the that quickly, but we're going to take questions so if you have questions, please, move forward. >> very quickly. you know, when manning was, as i said, when he did this chronology and pulled all these sources and where he found clusters of sources where he found sign posts, he didn't include anything in the book that he didn't have at least three different sources for, right? in the case of malcolm's challenges in malcolm's marriage to betty, that letter mentions many things that could be verified in other sources such that -- including malcolm's relationship with evelyn, you know, according to other documents, letters, um, the memoir of collins who were

malcolm stayed. evelyn was known to be someone who knew malcolm when he was detroit red. so there's certain things referenced in the letter. i mean, i think what your point is fair, and this is why scholars have citations, and i think manning is fairly transparent in be saying where he gets these materials from. even if you throw out that letter, it's true that malcolm and betty had challenges in their marriage. actually after each of his first three children were born, and he left the house after each of his first three children were born. i mean, we have to come to terms with that. if you want to throw out that letter allegedly written in 1969 on the homosexual allegation thing, and i think it's really important how we have this conversation so it's not like a charge that's being made because it's something bad to be called. first of all, manning isn't the first person to raise the issue of malcolm's potential same-sex

encounters with oh -- other men. this was done by bruce perry in 1991, and bruce perry claims many, many more encounters than just this one. and around this particular one he found particular sources, one was jarvis, one was collins, one was malcolm's -- what he wrote in his prison record he wrote paul lennon as his employer. paul lennon is this white businessman. the other was letters he wrote to his siblings saying that paul lennon would vouch for him to get parole. so manning from this says, and it says plainly, based on circumstantial but he believes strong evidence. so it's circumsubstantial. you don't have to believe it, and he goes on to say very clearly there is no other evidence of any same-sex encounter that malcolm had with anyone after this point. so i think it's really important

to say that. manning never says malcolm was gay because gay is an identity that is, has evolved over the last half of the last century. at the time, you know, some people have a one-drop rule of gayness. [laughter] like, if you, if you look at another person of the same gender, um, automatically you're put in this box. and that's not what manning did. so i think it's important to say. and i think it's transparent. you can challenge it, and i think that's fair to raise those questions, but i think to understand how manning reasoned his conclusions is also important. >> thanks, zaheer. >> why don't you recognize dr. ben is here. [applause] >> yes, please. >> dr. ben is back there. >> dr. ben, can someone help dr. ben? [applause]

thank you for recognizing dr. ben and his incredible contribution to the history of our people. we're going to take questions from the audience now, we'll begin here with this gentleman. can you state your name and ask your question? the. >> yes, my name is leslie, i'm a high school teacher and graduate student at rutgers university. fantastic panel and enjoying it tremendously. >> pull the mic up a little bit. >> malcolm x was in harlem in the 1940s, and manning marable introduces the fact that during his time this '40s he was around the formation and experimentation of modern jazz. did malcolm -- that malcolm was in contact with charlie parker, felonious monk and dizzy gillespie. and this music is, in many ways, music of resistance and

rebellion and race. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit, because this was something i was not aware of, how jazz was influential to malcolm's life. >> one of the great thing about the book is that manning marable argues that the jazz he listened to as a young man, and he even said that malcolm perform inside a jazz club as jack carlton as a drummer, and, um, that they were reflected in the his cadence and his speech, right? so in addition to the fact that malcolm being around all these big time musicians, some of whom he sold marijuana to, um, he's really influenced by, um, their showmanship, he's influenced by their sor tore y'all flare. he's influenced by their presence in a way. and like sonia says, i'm not going to say reinvention or packaging. a part of that political evolution that mall.com x

undergoes is connected to being in that world of harlem in the 1940s. and i think it really influences his rhetorical style because, without question, the best speaker of the 20th century is malcolm x be, a person who can get his point across the best while saying the most succinct words possible, and he speaks in the ordinary language and vernacular of black folks whether they're from the rural south or the urban north. it's going to be malcolm connect today that. >> one of the important words that -- very good, peniel. one of the important words that associates him with that music is improvisation. for the jazz musician, that's the life blood of their creative activity. there's one good book, there's no way we can do justice to that, it's a very, very intriguing question, but the best book i've read on that connection between malcolm and be the world of music and

particularly jazz is frank cover sky's book. and he does a remarkable job there certainly from comparing the kind of discipline, the kind of articulation, the kind of understanding, the sentiments of that music and its connection to our history and cug -- culture and struggle particularly as it relates to john coltrane. >> also, my brother, he also was a poet. and no one really, many be years ago, i mean, the year after he dies w.b. asked me to come and put together some of his speeches, and i put it together as a poem and read it. i wished i had that tape to this day. but it's a staccato and the pace that he did, you know, it's the music that he did that you heard, um, it was the high and the low, you know? he would take you there and then bring you back done. and as you say, my dear brother,

the improvisation, the poet of the sixes, we learn how to give speeches from listening to malcolm. we learned how to come in to arouse people, but also before we left, we brought them back down so they could go home and be safe. this is what we learned from him, and it was all in terms of this thing called jazz, this thing called music, this thing called the beat that black folk had, you know? you talk in this very hip fashion, you know? and his, and his -- if you listen to him, you saw him, you spot him as a new yorker. you know? i mean, he was a new yorker, you know? because of how he spoke. um, and because you knew that he was as hip as most new yorkers were. yeah. [applause] >> and i think one of the important pointing to the highlight is when malcolm set out to write his autobiography, he did it initially to highlight the transformation of islam. so he did it pre-nation,

post-nation and rendered his activities as apolitical. but when we cover the political subtext of much of this formation, and i think just as detroit red the hipster was very political in many ways, so are many be of our young people today. i think it's important for us not to dismiss cultural formation as lacking any potential for political consciousness just as we shouldn't do that with our young people today. >> great point, zaheer. brother, your name and your question, please. >> i don't have a question, i have a comment. my name is todd stephen burrows, i'm a lecturer at morgan state university, and i'm co-editor on a second book that's going to collect reviews of manning marable's malcolm x. the first book is going to be published by -- [inaudible] i wanted to thank those two publications for rising up and doing this. >> i hope you have some women in there because all i hear is men.

>> thank you, sister sanchez. [cheers and applause] but i have, i'm sorry, dr. burrows, i have to get to questions. so thank you. take the next one. and, you know, one of the things that manning does get credit for, we definitely want to -- he said comment, but i have to move on, folks. >> thank you. >> next one. thank you, sir. >> hi, how are you doing? >> hi. what's your name, sir? >> [inaudible] >> and your question? >> i haven't read the book, herb, hopefully i can say something. we did study under dr. clark, and, of course, he knew malcolm personally. and helped malcolm. um, i'm going to wait to read the book, all this hysteria to calm down over this relationship with your wife. i mean, i don't think that's strange that a husband and wife

have an argument from time to time. particularly a guy like malcolm who was a world traveler and had to leave home many, many be times, and she had a family, and they had a family. this thing about his same-sex relationship, i haven't heard from the panel that any of these, um, folks that said they knew anything about it themselves had a relationship with malcolm. so i'm just going to take that with a grain of salt. >> sir, i'm sorry, your question. >> my question is that it doesn't seem like marable in his life's work ever approached anything dealing with icons in our community that would have stirred so much controversy, so i have doubts that even some of the stuff that's in the book is authentically, can be awe they wantically attributed to dr. manning marable,

particularly since he passed away a week or so before this thing came out. i have suspicions about it. >> zaheer? >> he wrote the book. [laughter] and just very succinctly, the book, you know, this was not something that was run off at kinko's the weekend after he died. [applause] >> good question. >> it was completed last year, so it was, he wrote the book. >> yeah, or definitely. >> not the illuminati, manning marijuana bl wrote the book -- marable wrote the book. >> what's your name? >> my name is whereas min brody, i'm a writer, and i want to say i feel blessed to be in the presence of sonia sanchez. and dr. ben. my question is, do you feel some books have to put a little tinge of sensationalism in the book just to be able to sell the books? >> well, i, i would say in terms of this book i don't think that, and zaheer would be an even better source. i don't think that anything

manning put in the book was for sensationalism or to sell books. he was not that kind of author, he was not that kind of man. he had a lot of integrity. i do think that the publisher is going to take the two instances where he raises question and suggests that there may have been same-sex -- not to say that he was gay, but this happened in the 1940s, and then to also talk about alleged infidelity, i think, when they're sending out press packets and they want to get some publicity and get some newspaper interviews and sell some books, they're going to take ahold and say, hey, what's the juiciest thing in a biography that's really talking about malcolm x's political transformation, his political evolution and the way in which that resonates for us in our current contemporary historical times. so the idea that the author in this case was thinking he wanted to sensationalize malcolm, i say

absolutely not true because of the integrity and the kind of person manning marable was with. but in terms of the publisher and in terms of trying to sell, well, a publisher's trying to sell books. >> yeah. sir, dr. ben wants to say something. i guess we could wheel him over to the mic? the. >> absolutely. can someone take the microphone -- >> take the mic to him. [inaudible conversations] >> i don't know if it'll reach. >> [inaudible] >> they're bringing a wireless mic. >> they're going to bring a wireless mic. do we have any questions as they're getting dr. ben taken care of? any additional questions? come on down, sir, please. quickly. >> while that's happening, we haven't talked about this one thing. one of the things that manning felt very strongly about was the unanswered questions around malcolm's assassination, and the role, the potential role of the state not only in surveilling him since 1950, but in disrupting all of the organizations that he was a part of. and i think today's new york times has a story that suggests some of the traction being generated from this book.

>> yes. >> around the questions of his assassination. that was something that was really important to him. >> great point. la glad you -- glad you brought that up. >> yes, sir, your name. >> i'm rodney jenkins. i love the book, i read the book, and one thing i wanted to ask because i hear reinvention, transformation. to me, i think, malcolm always had a pan-african outlook, so i wanted to know how important was malcolm's early socialization in his younger years? i feel like, yeah, he did transform and reinvent himself, but he also had that pan-african outlook to reach back on. so i want to know how important was the socialization, and how can we use that to educate our younger youth in today's society? >> well, very quickly, listen, let me recuse myself because that's one of my students at city college. [laughter] >> i'll say very important because one of the things that's great about the biography, i

think, is how he shows how malcolm is consistent as well. up with of the things that we -- one of the things that we have talked about as reinvention, evolution and transformation, but malcolm x is one of the most consistent human rights activists of the 20th century. what i mean by that is he's consistently on the side of pressed people, working class people, he's consistently connecting antirace struggle in the united states to what's going on globally. he consistently talks about a black united front. ever since 1955 he's talking about a black united front, something people still talk about to this day, and he's consistently and energetically criticizing the evils of economic injustice and racial justice. and, remember, malcolm is the person who talked about democracy's jagged edges. martin luther king talked about black america as a defense attorney. malcolm is a prosecuting attorney. king is defending black folks, white folks and white folks to

black folks. what malcolm does, he takes black humanity as a given and says there's something wrong with a society that doesn't appreciate black humanity and black citizenship. and that society should be held culpable, all right? he's a prosecuting attorney in that sense, and he's consistent even when he's part of the nation of islam. he says that there's something wrong in a country that allows child abuse, that allows racial segregation, that allows poverty and that allows violence to be perpetbe waited against citizens just because they happen to be black, and that's why after john f. kennedy's killed, he's not rejoicing in the killing of kennedy, he's saying that the killing is connected to chickens coming home to roost because the united states is the biggest purveyor of violence in the world, and that violence has had a boomerang effect and killed a sitting u.s. president. he's not happy, he's sad. he said that it's a tragedy to be in a country that claims to be a democracy but actually isn't. [applause]

>> dr. ben is micked up. we'll take his comment. >> a comment. >> okay. >> dr. ben. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> i'm very pleased to attend this affair. and i know i have concern. [inaudible] sonia sanchezs has made me understood some of the errors in my book. and i teach at cornell with my -- [inaudible] i understood that it isn't so good what mapping marable was doing. -- what manning marable was doing. sonia sanchez was able to see what was done.

the book was written because of -- [inaudible] the written because manning marable wanted to -- [inaudible] about malcolm, and he personally -- [inaudible] >> all right, thank you. >> thank you, dr. ben. thank you. thank you. [applause] zaheer. >> um, thank you so much, dr. ben. to the previous question about socialization, and be i think, um, again this comes back to the point of no one occurs or comes of being in isolation including great people. and it's important to understand that if we want more malcolms to be produced, they're not just going to pop out, and they're not just going to come out of the prisons and be malcolm, they're just not, you know? the social context that we provide for our children and for people's development is

incredibly critical. malcolm as a child, his mother read him newspaper articles from the negro world newspaper which was marcus -- [inaudible] what are we reading your children? you cannot be teaching your children consciousness and want them to be malcolm x. [applause] this is the point be, like, understand that this man comes of birth in a social, familial community, religious, political, economic, social context that makes him malcolm x as much as he makes himself, he is made by his environment. and so if we want to see more malcolm xs, right? as opposed to just a historical figure, we have to be very conscious of the social environment we're creating for ourselves and our young people. >> and let me add on to that. yes, he did have all that history with his mother and his father, but also when that family broke down, then he is at a loss, you see? and we understand how then he

will move into crime to a life of being a criminal, a life of being a hustler. you see, it's one thing you can have a base, but if you don't have, also, the community base -- >> that's right. >> -- if we are not out there support being our children, you see, if we're not out there making sure that they eat and they have a place to sleep, then at some particular point they get lost. we're blessed that malcolm didn't stay lost because most certainly he was lost. we're blessed that at some point and a place called a prison, you know, that his brothers would write to him and be tell him about that figure, that little figure, that little man who was going to change. i want you, the brother, who asked that question, from this book you learn this man was a thinker. this man was a person who was constantly learning. this man always had a book in his happened. he was always learning. he was not just listening, he was reading, and he was an educator, and he taught us. and above all he loved us. how many of you can say you love us?

he loved the good and bad in be us, you know? he was willing to wait, he was willing to walk up to a brother who was on drugs and in a sense by touching him and telling him that you are this man, this black man, you see, and make them come and drop all those -- [inaudible] and tell me that patriarchy runs rampant in here. of course. you understand the thing that women talked about, that patriarchy is a monster, that it still is a monster. and the point is we didn't get up and jump people and fight 'em, we began to move this these organizations in such a way that we challenged them. and this is what this man will do coming out of the nation. he is naturally going to come in with his new organization, going to give women places of power because the women who came in dealing with him were accustomed to places of power, you see? so what i'm saying simply is that read the book. you must read the book. >> yeah.

>> but don't go in as voyeurs looking for dirt. >> absolutely. [applause] >> go in as men and women. >> absolutely. >> that's right. [applause] >> as men and women who say what can we learn from this man's life? you know, that will help us survive this place called america, that will help us continue to learn, will help us with our children? what can we learn from this man as we travel to africa that if he were alive today, africa would be a different place. you know it and i know it. what can we learn from this man that will teach us that we've got to go down at some point and support this man, obama? teach him the language, the language of resistance. because he doesn't have it. obama doesn't understand the language of resi dance. but you -- resistance. but you will understand that malcolm taught us the language of resistance, what it was to resist in this place called america, you know? and we've got to teach our children that language of resistance. it'll get better.

every day we whisper, it'll get better. it'll get better. it'll get better. and we didn't contrary to what manning thought. we were not people who just honored malcolm, we learned from him. he changed our lives. i could not be a fool on the stage because of a malcolm. i could not be a woman who would go and try to take someone's husband because of malcolm. i could not be a woman, you know, who would get into a class room and look up even though at the same time he was saying, devil. but i have whites, browns in my classroom, but because i understood underneath this man, he was saying devil at some point because he was saying the worst thing you could call a white man was the whole, the term "devil," because that was the exact opposite of being spiritual and good and be religious and an angel. hear that. >> ladies and gentlemen, i am sorry to cut -- [applause] dr. sonia sanchez off.

but i want to thank you again for the panel this evening. there is a book signing that will immediately follow at the penguin booth on 135th street. you can catch up with our pan panelists there, herb boyd, peniel joseph, zaheer ali and my sister and your sister, sonia sanchez. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> looking at the langston hughes auditorium inside the new york public library's schaumberg center for research and black culture. he first panel of e day om the first panel of the dayan 13l harlem book fair just coming to an end now. we will return after a quick break with a panel on

african-american economic history. booktv's live coverage from the 2011 harlem book fair. [inaudible conversations] >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> first book on my reading list this spring and summer was cleopatr the first book on my reading the list stacy schiff. what a great insight in the recounting her life. it was a book that was recommended to me, and so i decided to pick it up and read it and then continued with the strong woman theme, if you will, with elizabeth i, that's by margaret george. and that's on my ipad. i'm reading both of these as e-books. i have, going back doing these two, cleopatra and be elizabeth i, it got me on to the historical and older novel type approach, and with my bible study group i'm rereading pilgrims' progress which is

delightful to get back into that. it's been a while since i reread it, and be then because of the movie out with schleck coming out -- shrek coming out with my my family we're rereading atlas shrugged which is very timely for those of us here in d.c.. >> tell us what you're reading this summer. send us a tweet at booktv. >> well, it was on july 18th of this year that borders announced that it would be liquidating the rest of it stores. joining us by phone now from new york is sarah weinman, news editor of publishers' marketplace. ms. weinman, what happened in the weeks leading up to july 18th? it seemed that borders was going to be resurrected or saved. >> it did seem as if borders was going to be saved. what happened is that nadaffi companies which was a private be equity company based out of, i

believe, arizona which owns direct brands, which had also owned what used to be known as book of the month club, they had put in a bid for approximately $250 million in assets and also would have assumed $220 million in liability. everything looked good right up until the beginning of this week when all of a sudden everything started to fall apart. creditors for borders had objected. they thought that nadaffi wasn't entirely forthcoming in the sense that they weren't absolutely sure they would keep borders going as a going concern. so they were worried about this, and nadaffi couldn't exactly come out and say one way or the other. so depending on which vantage point you're looking at, either nadaffi pulled out, or the bid was canceled, and, ultimately, borders elected to go with their back-up plan which was to go with the liquidators.

in doing so, they avoided having to pay what's known as a break-up fee because of, let's say if another bidder had come in, that bid would have had to pay, i think, about $6.4 million. this way because the liquidators are coming in, there was no break-up fee, and it just sort of moved through the court system. and, in fact, liquidation started today, which is friday, and was approved at 3 p.m. yesterday in bankruptcy court. >> so when you say lick liquidan started, sarah weinman, what does that mean? >> it means that as of today going out of business sales are happening in as many as 399 stores. there is a caveat. um, in court yesterday, and i was there taking notes and writing about it, a late-breaking development took place where books a million which is the third large book chain in the country, they had put in an offer for 30 stores, that's 22 superstores and eight smaller stores, and the details

were still being worked out as of today. but the judge approved it provisionally. it's just that creditors had some concerns and some other party as well. .. and other discounts until august 5th. the cards are valid until the liquidation sales are finished. it means landlords will be able to market those properties to others once other stores close at the end of september. if inventory -- they're trying to get things sold as quickly as

possible and still furniture. the contract they had with other companies are coming to an end so it is over. >> host: stores will close at the end of september. talk to was about the direct impact. how many employees and what is the revenue base? >> there are 10,700 employees who are going to lose their jobs. the books of million thing comes through that will lead to the retention of between 1,000, at 1500 jobs but that is a small amount of the overall number. 10,700 employees, approximately 4,000 full-time employees are those working on the ground in stores as well as in borders's michigan headquarters. that is a tremendous loss to the overall economic climate. a lot of hard-working people who are now going to be thrown into

an economic climate that is hardly favorable at this point. it is interesting to see a grass-roots campaign on line by various people in the publishing community to connect borders employees who are about to lose their jobs with other potential publishing type jobs that are available. with it is also doing is shining a light on what is going on with independent booksellers. independent bookstores were greatly impacted by the rise of superstores like borders and bonds and noble in the 90s and 2,000s. it will be interesting to see what they will do not just as borders retracts and close up shop but bonds and noble transitions to a digital company and what happens with respect to