said john let bygones be bygones. i think you should become a fictional writer because you have a great imagination. so then it all stopped. anybody else? >> were you in the carding game? carders. >> that's using other credit card numbers. >> have you read eric foster's new book. >> it's called king pen. it's about the carding underground and i highly enjoyed his book. >> okay. >> everything is true in that book. >> i believe so. >> is there anything you'd like to share that we don't see in the book that got cut from an

earlier -- >> we could be here all night. bring the mojitos and we'll have a party in the morning. there's a lot of things in the book. and my editor, my fantastic editor -- [applause] >> kept telling me you're over word count. you have to cut at the point, 20% and i wouldn't figure out which stories to cut out because they were all interesting to me. it was just like a miracle, i guess, john decided, hey, we're going to leave a lot of these stories in and we didn't actually have to cut it out but i actually had more to tell. i was talking to bill the other night, i go we just missed this story i wanted to include. we both laugh about it because, obviously, we can't add it in now but there's lots of other stories, that i could -- in the next book. ..

a world renowned cryptographer talking about how vulnerable the street was and a minute ago i am using this problem. so what i did is as a hacker would i hacked into norton and analyzed it myself and found out there were 30 bits of entropy meaning there are 56 bits. the key was 30 effective bits which means anybody can crack in no time. so as any good hacker would i change the encryption i was using and the fed was never able

to crack the key. that is one story that is not in the book. and hand back there? >> any advice for starting your own penetration company? obviously things are a lot different nowadays. >> i am a competitor. i think it is a terrible business. you should compete. actually hire the best people. when i do pan tests and have an hourly rate and i figure out how many hours it will take to do the pen test and because i am so passionate with this technology are ordinarily spend twice the amount of time so i am basically doing this pretty much free. i only spend what amount of time but then i find i want to

investigate something. this would actually work and i end up spending sometimes double the time on the engagement and charging the plant more so i can do a great job. did good thing is i get a lot of repeat business. you went really overboard because i wanted to own everything you have. if i didn't break into everything i don't feel i did my job. >> i don't know where to start with this. you save the world has changed a lot. from my experience i work with high school students and i teach and there are a lot of kids fascinated by hacking. what they're doing with things like trying to take video games and change the game slightly to work the game from one game

platform to a computer or something else and old-style hacking is alive and well to some extent. the second thing is how do you feel about source material, open source code, things that are publicly shared? >> i am a proponent, use it myself. there was a 10-year-old girl at defcon this year. she was able to crack the video games with the timing. you have a 10-year-old girl that was a hacker to play games. kids nowadays, what will they grow up to be? good pen testers or scary people? any other questions? these business cards cost me money. rather than sell them to you all i needed your password. i am kidding.

[applause] >> i hope you enjoy the book. it is great talking to everybody here. one last thing. in each chapter you will see on the chapter heading a cryptogram. on the odd chapters they're quite easy. on the even chapters there more difficult. because i can't legally do this, this is what i would probably do. everyone able to crack the code has a website they could register and prove they could do it. put their names in a bucket and the fbi would return all my computer evidence which is the fbi evidence that. probably get ten of those.

that is not a promise so it is not a contest but that is probably what i will do. i would be happy to give out cards and sign books or whatever. let me do that. >> for more information on kevin mitnick visit mitni mitnicksecurity.com. ♪ >> this weekend in charlotte, north carolina with booktv and american history tv throughout the weekend the history of

literary life of the 2012 democratic national convention. on booktv on c-span2 charlotte's banking industry with rick and dreaming of dixie and how the south was created in american popular culture. also a visit to park road books to learn about the relationship between independent bookstores and publishers. un-american history tv on c-span3, 4 james polk's birth place. in discussion with charlotte's civil-rights leader charles jones on his experiences in the 1960s lunch counter sit ins and the read gold mine where gold was first discovered in america. booktv and american history tv in charlotte, north carolina on c-span2 and free. >> up next and interview from george washington university.

>> host: we are doing a college series where we visit colleges and talk to professors who have written books and expose you to a few more ideas. now joining us is alvin felzenberg from george washington university. here is his book, "the leaders we deserved (and a few we didn't)". about the american presidents. how do we typically rate presidents? >> guest: not well. every president's they work july 4th we are told by newspapers another poll has been done were 50 or 100 historians and here are the great presidents. great, near great, average and below average. then it tells what criteria. all the familiar faces come up. the ones we see on the currency.

the ones we build monuments to in this city and others. let me tell you what distinguishedes the great from the ordinary. hi enjoyed seeing somebody putting a bill in congress giving george washington back his birthday. somebody decided in the 70s that every holiday would change so veterans day changed. they're all not the same and the result is students have a hard time distinguishing to the extent they study any history at all. so i thought i would try my own and tell the viewer what i think makes a great president and i invite the viewer to experience with me. i don't care how people -- i would like to know they can defend their opinions with fact and stories and evidence. i came up with six categories.

students like this. i gave them three principal components, presidential character and what i call vision. why do they want the job? was it the right vision for the country? confidence. always love to say i don't want to pick on mr. carter because he gets picked on a lot but have an exemplary character and a sense of vision on the environmental front where we look back on that but not the confidence to implement. presidents who were pushed

around and made history. i play out these three components over a couple policy areas that no president can avoid. one is economic leadership. one is national defense. call it what you want. national defence, national security. they have to address the world in some way. the hard-won is how well they extend and preserve liberty. the founding idea of our nation. sometimes in the mind of foreigners -- when margaret thatcher stepped down as british prime minister she said ours is the first nation deliberately formed on an idea, not on land or bloodline or heredity but that idea of freedom and liberty. whether it shrunk under

presidential terms or expanded -- the 6 criteria. >> what is the value of the president? >> it is a story of leadership. only 24 men in 230 something years became president of the united states. that is a small club. to get in it most of them fought very hard to get there but george washington. at some point they wanted the job. to have gotten there they had to have been something going for them in their time. they didn't all succeed. this can be used, people who study business, what makes a creative ceo of a company at a time of transition, what makes a good labor leader, what makes a good professor, university

president. here are the best known americans in the world. all presidents and not equal. we shouldn't celebrate the office of president's day. as early as 1777 women started naming their children george washington. without the internet or television. there was something in the man's character. nobility or sense of sacrifice that ordinary americans felt in common. ordinary americans going about their business and don't spend most of their days worrying -- got the point to name their child george washington. i don't want to offend any listeners but there are not many franklin pierces or warren hardings running around unless there direct descendants. i thought that matters a great

deal. >> do american presidents benefit or suffer because of their predecessors? >> guest: america is interesting. people who have been married multiple times say they wind up with the same stuff. in presidential it is always the opposite. we always want the opposite of what we had before. i tell students after words -- great cerebrum and who made a lot of noise got us through a great world war, failed to implement the lead of nations. the country was exhausted. four constitutional amendments passed in wilson's time including the federal reserve. a good many election of senators. the income tax and the one he had mixed feelings about, prohibition but other

progressives -- it was a double experiment. they were divided on that. four constitutional amendments, federal reserve, abolishing child labor. enough. the slogan was back to normalcy and we got warren harding. not the most intellectual president. after eight years of prudence bordering on boredom america wanted camelot so a very startling inaugural and no one accused eisenhower of hanging around hollywood greats but a couple golfers--not the great activist we all know the kennedys and hollywood and camelot and jackie. it wasn't stellar with julie andrews and all this.

after bill clinton we have george bush. these are the bookends of the 1960s. the war protester and all that brings to mind with what he did in all of that. we had ten civil war presidents and two presidents and our generation that the two bookends. obama is a baby boomer born at the tail end. >> host: in your ratings of warren harding you rate him as 26. some are tired so the ratings are not exact but he gets rating number 26 and two for character, four for preserving and extending liberty.

>> warren harding is always rated next-to-last. in the early polls to historians warren harding ran away from the policy. watergate is good for them because nixon comes along about it. i went back and looked at warren harding's record on race. extraordinary record. he was very much in favor -- put it in several state of the union messages and got it through the house but could not get past a senate filibuster. he went to alabama and give a startling addressed with segregated audience with african-american listeners chain away on one side and the dazzling southern gentlemen and ladies coming out to hear the president and he gives a

startling address about race relations. the south will never catch up to the rest of the world and carrying this problem around. all men are equal and i shouldn't have to tell you that 50 years after the civil war and this kind of speech. i read the new york times encounter that and you have these stonefaced southerners and the african-american crowd. i should back out what it would have done is made lynching a federal crime on the grounds that 7 juries -- try them in federal court. it never passed in his time. very enlightened gentleman like to very well in the african-american community. that was the party of lincoln and many national republican

candidates. then there was calvin coolidge. he was very progressive on race. most analysts give him low-grade. i look back on him and in many ways he was the ronald reagan of the 20s. he cut back taxes. before the crash we had the roaring 20s. because of those tax cuts money found its way into a new industry. aviation, automobile, radio and other forms of communication. the automobile became commonplace at the time henry ford decided we could produce. the average working man could afford a car at this point. good job. not a millionaire but middle-class. radio becomes a universal item by the end of this period.

the great secretary of commerce herbert hoover was the secretary of commerce. his job was to hire the first air-traffic controllers. you had to have a stimulating economy to do that. i look back and ronald reagan was on to this. when he moved into the white house he ordered his predecessor's portrait for the cabinet room. the washington post opined that he was losing his mind. then we fast forward six years later and ronald reagan is recovering from one of his many surgeries and is dozing and has an army blanket on his lap. where these would be has his

book face down with his glasses on and white house aides are there. we don't want to disturb your nap but reading this book on calvin coolidge. the cut marginal tax rates four times. how many times have i? get busy! ron reagan -- calvin coolidge was president. they were teaching economics, the old school of economics sociology major. something stock. >> host: you ranked calvin coolidge number 12, right after jfk. jfk you have tied for seventh place with fours across the board of six categories except for character.

>> character is mixed. on the upside two things appeal to me. he was never a weiner. you never heard stories about isolation of the president and woe is me which we heard from our current leader two days ago about not getting the speaker to return his calls. you never heard the winding. every day with a new beginning very much like reagan. they were proud of their irish roots. the fact that kennedy took responsibility. he said the problem at the bay of pigs was mine. i am president of the united states. i am the command authority of the government. first time -- the conference is my responsibility. the downside, lot has come out

that i am not so sure we would recommend for his successors. not even talking about the personal life but putting oneself at one's own risk. the people being shepherded into the white house. questions about foreign government and questions about girlfriends who had ties to the underworld. you wonder about that happening again. on the upside he was not a weiner and like calvin coolidge he cut back. we call them the kennedy tax cuts. kennedy was out of time with the keynesians. ironically is economic professor at harvard with a fellow named nixon. old professor nixon talked about canes and there was a split in the keynesian view and how to

get the economy moving again. the question was you put in public investment or the affluent society and private glory and all that. or do you cut marginal tax rates and growth? it was a keynesian path and this is the aeronautics industry that helped the computer industry, defense and many things that gave us the war of the 60s. baby boomers are proud of this time. we want our own room and car and college and all that. that was financed because our parents were able to do this

because of the kennedy tax cuts and he had the economy growing 5%. i thought of him when paul ryan came up with his road map last winter. the 7% growth in the economy was feasible. even he didn't think so. go to the kennedy library. it happened in our time. >> host: you have president kennedy tied with president truman and president mckinley and zachary taylor. >> guest: here's my theory about that. the commanding officer of u s grand. a lot like harry truman in the same category. you knew where the factory taylor stood. i advanced the theory that had zachary taylor not died 18

months into his presidency -- one of the first conspiracy theories did he die of natural causes? he insisted that california come in to the union as a free state. here is a southern slave owner, sugar plantation in louisiana. spent his life in the u.s. army. the only national institution in the civil war. he will not let these people destroy his union. we talk about richard nixon. only nixon could go to china because of a democrat went to china the conservative republicans would have attacked him. if nixon goes to china who could oppose? if you have a southern plantation owner who is a war hero during the mexican war, double the size of the united states and with his death the

starting gun of will the new states come in slave or free? there was a proposal to divide california to keep the balance in the senate. he wants california to be a free state and his son-in-law was jefferson davis and we will hear from again, he will hang him from the highest free if he talks about secession. had a lived and taken that case to the country he was the eisenhower of his time. was a significant war and might have pulled it off. he was ranked pretty low. >> host: 33. >> guest: out of 44. miller fillmore was told by his wife who signed the fugitive slave law, you will destroy the

union. that was a compromise in california and the south got the fugitive slave law. if you harbored a slave in your home, if you know of a neighbor who is doing it and don't report the neighbor you are guilty as he is. this is the era of the underground railroad. and uncle tom's kevin. we talk about our greatest president, abraham lincoln. but harriet beecher stowe -- lincoln was at least 6 ft. 4. harriet beecher stowe was five feet tall. lincoln looked down at her and that you are the lady who started the big war. that is true. but it is the fugitive slave law and the polarization grows. zachary taylor might have pulled

it off. had more union states come in they might have been able to abolish slavery constitutionally with a constitutional amendment. more states and legislators and history might have been a lot different. >> host: truman and mckinley and zachary taylor ranked above calvin coolidge. one other gentleman is here on the front of your book with a pin in his face. ulysses s. grant. >> guest: let's talk about him. here is a gentleman with a larger funeral than abraham lincoln. the american people adored him. they trusted him. two elections after the civil war, let us have peace. on the other hand let us have

peace but everybody argues it was slavery, the southern said it was slavery and wanted to extend and the north knew it was slavery. even mr. lincoln knew slave labor in illinois would drive down the price of free labor. whether it is economic cost or moral cost it was slavery. grant had the idea this could be a war of attrition and went the phrase total work where you take it to the population. we have to destroy the enemy's capacity. when lincoln got the idea that he could use his extraordinary power as commander-in-chief to destroy the enemy's capacity to make war, some people say the proclamation -- they knew it was freeing them. frederick douglass telling

people run away now to the union lines and the blue uniforms. why don't we put them in the army? magnify the war of attrition. no end of manpower available as we march into the south putting the uniform with our listeners to glory. and all that meant. that was a very interesting period. he becomes president and has this impossible situation. let us have peace. famous coming together where they decide not to issue the enemy officers and not to hang them and we will have a very benign reconstruction. johnson in between was a southerner, pro union but very

racist and very awful attitudes which is why -- passed into the fifteenth amendment and what have you. lincoln got the thirteenth, abolition of slavery. the other two are not clear. grant is not going to be president, the won't accept the nomination. which allows african-americans the right to vote. everybody said when eisenhower past the first civil-rights bill in 80 years. you have the grant administration. he was the last president until eisenhower to send troops to the south for voting rights and then civil-rights. if you are looking at extending freedom, not even counting -- the man who physically carried out the war but he believed --

he would not sell out the troops. he said that many times. he was the commander in chief. he won't have them addressed by their former masters again and have the right to vote. i quote from him directly in a letter to people. we all know about the haze still an election. it happened very slowly in the economic depression in the 1870s. be in party gets slammed. all the southern states are back and leaning democrat but when the democrats lose congress in 1874 we have been through that. we have been through democrats in the house. it is 2006. we had these elections. 1874 the northern states have democratic legislature. democratic congress begins to

cut off grant's hand. you can send troops to the south without our consent and you won't give consent so easily. by the time hayes comes a long you have that fraudulent election. at this point in all but three states african-americans have been disenfranchised. that happened because of congress. they impeached one president and won't have another. he tries to get a third term. the ulysses s. grant we grow about hearing about scandals and his drinking. he was not the only one who drink in the white house. we never hear about this. grant got his memorial before lincoln and grant's tomb and a

great roger marks who is buried in grant's tomb. it is the most visited site in america. grant's tomb was an icon before the statue of liberty or the lincoln memorial. i urge readers to pay attention to the grand story. >> host: abraham lincoln gets five all the way across in all six categories. george washington comes in second with overall rating of 4.67. teddy roosevelt is in third place. 4.5 tied with ronald reagan at 4.5. james capel -- polk is at number 20 below george h. w. bush. he gets 1 in character and five

in confidence. >> guest: james polk decided to grab mexico by himself. wasn't clear the united states wanted that. more slave states. he was called polk the nation by his opponent for good reason. he did achieve his goal. he gets 1 in character. >> host: george w. bush came out very recently, you have in ranked tied with jimmy carter. george w. bush, 3 in character. >> guest: maybe as papers come out and his files we will see a

little more. the family saga -- won't call it dallas. who will carry father's mantle and why did he want to be president? what gold did he want to achieve? it is very unclear. i take him at his word that he became a new person after the crisis in his time and also he lost out on a lot and wasn't a detention when he was going to yale and other places. there is reason for seeking the presidency that we need to know more about. he gets a couple in completes. we don't know how afghanistan will turn out. we don't know how iraq is going to turn out.

i do give him credit for saying margaret thatcher was right. this was a nation formed on an idea all people were created equal and how dare we accept the notion that everyone but muslims -- that was his speech. no one ever said that before. it doesn't mean you do it with a tank. doesn't mean we will give them freedom whether they wanted or not. that needed to be said. this american dream and american life of the world doesn't mean white people and anglo-saxon people and christians and jews. i give him credit for that. on the character question, back

to that. i may be wrong and i will do a new edition of the president will talk to me. i didn't get great intellectual curiosity which i got when i looked at kennedy and reagan. i am sure he reads. one of his quotes is literacy. i don't think this president would get up in the night and ask questions like lincoln did and go reading the telegrams himself from the field. there must be something we can do and that the sentinel and talk to general grant or have his own spies, why isn't this army moving? he was inclined -- reagan was a great delegator. he checked up on people. how is it going?

need any help from the? and he would go in. i get a sense that president bush got the best people around and let's go ahead and do it. before the surge a colonel came in who had seen the vice president and was trying to tell him why things were not working out the way they thought, this is an insurrection with looting and is organized. you have to tell the story to the president. bush says to his aid don't waste my time talking to a colonel. kennedy's story about tax cuts, couldn't find anyone in the treasury department at 9:00 for white house dinner sitting in the desk with a cellphone and gets a lowly clerk and goes jack kennedy wants to ask about the

budget. the guy didn't believe him. the next day all the lights were out, waiting for a phone call. i didn't hear any stories about president bush doing that. >> host: one in competence. >> guest: no one can say iraq was going well. we had seven years with not so wonderful economic growth. then the crash at the end. you have to say he was in office for some time. nobody asked questions and this ownership society where we are going to entice the government

and underwrite banks to lend money to people who can't afford it and probably shouldn't own their home but he gave many speeches that this is an ownership society. thanks to lend to people who couldn't pay them back. i paid 12% down from maybe 20% for my home. the idea of 5% or nothing down. this was government policy. it started in the clinton era with andrew cuomo. when president bush camelot was put on steroids. >> host: one more president i want to ask about from your book, "the leaders we deserved (and a few we didn't)," tied with george w. bush, jimmy carter and rutherford b. as is

james madison. 1 in competence, 1 in economic policy and 1 in defense. >> guest: i urge people in the current administration to read about madison. he was an intellectual. he carried around his own library. in montpellier they show you the bookcases. you line them up berkeley. you get four ends. he was an ideologue. he was jefferson -- loyal to jefferson's ideology where jefferson would say you wrote the constitution. we are strict constructionists can only do what the constitution tells us. it doesn't say weaken by territory. madison says we need a constitutional amendment to make it okay. we don't have time.

the british -- either way if he wins or loses he won't want it anymore. he said okay, the less said about it the better. madison believed -- legislature should be in the federalist papers -- congress wants this work with the largest superpower, great been. there is no money to fight the war. he doesn't like national banks. he couldn't find the word bank either so he lets the charter of the bank's expire. he won't the total war. i have to do what they say. i don't want the bank. i will carry out their wish and don't have money to implement the war. bottom line british burned down

the white house and the capital and the hero of that administration is a businessman. get a declaration of independence out of there. the portrait of george washington is in the news room. not a happy story. a smart man. honest man. he did a great deal to heal the country after the war. he and his wife, remember 9/11, went on for weeks. that was their 9/11. james and dolley would go around reminding me of stories of the king and queen in the battle of britain and crowds dispersed. so he has the heart of the country. he was an ideologue who would not bend and a captive to his own theory about how the world

should work and had great authority on that having written the constitution. jefferson being devious and sneaky found a way to make it look like he was being loyal to his own greed while breaking it and even ronald reagan, most ideological president we ever had was capable -- george wilcox attacked him about gorbachev. reagan said trust me. if you go to china i can talk to gorbachev. even reagan could do that but madison couldn't. >> host: what is your job here? >> guest: i teach several courses. one is presidential rhetoric. a very important part of the presidency. to speak for three hundred million people in one voice and be respected. some of them rose to great

heights and some not. we think of lincoln, should be given an english course as well as politics and i teach a course on president foreign policy. one story about that. i start by saying what happened in 1945? that was the beginning of the atomic era. what happened in 1855? what happened in 1989 fall of the wall. what happened in 1763? nothing. no reaction. the end of -- we are master of our own destiny. what happens? two years later? and all blows up. that is the moral of the class.

still waiting for problems to be behind us. not so easy. each of those men tried to deal with it. >> host: how long have you been teaching? >> guest: on and off about 30 years. i was in and out of government. my last government job was spokesman for the 9/11 commission. i worked in george herbert walker bush's administration and worked recently in the second president bush's administration and worked on the house for five years. i was assistant secretary of state in new jersey under tom kane. in between those stretches i have been te

>> guest: the one of that has not moon connected. congress needs more oversight in the intelligence committee. there is too high at turnover and low specialization. the problem with the hill or congress in the sense that there's no incentive structure. the head of the ad committee, you are doing something for a

farmer or food -- that people know. if you are protecting us all the -- everybody benefits but not one stage over another so people see the intelligence committee with jury duty that they want to get on something else with high turnover. we have to go into a few. it was an extraordinary time. at the height of all these partisan battles in washington with george bush and democratic congress. we had ten commissioners and five republicans and democrats and got unanimous consent along the way without splitting too many differences and they got the attention of congress and the president and his opponents.

unheard of. everybody thought we were going to fail. with the deadlock. another commission of congress men and senators. in even number. how are they going to get together? they had leadership of tom keane and lee hamilton who were moderate in their own party both leading the country ahead of any other mode of and they set a tone and the others chimed in and said let's look at the facts. another republican or democratic way to move up into new york. what are the fact? then we will fight about politics and when we learn what the facts are we tell the narrative that it became evident what the recommendations might want to be and what messages were missed and kind of forced

the recommendations from that and it was an extraordinary experience. the commissions don't fail. they are ignored. people thank them for their reports. hundred of commissions and a couple we remember. i pray for the country that what they're doing on the hill will be above all. >> we have been talking at george washington university with professor alvin felzenberg. his most recent book "the leaders we deserved (and a few we didn't)" published by basic books. >> over the next several months booktv will travel to various universities to talk to professors who published recent nonfiction books. this month we spoke with offers from george washington university in washington d.c.. next month we head to george mason university in virginia. for more on our booktv college

series visit booktv.org. >> welcome to the eleventh annual national book festival in washington d.c.. you are watching booktv on c-span's live coverage of the festival. it started in 2001 by the library of congress and first lady laura bush. the festival is held between the capitol and the washington monument and has grown to be one of the largest book fares in the country and it has grown so big that this year it has expanded to two days and booktv on c-span2 will provide live coverage. here is our schedule of live coverage for today. in a minute you will hear from eugene robinson who has a new book out this year entitled disintegration:the splintering of back america. after he finishes speaking he will join us on our booktv set

for a call in program. best-selling author sarah vowell will take your calls about her book "disintegration: the splintering of black america" -- "unfamiliar fishes". then we will hear columbia university professor and lincoln scholar "unfamiliar fishes" -- eric foner talk about "the fiery trial: abraham lincoln and american slavery". a former fbi agent who worked on terrorism in his career with the fbi. his new book just came out called the black banner:the inside story of 9/11 and the war against al qaeda. you will have a chance to talk with him during the call in show. candice millard has a book about the president james garfield's assassination. she will speak at the national book festival and join us to take your calls and e-mails and tweets. we will introduce you to the

author of liberty's exiles about american citizens loyal to the british during the revolutionary war. if you have been to central park or visited the u.s. capitol, you have seen the work of frederick law olmsted. justin martin will join us to take your calls. sylvia nasar's newest bestsellers "grand pursuit: the story of economic genius". in six hours she will take your calls and we will wrap up coverage of the national book festival with pulitzer prize winner isabel wilkerson who will talk about her pulitzer prize-winning book "the warmth of other suns: the epic story of america's great migration" about african-american migration to the north. after her talk booktv will join her in the tend to take audience questions, national phone calls,

e-mails and tweets. that is our coverage plan for they 1 of the eleventh annual national book festival in washington d.c.. if you happen to be in the area come on down. the c-span bus is pecking out these bags. we will be between fourteenth and seventh streets in washington d.c.. joining us is jennifer gavin, project manager of the national book festival. start by giving us fact and figures about the national book festival. how many authors, what kind of events? >> thank you for having me. we expect to have 111 authors on these grounds over the next two days and we are excited about it. people have asked me to do this for years and we felt we could respond. we are pleased to be doing this.

we hope to have as many people as we had last year which was 150,000 visitors. we will have our usual six pavilions plus three new many pavilions on day 2 which will be graphic novels, and a pavilion we call the cutting edge which is people involved in something edgy in the publishing industry today. the other thing we really love is we have the largest offerings for children and families we ever had in the history of the book festival. we have our children's tent which everyone is familiar with. the teen pavilion which has the real rock star authors everyone is familiar with. we also have the family storytelling stage which is aimed at young kids. that is carrying the banner for our theme of this year which is celebrate the joys of reading aloud. >> you are with the library of

congress. when does the library start planning the national book festival? >> usually around january. we have to start an early shout out to publishers to get and the author schedules and to get them involved in these activities and we begin rolling out planning for what you see on the ground. these pavilions and everything and get to the tent people and sound people. that starts very early in the year. it goes at a low hum for many months. >> president and mrs. obama are sponsors. >> they are honorary chairs and face and a lovely letter which will be read from the podium by the librarian of congress dr. billington. there has been a lot of official and corporate support. we want to thank our many sponsors who make this possible. this is not financed through taxpayer money. this is privately funded.