c-span: here's the cover of the book--the full cover: jane holtz kay, and the name of the book is "asphalt nation." we thank you very much. >> guest: thank you for having me. him ..

live tonight with red carpet interviews as well as the ceremony. there are finalists in the nonfiction category. fiction is also a category where they give an award for national book award, along with young on group -- young authors or young people's authors, and poetry. those are the for all boards that are given, plus a literary award is being given to ms. kaplan, the founder of the miami book fair international which is this weekend in miami.

book tv will be live from miami as well, but in just a few minutes this room will start to fill up. we will broadcast live from the red carpet here. we will be talking with several of the authors who were nominated about their books, and then we will be bringing you on teefifteen, the entire ceremony live on our website. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] author walter mosley. >> i am going to enter this mix kaplan who is getting an award for, you know, his service to the community through literature and literary endeavors, specifically the may book fair, and everything else does. >> it's, of course a man is this weekend. have you ever been invited? >> forty-five times. i love it. it is a wonderful, it is let the people book fair. some book fares felix luces.

you can go, but do you shouldn't, the miami book fair is all-inclusive. everyone to come on in. you have a great time with literature. >> the last time we interviewed falter moseley was that the los angeles book fair on our call-in program. our viewers had a chance to talk with you. how do you know ms. kaplan? >> the miami but fair. a writer, you go on tours. you go down and read in his book stores. a very friendly guy. so i think everyone knows mix. >> have you ever been nominated in? >> no, but i was on the board of the national book awards for eight years. i am an old friend. >> what is your next book? >> at think the last book was talking about was the last days of ptolemy break, and now that is coming out in paperback. so that is -- that is out right now, and in january i have my book, all i did was shoot my man

. >> these and sentiment, walter mosley, author, and he will be introducing which kaplan tonight at the ceremony, which should begin at about 7:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. eastern time. booktv.org and you can once the entire ceremony live tonight. >> right now on the red carpet is debra baker. she is the author of one of the finalists and the national book award, and her book is called the convert, the tale of exile and extremism. we're going to grabber and talk to her here in just a minute. chip ariadne on wall street in new york city, the 602nd annual national book awards. if we can to assure you this book. i know that the lighting is a little dark, but we will see if we can see the cover of the book . convert, a tale of exile and extremism. joining us is author deborah baker. ms. baker, thank you for being here. congratulations. >> thank you.

>> what is the metal you are wearing? >> this is the metal that all of the finalists for the national book awards get to where. >> house surprised when you when you get nominated. >> flabbergasted. >> why? >> because the book was sort of still in my head, and that did not really imagines some much that people would respond to it so well. >> two is a convert? >> the convert was born margaret markets and became thorium when she converted at the age of 27 to islam. >> she grew up jewish on long island. >> in westchester. >> westchester. >> and then she moved after she converted to pakistan. lahore, pakistan in 1962. >> first of all, why did she convert? what happened? and this is in the 60's. >> well, that was the question that i was faced with when i tried to puzzle out, you know, our story.

and she came of age during the second world war. and she grew up in a very secular, the jewish environment. she was, you know, persecuted for being a jew. see just was searching for a more universal face. and she says is on. >> we will define the story. >> i had finished another book that i had written about gangs birds travels in india. festival the blunter archive. >> by accident. >> i was going to see who they have there. it is sort of the library that work in the most. it was the fact that it was a muslim them the job done a bit is that of most of the other names are either jewish faugh. an islamic woman paper that to the new york public library

because at the time she was growing up, very few muslims in new york. and so that was what began, and then once i started looking at the archive i found the letters that she had written from pakistan back home to the herbert and my remarks this. and the voice of those letters just completely captured my imagination. >> issue still alive? >> she is. she is. she has never come back to america. she lives in lahore. she is very celebrated in the islamic world for her books and writings, sort of articulating islam's argument with the western civilization in general and america in particular. so -- >> did you talk with her and visit with her? >> eventually had did go. i interviewed her a number of times. the book is sort of my struggle to make sense of her and history

with his long. >> to published? >> published by gray wolf press. a wonderful, independent publisher based in minneapolis, st. paul. a really brilliant. >> deborah becker is one of the finalists for the national book award in nonfiction. there is the book. the convert, a tale of exile and extremism. we will hear her name nominated and, perhaps, accepting the award elated during this ceremony, so thank you and congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> book tv live for the 602nd annual national book awards another of the nonfiction nominees, harvard professor stephen greenblatt his most recent book is called the swerved, how the world became modern. first of all, what do you mean by this work? >> in my case why the world did not continue in the same

direction, but why it shifted as it did in the renaissance toward the things that we now recognize as our world and not the one that existed in the middle ages. >> who is tied his lucretius? >> he was the author of an ancient poem written 2,000 years ago that said that the world was made up of atoms and emptiness and nothing else. the atoms of swerved. because they swerved everything came into being. in unpredictable ways. >> where did you find this palm? is a well-known? >> it is. famous in ancient times with been lost for more than a thousand years and came back one day in january in 1417, which is the subject of a book. i encountered it when i was young and buy a book more less randomly at the books sell. >> basically writing about this palm and how it says the world

pro who. >> beautiful and powerful, but also a powerful message, which is about not being afraid of death. it happened to get me at a time in my life in which it was a very important message for me, and also it is one of the determining palms, one of the determining statements that gives us the modern world as we know it. >> you have written about 11 books are so. >> i haven't counted them. >> okay. i have. have you been nominated for a national book award before? >> several years ago for a biography of shakespeare. >> and so when you get nominated for this one what was your reaction? >> i was thrilled, of course. double pleasure in double jeopardy, with that is fine. >> harvard professor and author with his most recent book, the swerve, how the world became modern, nominated in the nonfiction category tonight 607th -- 602nd annual national book award.

>> thanks very much. [inaudible conversations] and his right over here is very gabriel, nominated for a nonfiction book award and the national book awards tonight, and it is love and capital, carl and jenny marks and the birth of a revolution puts a big subject. >> is this a love story or a revolution. >> a love story in during revolutionary times to in fact, during a revolution occurring. you cannot separate the two. >> were they in love? >> they were actually from the town of trier in west and russia they knew each other socially, but there were from very different backgrounds. he was the son of a jewish lawyer, but they, i guess maybe

they're first result was to buck society and get secretly engaged and run away and get married. it did have and enjoying love that continued during very many tragedies, because i think what kept them together was the mission, the work that they both did. >> what was their lifelike, especially in london? >> very difficult, very dickens yen. they lived a long time in 80-room apartment. they lost four of their seven children to poverty-related ellis. they spent most of their time with predator is paying on the doors, putting shirts, shoes, silver, anything that wasn't nailed down in order to survive. really all because he did not have time to work because he was so busy thinking. he also could never did anything published, said that did not make any money either this was actually the savior of the

family. he at the @booktv 1850 he decided someone had to get job. so he went to work at his father's factory in manchester. with that money he was able to support the family throughout their lives. it was never enough money to actually survive well. just middleweights. >> at what point in the marriage did he gain some of his notoriety, or did he ever? >> well, to hallmarks. the activist and the theoretician. he was known fairly well in radical circles in the 19th century, but his series were not really accepted until after his death in 1883. so in his own lifetime no one really embraced him to be the man we know today, the communist manifesto, but as an activist to was known. >> mary gabriel, what got you started on this story? >> well, i was living in london, and i felt the presence so strongly in that town.

he dominates philosophical thinking there. often quoted as the most important philosopher of modern times, and i was looking for an angle, and i found it through his story because remarkably there have been lovers of books on him but none of his personal family life. this was a way to get to know another side of them. >> i heard earlier that you don't live in the u.s. >> have been living in italy since 2008. >> you can over for the award? >> i flew over on sunday. great to be in new york. a have to tell you. >> mary gabriel, nominated for the nonfiction national book award this year for 2011. here is her book, love and capital. the birth of a revolution. published her book. by the way, mary gabriel did and after words a month or two back. you can watch that online.

thank you. >> of luck. [inaudible conversations] >> what is your job here at the national book awards? >> i thought it was to enjoy and be rewarded for all the are reported over the last six months. the senate between four, almost 500 bucks. >> nonfiction. >> nonfiction, which, of course, in his biography, a history, and memoir. we will down at all summer. and then -- >> did you read all four to 500. >> we are required to. we are required to, and i did. discounts on a. -- scouts honor. >> who can be nominated for a national book award? >> in the american who has written a book in the last year, so you need to a --

>> can you nominate yourself? >> no, your publisher nominates you. >> with about self published. >> that i don't know. >> it's very interesting because you have 45 varied, smart, interesting people. we are reading areas that we do and don't know very much about but are able to basically to judge these books as laypeople and very dedicated leaves. a lot of give-and-take, a lot of honesty and a great deal of fun. it's like having a great book club. >> unanimous among the four or five judges for the lead tonight? >> yes. that's all i can say. tell us about your day job. >> professor of history at the university of pennsylvania. american history. i have been there for about 15

years. this is probably one of the most fun assignments that i have had in a long time. >> the first time you have been a judge for the national book awards. >> is that the first time i have, but this was a much larger stage and a much larger collection of books. >> what did you look for in a book? >> we looked for excellence in writing, significance and longevity in terms of the importance of the subject. we look for a kind of gravity, i think, and though work, and also we look for writers who are engaged in the process of writing. >> the university of pennsylvania professor, one of the nonfiction judges this evening. thank you for stopping by. and now on your screen, warren redding, another one of the finalists in the nonfiction category for the national book awards. your book is a little bit of the unique side. a tale of love.

what makes this book so unique for being nominated for the nonfiction? >> well, apparently it is the first time a visual book has been nominated for the nonfiction award. those two combined to margaret in redding and design. the combination of those elements seem to up live between them until the book. >> ready you get the idea of doing a graphic or about -- >> i am a visual artist and was intrigued by writing a book the forces. tremendously powerful in many ways. >> so important was the religious a better movie and pr. >> are powerful. this side of the public faces together. you can't really separate to the discover exactly what. they did everything together. >> now, this book written for

adults? >> yes. >> and what about kids, school, middle school. >> yes. i just recently did a talk at a high school where i assigned reading for the entire upper school, so it has been received. >> what is your day job? >> i am a professor. >> and what do you teach. >> i teach drying, painting. right now drying, and i am at now. >> was a reaction when you found that you had been nominated? >> the world and shocked. >> that did not know i was eligible. i think it's very gratifying. recognized. nontraditional. very delightful.

>> another one of the finalists. the national book award. no one more time. radioactive. >> he can fight radiation, but the immediate process. murray, yes anemia due to radiation exposure. >> old was she? >> sixty-seven. a very long life. >> think you so much. >> with publishers marketplace. >> yes, i am. very nice to see you in person after several satellite or audio appearances. >> what do you do tonight at the national book awards? how significant , first of all, what is your day job? >> news editor for publishers marketplace which means essentially keeping track of all

things publishing industry oriented. with respect to tonight i am basically hear more as an observer. obviously i want to watch the award and see what happens, but i am looking for any additional stories that pop up. for example if someone wins the prize my first thought maybe, will the publisher increase and by how much. and thinking of things more in terms of publishing as opposed to literary terms, if that makes any sense. >> has significant of the national book awards. >> significant. the profile. jamie gordon published by a very small press, but we're -- macpherson, in the wake of the nomination and then the wind, the paperback was picked up by vintage, which is an imprint of random house. they also picked up the next level as well as one of her

earlier backlist titles. so things like that, especially, i think, for small presses, it for all and is nominated for fiction for her collection, binocular vision. published, the very first title. his novel is also the fiction category, and he is published by dell to literary press which got on the map because of paul harding's pulitzer prize winner. so the plot -- the small presses, it is a tremendous boost, but it does not hurt the larger houses. >> the convert, gray wolf press. >> that is right. if she wins that will further boost the profile. they've already been helped win a title is nominated. i can think of the salvatore, the end, up to the fiction of years ago. in the wake of that the paperback was picked up by riverhead, an imprint a penguin, and i believe they also picked up his subsequent book as well. >> to the larger house, do they

nominate or push a lot of their books for the national book award? >> well, from one i understand, they have to submit their titles to the various committees. there is an entry fee of $125 that publishes most paper title. so they have to believe that the book is worthy of first appearing of the judge's radar, and from then over several months the judge will consider which of the five titles will end up being on the slate. obviously i am not privy to what discussions may occur, but certainly there must be very spirited in order to come back to the final eight category. >> would you ever be qualified to be a judge or would they ever think of you to be a judge? >> i really cannot say. it would be an honor, but that is not up to me. >> again, when you look at this crowd how much inside publishing is here? >> at think if a nuclear bomber

to detonate upon this building we would lose a shocking amount of personnel. perhaps it might be apocalyptic leaf remains, but it underscores the magnitude of how important this is for the publishing industry. >> and also often writes that way as well. follow your riding, where could they give? >> you can see behind the pay wall at publishers marketplace dud. i am also very active on twitter. my handle is sarah w., zeroth and h, is a hrw. i do have a website at cerro linemen dot com, which is the overall of where you may be able to find additional work as well. >> publishes marketplace. thank you for joining yes. [inaudible conversations]

>> we're having a little bit of that set here off camera. rich kaplan, he is the founder of the miami but fair international. he is also the owner of books and books in coral gables where you began your bookstore. >> i did. >> and you are receiving an award tonight. what is that. >> it is called the literary award, and there is some question as to the actual genesis of that word, but is a service award for giving back to the literary community. >> is it mainly because of miami book fair. >> i think a lot of it is because of the miami book fair. i think it is also 30 years as a bookseller, all bunch of stuff done in miami, which is where i focus. >> how many stores to you have not? >> three in miami, but we have these affiliated stores that a call button box. one in the cayman islands, one in westhampton beach, and one in

an airport and one in the museum >> does business. >> it's pretty good to actually. we have had a very vibrant call and we expect a good holiday season. this week is the book fair going on where we sell books. very exciting. >> what is your involvement at this point in the miami but fair, and how did you get started to begin with? >> i was one of the founders along with eduardo and people at miami-dade college. a few other sellers as well, and i am still very much involved. the chair person of the board of directors, and at the same time my focus on programming, the english language program general, so that is kind of my area. we have an incredible staff of like in the early days. far fewer than it is now. >> how did you find out that you were being nominated or awarded? >> sometime this summer.

>> the foundation. ironically says willie they did not do the nominations until september for the award winners, both myself and john ashbery were the only to people announced, and i was, you know, incredibly humble to be in the same press release as john ashbery. you know, but it is very, very, i feel very honored. >> did you get to make a speech? >> apparently have to, so i want to say a few words. >> which kaplan, winning the literary award tonight here at the national book awards. he is also the founder of the miami book fair international as well as the owner of books and books bookstores. book tv will be live. >> who will see you there this weekend. >> yes. book tv will be there live. >> i can't tell you how many people tell me that they watch the miami book fair on c-span and book tv. >> we appreciate it.

they differ watching. we are pleased to be able to talk to representative and editors of the final nominee in the nonfiction category. this is when the wolf and kevin staten. and it manny mirabel, malcolm x is the final one, the late many mirabel. joining us are two of the stepchildren. first of all, passed away april 1st 2000. >> three days before publication after a long fight with a very debilitating the disease. april 1st. he completed the book, held the book in his hand, rejoiced with it and then went into the hospital and left it in our hands to carry out. >> what were your roles in putting the book together and working with him?

>> i was the original acquiring editor, and i work with them or the development of some of the book of about five or six years. kevin came on board about a year of four republics and worked extremely closely with manning on almost a daily basis finishing the manuscript in the publishing the manuscript, enlarging the manuscript editing the manuscript. the two of us tag teams. >> what was your experience? >> it was thrilling. it was one of those are rare professional traits to work with someone who knew so much then drove so boldly about it. >> and have you worked with him before? >> i had known him in passing before. unpublished many historians. we traveled in similar circles, but this is the first book we did together. >> to other guess 70 to talk to. >> zillow. >> my name is upwellings, and i am the stepdaughter.

>> stepson. >> as he worked on his final book about the max, were you able to observe him up close to back. >> he did a lot of writing at home. we had a lot of interaction with them there. >> i mean, you know, he worked on the book photinias plus. you know, every dinner we talked about every chapter. we got to see him, you know, write a chapter. you read a chapter in the day, and then -- >> did you get to read in advance? >> we read portions of it. and then the manuscript was sent back, you know, my stepfather wrote everything by hand. so he would -- he had a big yellow pad. he would just write everything in send it off. come back and that it. >> also read an early version because he did the about homology documentary, so you had

an early version to help put that together. >> right. so one of the things that my stepfather wanted to do was just create a short to documentary that would accompany when the book was released, the company, and the book. it attracted more people to the life of malcolm x. and so in his final days we put together this documentary, and, you know, it is really a great thing because, you know, as circumstances turned out he passed away before the book came out, and it was great for us to be able to still have this visual to go with the book and that he can still speak for himself. >> after the book came out, he posthumously us some criticism for his portrait about comebacks. do you have a response to that? >> i mean, we don't have a response. i think his work speaks for itself, and, you know, so i

don't have a particular response to the criticism. >> you know, i mean, i think with any great work there will be criticism, and so that is just how it is. on top of that, too, i mean, but, it means so much to the black community. you could expect that, you know, if you are saying things that are not, you know, depicting malcolm in a, you know, perfect light or putting him on a pedestal people are going to -- >> he was also very important to many. people read his acknowledgement stand up in the epilogue and leaving the prologue open talk about how important outcome was to have. this is meant to be an image of malcolm and people, you know, he did not expect to be the last thing that was written on the outcome. he expected there would be debate and discussion and that people would follow up and other people read more.

>> thank you very much. stepdaughter and stepson joining us here at the national book awards. malcolm x is the fifth of the nonfiction books nominated for the national book award. [inaudible conversations] ♪ >> ladies and gentleman, john lithgow. [applause] >> thank you so much. delighted and honored to be here tonight. what an extraordinary occasion. harold coggan brown invited me to be your master of ceremonies.

i have also been a fan of the national book awards. i said yes in an instant. [applause] i thought it will be a nice collegial little salon evening of 80 or 90 people. that is how i always pictured it when i read the write ups about the national book awards. i walked into this room, and that almost walks straight out again. this is huge. this is a huge, big deal. i hope i am up to it. wish i were one of those people who could blithely speak off the cuff of leaving it keeps you constantly entertained at live, but i am not. besides, this is an evening all about writing. by gosh, i have read something. my opening remarks. forgive me. publishers, editors, publicists, agents, booksellers, and above all, you riders, writers of

fiction, non-fiction, punditry, poetry, kids' books, literary types of all stripes, good evening, welcome, and thank you for inviting me to host this year's national book awards. [applause] [applause] give yourselves a hand. the room appears to vibrate with the bright energy of your great thoughts. your quick silver wit, your elegant look questions, your daft ironies, and you're penetrating wisdom. i am an actor. [laughter] i am as speaker of other people's words. in your midst and i am a timid

end emissary from the raffish and vulgar world of entertainment. a surf in the manor house on christmas eve. by making be your host you have given me a chance for just one evening to make go with a better class of people. precious few actors have ever served as your master of ceremonies, believe me, the honor is not lost on me. but wait. a year you say. are we sure we want another actor hosting the national book awards? i meet, really. this is the signature of it of our year. is this not an incursion into our literary temple, yet another hot blast up chilies into there. [laughter] boeing in from the celebrity culture into the halls of our staley intellectual oedipus. to a sex?

kim kardashian. [laughter] charlie sheen, steve martin again. [laughter] well, fear not. as a matter of fact i am pleased to say that in the last few years i am actually aired a few minor baird badges in your lawfully meritocracy i have tiptoed into your bookish ranks. a while ago of the strengths of a string of a siren and schuster picture books i began to be referred to occasionally as actor and author john lithgow. at first being called an author in public and in print was a source of more embarrassment than pride. after all, not one of my kids' books was overturned and nine pages long, and my target reader should was three 1/6 years old.

but recently the actor-author level has taken on a little more have to. in response to the appalling dearth of celebrity memoirs in the publishing business harpercollins in its wisdom decided to publish my. yes, my first book from grown-ups came out in september, a handy two months prior to my hosting duties at tonight's ceremony. it is right there under tables, much to my delight. it is called trauma, and actors educations. it is all the cells of every barnes and noble. you can download it onto your kindle, buy it in the airport bookstore. got strikes me that as i speak if i did not write every single word of it. [applause] [applause]

ladies and gentleman, allow me to present my credentials. my name is john let go, and i am an author. [applause] [applause] who knows? my presence here this evening may usher in a glorious new era of cross fertilization as the hosts of award ceremonies dense blithely back and forth across the line between the high art and literature and the lowe art of entertainment. am i crazy to envision philip roth hosting the oscars? joan gideon hosting the emmy's? john ashbery hosting the people's choice award. i don't thinks so. the trinity killer, high

commander, dr. emilio lazar no is hosting the national book awards. after tonight i will believe anything. but not my actual hosting duties by chance the first person i will introduce tonight is himself a former host of this event with far more impressive credits than mine. he is the author of some 36 critically acclaimed books, including the best-selling mystery series featuring easy rawlings. his work has been translated into 23 languages, and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and even a young adult novel. he is the winner of numerous awards, including the zero henry, a grammy, and ten america's lifetime achievement award. to present the literary award

for outstanding service for the american literary community, it gives me great pleasure to introduce and welcome walter mosley. [applause] [applause] >> you know, the major job of introducing anyone is to be really short and also to talk around them. i was a rendering earlier today, somebody had to this new ones. the first thing they said is i was born in st. louis. there were born in st. louis. talked about that for ten minutes. born in los angeles and the sure he had the same experience as i did. i will do that to mitchell kaplan. mitchell kaplan is handsome, pale, and harry.

he has shown a rare business savvy and a very difficult enterprise at its disastrous moment in our economic history. he is socially conscious and a way that allows for us, a sense of complete equality well fostering grade rating and a high literary standard. mitch is the heart and soul of the miami book fair which opens all of its doors and windows to a collection of words and writers that are not always honored, but are still in all deeply importance to the meetings of our lives. hansen, pale, harry. the truth is, we in the cultural world do not often award handsome business cutting. we do not honor wealth without a donation for health for any reason whatsoever. mitch was that anything else as his mammalian quality. he, like our tiny free ancestors

came out from a hole in the earth when the great dinosaurs were reaching the limit of their evolutionary journey. he is our hero, not because he is a success, but because he has to rise and brought with him hope and a blueprint. when a week, representatives of all of the various strata looked at mission, we see promise. we see that what we love and while we live by and live for have the potential and the ability to survive and thrive. that is his duty, and the reason that we honor him with a literary award for outstanding contribution to the american literary community. mitchell kaplan. [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> i just have to say that it is a really good thing that did not shave my beard this morning the way i thought i was calling to. but thanks, walter. you know, when i heard that you were the one who was going to be presenting this award to me i was really, really pleased. i was pleased that i would have the opportunity and the chance to tell you in person and publicly how much i admire what you do and how you do it.

i have seen for years how you mentor young writers and what that means to them. i have seen you literally go into the belly of the beast and asked for a responsible political discourse. people don't always listen, but you always ask. your unwavering support for what we all do, booksellers and publishers like, really remarkable. and that word of yours, that piece that i read by you just a few weeks seal in the new york times, and i'm sure many of you read it as well, i was really breathtaking. thank you. i am really honored to have been presented by you this evening. and thank you as well to all of the other board of directors of the national book foundation and its executive director for this recognition. i am really humbled to be mentioned in the very same breath as robert silvers and barbara epstein, they've eggers

and joan ganz cooney. to eventually been included in this same press release as the great john ashbery just seems really wrong. i congratulate him and all the others nominated tonight. i also stand here and accept this recognition alongside many, many others who have made it possible for me to have this life, this marvelous life as a bookseller. here with me, many of them to lead to a city in my table. my partners and investors marvin n. hall leibowitz, david, susan and david, my sister and brother-in-law, and, of course, my parents who were there with me. very early on, yes. the big round of applause. [applause] [applause]

they taught me very early are the value of a good book. they also showed me that you could follow one's passion in life even if it will make you a whole lot of money. to janet, dahlia, an honor to the is number of our table, that is why we are all really here always have something to read far into the future. i am also fortunate to work with a remarkable group of booksellers and affiliate partners all the way from the cayman islands to what -- westhampton beach. so to the entire books and books family to update you for making me look so good. i also stand shoulder to

i was a 25 year-old recovering law school student with a keen sense that i wanted to do something. when i took stock of those things that meant the most to me, it all came down to the power of the world, being a part of literary culture. since at that time i spent more time ha in the book shop-the original, i became determined to return to miami and open a bookshop, which i did in 1982. at that time it was a golden age of bud selig. english majors were opening stories and cities and towns everywhere over 50 percent of all books sold were sold in

stores like mine. close to six dozen members of the american booksellers association. these became the great places of their communities, places for readers together, riders to be launched, and it with links to the next generation of booklover's forever forged. the power of the word, the power of books, the creation of a community of readers which would propel our literary culture to the next few decades for what drove these booksellers and these bookstores. a small store like mine could have an impact. we were welcomed into the literary try with open arms. i will never forget to throw wind on a slow afternoon at the book shop about a year after we opened i looked up from the counter to see roger browsing or fiction section. i tried to act really cool.

but in the brow's uninterrupted. but i could hear their conversation without having to strain too much. they were marveling at the notion that we were carrying the new north point press version of herman brock's death of virgil, the one with the french flaps, picking it up and turning it around as if it were a fresh out jim. i knew i had chosen wisely. no will and trust for me. selling books is what i would be doing, but little did i know that i would also be helping miami read the finest. as i said to a miami was not a very happy place in 1982, but just two years after we opened, it began to develop a bit of a smile. at the behest of the visionary campus president at our local community college, a group of us were called upon to start the miami book fair international. we were charged with nothing less than helping to transform the entire downtown miami area

into something much more vibrant than it was then. dr. eduardo patroon, mentor to somebody else's of florida and those of the power of the word, this to the books and writers could go a long way to healing a community. he threw the weight of the cause behind the fair, and in that very first year, thousands and thousands of miami ins came to hear authors and brows but boots. whole families came, black and white, brown, from every nook and cranny of miami's diverse landscape. programs featuring james baldwin and mary barack a, allen ginsberg, joseph heller, must build to the brim. your writers like dave barry, carl heisman, less stand deferred, and james w. hall were fighting their voices and audiences. we have programs in spanish and creole, riders from the caribbean. my ambiance came to lender under that big tent that was the miami book fair that first glorious

year. but it was not really as easy as it might seem. back then nobody thought of serious stuff or reading went on down in miami. i remember the time that i asked a pretty prominent publisher if you would send a pretty prominent author to us. his response was something like, no, you know, not her, but we have this author of a new nonprescription drug book would be perfect. old people, beach readers. that is the way miami was looked at. no as we move in toward 28 book fares, it is taking place right now. if you're quiet -- if you are quite you might be able to hear john reading tonight right now down in miami. and if you're going to be there on sunday he might be able to catch michael more as well will be with us. but you can always see it on c-span. they come out and cover it live, so please watch it there. but no 29 years later eduardo is

the president of the entire miami de college system with 180,000 students, which is the largest in the nation. the center of my everyday college has been established for year-round literary programming. parents are bringing their children to the very same fare that introduced them to the joys of reading years before. now so many years later, although there are many things that could be said about miami, no one can say that it is not a vibrant, diverse, an interesting place to be and that it does not have a distinct and full literary community. the power of the word, the power of the book. and although the roots of books and the miami book fair were laid in that golden age, i firmly believe that even with all of the people we find in our industry today there is room for plenty of optimism. writers are writing a marvelous and important books.

publishers are publishing them. as every bookseller knows, readers want to know about them, and they want to buy them. our challenge today is to figure out and solve the complex distribution issues that have developed because of a changing world we now operate in. we need to reassert the role of the bookseller, we need to recognize and honor the place of the bookstore in the publishing process. and i have a real sense that this is beginning to happen. publishers across the whole spectrum are taking a hard look at their policies and practices, wanting to bring in new rationality to the whole process . did the good work of the aba, booksellers are more educated than ever before, and they're finding ways to compete in the virtual world. most encouraging, sprayed up everywhere are new book stores, owned and operated by youngbear booksellers to have that passion

for the word, that desire to serve, that link from writer to reader to all the while creating those places, real places that are so necessary if we are to continue valuing and nurturing that sense of community that is so vital in the life of a culture. my secret hope, i have the so ever since i got this hope developed that 30 years from now they once young bookseller will come before you again thanking you for indulging the work he or she has been doing to keep this very, very fragile el literary ecology of hours in balance. so they'd you very much for this honor. i think you all for supporting me and for supporting all that we do. thank you. [applause] [applause]

>> congratulations. let me tell you a little bit about the medal for distinguished contribution to american letters. she is published eight books of poems and an essay collection, the night sky, riley's of the politics of experience as well as the number of collaborations with visual artists. she has been, since 1990, co-chair of writing in the milton avery graduate school of the arts at bard college where she is also professor of languages and literature. a visiting critic at the yale school. her awards include from the guggenheim and macarthur foundation's. her 2009 poetry collection or to begin again was a finalist for the national book award.

it gives me great pleasure to introduce in leatherback. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. it is daunting to be in this room with this many people, but i thought that i should point out that nobody else has that we are occupy wall street. [laughter] as many of you undoubtedly know, if you try to find the person called john ashbery and the palms of john ashbery you will be out of luck even though one of his most celebrated works is

self portrait in a convex mirror. the title poem of the book, 1975 it won the national book critics circle award, the national book award, and the pulitzer prize, self portrait in a convex mirror was titled after a pending by the 16th century italian artist. so you begin to get a sense of the play of identity and reference that characterizes the crash parian poetic. what is mirrored is not so much a self as a world or more precisely because the league mutating duet with the world. without question john ashbery radically revised our sense of poetic voice and address, and i

wish i could adequately convey deliberating exhilaration when i first heard him in london in 1972. i was trying my best to become sylvia plath and leyna without killing myself. .. >> it's openness and flexibility

, inclusiveness, good humor, and generosity, and in short, its humanity. these traits and this demeanor capture the core tone of -- the core tone of john ashbury's work. as you watch -- are they here? are we watching images of the collages or just images of me? you saw some? that's good. much better to watch collages than ann. as you watch images of his collages cycle through on the vast screens, you might get a sense of how a brilliant syntax and fluid diction suture exfoliating gee ag my of a -- geography of a palm and how

things are founded unexpectedly yet pleasurable relation to evoke another precursor while the true compoundings come. the reel is not static just as the ashburian eye is not singular. the temple present unfurls in fields of a wave, a flowchart extending our imagination and the sense of wonder at what he once called in an often quoted phrase, "the perceived world's wide authority and tact." across some 35 books in writings that include translations and essays on poetry and art, john ashbury has given us an

atonnishing linguistic habitat and inseparable from the congruent. we see abstraction is the sum of myriad familiar details. we experience dynamic shifts within a continuum of attention and the profound solace of recognition. this is how it is. on behalf of the national book foundation, it's my great honor to present the distinguished contribution to american letters award to john ashbury. [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] [applause] [background sounds] [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> thank you. we can sit down. >> wow. [laughter] that's pretty nice. [laughter] put it on? sure.

oh, it came off the ribbon. >> you speak, i'll see if i can fix it. >> okay. [laughter] >> thank you, john. you're always giving me these nice awards. >> it's true. >> i always appreciate them. thank you, ann, for introducing me and saying very nice things about me, and congratulations, mitchell, i wish i could check out your book shop, but long may you thrive. >> here you go. >> okay. [cheers and applause] thank you. [applause] thank you so much. my acceptance speech was -- as

unaccustomed i am to public speaking, here it goes anyway. [laughter] in the 1950 movie, the modern poet whose poems are dictated to him by a voice on his car radio, he journeys to hell in order to bring back his missing wife. while there he is interrogated by three sinister judges who asks him, among other things, what he does. he answers that he's a poet. when one of the judges replies, what does that mean? he says, in means to write and not be a writer. this distinction holds generally true, i think. for instance, the title of the contemporary magazine dealing with issues of writing and publishing called "poets and writers".

[laughter] as it happens, the current number has an article by alan sussman about what writers should reply when asked at the party, "what do you do? she says, you write because it's your passion, life blood, and yet you tell this lovely person you're an accountant, a househusband. repeat after me, i'm a writer. it's my job. it's what i do. that's fine if you are a writer, say a novelist, but what if you're a poet? you never reply, i'm a poet. [laughter] out of fear that they would get up and leave the room. [laughter] it sounds like you're conferring value on yourself. you can't be a poet who calls himself or herself a poet without leaving open the

possibility that you're a bad poet. [laughter] your stuck with the situation of writing and not being a writer. if this sounds like whining, i'll add hastily, i'm pleased with my status in the world of writers. i've been lucky enough to get concrete signs of appreciation over the years. one of them arrived 35 years ago when i got the national book award, but even without them, i think i would have continued writing just for the well fun of it because it is fun even though it's not supposed to be. if it wasn't, i would have taken up another pursuit years ago, needle point or designing miniature golf courses. [laughter] writing the poetry i write gives me a pleasure i can almost taste when i can imagine practicing in solitude, but never alone thanks to the strange experience emerging in him. of course, it's hard to write, but somehow the difficulty is

embedded in the pleasure. besides the pleasure of writing and not being a writer, there's a further concern for me in that to many people intelligent and honest ones among them, what i write makes no sense. [laughter] it apparently lacks accessibility, a relatively recent requirement. [laughter] when i first discovered modern poetry at the age of 16, i was delighted by its difficulty. a word often used since then in my work, in general, by what yates calls the fascination of what's difficult. my first encounter was stein, for instance, inspired me to have intimidation. she's great and so hard to understand when i summed up my

initiation. my reaction. several years ago, my adviser at harvard, they called him tudors, like they called the dormitories houses, a little inverse snobbery. the first book of his i had come upon, and once again, i tore through it delightedly. wow, this is really difficult, i thought. [laughter] contemporaneous was my discovery of the poetry of elliot stevens early autumn, all of who became important influences. my early poetry i thought was in the grand modern tradition of being hard to understand. besides, wasn't this what modern art was all about? picasso painted heads with three eyes, and viewers looked on. there was four pianists hitting the same cord over and over

again, and audiences were enthralled. not until i learned later, i had trees pes. it was okay for them to traffic in difficulty i was given to understand, but my stuff was just a little too difficult, in fact, a lot too difficult ranking somewhere near root canal in the pleasure principle scale. [laughter] besides, by then, difficulty was out, accessibility was in. [laughter] these thoughts dawned on me a few days ago when wondering what to say tonight. i glanced at the acceptance speech i wrote on getting the national book award in 1976. i didn't happen to glance at it. i searched for it. [laughter] for as long as i have listen publishing poetry, it's been criticized as difficult and private, though i never meant for it to be. at least i wanted its privateness to suggest the ways in which all of us are private and alone in the sense that's

proved when said each of us is truly alone. i wanted the difficulty to reflect the difficulty of reading any kind of reading which is both a pleasant and painful experience because we're temporarily giving ourselves to something which may change us. i seem so have been writing out of this situation for many years, income -- including in a fairly recent poem called "uptick" that has the lines, to come back to a present subject, a painting looking like it was seen after turning around slightly apprehensive, but it has to pay attention to what's up ahead, a vision. therefore, poetry dissolves in brilliant moisture and reads to us a faint notion, too many words, but precious. the dilemma has not gone away, but then i console myself and

say neither have i, yet. i'm still writing and still not a writer. the pleasure that comes from writing is as sharp as ever. so is the fear of giving offense to readers whom i wish to please by offering them a nice surprise, a nice one, but still a surprise, and i'm aware that not everybody likes surprises. still, tonight's medal for distinguished contribution to american letters is a huge surprise. makes me feel the last few decades have not been wasted, and that's a terrific feeling. thank you, all, very much, and thanks especially to those who have helped me achieve it including my editors of long standing, elizabeth and dan. my agent of 40 # years, george, and my partner of 41, david. you done good. [applause] thank you.

[cheers and applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> wonderful, john. a master of ceremony of duties include pure stage management. it's new my duty to tell you to eat and enjoy your dinner. all the big surprises come in a little while. enjoy supper, and saver the suspense. we'll see you in a few minutes.

[applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> good evening. on behalf of the board of directers of the national book foundation, i would like to welcome you to the 62nd national book awards. now, this is always a special night, and it's made more special this evening by the many award winners we've got in the audience. i'd like to acknowledge some of the award winners here, and it's quite a list. please hold your applause until i have mentioned them all. we have national book award winners john ashbery, of course, edward ball, julia glass, john casey, gordon reid, colin mccan, andrew solomon, judy

thereman, and time winier. pulitzer prize winner, yusef. national book circle winner, francine. and short story award winner and edith. elizabeth philips and bread award winner, amanda forman, mcarthur fellow, tony winner, of course, john lisco,. michael moore, neil conan: thank you for being here tonight, and let's give them a hand. [applause] i'd especially like to thank our

financial supporters without whom we cannot bring you the national book awards. again, hold your applause until i mentioned them all. the premier sponsors are barnes & noble, randomhouse, google, book publishing papers, david drumman, and penguin sponsors, bloomberg, the national endowment for the arts, debra wiley. ibm and hbo. thank you for your support. [applause] i mentioned psychological elastic as a sponsor, and i want to thank scholastic and the press conference. we do a team press conference every year. thank you, scholastic, and we usually have 250 teams that get to have a press conference with the finalists here in new york. thanks to scholastic and the

250. this year, we had over 30,000 teens watch the web casts in schools, libraries, and homes across the country. thank you for that. [applause] would like to acknowledge in our audience the winners of the third innovations reading prize. our mission at the national book foundation, our mission is to encourage the reading of great books, and these organizations have each developed new ways to get people to read. i'll just mention who they are quickly. first, my own book -- this is an organization based here in new york. it finds children in neighborhoods that have no bookstores. it takes those kids over to bookstores 234 other parts of new york city, gives each of them $50 to purchasebooks of their choosing. electric literature developed an app for small presses to make

their books available on hand held devices. yarn is the first online literary journal dedicated to young adult literature, and last, but not least, core press launches projects to engage the nation's youth with literary history. i want to ask all of them to stand for a minute and be recognized for their energy and dedication that they bring to their tasks. [applause] now, the walk of that award, it's part of what the terrific national book foundation staff does, i want to thank them, they work so hard in our literary and educational programs. special thank you to harold, the tireless executive director, thank you, harold. [applause] thanks. and finally, i'd like to thank

our extraordinary dinner co-chairs who, over the past three years, truly transformed this dinner. if you attended this dinner more than three years ago at the marriot, you'll know what i'm referring to. morgan, bass, lynn, shelly wagner. we have come a long way thanks to you. please give them a hand. [applause] now, one of the strengths of american publishing is its very broad base of publishing enterprises from the very small to the very large, and this year's finalists represent 14 different publishers from all over the country from the smallest of the small, look out books in north carolina, whose very first publication is a finalist for the national book award.

[applause] all the way to randomhouse, america's largest. our finalists -- [applause] our finalists come from as far away as barrel, alaska. [applause] and as close as across the river in brooklyn. and -- [applause] such diversity is gratifying, and it's what makes the national book awards truly national. on behalf of the national book foundation and our board, i wish each of our finalists good luck tonight, and now on to the awards ceremony. thank you. [applause] >> i think that was very nice of david to mention so many people

here tonight who already won awards, and i'm delighted if he included me among them even though my awards have nothing whatsoever to do with writing, and he included the name of my date tonight and my goddaughter, nell, at table 6. [applause] i consider nell another one of my credentials. [laughter] as a host, she's a fine young write e and i taught her everything she knows. [laughter] all of you mentioned on that list can just sit there and sit on your laurels, but there's several people who have not yet won national book awards, and you're about to win them. i'm going to tell you the four different categories in which people are going to win awards tonight, and then i will introduce the various people who will present them, one by one.

the four categories are young people's literature, poetry, non-fiction, an fiction. first, i would like to present the man who is going to present the national book award for young people's literature. mark aaronson is a historian, author who brings edge international voices to young adult readers in the united states. his most recent book is "trapped: how the world saved 33 miners from 2,000 feet below the desert." his next book "master of defeat, jay edgar hoover: america and the age of lies" will be published in the spring, and it's a great pleasure now to introduce mark aaronson. mark? all yours. >> thank you. [applause] you know, it was a bad year for

muffled phone conversations with disastrous consequences. of course, i'm thinking, as we all know, of the fifth game of the world series in which the cardinals lost because of a bad call to the bullpen, and, of course, we had our own little oral malfunction, but the cardinals went on to win the world series, and i have to say that i hope you'll agree with me that in the end, even though we had our little detour, there was ultimately a triumph because the nba board stood for the one principle that everyone in the room shares which is the integrity of the judging process, and i had the distinct privilege of serving of the most marvelous jury with nick, and

the infatigable will weaver, and together, we selected five marvelous books, any one of which deserves the prize; however, in the end, we have to select one, and so for her note perfect eve cation of exhyl, immigration, and arrival, we give thedown person's national book award to "inside out and back again." [applause] [applause] [cheers and applause]

>> good evening. thank you so much. this is more than i could have expected from telling a little story about a time in my life. i'm truely honored. i'd like to thank three women, rosemary, tara, sarah, and one man, my husband, henry, for doing exactly what needed to be done. thank you so much. [applause] [applause] >> to present the national book award for poetry, in the presence of john ashbery, is elizabeth alexander, and her most recent book is "crazed raid radiance." she's the author of five previous books of poetry

including "american sub regime line" a finalist for the pulitzer prize, and "the black interior." awards and honors include the wolf lifetime achievement in poetry award, the jackson poetry prize, and many others. it gives me great pleasure now to introduce elizabeth. [applause] >> first, i want to say just thank you to the national book foundation for its continued support of poetry. every poem, every book of poetry, carries voices and histories and traditions along with it. each book of poems takes a reader into an engulfing

discreet world of language, yet each also rises from ancestral voices, fellow poets and poems, strange musics converging in the present ear. we think our five beloved books speak across time. we think that each gives us a snapshot of american noise, a sip, a taste, a feast. our work was very hard. i'm so proud to have worked with judges of such intelligence, heart, and integrity. we didn't turn from difficult conversations. i promise you. we listened to and learned from each other. we came up with a list of five that we feel gloriously represents the brilliance of american poetry today. i want to sincerely thank my fellow judges, thomas sayers

ellis, amy, kathleen graver, and roberto, and so finally, we had to choose. the five finalists are nicky, head off and split. triquarterly and enprint of northwestern university press. yusef, the chameleon couch. karl phillips, double shadow. adrianne rich, tonight no poetry will serve, poems 2007 to 2010. ww norton, and bruce smith, devotions, university of chicago press. the national book award for poetry goes to nicki stenny.

head off and split. [cheers and applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [cheers and applause]

>> wow. we begin with history. the slave codes of south carolina, 1739. a fine of $100 and six months in prison imposed for anyone found teaching a slave to read or write, and death is the penalty for circulating any insipid yarr literature. those who long to read and write, but were forbidden, who lost hands and feet, were killed by laws written by men who believe they owned other men. words devoted to quelling freedom, insurgency,

imagination, of hope. what about the possibility of one day making a poem? the queens tongue arrange to perfection are the most beautiful paper of the tree sap determined to control but can never be controlled, the will of the human heart to speak its own mind. tonight, these forbidden ones move around the room as they please, sit at whatever table they want. they are bold in their sunday go to meeting best, and their shirts are black washed, pot clean, and not tucked in. some have even come in white victorian collars. some have just climbed out of the cold wet atlantic just to be here. we shiver together. if my name is ever called out, i promise my goal poet self, so,

too would i call our theirs. jones, maryann, northwestern university press, this moment has something to do with how serious you do what you do. editor, partner in the language life, you taught me that repetition is holy, courage can be a daughter's name, and two is stronger than one. papa, chief a opponent of the death penalty in south carolina for 50 years, 57 years marlied to the same girl. you bought every dictionary for me as a girl and book that ever knocked on our oakland avenue door. mama, dear mama, newbury girl, you made christmas, thanksgiving, and birthdays out of foil, lace, cardboard, insisting beauty into our deeply segregated southern days.

rich, bruce smith, karl philips, simply to be in your finalist company is to brightly burn. national book foundation and national book award judges, there were special high school teachers who read the annual report as if it was way down deep in a dusty corner of our tiny southern newspaper. dr. gloria wade gayles, great and best teacher of my life. you asked me on a friday, four o'clock, 1977, i was 19 and sitting on a college wall dreaming about the only life i ever wanted, thaf a poet. you said, do you really have time to sit there? have you finished reading every book in the library? [laughter] dr. katie cannon, what i heard you say once haunts every poem that i write.

black people, you said, were the only people in the united states ever explicitly forbidden to become literate. i am now officially speechless. [cheers and applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] well, there's going to be two more acceptance speeches tonight, and i don't want you two winners to be intimidated. [laughter] but that was the best acceptance speech for anything that i've ever heard in my life.

[cheers and applause] [applause] it's also the loudest i've heard anyone cheer for an award for poetry. [laughter] how wonderful. [applause] the national book award for non-fiction will be presented by alice caplin. her newest book "dreaming in french" will be published this march. she is the author of five previous works of non-fiction including "french lessons," and the collaborator, winner of the los angeles times book prize, and finalist for the national

book critic circle award and the national book award. she is former fellow and member of the american complea of arts and -- academy of arts and sciences, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce alice kaplian. alice? [applause] >> good evening. i would like to thank the members of the non-fiction panel jill and barbara for the pleasure of reading to the. imagine a book group with the smartest, most discerning readers in the country. the best books published for the entire year are sent right to your door, plus, you can show up in your slippers because all the meetings, except the last one, take place on the phone.

nonfiction makes a pact with the truth, but only art distinguishes it from mere information. our panel was interested in the face of nonfiction. its creative side and its rigor, its conscientious relation to sources and its formal invention. we started with a list of criteria, a work of lasting value, though that was a wager impossible to know, a beautifully made narrative, a compelling book to read, an original work, inventive in content or genera. we looked for boldness. we were also on the lookout for heroic qualities, for books that have the potential to overturn received ideas, to change the national conversation. finally, we looked for quality in research.

we looked for the signs of a quest of true discovery. we found what we were looking for. five creative works that invigorate the territory of nonfiction as they explore its boundaries. each of these books is compelling to read, each of them makes a world come alive. finally, i'm sure that we have the distinction of having selected among our finalists the only book in the entire history of the national book award that actually glows in the dark. [applause] our nominees are debra baker, "the convert: a tale of exile enextremism" published by gray wolf press. mary gay bree yell, "love and capitol: the birth of a revolution" published by little brown and company.

steven, "the swerve: how the world became modern" published by ww norton and company. manning, malcolm x, and lauren "radio active: a tale of love and fallout" published by it books, and impresent of harper collins publisher. this year's national award for nonfiction goes to steven green blot "the swerve: how the world became modern." [applause] [applause]

[applause] >> well, i find myself fighting back tears, and not only because, but partly because i'm so intimidated by the acceptance speech i just heard before me. i'm honored and deeply moved. my book is about the power of books to cross boundaries, to speak to you impossibly across space and time and distance, to have someone long dead, seem to be in the room with you, and speaking in your ear and giving you words of comfort or fear or longing. my book is about what the

maimingic of the -- magic of the written word is, and about the strangeness of a poem written 2,000 years ago, a great poem, and a difficult poem to think of john ashbery's words, disappearing for a thousand years, and then coming back, so in the first instance i want to strangly thank the poet lucricius2,000 years ago, and the strange, marvelous italian book hunter, bureaucrat who brought it back in 1417 and returned it to the world, and that conjunction for my purposes tonight is a fortuitous one because a poem is a text written

by an individual, but a book it something that was collectively done that required scribes and editors and book hunters and collaborators, and that was true then, and in the much more modest way, but one i feel is true for me, so i want to thank those who helped create to turn a text into a book, and those people include my marvelous friend and agent, my superb and enormously gifted editor elaine maison at norton, and indeed the publishing house of ww norton that had the insane idea that they could sell a book about the discovery of an ancient poem by a renaissance humanist to more than a handful of people. then beyond that group of have

dear friends. and people to thank, i also want to acknowledge what is central to the poem that i care about which is pleasure in the deepest possible way, and for me that pleasure centers on my three wonderful sons, my granddaughters who whom the book is dedicated, and above all and always to my beloved wife, amy. thank you have, very much. [applause] >> that's a pretty damn good acceptance speech, too. people are good at this. [laughter] to present the 2011 national book award for fiction, i'm proud to introduce -- the author

of the novels, rema in the weeds -- i hope i pronounced that right. r-i-m-a in the weeds. one sweet quarrel, my russian and red rover, which was named the best book of 2007 by art forum. the "washington post, and the "los angeles times," and her stories appeared in the new yorker, double take, and elsewhere. i'm proud to introduce diedra. [applause] >> good evening. i'd like to say first what a

pleasure it was to work with my distinguished fellow panelists, jerome, john, victor, and ian lee. we are a varied crew in terms of writing styles, literary materials, backgrounds, ages, so i was prepared from the beginning for cross country rangeling over the 315 books that came our way. what happened instead as we sifted and pondered and read ourselves weary was a near mutual movement, almost gravitational, and in retrospect, a little uncanny towards 20 or 30 books and then 15 and 10 and finally 5. we didn't have lengthy, analytical discussions about the books in the narrowing field, though we each, of course, tried to articulate what struck us most forcefully of the moments.

we said what we felt about them, what responses they produced in us, admiration, exhilaration, transportation -- that sense of amplified alertness that the very best fiction produced. we looked at our short and then shorter lists, and we felt those things. at our lunch today, we talkinged about how deeply impressed we all were with every book on the list and also with at least half a dozen that nearly made the cut. there were a couple comments about these five though that surfaced repeatedly. the sheer elegance of the writing, the way these writers did not fade from intertwaining the historical, how their characters exist within the larger context of war or

displacement or shifting political and cultural boundaries of natural catastrophe, and we also noticed how unbored our finalists were with character making, with the unironic narratives, and with story telling itself. what clear-eyed confidence they placed in their stories and in the voices in which they chose to tell them. here they are in alphabetical order. andrew crevak "the soul jowrn" bellview press. "the soldier's wife." julie, "the buddha in the attic"

impresent of randomhouse. edith, "by knock lar vision," lookout books, creative writing of the university of north carolina. jess ward "salvage the bones" the winner of the national book award for fiction is chestman ward. "salvage the bone." [cheers and applause] [applause] [cheers and applause] [applause]

[applause] >> i have to try not to cry, and i have to read this because if i don't read this, none of this will get said. when i committed myself to writing, i did so for several reasons. i was in my early twenties, and my younger brother just died, and since living through my grief of my brother meant understanding life was a feeble, un predictable thing, i wanted to do something with my time here that would have meaning. my first stories were attempts to honor my brother, to write the kind of life that he might have lived. as i wrote more, my focus widen. i wanted to write about the experiences of the poor, the black, and the rural people of the south, as a culture that

marginalized us for song would see our stories were universal, our lives as fought, lovely, and important as theirs. this is a life's work, and i'm only at the beginning. this would not be possible without the support of all the people that helped me realize "salvage the bones," and thank you to the national book foundation, and i thank my publisher, especially george gibson, my editor, kathy, and my publy cyst for reading and seeing the potential. my agent, jennifer lyons has always been my ally. thank you to the creative writing program at the university of michigan for encouraging my talent and encouraging me discipline. i thank the fellows for the feedback throughout the first draft of the book and stanford university who gave me funding

while i was writing this. i would like the thank the university of mississippi and also the independent book sellers that help this book find a readership like square books and myriad books. finally -- [applause] i would also like to thank the people of my community in mississippi for being my home and my inspiration. i am grateful for my family, friends for being and believing and encouraging me and most importantly for giving me life meaning, especially my mother who made her way out of no way, who worked so hard to give me the opportunity to dream this dream and become a writer. i love you all so much. thank you. [applause]

[applause] >> wonderful. [applause] this concludes the 2011 national book awards. i'd like to thank harold ogenbrown, all the judges. i'd like to congratulate all the winners and thank you for your beautiful, beautiful speeches, and for all of you finalists who did not win, congratulations to you, too. [cheers and applause] i urge you all to remember those dark, gloomy days before you were nominated for a national book award. [laughter] i have made light of my duties

as a master of ceremonies tonight, but it truly has been a wonderful and humbling honor. thank you so much for having me, and on to next year! you're all invited to the after party, please come, thank you. [cheers and applause] [inaudible conversations] >> for more information about the national book awards, visit nationalbook.org. >> well, on your screen is the newest book by long time washington foreign correspondent predicting the unthinkable, anticipating the impossible. what is this book about? >> well, this book is a deprivation of my family, and i

have thought for many years that what we have to do would have to anticipate things. we have to predict them. that's what this book is trying to show. >> thought your years as a foreign correspondent, where have your trails taken you to? >> i have been all over the world, egypt, israel, all over latin america, vietnam, that was exciting. i've be there many time, and really, almost ever where. i can't think of places now. >> so if people sit down to read predicting the unthinkable, what are they going to find in there? what would you like them to take away from that book?

>> it covers all parts of the world, and it's the message of thinking of different people, so you can anticipate what is coming and predict it. we have great diplomats and military men and generals who have predicted, but it never gets to the vision of the white house and the state department. >> so, if you were to travel today, where do you see a future problem or future situation that we should be aware of thinking about now? >> well, certainly syria. i think the rest of the middle east is going to come out of this quite well, but syria is such a violent place and such a nasty place that it would have to be an all-out revolution to overthrow that.

they are not doing much of anything. they depend upon us, our borrowing, and so almost everywhere you look, including our own country, we have problems to look into. >> now, we're here at the national press club. it is authors' night here at the national press club, and we're talking with george anne geyer. shows from c span, cnn, fox, all of them, have seen her on the program commentating, but ms. geyer, it sounds like you have a speech impediment now. what happened to you? >> i do. four years ago, i had tongue cancer, which i didn't even know existed, and i never smoked, never drank too much, never smoked at all, and so they said

it will been around for a long time, and so now i'm -- i survived, but now i'm trying to go a little beyond surviving. >> has it impeded your travel plans? >> oh, yes, oh, yes. because, you know, i can talk to you, and you understand it, but in other countries, they don't understand it, so i'm rearranging my life. it's important. >> newest book is predicting the unthinkable and anticipating the impossible. thank you for being on booktv. >> thank you, thank you. ..