heart breaking brutal stuff not reflecting him well necessarily, but they showed me everything showing he listens to everything. >> again, how many does he respond to? >> so usually he responds to one or two a night, and some of these ones he responds to really become almost transformative for him. you know, there's a cleaning woman in the book from ohio who writes because she's just been diagnosed with leukemia, and she does not have health insurance, he goes to the town to give a speech, and they stay in touch. she's the icon for the health care reform. most of the stories are like that, people he writes back and forth with many times. >> ally's new book, ten letters, the stories americans tell their president.

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of books every weekend. well, as 2011 comes to a close, we thought we'd take this opportunity to lock back at the year in publishing, look at the publishing industry as well as some of the best sellers of the past year. sarah is the news editor of publisher's marketplace. start by giving us a little bit of a snapshot of publishing industry in 2011. if you had to write a paragraph or two on what the publishing industry did this year. >> guest: oh, my goodness. where do even begin. i think the best way to look at what happened in the publishing industry this year is the increasing rise of digital books, digital market share, and also a tremendous transformation of the physical book market. for example, i guess a really good way to look at it is

through the almighty prism of amazon. for example, amazon introduced just a couple months ago some new devices, for example, the kindle fire, it's priced at $199, and just based off of preorders and new shipments alone, various analysts projected that it will reach number two in sales behind apple's ipod priced at the lowest end of $499. the thing with the kindle fire is that it's also in direct competition with barnes & noble which we'll get to in a second, but amazon introduced some other lower cost kindle dinners vices. kindle is by amazon's reckoning, the number one best selling e-reader, and it's also that reckoning by analysts as well.

of course, amazon will not tell anybody how many it's sold. that's a party line they adhered to after introducing the kindle four years ago, and they'll stick with that because they make so much money. they clearly feel they can get away with not exactly imparting sales figureses, but in this case, the kindle fire has received somewhat mixed review, and a a lot of people like it because it's a media consumption device where you play video games, watch movyings, and get access to various things through amazon's prime service paying $79 and things are shipped in two days, and a whole bunch of other things, but there are also people who are like it's too slow, it's lagging. it's interesting to see if the projections -- i think one analyst says they will ship about 4 million units between november and the end of the year.

the christmas holiday is going to be a really big factor as to how it will do. it will be interesting to see if that holds into the new year. amazon 1 not just about devices, but moving into the publishing word as well. just this week, news broke they had bought many titles, 450 titles of a children's book and educational publisher, so they bought rights to the site les, and they'll incorporate it with the recently launched new york based print, from the ceo of time warner books, and also most recently a literary agent as well, and they have been moving into publishing both seemingly from a traditional stand point, but also have been doing a lot of stuff with respect to people who can publish directly

as well, so as a result, publishers rightly or wrongly feel, perhaps a little weary of what amazon is going, duh they have been moving so aggressively and competing in buying titles, and the new york unit, for example, has been sending large advances for titles, and it's, again, amazon, as always, is going to be one to watch into the new year, so i hope they have not gone on too long with respect to everything amazon, but it's hard not to look at the publishing industry without talking about them at length. >> host: so, sarah, publishers have a love-hate relationship with amazon, would that be fair to say? >> guest: i think that's a good way of characterizing it. one way i've looked at it is they are frenemies. amazon competes with publishers, competes with them in terms of

marketing and the like, but at the same time, publishers need them because amazon is a very big player in the online retail service, and so publishers want to have their books stocked on amazon as well, and so i think everybody is figuring out how to have multiple courses of relationship for lack of a better term, where on the one hand, there's competition, and everybody can kind of, you know, move along accordingly for, i suppose -- >> host: before we show figures from 2011 on book sales in general, i wanted to ask you about who large book companies, book sellers, barnes & noble and their new nook, and the demise of borders in 2011. >> guest: yes, let's first look at barnes & noble. for example, they had said in a recent earnings report that

their digital business including nook, the nook color, and now the nook tablet, which has just recently come out priced at $269, and a direct competitor with amazon's kindle fire and apple's ipad. they prompted the business to be approximately $880 million, and in the most recent fiscal quarter, which i think was the first quarter of 2012, that digital business was about $220 million. the digital business is going like gang busters for barnes & noble. walk into new york city's union scare, barnes & noble, the largest store in the city, what they did in the back is a gigantic kiosk devoted to all things nook. you walk around and there's various demos, tablets, and nooks for people to try out. they have all accessories and

other digital related things. it's so clear just from the way they have been remodeling this store and i believe other stores around the country, that, you know, nook is where they want their business to go. their ceo, william lynch, said repeatedly that barnes & noble accounts for anywhere between 26%-28% of the overall digitallal market, so they have been moving aggressively, but the flip side of what's been happening with barnes & noble, the physical side. you may see fewer books readily available in the store. they also have been expanding their toys and games department, trying to figure out how to keep evolving when digital keeps rising and the physical book base keeping falling. one things barnes & noble has said every now and then is they expect to pick up significant business on the physical side from borders' recent bankruptcy. borders had been having many, many problems for many years.

i mean, this goes back to the late 1990s, back to a whole series of exchanges, to 2001 outsourcing business to amazon, not back in house until 2008, to just a lot of bad leases they were locked into, paying very expensive rates on, so by the end of 2010, it -- the writing was very much on the wall and they declared chapter 11 bankruptcy on february 16th, and then it went its way through the courts, looked like it would be bought by a potential buyer, that fell through, and finally in the summer, they announced they were going to liquid date all remaining story stores. they started with 642 stores, and slowly, they just all disappeared so that by september, you would walk by and see going out of business signs 90% off. it's a terrible story of how essentially 10% of the book market vanished off the face of

the earth, and it remains to be seen whether that will be accountable again. will barnes & noble pick up business from potential borders' customers? there's been indications that that might be happening, but, i think, we'll have a better sense of what's going on, perhaps in the first quarter of next year. >> host: sarah, what about independent book sellers? how was their year in 2011 overall? >> guest: well, if you ask independent sellers on a case by case basis, some have done rather well. i live in new york, and i think that creates a certain selection bias because there's a number of great independent bookstores, especially in my chosen burrough of brooklyn. they have selections, and as a result, i think they really understand what they customers want, but they don't try to

necessarily try to overreach. another example of what is the best selling writer anne is doing. when she we want on book tire for "state of wonder" which did very well and garnered reviews, she talked about the next project, opening an independent bookstore in tennessee, which had lost a whole number of different stores both big box chains as well as independents. for example, they had a davis kid store whose parent company filed for bankruptcy, and he was doing well because the parent company was not, they went out of business, so just a few weeks ago, in conjunction with randomhouse sales representative, karen hays opened a store, and people in nashville really wanted an independent bookstore, and also they are starting small. it's just about 4,000 square

feet. there is a sense that even though people might call her crazy to open an independent book sphoar when things are changes rapidly and things are moving so fast on the digital front, but as long as she and hayes and the staff are savvy about what they stock and authors for signings and how they approach the selling of book, i think they stand a very good chance. they stand as good a chance as any business that opens. there's the high probability one can close, but i'm an optimist at heart, and i like seeing independents battle and stay afloat and then some. another thing that i think has helped independents not so much on a statistical front but from a mind share front is that many independents are able to sell e-books and that's because their association of the american book

sellers' association signed on with google books, became partners, so that google would enable them to sale e books their their stores. now, independents are not about to stock kindle books. if you ask them about amazon, you get a slew of angry responses. that was born out in week in light of the reviews and also an app that amazon is doing where you can -- i guess on saturday, you can walk into other types of retail stores and if you tell them what the price is, they give you $5 off. it's not applicable to bookstores, but it is to book 1e8ers who -- sellers who are upset. even though i still am waiting on precise data about how much of a digital market share independent book sellers have want the sphaght they have skin in the game speaks very well to, you know, just having a chance, and not being completely

disregarded with respect to the digital side. >> host: sarah, there was a recent headline in publisher's weekly. e-book sales doubled in september, mass market tanked was the headline, and here are figures from the association of american publishers. in 2011, doesn't paperback sales were down 18%. adult hard cover sales down 18%, and adult mass market down nearly 30%, but e-books up 144%. >> guest: yes. i mean, it's what i was saying before that the digital side is the fastest growing, and all the things i've mentioned, the demise of borders, physical shrinking of book space and even barnes & noble closing stores due to leases they are trying to find a way not to be a part of

anymore. now, that said, there's always a caveat with respect to the sorbs of american publishers which is that the data that they receive is self-reported by publishers, and it does flux wait from month to month, so even though it does appear that mass market sales are tanking, and they are certainly down in large part because they are not being stocked in the same way that they once were. there are not as many outlets, but it is, i think, important to point out that especially even on the digital side, the number of publishers that report on the month-to-month basis does change, and i think what will ultimately be helpful is look at the yearly basis. ..

around 20% market and so especially in the weeks it can be much higher than the 40 to 50% range but i think we will have a much clearer picture of what those are when the next iteration of books come out, which i will believe will be in a month or two. i'm not certain yet to devise a specter will be one of those things in the e-mail and will have to parse quickly to determine what's going on. >> host: would do the ebook sales to for profits and publishers and authors? >> guest: it's funny you mention it because especially for the largest houses which have moved to something called

the agency model where if you have a total piece of the pawnee, 30% of that pipe goes to the retailer, be it amazon, once and noble or apple. retailers that sell e books. that leaves 70% of left over to the publisher which then distributes 25% net of that to the author which roughly translates to about 17.5% of the overall royalty, yes. so what's happened is with those publishers moving towards the agency models they are getting a larger piece of the pie than they would have under a different model that many other publishers are still using that have a completely separate business model. publishers are making money off the books. if you look at various earnings reports from the largest houses, the reason why some of the profits have been going up is

and large part because of the books. so as a result, there's certainly happier with how things are going. of course would they like to make more money? everybody would like to make more money, but the move to the agency model is a way for publishers to mitigate against pricing trends and also enable the profit margins to stay higher and build. >> host: this is book tv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books every weekend. sarah weinman is our guest as we look at 2011 in review. she's the news editor of publishers marketplace. publishersmarketplace dhaka mr. website. one more piece of news before we look at specific books. sarah weinman, what is the status of the google book settlement? >> guest: that is a very good question. it is a byzantine and drama filled as ever.

for example december 5th google had moved to dismiss the author's suit which had been separated from the association of american publishers who originally were partnered together but after the judge expressed his displeasure with how things were going, basically every but had to kind of go back to the starting date again so with google's move, they've now set a december 23rd deadline for google to follow a motion to dismiss and the plaintiffs response that the abag is due january 23rd and google's responses been due on june you believe could january 3rd. at the same time, the authors gold is also trying to determine whether the suit can gain a class-action status. so there are parallel tracks happening with the lawsuit at the moment and we are still of course on schedule if things keep going according to the

trial schedule where the trial may have been at the end of 2012i believe. so, basically there are a lot of hearings being scheduled and motions being filed and remains to be seen where things will go from here. >> host: according to "the new york times" best-seller list hardcover, nonfiction come here are 2011 best sellers. unbroken as number one.

what was the book about, sarah weinman? >> guest: she talked about eminem, lewis, who had been an athlete and then ended up in world war ii, and i believe he was a prisoner of war and at least as a few months ago was still alive well into his 90s, and laura is a fascinating story because she has chronic fatigue syndrome and often cannot leave the house so she was conducting a lot of research from her house through telephone calls and outsourcing of people hoping her to bring documents and things like that and so she produced a tremendous piece of not only scholarship and research, but also a very inspiring story that was released at the end of 2010, and as you've noted, was to read

the best seller list so it is an indication of how people really respond to these stories of human spirit, and told extremely well. and i suspect that just like her previous book, sea biscuit, it will keep selling into 2012. >> host: so she has chronic fatigue syndrome, doesn't leave the house very often, she can't really go on tour with other authors, connect? >> guest: that's right with. i think it is an indication of just how strong the story was and also believe the was available for interviews as well so to hear from him but merkley was also very inspiring. so even though she, herself, could not go out and about to promote it, there were four crowns. she did interviews set up and took special care with her needs. there are a lot of ways to promote books especially thanks to the internet where an author does not necessarily have to go

out on the national book tour anymore, and unfortunately this is where the bookstores also impact the effect as well. there are fewer places to go. there is less likely the chance to even have a tour. >> host: is there proof and author goes on tour will books get help? >> guest: i don't necessarily think that's the case. it also depends on the book. while their leaders do like to meet some authors i've seen this myself where the of literary fiction writer david mitchell appeared at various bookstores last year and even though he was at four different stores in new york city all of them were standing remotely, some of them even attracted several hundred people, but to extrapolate that to everybody is not something i think anybody can do. it really is a case by case basis. >> host: if you look at "the

new york times" best-seller list and you combine print and evokes, the number one bestseller in 2011 was todd burpo's, heaven is for real. laura him brann kennon second and rebecca skloot on henrietta lacks on the best times seller list for 41 weeks. sarah weinman, i know the data is difficult to find. but laura gillibrand, best-selling fiction book according to "the new york times," todd burpo's heaven is for real, nonfiction, e-book and, you know, printless as well maxim you have any idea how many copies of those books grout sold? >> guest: it's funny you mention. i feel like a specially the

digital market share keeps rising, finding statistics one can rely on. it becomes increasingly difficult. i will give an example. neilson has a service called books can, which tracks anywhere from a 73 koza indy 5005% of print sales. even as far back as i think three years ago when the kindle was still new and book sales were barely into the single digits one could look at the books can and at least get a pretty good snapshot of how the book was selling. it depended on what outlook they were reporting. they still don't report on certain ones but i was at least a fairly good relative snapshot. but because nielsen books can doesn't report digital scales the promise they will but so far that has not come to fruition. as a result it is 70 to 75% of print but again as i said earlier, for some best-selling

titles, ebook sales makeup for more than the 20% average over all. it could be 40%, 50% sometimes even higher. so the ebook sales are not being accounted for within nielsen's numbers don't have the same heft and power that they once did. and because publishers, of course they know what the sales figures are, but with amazon not wanting to reveal what devices are being sold and how many books are being flipped, barnes and noble has taken that up in turn so there's just a lot more on reporting at the moment. so one can certainly look at "the new york times" list, and of course, the only started tracking the books earlier this year and they had their own system which may be a combination of hard data as the hardcover and paperback sometimes tend to be. so they thought that it would appear that todd burpo's evin is for real, which has sold in

tremendous quantities, i believe well in excess of 100 million copies, that i do think it believes to be a strong e-book sell there as well. >> host: do religious books and religious themed books sell well? >> guest: oh absolutely. it's also why i think another one of the big publishing stories which will play out in 2012 is when harper collins sought thomas nelson, which also happened to publish "heaven is for real." recent statistics indicated harper collins was the fourth largest book trade publishing house, and thomas nelson was the seventh largest. so this is a big deal. carper i believe only paid a little more than about $200 million to buy thomas nelson and harper of course is a religious publisher in its own right. they own or have a strong stake which publishes a lot of religious books and the bible,

various bibles and the like. the combination of thomas nelson and ponder band creates this tremendous religious publishing house under the harper collins umbrella and i do think one can look back to how the left behind books did several years ago and of course now looking at "- is for real," i suppose this may be another instance of the case by case best seller because the idea that little boy is seen having is an irresistible tayler especially when we are still mired in economic people need to be uplifted so perhaps it is also a strong crossover element not just hitting the religious segment but also the larger book world as well. we cannot count out the religious publishing circles for big publishing stories coming to the new year. >> host: 2011 pulitzer prize winners.

sarah weinman, did you have a chance to read the book on cancer? >> guest: you know, i didn't come and i had picked up an early copy when it was featured at bookexpo america. it came out at the end of 2012 and this was may, 2010. so already the publisher, sribner, had been targeting this as one of the titles for the fall and it's easy to see why. it talks about the to tell what of cancer. he is a noted cancer specialist at memorial kettering in new york city. so he's certainly an expert in the subject and what from i can tell he imparted this knowledge

with a tremendously the human way. it was very well written, and it was as a result i think very well received. so yes it won the pulitzer and also won awards on the other side of the atlantic, too. it had been garnering tremendous acclaim and i think it is because it is so definitive and how it treats its subject. >> host: does winning the pulitzer help sales? >> guest: absolutely it does. i would venture to say that the pulitzer prize, more than any other prize in america, boosts sales. it certainly did on the fiction side when jennifer eagin had one. the goon squad attracted attention in june of 2010 among various independent bookseller communities online. anybody that i talked to loves this book and was recommending it left and right. so there was a tremendous momentum that built up near the end of the year.

eagin also won the national book circle critic's prize but it was the pulitzer that really catapulted a visit from the goon squad. the paperback had just come out or was about to come out and that also helped here is an affordable edition that people can pick up and i do believe that its sales track has increased over time. but the previous year when paul harding, whose first novel published by a tiny press called bellevue literary press, when he won the pulitzer it was the same thing. it was low six-figure sales that in sood and his next books were going to be tackled by the larger house and i sure that the pulitzer prize only helped to boost late profile but also the sales. >> host: book tv covered three of the pulitzer prize winners for 2011 and our coverage this past year. you can go to booktv.org and in

the upper left-hand corner is a search function you can type the name of the author and watch it on line whenever you want. we covered eric former for the fiery trial of ron turnrow and sedartha a biography of cancer. the last time we talked to sarah weinman publishers marketplace is the national book awards, and the national book award winners for 2011 fiction: sarah weinman, what does the national book award to fer sales? does it have the same impact? >> guest: it doesn't have the same impact as the pulitzer, but it does lead to some sales boosts as well. for example with salvage the

bones even though a notable publisher had brought it out it hadn't received much critical attention prior to winning the national book award. i believe the "washington post" had given their review but it ran very close to win the award was given out and after she was nominated. since then there's been additional coverage from the guardian, "the los angeles times," the npr is on board as well. the increased their print run by another 50,000 copies, and it's taken a while. i think it is more the slow build in large part because it deals with hurricane katrina so it was a very tough subject. but i think that those who have the staying power will find that it is a very rewarding read. truth be told, i think that the national book award winners are a little more offbeat than what you might find with the pulitzer's or the national book critics leader ron.

i do know that when mckeithen won for poetry in head off and split she gave a tremendously inspiring speech. i think many in the crowd probably wanted to stand up and cheer for her. such passion and fire that i think it really caused people to go who is this woman and i should be reading more for poetry. with steven he's dealing with a big subject as well and the concept of modernity, it's good that the national book award judges recognize this and this will undoubtedly boost his profile as well. >> host: book tv covered the national book awards here you can go to booktv.org, use the search function and watch the entire ceremony. i want to talk about some of the biographies that have come out in the past year including one very recent one currently number one on "the new york times" best-seller list, walter

isaacson's "steve jobs." >> guest: i very much enjoyed reading that. i started it two or three days after publication date. for whatever reason i read nonfiction or slowly. i think in large part because there's such a tremendous amount steve isaacson clearly talked to a great many people. he of course talked to steve jobs several times including the last interview in august just weeks before his death in october. so the portrait that he painted of steve jobs is a tremendously complicated one. this isn't a guy who was of roses and puppies buy any stretch of the imagination. he was driven. he could be brutal, tremendously demanding, but one could argue that type of driven personality produces results.

all you have to do is look at how many people carry around their iphone or their ipad or on their macbook air. abel certainly a special steve jobs came back in the late nineties became a force to be reckoned with so fascinating portrait of this very driven man who turned around the company and made it and there is an arched where they've created it and then steve jobs was forced out and the so-called wilderness but his wilderness was in bonding picks thar and turning it into a multibillion-dollar company as well. so, it is just an amusing portrait of i guess american capitalism ultimately, too. >> host: how much cooperation did steve jobs give to walter isaacson in that book, and the zero original publication date was moved up from march, 2012,

wasn't it? >> guest: yes, it was. i think it was originally moved up to the end of the year and then when it became very clear that steve jobs'' help was not good, it was often moved up again i think a couple of days after steve jobs' death. what is possible, too, is even though it has clearly been selling tremendously well, and schuster has not released sales figures. i did attempt to ask them several times why this was the case, but they just felt it was not in their best interest to do so, but it's very clear that it's selling tremendously well. yet steve jobs did cooperate. he directed several interviews to walter isaacson, and he also had said basically that he wasn't going to fight him on any unflattering portraits. he wanted he essentially, i believe the quote was "i want my kids to get to know me."

he wanted his children to get to know him as he truly was so they could understand some of the decisions he made in order to perhaps stay much leader of the office or spend that much time turning apple into the juggernaut that is. it certainly accomplishes that i believe. >> host: well, viking had a biography of him by the late manning and mirabel. "now mix." sarah weinman? >> guest: that's right. mirabel had been working on this about a decade of not more and unfortunately he passed away just days before the biographies publication date. whether that influenced coverage is not for me to say, but when the biography was released it did receive great reviews and also some controversy because it did put forward some additional or alternate fees' as to what really happened to malcolm x when he was assassinated in 1965.

but certainly it was a finalist for the national book award as well. it's been on many of the best lists so far. it certainly was one of the most notable biographies that was released and all of 2011. >> host: three other autobiographies came out and they are all bush administration officials beginning with condoleezza rice. the second half of her memoir, know how your honor. cheney in my time came out in 2011 as well, as did donald rumsfeld's known and unknown a memoir. sarah weinman, do you know how will be sold and what the reaction was to these books? >> guest: although i believe all of them placed very highly on the best-seller list certainly soon after the release the didn't seem to have the same staying power. the benchmark certainly seems to be bill clinton's my life.

even hillary clinton's history, and as recently as last year with george bush's decision point, that was i believe the top non-fiction book of 2010. these books just didn't quite work as well. and perhaps it was an indication of why. it could be some of the reviews which felt each of the particular political figures didn't seem to be as forthcoming as perhaps critics and readers had hoped that they were not necessarily holding themselves fully accountable for what transpired during the bush administration that there was perhaps more pbr dirty or trying to be an apologist for what happened as opposed to just looking at what actually happened and trying to come to terms with it. a course that's their right and the each of them can feel free to tell it however they choose to but it also means the

political reception will go accordingly. >> host: you mentioned former president bill clinton who also had another book out this year it came out recently, november of 2011. "back to work why we need smart government for a strong economy." did this book a good reaction? >> guest: i think in large part because its publication date was announced during close to the actual publication date. i think there's only about two months of lead time to the best of my recollection. this is just my own impression talking that the overall reception it didn't seem to be quite as much fanfare and maybe it is just of course it cannot possibly have as much fanfare as clinton's my life. it was several hundred pages not a thousand page biography which he wrote and took a full accounting of his presidency. this book was not even 200 pages long.

it's more of a working paper about what the government should do and how the parties should stop fighting and work together to come up with some reasonable ways to not only get people back to work, but also some, you know, green technologies that there can be more environmentally sound ideas coming in the future coming and it was more ideas driven. so i think as a result, once the ideas have been disseminated, then that will be it for the book. does that mean it couldn't have another down the line? i'm sure it could but it does seem the impact wasn't quite as forceful as clinton's previous tones. >> host: other books this year include ann coulter's demonic, mark stein come after america get ready for armageddon, henry kissinger on china; tom friedman and michael mandelbaum could and

for that used to be as america fell behind the world invented and how we can come back and who is afraid of post blackness. ann coulter, marc stein, a conservative books in general. they seem to sell very welcome sarah weinman. >> guest: they do seem to be coming back very well that as any segment there is some attrition. again it seemed as if ann coulter's but didn't have the same impact as previous books. stein may have had some, but it's also interesting just to take a larger view that even though there are so many nonfiction books being produced the advent of some new digital companies that specialize in the shorter tone our companies like the bayh liner. what they are doing is publishing primarily nonfiction that runs between 10,000 words and will be interesting to see if some of these political books

in my mind feels as if they are stretched out a little bit that they could have a really concise argument and about 100 pages of 20,000 they're about instead of being 250 to 300 pages. will they go over to an off line only outlook? we are also seeing as we move into 2012 in what he election year some partnerships between what publishers produce shorter e-book first publications. flexible, random house and politico are partnering on a series of election oriented titles. the first one just came out and i believe there will be three more before november of 2012. there are also of their partnerships that are also forming or are about to be formed along those lines as well. so what sort of change the political nonfiction landscape where especially because it's so easy to get news online and the analysis on line that how will

we think of how e-book is packaged? do we want ann coulter or other pendants to impart what they feel they need to say in bouck format or are they better served in an electronic context? it remains to be seen but it's something i'm watching out for. >> host: speaking of political books coming out next year as a political prize winning editor david maraniss's passan barack obama. "barack obama the story," is what it's called. what have you heard about this? >> guest: well, i believe this has been in the book for if least a couple of years. as with any book about any major political figure like a sitting president, it will be interesting to see only what new information he uncovers, but whether the information will be remained in wargo were secret until the book's publication or will it be leaked out to various other publications well in advance to drum up some

attention? so certainly it will be interesting to see what this book will uncover about barack obama. >> host: and that is due in june, 2012. another partial memoir that cannot this year. michael stifel. "here comes trouble." how did this to come sarah speed? >> guest: the impression i got is a did well but it didn't quite measure up to the previous books. granted more hasn't published in book form fogle over a decade. so the announcement of a new book was certainly greeted with some small degree of fanfare. he was also at the bookexpo america trade show reading an excerpt from his book and i do know that the reaction from booksellers and other vendors to people in the crowd is by and large positive. the additional coverage as the book was released.

>> host: both ann coulter and michael moore appeared on in depth. again, booktv.org is the place to go to watch. go to the upper left-hand corner, tighten the author's name and you can watch it on line. sarah weinman, if people go to publishersmarketplace.com, what will they fight? >> guest: they will be able to watch a news block in which we will get top stories of the day. publishers marketplace has a database also many other databases religious views. it is an on-line exchange for things related to the publishing industry and book publishing community. >> host: two books a little off the beat and the beaten path if you can speak to these as well beginning with amanda foreman, "a bottle on fire the

role in it for the american civil war, stop could put out by random house, and can the smaller "destiny of the republic a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president," by doubleday. >> guest: what i can speak to is the fact that both of these have appeared on the various lists. four men made the new york book review or perhaps the daily publication ten best lists. certainly looking back in history perhaps the appeal of the books is if we know what went on many decades or centuries before perhaps we can get some wisdom as to what has been happening now. certainly when i read books on history, one of my favorites, for example, is the great biography. here is a woman who had to contend with, you know, marty related imagination, the coup that took her husband out of

power that she could ascend to the throne, and also just trying to find a way to overcome the problem on successfully as it turned out. so there are certain political and economic and historical antecedents to what we can look at today and try to figure out if we have learned anything from those centuries past. in some cases we have come and i am thankful for what we do. in some cases, not so much. >> host: you also put on your list be asked in advance of this taping you included teaching english the savage city. what is that book about, sarah weinman? >> guest: english is chronicling new york during 1963 and 1973. what i really liked about it is that he was looking at the city in tremendous turmoil. there was one case of a black man who was accused of the brutal murder of two women and

the way he was treated by police it just wasn't right, and ultimately it turned out he wasn't the culprit but it would take several years to work its way through the court and he was ultimately exonerated. he also contrasted the rise of the black panthers especially in harlem and so it was interesting for me to learn about an aspect of the city that i knew something about, but not enough to have any knowledge of it and i just felt that it really enriched what i know and love about new york and also how it's changed as well. i mean, one can only look at times square in of loudness and just this sense of total corporatism and contrast it with what predominate in the 60's and 70's and the 80's. >> host: those are two of sarah weinman's picks for 2011.

robert, katherine degree and teach the english the selvage city. well, we touched on economics a little earlier, sarah speed, but several major works of economic books cannot and i just want to show a couple beginning with michael lewis, boomerang, troubles and the food world, soviet's grand pursued a story of economic genius, confidence men, wall street, washington and the education of the president and gretchen morgan some, and joshua rosner rollin reckless endangerment how greed and corruption led to economic armageddon. >> guest: i think in all of those instances, not even including speed on this even though she's looking at the history of modern economics of shears tracing the roots of how we got to where we are in this post 2008 quash world. so michael lewis of course had done the big short which sold tremendously well and is still

selling tremendously well. boomerang is a piece largely done for "vanity fair." he traveled to other countries and even went to germany and to buy to kind of look at how the economy was both affected and effected in what happened in the outposts as well. and she was talking about the treasury department as well as the top investment bankers telling various stories that might help to eliminate why the economy tanked tremendously and why we are still recovering from this and also whether there is still some unexploded bombs set to drop any time soon. this and i think would go for the morgans and's too. they are trying to chronicle and there were a number of books that cannot but i think we are still going to see several more volumes that are trying to make

sense of what led to the economic crash, what led to the all sorts of malfeasance and the bailouts and all of those things, which certainly not only in america but every other place around the world is trying to get a grip on. one need only look at the fascinating year but the moment and with the precariousness of the year rose zone to see that we are nowhere near all of the woods and sometimes books are the best way to kind of get a sense of what is going on and perhaps anticipate what will happen next. >> host: one history book on economics was love and capital, carl and jeneane marks. this one did well, didn't it? it got notable on several lists, etc.? >> guest: it actually was nominated for the national book award. to my mind, how can you not win by combining of the story of karl marx and his wife against the larger backdrop of changing

economic times and his feelings about socialism which led to communism and contrasting love and money is a great way to find a way in to write a biography and spent a great deal of time parsing everything about the relationship that marks worked on, and it's certainly a very thorough result. we've also got two minutes left, sarah weinman and i want to look ahead to 2012. here are some of the titles book tv is tracking coming out in the next couple of months including south carolina governor rick healey can't is not an option my american story and that is being published by sentinelle press. kneal is coming out with space chronicles in february and is a strategic visions america and the crisis of global power and

robert is coming out with the years of lyndon johnson the passage of power that's coming out in may and that is the fourth in his lbj biographical. sarah speed, what has caught your eye from early 2012? >> guest: i think i did internet virtually equivalent of the happy dance. his books are so good. it's managed to document every death of lyndon johnson and continues to be a watershed benchmark and write a biography so understandably this new volume which i believe still gets us into the presidency and not even to the presidency proper yet so even though carow, who is now getting under by any stretch of the imagination has been working on lyndon johnson's

almost three decades i believe now his next volume he's going to have to adjust the presidency and will be interesting to see how quickly he will be able to produce it. the fourth volume is exciting on its own but it's also exciting for what additional research and scholarship will be able to present some years down the line. >> host: finally let's return to where we began, sarah weinman. the publishing industry and what changes are we going to see in 2012? i know this kind of a dumb question but what are you going to be looking for? >> guest: it's more i think every complicated question. certainly will be very interesting to see how amazon contends to the publisher. flexible, as i noted earlier in the broadcast it has a new

edition but it also has several in prince mostly focused on the genre and out of seattle so what i am wondering is whether amazon's culture is essentially looking at data and algorithms and what will come to the more traditional types of in print which is the new york based so with respect to amazon is that for the moment they are exclusive to get the books stockton barnes and noble i think a good example is what happened with the title called the hangman's tauter which is one of my favorite in 2011. and published the ebook sold in the copies and they stuck a deal with the tradition. the tradition sold all right i

think about 30,000 copies all told so it wasn't stopped widely because barnes and noble attitude was we are not going to stop books that were only available exclusively on a digital level we want a chance to have your own digital addition. what we may be seeing are more exclusive deals not just in and was on the bonds and noble has done some as well. other retailers may see this in turn and stratification of how books are published. will we also see the authors to leave the publishing houses for different pastures and fully self published or in some partnership with a larger retailer it remains to be seen. will we see barnes and noble reduce the number of stories that may be a prospect as well. will be interesting to see how

further the digital market share will grow especially after christmas and whether the physical would declines will be able to be offset by the growth in digital. >> host: sarah weinman, thank you for being on book tv in helping with our 2011 year in review. her website, publishersmarketplace.com. you can also go to book tv bus.org if you would like to watch any of the authors or many of the authors that we've talked about in the past hour. ms. weinman, thank you for joining from the new york studio. >> guest: thanks for having me on again, peter. mark talks about the computer worm that injected more