direct competition with barnes & competition with barnes & noble which we will get to in a bit. but amazon also introduced some other lower cost kindle devices. kindle is like amazon's reckoning, excuse me, the number one best selling the reader. it's also that reckoning by analysts as well. of course, amazon isn't exactly going to tell anybody exactly how many kindles it has sold. they will keep sticking with that because they make so much money. they clearly feel that they can get away with not exactly imparting sales figures. but in any case, the kindle fire has been received somewhat mixed reviews. a lot of people like it because it's a media consumption device where people can play video

games and watching movies and getting access to various things through amazon's prime service where you pay $79 and you get things shipped in two days service, a whole bunch of other things. but there's also some people who think it's too slow, laggy. so be interesting to see if some of the projections that i think one analyst says it will ship 4 million units between i guess november and the end of the year, the christmas holiday is going to be a really big factor as to how it's going to do. so it'll be interesting to see if that will actually hold into the new year. amazon of course is not just about devices. it's also moving very aggressively into the publishing world as well. for example, just this week news broke that they have bought many titles, about 450 titles, of marshall cavendish which is a children's book and educational publisher. so they now bought the rights to

these titles and they will be incorporating it with the recently launched new york-based in print which is run by lawrence kirschbaum, once the ceo of time warner books, and also most recently a literary agent as well. so amazon has been aggressively moving into publishing, both seemingly from a traditional standpoint, but they've also been doing a lot of stuff with respect to people who can publish directly as well. as a result, publishers, rightly or wrongly, feel perhaps a little weary of what amazon is doing, but they've been moving so aggressively that they been competing in terms of trying to buy titles. the new york unit for example has been spending large advances were titles by the lack of direct and commuting in

marshall. and again amazon as always is going to be one to watch into the new year. so i hope i haven't 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. >> publishers have kind of a love-hate relationship with amazon, would that be fair to say? >> i think that's a good way of characterizing it. one way i've also looked at it is they are frenemies. on one hand amazon competes with them in terms of being publishers. it 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. so i think everybody still trying to figure out how they can have multiple courses, relationships for lack of a better term. where on the one hand there's some symbiosis but on the other hand, there's some competition and everybody can kind of move along accordingly, i suppose.

>> before we show some figures from 2011 on book sales in general i wanted to ask you about two large book companies, booksellers. barnes & noble and their new nook, and the demise of borders in 2011. >> yes. let's first look at barnes & noble. for example, they had said in a recent earnings report that their digital business which includes nook, it includes nook color. it now includes the nook tablet which has just recently come out and is now priced at $249. and it's interact competitor with kindle's kindle fire. across $880 million, and in the most recent quarter which i think was the first quarter of 2012, that digital business was

about $220 million. so the digital business has been going like gangbusters for barnes & noble's. city's union square barnes & union square barnes & noble, which is i believe their largest store in the city, what they have done is in the back there's this gigantic kiosk devoted to all things nook, we walk around and their various demos, tablets and nook's for people to try out. all manner of accessories and other digital related things. so it's so clear just from the way that they have been remodeling this store and other stores run across the country back, you know, nook is where they want their business to go. their ceo, william lynch, has said repeatedly that barnes & noble accounts for anywhere between 26 and 20% of the overall digital market. so they've been moving

aggressively, but the flipside of what's been happening with barnes & noble on the digital side is of course the physical side, if you walk into a store you may see fewer books readily available. they've also been expanding their toys and games department. they are trying to figure how to keep evolving when digital keeps rising and the physical book space keeps falling. one thing that barnes & noble has done every now and then is expected to get significant business on the physical side from borders recent bankruptcy. borders was having many, many problems for many years. this goes back to the late '90s, goes back to a whole series of ceo changes to 2001 when outsourced to online business amazon but it didn't take it back in house until 2008. to just a lot of bad leases that they were locked into, very expensive rates on. so by the end of 2010, the writing was very much on the

wall and then declared chapter 11 bankruptcy on february 16. then it wind its way through the courts and it looked like it might be bought by potential buyers, that fell through and then finally in the summer they announced they're going to liquidate all the remaining stores. it started before chapter 11 with 142 stores, and slowly they just all disappeared, so that by september you would walk by and see going out of business signs, 90% off. i mean, it's a very terrible story of how essentially 10% of the book market just vanished off the face of the earth. it remains to be seen whether that will ever be accounted for again. will digital be able to pick up the slack? will barnes & noble be able other to pick up business from potential borders customers? there's been some indications that that might be happening, but i think we will have a better sense of what's going on perhaps in the first quarter of next year. >> sarah weinman, what about

independent booksellers? how was their year in 2011 overall? >> if you ask independent booksellers on a case-by-case basis, some of them have done rather well. anted, i live in new york and i think that that creates a certain selection bias because there are a number of great independent bookstores, especially in brooklyn. they all seem to be doing very well. they curate their selections very selectively, and as a result i think they really understand what their customers want but they don't necessary overreach. another example i think is what the best selling writer is doing. when she went out on book tour for her newest novel state of wonder, which diff anomaly well, garnered a great many reviews, she talked about what her next project would be which is to open 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 david kidd store whose parent company filed for bankruptcy. even though david kidd was doing well, the parent company was not, they went out of business. so just a few weeks ago, in conjunction with others, opened up a much smaller bookstore. but i think by virtue of them being involved in the sense that people in nashville really want to independent bookstore, and also that they are starting small, only going to be about 4000 square feet, there is the sense that even the people might call her crazy to open an independent bookstore when things are changing so rapidly and fix them up so fast on the digital front, but as long as she and hayes and their staff can be savvy about what they stock and which authors they might have in for signings, and how they approach the selling of books, i think they stand a very good chance. they stand as good a chance as any business that opens.

there's always a high probability one can close, but i'm an optimist at heart and i like these independents battle and stay afloat and then some. another thing that has helped independents not so much on a statistical front but perhaps just remind you about is that many independents are able to sell e-books, and that's because their association to the american booksellers association signed on with google books and it became partners, so that google would enable them to sell e-books through their store. now, independents are not about to start selling kindle books. if you ask independent bookseller about amazon you're going to get a whole slew of angry responses.

that certainly was borne out this week in light of the news about those marshall cavendish 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 will give you $5 off. it's not a physical bookstore but independent booksellers were nonetheless upset. so even though i'm still waiting on precise data about how much of a digital marjah independent booksellers have, the fact that they have some skin in the game i think speaks very well too, you know, just having a chance. and not being completely disregarded with respect to the digital world. >> there was a recent headline in publishers weekly, e-book sales double in september, mass market tanked. here are some figures from the association of american publishers. in 2011, adult paperback sales were down 18%. adult hardcover sales down 18%, and adult mass market down

nearly 30%, but e-books up 144%. >> yes. i mean, what i was saying before, the digital side is certainly the fastest growing and all the things i have mentioned, the demise of borders, the general shrinking a physical book space, even barnes & noble has been closing some stores largely due to owners leases that they're trying to find a way not to be a part of anymore. now, that said, there's always a caveat with respect association of american publishers, which is that the data they receive is self-reported by publishers and it does fluctuate from month to month. so even though it does appear that mass-market sales were tanking, and they are certainly down in large part because they're not being stocked in the same way that they once were. that 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 a month-to-month basis does change, and i think what will ultimately be helpful is to look at it from a yearly basis. eventually the aap in association with the book industry study group is going to release another edition of a new venture, a new physical venture called book stats. that will give a much clearer snapshot of what the actual book industry statistics are at the moment. in the most recent one, it appeared that digital sales in 2010 were closing in on the 10% mark. we know for sure from figures reported that sometimes they are low on a month-to-month basis. suffice it to say, that it's hovering around 20% market, and for bestsellers especially in the opening week, much, much higher in the 40-50% range. but i think we'll have a clearer picture of what their stats are when the next book stats come out which i believe will be in a

month or two. i'm not certain but i suspect it will be one of those things that will land in e-mail and will have to parse very quickly in order to determine what's really going on. >> what do e-book sales to for profits and authors? >> it's funny you mentioned because, especially for the largest six houses which have moved to something called the agency model, where if you have a total piece of the pie, 30% of that pie goes to the retailer, be it amazon or barnes & noble or apple. retailers that sell e-books. that leaves 70% 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.

what's happened, those publishers moving towards agency model, because they are getting a larger piece of the pie than they would have under a different model that many other publishers are still using, but which has a completely separate business model. publishers are making money off of e-books. if you look at the earnings reports from the largest houses, the reason why some of the profits have been going up is in large part because of the e-books. so as a result, they are certainly happier with how things are going. of course, would they like to make more money? everybody wants to make more money, but the move to the agency model was a way for publishers to mitigate against downward pricing trends, and also enable their profit margins to stay higher and build. >> 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.com is her website. one more piece of publishing news before we look at some specific books. what's the status of the google books settlement? >> that is a very good question. it is a byzantine and drama filled as ever. for example, on december 5, google had moved to dismiss the authors guild suit which had been separated out from the association of american publishers are. originally they were partnered together but after judge chen expressed his displeasure with how things were going, basically everybody had to kind of go back to the starting gate again. so with google's move, judge chen has now set a december 23 deadline for google to then

file a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiffs respond to that being the ag. that is due january 23, google's response is then on february 3. now come at the same time the authors guild is also trying to determine whether their suit contain class action status. so there are these parallel tracks that are happening with the google books lawsuit at the moment, and we are still of course on schedule if things keep going according to the trial schedule where a trial may happen at the end of 2012, i believe. so basically there are lots of hearings that are being scheduled, a lot of motions that are being filed, and it remains to be seen as to where things will go from here. >> according to "the new york times" bestseller list, hardcover nonfiction, here are 2011 bestsellers. laura hillebrand, unbroken is number one. 13 weeks at number one, 50 weeks on the new york times bestseller list.

eric larson in the garden of beasts 26 weeks on the list. one week at number one. tina fey with bossy pants, 25 weeks on the new york times bestseller list. david mccullough, the greater journey, americans in paris, 17 weeks on the bestseller list. and number five, seal team six, memoirs of an elite navy seals sniper. what was laura hillenbrand's book about, sarah weinman? >> she talked about a man named louis zamperini who had been an athlete and then ended up in world war ii where he was a prisoner of war. he, at least as of a few months ago, was still alive and was well into his 90s. and, of course, laura hillenbrand is a fascinating story because she has chronic fatigue syndrome and often cannot leave the house.

so she was conducting a lot of her research from her house and through telephone calls and outsourcing of people helping her to bring in documents and things like that. and from that she produced this tremendous piece of not only scholarship and research but also this very inspiring story that was released at the end of 2010 but as you noted has not left the bestseller list but i think it's an indication of how people respond to the stories of human spirit, and told extremely well and i suspect that just like her previous book, "seabiscuit" it would just selling at the 2012 megs and she has chronic fatigue syndrome, doesn't leave the house very often, she can't really go on tour like other authors, correct?

>> that's right. but i think it's an indication of just how strong the story was. and also i believe that zamperini was available for interviews as well. so to hear from him directly was also very inspiring. so even though she herself could not go out and about to promote it, there were workarounds. she did do some interviews as long as i think they were 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 a national book tour anymore. and, unfortunately, this is where losing physical bookstores also impacts the effect of an author tour as well. there are fewer places to go. there's a less likely chance to even have a tour. >> is there proof that if an author goes on tour more books get sold? >> i don't necessarily think that's the case. and it also depends on the book.

i think that while readers do like to meet some authors, i've seen this myself when the literary fiction writer david mitchell appeared at various bookstores last year, even though he was at four different stores in the city, all of them were standing room only, some of them even attracted several hundred people, but to extrapolate that to everybody is not something that i think anybody can do. it really is a case-by-case basis. >> if you look at "the new york times" bestseller list and you combined print and e-books, the number one bestseller in 2011 was todd burpo's "heaven is for real," little boys astounding story of his trip to heaven and back. laura hillenbrand came in second. rebecca skloot, "the immortal life of henrietta lacks." this was a 2010 title that was on "the new york times" bestseller list for 41 weeks. and then tina fey with bossy pants and eric larson in the garden of beasts.

sarah weinman, i know this data is difficult to find, but laura hillebrand, best selling nonfiction book of 2011 according to the new york times. todd burpo, "heaven is for real," best selling on fiction e-book. and print list as well. do you have any idea how many copies of those books got sold? >> it's funny you mention, i feel like especially as the digital market share keeps rising, finding statistics that one can rely on it becomes increasing more difficult. i'll give an example. nielsen has a service called bookscan which tracks anywhere from about 70-75% of print sales. now, even as far back as i think three years ago when kindle was still new and e-book sales are barely in the single digits, one could look to bookscan at least a pretty good snapshot of how his book was selling.

i mean, it depended on what outlook they were reporting. they still don't report on certain ones. but again it was at least a fairly good relative snapshot. but because nielsen bookscan does not record digital sales, they promised that they will, but so far that has not come to fruition. as a result, 70-75% print but again as i said earlier, for some best selling titles e-book sales make up far more than the 20% average over all. it could be 40%, 50%, sometimes even higher. so if those e-book sales are not being accounted for then nielsen's number don't have the same 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 e-books are being sold, barnes &

noble has taken that up in turn so there's just a lot of nonreporting at the moment. and so one can certainly look at "the new york times" list and, of course, the only started tracking e-books earlier this year. they have their own system which may be a combination of hard data and flights of fancy as the hardcover and paperback sometimes tend to be. so they thought that it would appear that todd burpo's "heaven is for real," which is sold in tremendous quantities, i believe well in excess of 1 million copies. but i do think that it appears to be a strong e-book seller as well. >> do religious books and religious themed books sell well? >> oh, absolutely. also i think what another one of the big publishing stories which will play out in 2012 was when harpercollins bought thomas nelson which also happened to publish heaven is for real. relatively recent statistics

indicate harpercollins was the fourth largest book trade publishing house, and thomas nelson was the seventh largest. so this is a big deal. harper i believe only paid a little more than about $200 million to buy thomas nelson. and harper of course also is a religious publisher in its own right. they own or have a very strong stake which also publishes a lot of religious books, the bible, so the combination of thomas nelson creates this tremendous religious publishing powerhouse under the harpercollins umbrella. and i do think, one can look back as to how the other books its of years ago. and, of course, now looking at "heaven is for real", i suppose this may be another instance of a case-by-case bestseller because the idea that a little boy had seen heaven and then came back to tell about it is an

irresistible tale, especially when we're still mired in economic ultram, people need to be uplifted. so perhaps there's also a strong cross over other words not just hitting the religious segment but also getting the larger book world as well. but i do think that we cannot count out religious publishing circles for big publishing stories coming in the new year >> 2011 pulitzer prize winners, for fiction, jennifer egan, "a visit from the goon squad." >> sarah weinman, did you have a chance to read the book on cancer? >> you know, i didn't and i picked up an early copy when it was featured at book expo america. it came out at the end of 2010.

this was in may 2010, so already they had been targeting this is one of the big lead titles for the fall but it's easy to see why. it talks about the totality of cancer. he is certainly an expert in the subject, and from what i can tell, he in part of this knowledge with tremendously human way, it was very well written, and it was as a result being very well received. yes, it won the pulitzer. also won awards on the other side of the atlantic, too. its certainly been garnering tremendous claim. and i think it should be defended on how it treats its subject. >> does winning a pulitzer help sales? >> absolutely it does. i would venture to say that

pulitzer prize won any other prize in america boost sales. it certainly did on the fiction side when jennifer egan won. "a visit from the goon squad" had attracted some attention when it was released in june 2010, certainly among very independent bookseller communities online. everybody i pretty much talked to loved this book and was recommending it left and right. so there was this tremendous momentum has built up near the end of the year. she also won the national book critics circle prize as well but it was the pulitzer that really catapulted "a visit from the goon squad" from a sales standpoint. the paperback has just come out or was about to come out, and that also helps pictures and affordable addition of this award-winning book that people can pick up. i do believe it's sales tax increase over time. but the previous year when paul harding whose book, first novel

was published by bellevue literary press, when he won a pulitzer, the same thing. his next books are going to be published by a larger house. i'm sure that that pulitzer prize win not only help to boost not only his profile but also his sales. >> and booktv covered three of the pulitzer prize winners for 2011 in 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 in the name of the author and you can watch it online whenever you want. the last time we talked to sarah weinman of publishers marketplace was at the national book awards and the national book award winners for 2011 fiction, jasmine ward, "salvage the bones," "the swerve."

nikky finney, "head off & split," and thanhha lai, "inside out and back again." what does the national book award do for sales? >> the national will, it doesn't have the same impact as the pulitzer but it does lead to some sales boost as well. ..

those who have the staying power will find it very rewarding. truth be told, i think that the national book award winners were perhaps a little off the beaten track. you might find a pulitzer or the national book critics circle awards later on. i do know that what mickey finny won gave tremendously inspiring speech, many in the crowd thought they wanted to stand up and cheer for her. it was such a passionate, such fire that it caused people to go who is this woman? i should be reading more of her poetry. with stephen greeneblack he was dealing with a big subject of

modernity, it is good and national book award recognized this and this will be his profile as well. >> host: booktv covered the national book award in booktv.org. use the search function and what the entire ceremony. talk about some of the biographies that have come out in the past year including one very recent one currently no. one on the new york times best-seller list. walter isaacson's steve jobs. >> guest: oh yes. i enjoyed reading that. i started it two or three days after the publication date and for whatever reason i read nonfiction more slowly than i do fiction in large part because there is such a tremendous amount to absorbers. walter isaacson talked to steve jobs several times including the last interview in august, just

weeks before his death in october. so the portrait that he creates -- painted of steve jobs is a tremendously complicated one. this is not a guy who was about roses and puppies by any stretch of the imagination. he was driven. he could be brutal. he would be tremendously demanding. one could argue that that type of driven personality produces results. all you have to do is look at how many people carry around their iphones or ipads or type on mac -- apple certainly after steve jobs came back in the late 90s became a force to be reckoned with. a fascinating portrait of this very driven man who turned around the company and made it so much it's done and then there

is this park where he and steve was the act created it and jobs was forced out but held ennis the dishes wilderness' was trading pixar into a multimillion-dollar company. it is a portrait of american capitalism ultimately too. >> host: how much cooperation did steve jobs give to walter isaacson in that book? the regional publication date was moved from march of 2012. >> guest: it was originally moved to the end of the year and when it became very clear steve jobs's health was not good, it was moved up again a couple of days after jobs's death. what was interesting too was even though it has clearly been selling tremendously will, simon and schuster has not released sales figures. i did attempt to ask them why this was the case but they said

it was not in their best interest to do so. it is very clear that it is selling tremendously well and yet jobs did cooperate. he granted several interviews to isaacson and he also has said basically that he wasn't going to fight him on any unflattering portrait that emerges. he wanted essentially -- the quote was i wanted my kids to know me. by that it could be inferred he wanted his children to know him as he truly was so they could understand the decisions he made in order perhaps to stay much later at the office or spend that much time turning apple into the juggernaut that it is. its certainly accomplisheds that. >> host: viking had a biography of this year by the late manning mirabel, malcolm x. >> guest: that's right. he had been working on this for

decade or if not more. unfortunately passed away just days before the biography's publication date. whether that influenced coverage is not for me to say but certainly when the biography was released, great reviews and also some controversy because it did put forward some additional or alternate theories as to what really happened to malcolm x when he was assassinated in 1965 but certainly it was a finalist of the national book award. it has been on many best-seller lists so far this year. it certainly was one of the most notable biographies. was released in 2011. >> host: three other autobiographies came out and they are all bush a administration officials beginning with condoleezza rice, the second half of her memoir no higher honor. dick cheney's in my time came out in 2011 as well and donald

rumsfeld's known and unknown:a memoir. do you know how well these old and what the reaction was to the three books? >> guest: all of them placed highly on the best-seller list soon after their release but they didn't seem to have the staying power that other political autobiography's had. the benchmark certainly seems to be bill clinton's my life. going back to hillary clinton's living history and even as recently as last year with george bush's decision point, the top-selling non-fiction book of 2010. these books didn't quite work as well. and perhaps it was an indication of why -- the reviews felt each of these particular political figures didn't seem to be as forthcoming as perhaps critics and readers had hoped, that they

weren't necessarily holding full accountable for what actually transpired during the bush administration, that there was more -- you know -- trying to be an apologist for what happened as opposed to just looking at what actually happened and try to come to terms with it. of course that is their right. it is their story and each of them can feel free to tell it how they choose to tell it, but it also means the critical reception will go accordingly. >> host: you mentioned former president bill clinton who had another book out this year, came out recently in november of 2011, why we need smart government for strong economy. does this book get a good reaction? >> guest: in large part because its publication date was announced very close to the actual publication date, i think there was only two month lead time to the best of my

recollection it did seem -- this is my own impression -- the overall reception -- there didn't seem to be quite as much fanfare. maybe of course it cannot possibly have as much fanfare as clinton's my life. that was a success--a several hundred page biography that took a full accounting of the presidency. this book was not even 200 pages long. it is more of a working paper about what government should do and how parties should stop fighting and work together to come up with some reasonable ways to not only get people back to work but also green technologies so more environmentally sound ideas coming in the future. was an idea as driven -- as a result, once the ideas are disseminated, that was it for this book.

does that mean it couldn't have another life down the line? i am sure it could but it did seem the impact wasn't quite as forceful as clinton's previous book. >> host: other books include an coulter's demonic, mark stein's after america:get ready for armageddon. henry kissinger on china. tom friedman and michael mandelbomb teamed up for that use the bs:how america fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back. and who is afraid of post blackness? mark stein, conservative books in general, they seem to solve very well. >> guest: they do seem to be selling very well at but as with anything, it seemed an coulter's newest book did not have the impact of previous books. stein may have had some, a

larger view that even though there are so many nonfiction books, the advent of some new digital companies that specialize -- the byline is, what they're doing is publishing nonfiction that runs between 10,000 to 30,000 words. interesting to see if these political books which to my mind feel like they're stretched out a little bit bigger still they could have a concise argument in 100 pages or 20,000 words instead of being patted to 254300 pages. will they go over to and online only outlet? we are also seeing as we move into 2012 and the election year the partnerships to produce shorter e-book first publications.

for example random house's politico partner in on a series of collection oriented titles. the first one just came out and there will be three more before november of 2012. there are other partnerships forming or about to be formed along those lines as well. will it change the political nonfiction landscape? where especially because it is so easy to get news online or even analysis on line, how will we think of how about his package? do we want an coulter or other pundits to impart what they feel they need to say in book format or are they better served in an electronic context? remains to be seen but something i am watching out for. >> host: coming on next year's pulitzer prize-winning washington post editor david maraniss's book on barack obama, barack obama:the story is what is called. what have you heard about that?

>> guest: this has been in the works for at least a couple years. as with any book about any major political figure like a sitting president it will be interesting to see not only what new information he covers but what that new information will remain an borrowed -- embargoed or will it be leaked out to various other publications well in advance to drum up some attention. certainly it will be interesting to see what this book will and cover about barack obama. >> host: that is due out in june of 2012. another powerful memoir that came out this year, michael more, here comes trouble. how did this fare? >> guest: the impression i got as it did rather well but didn't quite measure up to his previous books. he has not published in book form for well over a decade.

the announcement of the book was greeted with no small degree of fanfare. he was also at the book expo ameritrade show, reading an excerpt from his book. i do know that the reaction from booksellers and other industry people in the crowd was by and large positive. so certainly that led to additional coverage. >> host: both ann coulter and michael moore appeared this past year on booktv's in depth, booktv.org is the place to go to watch that on line. use the search function in the upper left-hand corner be brittle type in the author's name and you can watch online. if people go to publishersmarketplace.com what will they find? >> guest: they will find a blog

in which will look at the top stories of the day. publishers marketplace has the deals database and many other databases related to best sellers and reviews. basically an online exchange related to the book publishing industry and the book publishing community. >> host: two book that came along off the beaten path, if you could speak to these as well beginning with amanda foreman beleaguered the world on fire:britain's crucial war in the american civil war put out by random house this past summer and candace miller's destiny of the republic:a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president. >> guest: what i can speak to is this has appeared on various -- the form and made the new york times book review or perhaps a daily publication 10 best list so certainly looking back at

history perhaps the appeal of these books is if we know what went on many decades or centuries before maybe we can glean some wisdom as to what has been happening now. certainly when i read books on history one of my favorite books was the great biography -- here's a woman who had to contend with monarchy related machinations, at a coup that took her husband out of power so she could send to the throne and also trying to find a way to overcome the problem -- there are certain political, economic and historical antecedents to what we can look at today and, if we learned anything from those centuries past, in some cases we have and thankful that we do. in many cases not so much.

>> host: we put you on this list in advance of this taping t.j. english's the savage city. what is that book about? >> guest: english was crawling king in 1963, he was looking at the city in tremendous turmoil, 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 was not right and ultimately turned out he was not a culprit but it would take several years to work its way through the courts before he was ultimately exonerate. he also contrast to the rise of the black panthers especially in harlem so this is really interesting for me to learn and aspect of the cities that i knew something about but not enough to have any real knowledge of

and it really enriched what i know and love about new york and how this change as well. one can only look at times square and the billboards and the sense of total corporate and contrast with the seediness that predominated in the 60s and 70s and 80s. >> host: those are two of sarah wine and acted for 2011 leader the catherine the great and t.j. english, the seventh city. we touched on economic the little earlier but several major works of economic works came out. i want to show a couple beginning with michael lewis, boomerang, travels in the new third world leaders will grants a visit, story of economic genius, ron suggs kind, confident men, washington legal wall street and the education of a president and gretchen morgan's net of 4 rather on

reckless endangerment. how outsized ambitions. personal greed and corruption led to economic armageddon. >> guest: in all those instances, i would include nasser in this because even though she is looking at the history of modern economic thought she is also trying to trace the roots of how we got to where we are in this post 2008 crash world. michael lewis had -- sold tremendously well and is still selling tremendously well. boomerang is a compendium of pieces largely for vanity fair where he traveled to other countries and went to germany -- to kind of look at how the economy was both affected and affected by what was happening as well and he was talking about a treasury department as well as bankers and telling various stories that might help to

eliminate why the economy taint so tremendously in 2008 and why we are still recovering from it. and also whether there are some unexploded bombs set to drop any time soon. the same would go for the morgans and and roger too. trying to chronicle. there were a number of books that had come out but they're still going to see several more volumes that will make sense of what led to the economic crash, what lead to all sorts of malfeasance and bailouts and all those things which certainly not only america but every place around the world is trying to get a grip on. one need only look what is happening in europe and the moment with the precariousness of the euro zone to see that we are nowhere near out of the woods and sometimes books are the best way to get a sense of what is going on and anticipate

what will happen next. >> host: one history book was love and capital:carl and jenny marks. this did quite well. it got notable on several different lists. >> guest: and nominated for the national book award. to my mind how can you not win by combining the story of calm marks and his wife against the larger backdrop of the changing economic times, is serious about socialism which led to communism. contrasting love and money is a great way to find a way into a biography. sounds like gabriel spent a great deal of time parsing everything about the marxist relationship but also what karl marx look on and it is a thorough volume as a result.

>> host: we only have a few minutes left and i wanted to look ahead to 2012. here are some of the titles that booktv is tracking coming out in the next couple of months including south carolina governor nicky haley, kent is not an option:my american story. that is being published by sentinel press. neel digressed tyson coming out with space chronicles in february. strategic vision:america and the crisis of global power, robert caro coming out with the years of lyndon johnson, passage of power coming out in may. that is the fourth in his lbj biographical -- what has caught your eye for early 2012? >> i remember the announcement, i did the internet virtually equivalent. his books are so good.

he manage to document and plum every depth of lyndon johnson. his first book, powerbroker of robert moses caused it to stir and continues to be a watershed benchmark for how to write a biography. so understandably this new volume which i believe still only get this into the vice presidency and not even the presidency proper yet. even though caro is not getting younger by any stretch of the imagination has been working almost three decades. his next volume he has to address the presidency and will be interesting to see how quickly he will produce it. this fourth volume is exciting on its own but also exciting for what additional research and scholarship and new materials they will be able to present about lyndon johnson's presidency some years down the

line. >> host: the publishing industry and what changes are we going to see in 2012? i know that is kind of a dumb question but what are you looking for? >> guest: a very complicated question. certainly it will be very interesting to see how amazon contends with a publisher for example. as i noted earlier in the broadcaster has a new n.y.-based position but also several imprint's mostly focused on the genre based out of seattle. i am wondering if amazon's culture essentially looking at data and algorithms how it will contend with a more traditional publishing type of imprint which is what the new york based one is. another thing with respect to amazon is for the moment,

because they are so content to have exclusive -- will they be able to get those at barnes and noble? a good example is what happened with a title called hangman's daughter which is one of my favorite crime thrillers of 2011. amazon published the e-book edition which sold 250,000 copies and when harcourt's produce the trade edition the trade addition sole right. 30,000 copies all told. but wasn't stock widely if all at barnes and noble because we're not going to stock books that are only available exclusively on the digital level. we want a chance to have our own digital edition. so what we may be seeing are more exclusive deals not just with amazon but barnes and noble has done some as well and other

retailers, how books are published. authors ought to leave their publishing houses for disparate characters, self published and some partnerships with a larger retailer remains to be seen. will we see bond and noble reduce the number of stores that may be a prospect as well. it will be interesting to see how all further the digital market share will grow especially after christmas, whether a physical book declines will be offset by the growth in digital. >> host: cerro linemen is the news editor of publishers marketplace. thank you for helping us with our 2011 year in review. for web site, publishersmarketplace.com. go to booktv.org if you would like to watch many of the

authors. thank you for joining us in our new york studio. >> guest: thanks for letting me be on again. >> watch any of the programs on line on booktv.org. type the author or book title on the search bar on the left side of the page and click search. you can share anything you see on booktv.org by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting a vote for that. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. you have been watching booktv. 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at 8:00 eastern through monday morning at 8:00 eastern. nonfiction books all weekend every weekend right here on c-span2. you are watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs

weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. weeknights watch the public policy events and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can get our scandals that the web site and you can join in the conversation on social media site. middle and high school students for this year's c-span video competition. we want you to tell us what part of the constitution has meaning to you and why. let us know it at eight minute documentary and get into c-span by january 20th, 2012, for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there's $50,000 in total prizes. the student can video documentary competition is open to students grade 6 to 12. for complete details go on line to student cam.org. >> next the joint hearing.

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