the u.k. in the european union and how theuropean debt crisis is affecting britain's enomy eulnround 9 thmi oar. >> the former commanding officer of the u.s.s. cole on the events surrounding the october 2000 attackhat left 17eadnd wurbao d

a athwaatw r exio could feel all 505 feet and 8400 tons of destroy quickly and violently thrust up to the right. it was almosteed f sd he a thmenashan in amacn, li wt,li tes popped out, everything on my desk lifted up about a foot a slammed back down. i literally grab the underside of my desk in a brace pition c- q&a. o >> now our "in depth" interview with author and journalist anna abso p andtheulitzer wrten ic b, udlingut loud",

"being perfect," and "lots ofley candles, plty oca: a memoir." this is three hours. oshatasoufiim t newk ts?st i w g assignment reporter which was a all i wanted to be.. you go and in the morning about ten, 1030. nepeurdesoporng person. urondait l bo found in a house in a queens, cops think it might be drug-related or something.hing they have shut down kennedy because of a bomb scare.caus you get on the s a t urotk yo. dbehe intew tewk s n 24i kept sayinghat.ep s top editors would say, well,ou s what do you want to do? would say, i want to be a w nel gnepor thlday n i do yvellnt

t fstoues idnto been assignment reporter. finally realize that was not the right answer at the new york times, so i started saying a ed it bnhe bgthenureau le i d s gly >> what was your path? where else did you work? >> guest: i was a general assignment reporr for a number itameaes. out amee t h te, but not necessarily a serious hard news reporter.s i realize that if i wasoing to make my tay through the paper to nv tth co tsosk d gitl h ve t f trsirtw years of the koch administration which was so much fun. and, um, and once i did that, i

goa column called "about new be ie ' sedik a u pog sewi hi win york city. and it's supposed to be written in a kind of a distinctive literary voice. and so that wa a wonderful anenec d. opanto a s h rrdno e,wo mrn leaves. and, um, when i came back, i realized that i was not going to be able to hold it together with two little boys uder 2nd a wsr d itnat mehem,eece or a rthea aumlled "life in the '30s," which i think for a lot of readers, certainly a lot of ma lepu ohe me -- of a certain d d ees l a ben caned pcois

r years. >> host: who was charlotte curtis? >> guest: charlotte curtis was an editor at the times, she was a style section er,he ed o tdia ge uh i fam thhekiom and the first woman who'd opinion on the masthead -- who'd been on the masthead. she was veryeg lng soano f. jry i k th ous re younger and thought of ourselves as more feminist, um, here a little ctempous o f ttsh htt ere yeg of e b. th cedmibth and changed my mind about being judgmental about women a generation older than i was.

fi w tns ut mpont icdehi chlotte asked to take me out to lunch. and over lunch she said to me, remeer, you'll only have as an sensa hnashey give you e er l. al tshnto mubhow things worked at the times in the newsroom. and when i told my friend robin morgan whodit, re thy,est mont "er i we,"n ob that, robin told me that, in fact, charlotte had been in atlanticity when, um, a group of feminists in the late '60s diuptehessam ge ey nint,u di disrupt the pageant.

and charlotte had been covering that for the times, and all the feminists were jailed. and en ty wstut thisretehect atwact fu edreyre, beautifully made-up charlotte curtis who had provided the bail moy. >> host: why did you leave the fiprplfflege? o"tew t" sa. l"tewk s" the way some people love, i don't know, the significant other in their life. i thk iisasur fe pyuwa en napfor itot oth ctr greatest newspaper, it's the country's greatest newspaper web site which i think isn amazing um sed norient.

aabdpote new york post" when it was owned by a woman named dorothy schiff. and i had the time of my life there. workg for atabld sch be argg. d tiisorng caoft s,au hods i s i always thought that someday again i would have a life outside the times, and i cois m ptstaat mostpi res hepehe in and say, oh, that again. and i never wanted anyone to say, o that again aut one cos. st jloug ele wa ptyd ,d tn lto ael and it, it's been a very happy

weou"nee winf crafts. lu >>str y, wenyry o the times' op-ed page, as most readers know, is two columns a week every week. and to hava column every other wrg or ally opens upmo veap,cle bse co w i wonderful because you can rely on the reporting and because when it's done, it's done. and th the next week i'd be chngeop onelcho m o,i i terms ofy writing but has the disadvantage of deferred graticatn. i mean, you oit f t hrarndvedl

thyo e do ve edrfe ode eehd the columns was really, really nice. >> host: good afternoon, and lcome to booktv on span2. prm. oontinth hihe ok.an mau,el mn writer anna quindlen is our guest for the next three hours. we'rgoing to put the phone numbers up on the screen, we'll begitakingho calnst yo calenstwor tw @booktv, twitter.com or @booktv. annauindlen is t thor of sel icon bs. 19hacautoud, nkouudme i is 1 3, "how reading changed my life," 1998.

short guide to a happy life in 20. loudnd c i004nd gilo,"al i . 20 pecamouin ooog ,"et '007 and now we are hem worry is is -- her moirs her latest. how many novels haou wog myseh. osndyore innfonti? ats t my career more challenging. i mean, i've been a reporter on and off since i was 18 years old and a columnist since i was29. d whing tin , iespu mat p,umit y h iur irat came out a couple weeks ago, "lots of candles, plenty of cake you talk aboutfeminism today, and you talkutri ei b fda a

ma isors w oul tmi today? >> guest: oh, great, it's so great. people will say to me, who's the next gloria? who's the next person wring the feminine iq? i teeiner ovag t iat pptoia meen eycel. eyomabedbyhe culture. so the fact that, as i say in the book, my daughter maria who's now 23 once said to me, has a man eve be et o e,wsadlyth rls geiny fe. caal dn, s dn e inad colin powell, but she had madeleine albright, condoleezza rice and hillary clinton. so i think the ectns furdaerd soh. wd hha eyt f? dost a long way to go? absolutely. is the world for my daughter a mpletely different world in

certain ways than it was me growg u e' d a i oshad me w ph,em impersonators"? >> guest: i think wh women are growing up, we get a lot of messages from the outside world. abho'r sosed bal, some ound ed ao say certain things and not say others and look a certain way and be pleasers. ihink that's rlly what gloret. thhe tgid,f issmo outspok in, um, her commencement speech at barn ard college in 2010 sayg wainha pin the roles s wo ace inh sol

tk,it took a brave young woman to say i'm not going to do that. i know exactly who i am, a i'm gointo behatso b hetf uthwa a tyepeag c, a ocoteehg keenthh weall didn't have very much in common. >> host: from "being perfect" quentebohaycl a bat anrio pctinve ibay the w tto tn, ha stued for it. if there was a paper to be written, it was done. i smiled at everyone in the hallwa, and i made f ofem hiheks bse and de othckof a convertible at the homecoming game, and if anyone had stopped and asked me why i did those thgs,ell i'm seha

evpoley.t uethboov. that, th's sort of the zenith of female impersonation, i thk. and there's a great joy in ouwh bse u rohad e t rl wnergt si ot version of that book was the commencement speech i gave at mount holyoke whichs, of course, a women's ll mactt d wayth tgs smst mcae o ie trnd number of them were weeping. and th were weeping because they recognized not their true self, but the self tha they'd beenetng llos antedsumofhe sahaen wy un yow met t ree o themselves to do ask be -- to do

and be a certain way, and the h dn t sgoryof g ou ale? >>stdothso thme, although the pressure on men to look a certain way seems to have grown during, say, my kids'ifetime. , n'em kiwibothny y ieretbs , w abs? but i do think that that drum beat of how o out to be is rro erou yo know?lsate' not smart enough, not pretty enough, not dressed well enough, not accomplished enough, you know? thers th kin dbe thounethe s

at sme w mharder when they get older, it seem to me. because while we nally examinedll those internal voic of eateschnd id, 'm eh, mon eh, icst fhe w they get older. you know, that they haven't become the masters of the universe. that they're less in some ways an i tk i i think that aging liberates women in a lot of ways, and i don't think it does the same for men. >>t:rom d c," nad en ws:il ceda itus anind an ts and so both as a feminist and a mother of two sons, it has come

to me slowly but surely that the part of the promise ofhe memontt o e ilinhest ntiseitif g: ilinat ue s, mean, i hear all the time women come up to me and say, oh, you know, my son is taking a paternity leave, or he anmwario n, at t evd ein gom- a mayoomho are really stymied about how to balance work and family and young men who think they balance work and family by getting ie i ly fsou neon es o bee ofso why so many wmen take themselves out of the running for certain kinds of jobs is that they feel like they cannot square them with their life at he. d te wre enha thaey

ulelfely >>t:t'eul imetome >> guest: terrible. um, the white house project which isart of the stanoat w w ve oheouen goindi,ngnt w,ngo journalism. when you get to the top ranks, when you get to the leadership in government, in, um, in nonprofits even which don't even pay as well as ty should given the great workhat theydo, anatev lrs and what it means is that we fall down the ladder. i mean, as i say in the book, in

terms of female litical representionwe'rehi aq nko acai ratemss e meweumon a ehings. we're just not. you know, we're not doing very well on infant mortality, we're abh lbe ao mry well on maternal hh. t rm nea, r oi aer near as well as we should be doing. and we shouldn't be doing it not because it's fror egalaria anaturrl gu. pl busatai ine. ll bev tir principle, but i also believe in pragmatism. if everything worked in america, if l firms wer chugging ong ruik cwo ng weain go.k ts att

nwo eadership positions because nobody is leading as well as theyhould be. and if we're ignoring a b k heuln,yb atoufohy t outo bsodsit osnnnd w'd grup >> guest: i grew up outside of philadelphia in a suburb called drexel hill. >> host: what'd your parents do? >> guest: my father s a mageme coulta a thas h myhe,keve or moer i knew. all the women in growing up were either housewives or nuns except for my aunt katherine who was an executiry. ich t e r erngheac si. upmi class? is. >> guest: oh, my gosh, yes. i mean, i'm trying to remember exy, i mb time i ever evenme

white world, in if a catholic world, in an overwhelmingly irish world and in a privilege wo there's nouestion abt it and i a pp dh mes thaou owatos ea wr. l edeto t show up in memoirs about hideous childhoods, i don't have any of those really. >> host: so wh "lots o lelef " e okkescs a e eaerif ter mless whitelife? >> guest: i don't think there can be anyuestion about that. i mean, everyone's with th book someone saito me, well, you kno you a per n a at th tto hetoel a alut ouut

my record on afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted up against anyone's, and be certainly homelessss d rtd nn buen'rit a book about aging and how you feel about aging from your own personal point of view given the kind of background i hav the kind of ea itt pe a edor hgr n ch dic umceanavig feel like i'm not speaking to them. what happened when you were 19 years old, and how did that h mth-you? shd sva er h t tends to do was diagnosed quite late in the game which meant that there was really no possibility that sh was going to survive. and ngheas u f

coe cho ak ean tte ed i, um, was a working mother of four children who happened to be myiblings. thid , it was pty dnik m anit le changed me. i mean, there's something about, first of all, there's something about watching,um, someone die wang honatno as ne ab win onann that makes you realize how absolutely wonderful living and an heers toivs rbif nge siblings that

was was terrifying and seemed to me like a cautionaryale and poilofvvihaay from any h awile w wa oguwhei favorite books are, what books they're reading, etc., but on top of that in your book "how reading chang my life," you wosan fc.t d ofosooha y k ybshad 'sn rts "courtney's complaint." what's the history of you and "courtney'scoin uecoeyomnt a e b wir core wyhe mocl oth us to get a book from the book of the month club every month. and i can't remember how far soinkes a fy,s, but she ted

ok tisrtok in retrospect i keep thinking now how did she expect a kind of hyperverbal, hyperlerarkid rt e es tt? meelrdhe bk d se,nd of thhith ithk was hugely liberating for me was that i had read mainly in the 19th century when i hadbeen inul b. i ohaetar d ibinto m know that you could write in this kind of vernacular. i mean, the book is written, written with a vryst, u laycebu or e, v eronve flip pant in -- flippant in

places. it does have this attitude about sex which, of course, i fo mplyyeniuto mo latatl p ialee learn about, um, untying the kind of ties th d the liof19en. , d ed m a reifnt o inicsale. d illnk i mean, i gave it, i gave it to my sons who were, are really, really inveterate reers as isi csendtto m st ss emeel adryer veal ,n he was 13, i think it was. because i think sometimes when you're a 13 or 14-ar-o b u l f ol liou'tlkwnhe reit tinou

dha t'sth d raalngdod idoing the same when, in fact, every other 13-year-old boy is doing the same. and i thought it would dthat thing for him that readg pp t fal wem e. hen'nrrn.tgh d,cthat's exactly what it did, and he really loved it, and i think a lot of t otr mothers at school thought i was completely nuts for dog . osheidurov la b"hed t ea t cm? >>st, ck " al teost of my novels do, in a thematic way. , i'm often struck byhe fact thendeyemes emss ndfhe sot a woman about herself, she'lsay, well, i've been married 20 years, and i

have three children, and i grew i ay ers, t ndimlash ht ou keyo w won w stripped of all that, if you lost all that emotional property as it were? and over time i realized tt woas hon ad frfe d ar t a reasons why someone would do that, you know, in the middle of a war if yowere a refugee, but re autot seemed to beo ss --sond stsifo ama hindt'w the domestic violence aspect of "black and blue" bega >> host: who's jerry? >> guest: my husba. [lauter] [lteonly j i g: eahaou bn g: aal er.

he does a lot of criminal defense work, and he also does some civil work. >> host: in "lots ofcandle les, plenty of cakeou ite at fceesete g: .rat knmaitec i fsoma sat t esghn marriages, um, are about money, and maybe it's th ti ha'l i like tuy i , knvent mesa own test0? that's a good question, but i never wanted soone else saying it to me. so it's worked really ll to split tngs st ofightwn wrfa mias bee pe within it have tacitly acknowledged something thatoung lovers might find preposterous. it's bigge de iman

i ,h--hot chleas wngt apabmagebo iendwho were long married. iea'se,h,onis such a poor , i l ng dessert first. i mean, you know, sometimes you should eat dse first, i guess, but then it sort of headaches the main course se -ak mur leo dre en cohabiting, you know, i think that we came up with that because we realized dating di't prepare people for marriage. buahati bionsnre y rhet ters in tecuril

they're actually yournly freely-chosen family member. unless you're adopted, you're lateto yra bee b d ourey b anbvlyrld t hndor ywi ses a person where you've freely chosen toeadache them not only a -- to make them not only a part of your family, but eek ur fy. 's uanat s l,ng fy. anrehcdat e nnofatha ith sys it all. i was at nantucket cottage hospital with our friend david ller mcaee clhaba cat alla m'sst isgrtook was with us too, but jerry was the only one who got the bad clam, and he was really sick. and the nurse came out and said hi wth krof you lateo

inee,'dnlen ieouveon es aenhavke at me quizzilly, i said, oh, well, i'm his wife. and be so nothing could be furthefrom related to. but i think that what it tas w tean medat snl's ly'sst i i ern ous and that requires you to step up your game. >> host: y reveal in "lots of whoue ou0suty ce"th soleubi.y wei beak cof sint orst possible time in their life and the worst possible time in mine. and i drew some conclusions about motherhood fromhat shn'eawy, asveve nivab . , k eopho v good reasons for not wanting to ever have children.

um, but mine wasn't such a good reason, and, um, myfrly ctugedti nt,m,taom t i sro tao yone, and i just let the time pass by, and then when i was 30 i sdenly changed my mind. >> host: you also mention, thgh, that the dctor s in reeles llyos. teow yar thperi weof cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth listening to their heart while ash fell down them. [laughte th's dinity a ur d a g: nrine ve ht tnk r e >> host: why >> guest: um, i think the short and simple answer would be that i'm a covering alcoholic. even aovcoc. ca inecuncn

icderave a drink again. i tend to be an all or nothing person, and at the moment i decided i probably shouldn't drink, i sort of decided that i g: n'owi' umu kyen said, um, this is the most bing chapter about alcoholism i've ever read wo ris.admue, she hasme thwae es atbeiju w t bue h he matter is i women who say to themselvesith drnge iuln a while, boy, i'm t,e go awi yoow ielwnt ntht school or nothing, nothing really terble like that, just this nagging

shn've t fhmaybe, you know, inl w thttar loven the fact that nobody really needs to have alcohol. i mean, it doesn't provide ne,p.entsh yospel pelyyovett dsd d, sid. >> host: is that the first time you've ever written about alcoholism? >> guest: it is. it is the first tim i've ever itten about it. i wrot abo itgt, e oenarn, a td th a lybe ry 't ke the idea of me being public about this. and my, my attitude has always pr fy yss.ly vs wrat t t

t a aisimt turned out that, um, that there was no longer think issue, and so i went ahead with it. aa mngt: do you attend meetings? feikedtoul d ta t first year after istopped drinking i was what in aa th call a sober nointisnich meanmebody wh thran irac kn whypeople drink and why i hadn't, so on and so forth. and, um, and i ju really didn't feel the need to go to megs i freota n in, dneeke i san drhag . owt'd o s le i aa would argue that if you didn't feel the need to go to meetings and you don't feel challenged in your sobriety, that means you really weren't an

whowhoesit anidm ro too k a. 'st d >> host: and finally, anna quindlen, before we go to calls, e friend of mine when she found out that you were going to on, she stad thathet ing mbee anat gngnr ew ieefngo? >>uest: um, it's got to be something that she read in this book, i would imagine, because the truth is didn't quit gng to ms unl a cou y o. roumof cns the scos t oliehyer i "tewkesnd at "newsek." they were none too pleased with that. i got disinvited from catholic stioec tdi m sinhe i'othi was about

two and a half or three years ago. and between the way the church has handled its relationship wa tdlhe amand t, he a an w c out in drips and drops and then in a torrent over our lifetime, i just began pensu rfihe er. d ulra iec thteaykr d to going to church. and, you know, i said that at an event, and the audience burst into applause, and i said, no, no,o,o,sis thtola t. a ce oai fomebemyamai u know, i only wish the catholic church was as good as the guy in the new testament wh started the whole deal. butst, ai wa

enemeeneat h aquen o t m onepth." the area code is 2-737-0001 if you live in the east and central of i toun737-orth cita z. an'rin bin with a call from belgrade lakes, maine, and martha's on the line. hi, martha. >> caller: oh, hi, ter. h w ts a ld cr: a ied home from church -- not from mass, but i ced home from church to hear you today for three hours. [laughter] >>stllanu atteouti f naper columns and then

from there our book group in "binleston, south carolina, read ist ec.hut th mouh nl. >> calle well, my retirement community down there which ranges in the age from 55 young anwh w-- yalll lo it. ouinan wat o iea yi fe in paris when i got so tired i had to sit down and read, i bought your book in ist cct"rise andshine." >>sts. sh m m wdal s ate inhe h gp brkfast. and i was wondering if "rise and shine" is aiohiat l ainoute pawhso d.itin

>>t:ht ma, k v much. anna quindlen. >> guest: well, i do have a younger sister. i think sometimes there have been odd little mts u i b sr. ncthcen rcmelell known. but in the same way that one true thing is not abou me and my mother andfath u use ac aso me a sr bridget are quite different from my siste teresa and i. i would say t one thing they do have in common is bridget is soci wr, ske anaill ont an sr actually a public school history teacher which along with being a social

worker i cnsider the work of the angels. so toatx, uth i coti a a erutou s idrete dre from ann ma and teresa. >> host: tina cassidy tweets in, how has writing chang for you e? ueohiisco bu ht. prs of judgment. it is, it's not been uncommon during, um, my time as a boo erbeit abl kes ohugck mokck mok geg y to snd someone comes over, picks up the book, reads the flap copy, closes the book, puts it back thoutwa tresksway. mt.

hiatu k u'lways sitting there at the computer thinking i have this idea in my head, and as it was in my head and beginng to formitfe prfec a s a thaerit a anw in f o an computer screen, and somehow it's not falling into place anymore. soatatilin ti pposiha rtpaf aiwavat ofheitpaf it i still find incredibly challenging. >> host: well, tracy ewens e-mails in to you: after all yo scess aevts doad rw if ve st g? se g: 'vve rve of those? , i made a decision about i

can't rember when "rise and maheis t siut,buyb adie um -- >> host: 2006. >> guest: 2006. that was the first book. "rise and shine" was the fit book for which i did not read ofhe rew res tea t i was deeply grateful for be. one was from the wonderful novelist anne tyler who, of manmy bouafbone bes to to bens acy dot in the criticisms. and one was from maury corrigan who i believe is still at georgetown and does work for npr about "blck an b w w o , h rw atnee bupor wth iad q

prte wrfo in ouur o work that hadn't occurred to you and think, oh, my goodness, that's true. but the rest of them often teed more often evme anre tok sostd rng them, and the deal is my closest friend happens to be a book reviewer. and so if there's e that she inks i shouldnow a use kst iclylir tishlllab ts,at'sowt goes. so i have not read any of the reviews of this book at all. >> host: is that janet or susan? h iateana g: ye jt'r ale. f t w lf uln heblph atwa erost, janet e van slip, whose work i find be infinitely entertaining but whom ve never met and is not my fie.

osexllesm rein, vin cr:d rn juanto t,an i ys used to, used to be the first column i would look at in the pape andmre m u"tewk s. d,umu abade rtinncin isn sonk you very much. um, i want to ask, um, what you think of, um, your female successors "the new rk mes"edag also, u a cmno w f he yesto t pdel ti y we. >> guest: well, the second part of that is an interesting question because it doesn't quite work like that. um, there's an on/offwitto inlut. d opaeqsou t lynkutor fftl 24/7 than civilians

do. in other words, you're always saving string. su, re sthing on the street, e r,ditom isrisr-ni oitaum so the truth of the matter is i couldn't sit down tomorrowand write the kind of column iould pren eiocae i vebeavatt nc9, s sw" d i know that all of my former colleagues have been. i know that they've been -- i owl llins ki t rl yay a i to tell you, that's kind of soothing. there's something about havin to internalize everything that gendfaug,

me inkas i tonfid nd irihe e e n a s i've never seen you watch this speech when you weren't taking notes. noabwhasng first time in many g mes gr ile pidwalk , not sure what i would say, but i would really have toget much more up to as aivn.ow in terms of my fiof tar ghal columnists at "the new york times" yet. there should be at least three and probably four. um, the two t ae thenfe. fatiitndm, i just glad to know them and to

read them. >> host: gail collins and mauer ri d--reow h mend es prenot inbl slath e economy or the voters. >> guest: i think it's way too soon to say that about the voters. i think at se lel, , s y btoig a ateronio - t en eners iln more see the crackerjack come painer -- campaigner that we all know barack obama can be. cu--lt m h wnk wio sahaou cig et,ndgo ipr there's no question that the president has been governing in the prose in the part because -- wh t rliacuse, um fhea v v.

ihit b usinr e hoped that there would besome level of major change. having said that, what is it joe biden says atundrse? sa hind.a, d gonofohe aic woma i would say that it will wl be. >> host: have you ever voted for a republican? mint fckn ey o rng aur] th tnlme voted for a republican -- >> host: the lite pipe. >> guest: yeah. she was really a pie ofork. vorlaowo h iai ine adns enn year politically has been that a senator as dedicated, as smart,

as hard working and as -sng sorwe inhin sano er cnu b m t. >> host: sandrin bedford, oregon, you're on booktv on c-span2 with anna quindlen. >> caller: yes, ank you. osle g d. >>leelan i'stad o, m big tad like a tadpole growing into a fish. i have many questions for y th iow aad sr be a yer stdetely younger, because i'm 78. and i've been retired since the age of 6 i'otll ri mo er.ty

a case, i am a great admirer of yours and the likes of you and your writing, tongxp t y ipr gmo w wwit ub tig of myself. and she taught meverything literally. she was withoutrejudice except she did not believe inelns th wwschs, y a italian catholics and etc., etc., scottish because her maiden name was mccumber. and it goes onnd on. frhidioncod nsfte ohe 25 bucks per annum that each of the families got and landed in desto, california, and built,

pld usgrndea aneylt tir f he joaquin river which still exists, i'm told -- >> host: sandra, if you could, bring this to a cclusn. al uusanor wa a bank, was at the bank of america as a bookkeeper. ani was exposed to a assta thomn ul th reedto tan nawh n mr. brown, and we got him fired, or he was quitting. he did have to og b al ainti nohe o sor ks th flind

>> guest: i'll tell you, making time with the women in the vault. i mean, every time you work as a fictn writer, all you can think of is athing i cane reorapd th ma tinlt f at ng t osoute "of candles, plenty of cake," when we looked a at the women who had eceded us in law biness daofded use ers nac t this. once it was safe to be female, employed and ambitious, one of of our older colleagues was passing, another had prospered bei of . >>sttheada me sth wid- t. unth w-- i won't use the word contempt, but we smissed the lives our mothers had had if they were housewives, and when k

deme orce ther qhnth anout oran w and you look back on theives those women lead, you're astonished by what they managed do underiffult rcan uncbl sh. alth ewesele as . an rber looking at my mother and thinking, well, what does she do all day well, she had fiv children under the agef 10 andlmos nethabav des wve he a w ht ng,ou a i ton things that this book made me do was to meditate on those women and to no longer discothem,ut t izaty gp i a wa fisag to make

for women like me. and, but many of them would have had itifferentthey could have. but they cn'e,an 'sheea osi dg oat t'm stem tme nnl eposrous, but almost immoral. >> hos who is maxine smiley? >> guest: we, m. smiley. oh, this isgreat. a oouwhe ta a hrehes. ld nextoor to our country house in pennsylvania. and be she was the kind of person -- perps like our last caer -- about whom peoeill sh onrlct httetsth hor ig e tlk e aow asigttnt on planes that would go cross country but make five stops along the way. um, she was a nurse which is at you had to beo be fligtant t e

sm a sledo ilanexooo us, and, um, she just was a very strongilled, smart, bic firihithapdor when w ixra d rim, essay about, um, her very bes friend and wrote an essay about mrs. smiley. sht rt ot rtas aome j tkice a ouofme othe women who had gone before us out in the world. >> host: and then there's a story about maria telling r the dangers of smoking laayhee.p u t >>t:ld w when she died? >> guest: i think she was in her

late 70s when she died. too soon for my taste, frankly. gotoatu go'ro shsersia out because she would just get tired of her, you know? [laughter] and say, no, you can't do that, you have to leave now. they had the best frienhip ca y ,rmi s,id a ri a soy win ele pip, and she will have most of what she knows handed down to h wyo hoprssmil. rer yolier nt wat lier pnt bee mainly see the downside to helicopter parenting. i think it really can cripple evon t om,ve

thsoelth ro,n dt n too things on their own without telling, without being told how to proceed. and the other thing is i think yono io, y iossifou project and your mother really is doing 80% of the a project and you get an a, do you say, wo i gotanon mar th sg,dn ly i k tte d of rns l t k os a not kids, who are adults now are mature people who are very easy about traactingccul sh netedor is 's lid ld r,ho't make the call to the teacher. at a certain point, each of them said, mom, no.

you're not going to rea the essay. you' notngtaoe i d erkn smstin esabo this came to us when we took maria to ken oncollege which is where she got her bachelor's de - ane een a , it sw aou in hle tro? and she suggested we put it by the phone, and when our kid called to complain about anything from course section sh r tseceo an w really, really smart because as a college, um, officiado myself -- w f y t c o whi le- i ularst ie

t nt cngu , she got a b on that paper, and it's really an a paper. and i'm thinking, no, no, no, no, no, this is a grown person. e does not neols gr ay y,y e soouikh i h pt, iul kethk that that's why my kids are as mature and capable as the are. >>sten syo

loved the new york times editorial page, was this is back ha bn there forever. >> guest: that was not a reflection. i think everybody has to decide when tir wll has run dry. aerhondea twh sel h w h n b whe st tof g that's how i feel about it. every columnist has to gaming for themselves wen that time has me, and i thinkyou aiha chdyifanld

the better, and whilenyone use torth "moannys would know i itutre ilk awnnt life history, i have to be some part of it, but i'm happy to call melf a feminist. bee ine hese tord as wll aspeaced iteeop bpl eos to women's rights and who have tried make it sound like sething tt's it's not. feminism is just tro o luplas ir itant bdn tr wi smnch women were routinely discounted from opg uppni,that's often meant is

esstiofoom i ha aor . m, hi about a society, say 50 years ago in which it would have been impossible for hillarclinn to be secretary prentate oro run mupi whth cii e iay t:neuronine ho conversation with anna quindlin, and as we do he, we visednain us noy rn ouetero. reli t video. >> i would say that i'm working om 9 erhosa tri rveto trs a th eerg. juan you sort of lose it after

awhile. you certainly lose it when you're working on a novel imatstto he edgeof yr ev when you write a n-fiction book, you know, it may be three good hours of di ,ndthst anr ofco,ha s n ct uly begins with a theme for me. th woc pseaemption,t, myhts a cctho ll become the protagonist, than character becomes sharper and sharper to me. lesa ggpie owriting is

royo 2 a st no run reads your blog, but 20 years from then, you'll ha shheatouotndyo nhe t 'ldendinou th dnave otherwise. writing the most basic form of writing, a letter, a poem, a note to meone, itros rty. soe,os t o enadrin tveigd aetter they wrote and think, still alive, still alive some way be.i think the more writing, the ud you know, i think regrets that a

good columnist, and i like to ink i was a go cni am oim athpu air backstopping yourself. when you are writing about your family constantly, and even writing abouev, part bra ihig f trs uuil t ourt ts? i think you do a lot of -- i wouldn at all call it censoring. it's more taking the lon ew. haangrboytly veri. nyad f wrs yeah, i mean, don't wait for inspiration. i don't know wherehe is, t she's not coming. orea serom . flesd ten she's gone

again and then it's about hard work. the hard work part does not largely constent ofthinking about it. pele s e b gtt tin at cin p,ou have to sidown and sit down whether you feel like it or not. too ten,eople thkt re gorillit th innd yea s. ht doesn't sing because i constantly think it's not going to be any good. it takes at least an hour of pounding it out before you thk, oergo coef yitdou ♪ it.

♪

♪ h wli in anwe have two hours left in the show. if you lve in the east and central time zone,02-0

l u elnd tedr anna quindlen, in your book, dofe abutd, uay or are a ion fo years, i believed a woman's right to choose was absolute, but now a wonder. do i,with a stable home, rria, suicmi ch aio us egys nvntht ll d e rt. ga it ys have that right. it is the morality of exercising under those circumstances that makes meon ueea e rnna e,t est ss oi whinte a public

conversation. what that observation comes down tos what it always comes down to. this is a personal,nte idolith ten ve washington in albany pe o tamanomo have any business do hutty iaofep dp ci i understand people who are troubled by it. i also undersnd people who say this is the only recourse ifelt s opo,nkhe rtthtoem i is not between lega abortion and no abortion. this is the decision about whether we're going to have a legal artion oll

thnd k we thndena, hreof nevertheless terminated preeing nan -- pregnancies by any means, some quite dgero e herarme mei o tsuo co cd "rt phans," and i sat with a group of grown women in their 50s and 60s, all who have grown up motherless bause throt th d ithto tt crym ti onsndeay do that is to keep abortions safe and legal. >>host lrowk onha.tonyo cr:der ll a cannot even imagine

the outreach of her words and her work. i was born in colombia in south americ grpys, c the ed es almost 18, and i married, do all the things i was told, and when my husband departed with someonelse, i sa.o rykeodchr i continued taking care of them in when they finished high ancaul, i went and i did myed atyonor o u ay ba, rredmeliit situation of abortion, and they all rant and rave why women shouldn't do it, and you jst sa,uiet,ut yto ybfrpegnou

,enen rmb where we are talking where the territory is. this belongs to her, and if she chooses, her doctor is toayan butt iou daer hgrto be independent, outrageously self-empowed. what i never had in myouth and myhiodro thaven tondy se, p yoo i their hands, and i went back in search of our feminism, which, to me, was a foreign language, and i thank u so much for emrel a m at0ar a now and you're outreach to my

sisters, nieces, everyone. thank you for beg erean inheror ms. h w lre anuor cng >> guest: thank you. i just have to say that call made by day. most of the time, one woman in a ttle room in t tof a e roomr rein el tor th l om otanwho so clearly has made this life for herself out of what she was handed isust ntc. >>stn qlehe feik t k y >> guest: yes, they absolutely do. to some extent, that's natural. i remember the most controversial lumn i wro whenotfe s" s lu a na

noin to have premarital sex because we determined even if there was an issue with te toarecyernevereloi wet wyet thweoet. the times ran virtually an entireage of letters. >> host: who was upset? left, right? >> guest wl,maeo o ththanig csewa absolute, and that you smownt bring a childith significant issues int the world. actual, the most persuasiv letter wasm pe w faifd bre damaged by the fact that all the of the attention went to the sibling with the disability, and

there was not enoughefr, itck ynot k o oou, one point, i was stomping around, and i said this is a letter from a woman who says that anna i know would have myba s yindmsolum esopto o o ee f t years, and you cannot now say they don't know me. it was one of those moments where it was a wakeup cl usin iater luidede t wew thnd sometimes in the best possible way, and made us feel part of ear,we alnity, and asid a le leg me.

er m t ttho uithe mm aou oou h d hmang it was when you find something someone wrote who passed and you feel they are still with yo cosa, i mbnh y inou and my sister passed away, and just -- [inaudible] isrstfo th-nd ny , you were so kind, the book, and she just adores you, and so i'm sitting here,stening to e

tnvti yoal o that. [inaudible] aomatfryo oadbl thank you, and thank you for that. >> guest: thank you so much. wow. that's another one that really touches my hrt. iea iealfe n thar with life in the 30s when i was writing about raising my kids at the same time that some of us were doing the sa and ha cnu n pr ditew pl oak becse women

say that's how i feel about aging, which has just been wonderful to understand, agan, i thagoicre not alone. eaeeit f atisateo seem to think that i know something that nobody else knows or that other peop don't know. that couldn't be further from the tru e tr t iinwh i'ouup dau arla wremm eelings and siations in such a way that other people sometimes feel like i'm speaki for t h t yon heard louis. didn't have to be perfect, just terrific. thomouplfhen o fnilo

i'tht'ue tmedlm a e d. anu ucfoll . >> host: did you hear from people nationally when you were with the "new york times" or was is localized? >> guest: o onan ternioy, brond n. el, y fho le h you almost instantaneously. i was going into my e-mails, and oh, my gosh,the subcte dieyhi dneu t e il illdou rll over the country. life in the 30s and public and private were syndicated in papers all over the country, d,oueyaped enttiri a sountti il ius so that sense of community, and i think

that's what books do for us. i said earlier that i had ary ild nd f ti metoin trl was reading the diary of the young girl by ann frank. there's a book thatold -- last time iook ad,s6 mi ceshaeop owirta wn've been able to make them understand, and i think that's what it does for us. it enlarng us as people. as a wr,hen li uenlaedeo e's th wd.elin h nal fna comes from raylene in alabama. hi. ok knfic t,on

ai crs fnd 's rdom on c-span, have been women, but next we have roger in spokane, washington. roger, you're the fit male >>leohesanu inyl. llnn blee lni to you and watching you overhe last hour and a half, and i would say that i feel like i know you le so many ofo ale , b oifnt onng h i ska i've been a close friend of, i believe, he's your youngest brother, kevin. >> guest: my brother, ll -- vi co, i' b i his home many, many times, and i

just want tosahavi do empathize, and like i always have with the feminist movement, and i areciatell t rehayoa bn rt i, myself, wrote a fiction book, and i was wondering if you would talk a lileitut y ine hells that that brings. >> host: all right, roger, thank you. hidcofllianure,firs ofl in besll

it fiction is kind of an odd challenge for somebody who wrote non-fiction for so many years. peop te , d yep? wkepr,ms lyalsre a anything you write about as a reporter or as a columnist, and i think that's always the challenge. ilwa r mwnkud wi l, ll to me about a week, couple hours a day rding aud, and there's a number of reasonshy i at eeon e o r d rm tti ll wheha working, whether there's clunks in it for lack of a better word when i read aloud.

whr iaeorssy ersoinouin eiae aedatak u think that no one else said wos like this in the histy tandey ntobe xe ernghorgg mfm inmy e er sncow i t atyen i actually saying the sentences aloud, but there's something about saying it out loud that makes you hear it in a wleew wa ife aene a, atthd, tsur w tlling you it was a run-on sentence, and you need to fix it. that's what i do to make sure it feels as real possible, but 's wtingelhe w ios fs ii'ino inras t

et that's really the challenge, to maemeake them constructs, to not thsre a odou t one cr he >>osnna qudlen, this e-mail is from auey jacobs, class of 1986. anna, i love yr w a s win t stg ou wndi i'lsrn alum and black woman. any black ahors that speak to you? i noticed there's n much diversity in the topenho >>gu g t.r nal an obous point, i feel chagrined to make it, but i still thk in many ways th inctobo rm

i imylden i ghhe were old enough to appreciate, and so i would s ny msoutmef r, eckgd clg g barnard writers, one graduated from the wr.uhos rkae nd erno qio that in the list of back ofhow reading changedded my life, there's a sof ecy g aitando we k, ere s virtually

no opportunity for black men or women to publish then. part of it is because o o rrow afoset i evch i.b t h areev times on bookt and did to oktv.org, search function, whswi ynd thec-a-nd foresight of saga? >> guest: i love the foresight of saga. i think whatappsse esy,re lh a elnolof cin odti a nthes but the first ranks. the gulf worthy is not dickens, tryal there'sh a

nothing i like better than a really big doorstop of a big. i loveerdaheos nereancoheha trilogy, those in one book, i mean, you just look at the book and say, okay, it's going to take me a long time to finish >>t:er aseeat fng re a w20u qiout tad . it to thank you for the book, what aift. neround ow me and told m t l monha e g eraur ln to this book. that's the second reference, do

you audio record all of your bos? >> guest: no. i'm sure there's certain ahoor.iedas iarndf yelhabed by wonderful actresses, and hope davis, oh,my sh, i' b ckut ywre f i t,ewpe,g creid that, the reader expects you to do the aud bo. in,'r lile eai otnd yadyour own prose, and all you think is, , why did i include that phrase in there? oh, i suldn't have use that word. yo israsme thhe mds yo

owtoorly do nw t pronounce. luckily, the producers on the other side of the glass now have nokinr,hiir were they hit the caut te' a disembodied voice to say the word, and they always interrupt you and say things like we're pickin up stomach sounds so then a glh ysth, u thgh h. reodt it, it's two days of eight hours, and every time i say i'm never doing it again, but at some point i prly ius ot' >>t:id "of >>st datn it's the longest one i've done in a long time. the last one i did was "thinking

out loud." it justel ke forever, an i briafen hee thho i w it anyhow, and i call up and said we got to at least g the call thollong wa and do this. th'minigow bt s eh t ok >> host: west virginia, thanks for holding. you're on withnquen tv cr:nkur in cen md aso affirmed my own thinking over the years, and that's been a wonderful thing, including your book about your dog. old.ay, i just trned0yes is rho sr

dorin missions for 20 years. i did leave seven years ago fo someeaer w cianitnmy uns, tuen ed c bto at was the hate of the roman catholic church. toyra wod going toass almo saea u edxa en explicitly i have people say to me i have not met a catholic that thinks like you do because of memm m o tindeen me oeis arof ch,nd i have had -- i even on a couple occasions have partie say to me, thinking as you a

coue hu e steeli not only affirmed, but maybe kind of gave gamble to things my church was doing that cn' cre ahaaas sxrdy in f ihisi at the time for awhile and didn't know why, and when i took time out to deal with that and talk wi someone cdeve osha yll c >> guest: wow. you know, it's so hard. you back to the new am w i w myds a dheg a ouis hone o t is clicking

through and sees me say this. youave the gospel on easter morning. ma g theb,nd h ne e esndetan tehoss d have not known for two or three weeks if left to their own devices that jesus was risen, antheyome bkwir, enyffaid s ngheb, n reho she desn't really recognize, and he comes up behind her, and the first words he says are woman. hoursshindsss s risen from the dead, and he says, "woman, why are you crying?" this is a guy, the mori use of s -- sh h astot tdo

th wn,t he ioe nta a fo of the gospels, they are with him a lot of the time. he las aof ecorsh untaown'ra omt, t conusion that the messe of charity and love includes embracing the won chho fle the gee cnd what seems to me to be the excuse tha-- tt ch'speswelle, reeenisime, ignores thfact that the

gospels were rewritten, rewritten, and rewritten during deeply sexist timesft the atofist, anoth teen gs,to be sfiit eewt testament and dissatisfied with the hierarchy. >> host: inhow reading chged myteyo w simathil ted church door the list of 90 complaints of the established catholichierarchy. >> guest: submsions wee aun because of dition, those in power, the operative form o governnt. you know, books get people bond uho ago

e t bomen got from a reader was a person who came up to me i a public event and say, you know, i ingh er w.er agree wi yut ator irt agngthisot important, but looking at things in a different way, that's importan that's what we all want to aim for. >> host: as a catholic girl whgrew uinhes,hi in mun vca ev tnscis in a more central place in the faith, the church had index of foreign s. ue yt find a list of terrific books, look at the list of banned books at

the american library association puts out every y theyrelw sks alwou kir hiil books for children, "in the night kitchen," with the "ere the wi thingsr "he i you batat okeuptotl books are supposed to make you look at your place in the world and think, wh-- why do i feel so differentlyromthis y i l er wh iee aty ? hiooo fen yel threatened, and that's that's ho we grow as people. >> host: in my own catholic home, home of my latis, i por tda stie

madccount of the road to calvary, and they were on our book shelf growing up, and by contrast, the dirty books, it s amplait wenialfo tween the mas stress and box spring o the bed. >> guest: who do you think they were kidding? ere was things lke mrie nu tonow h kif asee. in ar 1970s with the joy of sex that was considered ro, anoo m s,us to se. >>t:ahir >>lehaouy . veoqust, they are easily, quickly answered. i'm 70 years old, and in the0s

and 40s, there w a blacknd itov wrath as dy smith goes to washington, there' a lady, and she was a female lead. these two women were very iniganryst edesu c s d yb loved them. they certainly didn't worry where they put their hands. why didn' something --ome kie m. leemtaff aat ti g:cty. atnteinisca question. the truth is that in the 20s after the move towards women's suffrage, the move to get men ou tord terere wn rke, atea t

zeneith in world war ii, and lookg at rosy the riveter, for expl you d women flocki to fstoa ehhaneby n owe nnhe pfi ea teuanhrf war. what happened, basically, was the end of world war ii when all those men cme back and to of thoses, w osn t eghe ban waman ofis is fantastic. we have this baby boom. we have allhese men who a li, efwo n g ngeeok. rueasack the meals and use these wonderful new frozen foods that are out there. it was seeasisvi.

women began to feel like something was wrong. thwofuss yhey suppede hain e d'tee n wo iwhke them feel valued and alive, and some of tt is the work of raising our chdren, but a lot is work t inhe wld hi fng t50 re w ced tndw a exploded wth the counter culture at the end of the 1960s, what you had was a new push of women into the workplace. the'tihe i which women were working in the

s and 30s, this turned out that we, women, wer making oumaoupandlly ss mey tn thi tec montthnd 8 was that thatad to change, and, in fact, in some quarters, it really changed, and i some quarterst'sot cnged coale erbe. hro, follow-up? >> caller: 70 years old, so i saw a bunch of stuff, but i abmo gsutnothway orther pocaufoin, opy,nd rh i th ireor incomplete. once in awhile, a little gem comes through, and i'm elated espeally w it someone nget n ir

vae, i ti ouemhe t ppng ov tshe ti lianng. my question is and i hope you surprise me, what new nepapers shou i read? >> guest: well, i don't thk m ingosuseouut inkys w ul eving d read one newspaper a day, which is what peopleid when i was growing up, those days are over, a they shld a ofheepe anr oorlol bin ndy,s ohose television news shows simply were not broad enough. i think that americans have the grtest opportyth inet awi atwo y ought to be reading four or five

newspapers coming at you from different points of vi. for example, ifou ok pe patst jal because it has a conservative ban. if i'm a true liberal, how can do i firm pit d wcovas iad twatr? yoimewo daily news," the "new york post," a i listen to the bbc or get it online, and i lookatid riofleon pra yobb theheve in an important issue from a variety o sources, you can begin decide foryourlf ha hri rty

ow lev had before. >> host: anna quindlen, author of nine non-fiction boks, a inouiv o ," rngng feoruap life, loud and clear in 2004, imagine london in 2004. being perfect in 2005. od dta ,nd ir lof lele c 2. yeuture non-fiction book? >> guest: i don' never say never. i thought i wasne w n-ior ane peit toknd departmented to be a full-time novelist. when i wrote about stepping

aside because we need to make re room forou, n esdierat t avefeexan of an american was 68. i thought that was shocking. mean, peoe w w are 68 ar tmehe anfurou en l ct -- expectancy is 80. wegained 1 years. at explains theifnc d waop ihe 5 s, 7arinw. al t'set i ed tlo ipr a hence this book. >> host: this e-mail from elizabeth in philadelphia. your mother must be smiling av elementary school, and do you

use an e-reader? >> guest: i did write a book for elementary scolgirls called"hlyrte t ackttl g d ki ry l s hi bks when my kids were kids bringing them into the process which was really fun and teresting. s, i do use a eea u kp mad ipndo s pca ok i get sent a lot of bks that are not going come out for mo, o coue,'mixor sen adthnsirm re l ini' thoiowaee and re-read or pass on, i always get that. sometimes i get it in digital form, t i alwaysget it

ys f amveut om cwein t di, i have that on the ipad, and i also have it in physical form. >> host: thornton, a communications specialist at purdueniversity e-mails how exens aouis h hrouctti g:oh i h h itin ny different ways. one of the reasons i'm ae to write dialogue ts rst usen my eiri itpe's sn atnotksdat s --ir o hs unta that synx is highly individual and very scriptive. sometimessecetome om a rs mlsu m hecknd o reae, but also it

just helps me understand the way people talk, and gen tct mofyeaski or,ni them into a thousands and taking a thousand words and turning them into 800 and 800 into 500, i know how to keep myrig. cuing messt potdgatev nd w kwere little learning to write, i talked about throat clearing. there are moments in prose where you are not advancinghe story. deptof ccting e thlng knwoke tro ea fly most valuable thing is to write wh you don't feel like writing. there's no writer's block in news rooms. 's n posbl we hto t o am

iew ,n in,on the most common questions i'm asked is about writer's block, and the truth of the matter is i don't get it. i write reallyooy says, but i wreoel dandyoist y n'itr cle d g: no, i'd be happy not to write. i hate to write so much because i'm always backstopping myself and saying, oh, thisis rrible. 'sng withu? ell w tad t wh, yow when i'm not out of town giving a speh or something. there'stretches of months where there's nothing on my at:3 omo,ndher tn uprs oe snco ulty. host: mj with a couple

tweets. do editors ignore authors they never heard of, d the llweet iyore atio aed's g: ,eron leckeomedto people, and actually, i know of two cases in which it's worked, and you ouldave gid yormfylsut ike ttnterests, the things that clearly make them want to wre. acleenctnd heo rnihe end. ugto find ten books that really float your boat, got to the acknowledgement section and thnchenkswamretnddi is.

atroyod wof inu 'snt nto sf the editors i know all have young, first reade who read the first 20-30 pag of the scri thacome ioldand en t t orog ointoade rest of this and let you know, and occasially read the rest of it and say you should take a look at this, it might be for . you know, myag o - j secr mntld ri reader read it. my agent read it. i think she sold it. it was the boo the ruth sold it wiin a day tcait soofudsh eares sdha. >>stte i m editor at randonhouse fm the very

begiing. awdioo batllmpd e teoh oe eth t she says and do if, but i would say probably about 70%, but at this we gn tthe really kne. ndl o ee orndnt a ur friendship, which is considerable, and that is when i look at the book after it's in print, im, most of theme suted.atat hxt cro a ou l i the program this mont comes from temple, texas. edward, good afternoon. >>a: ten. >>lei'kean i'r.oo

i'm not familiar withany of the works by ms. quindlen. de, perhaps i took your statement wrongly, but it seemed to me you were discounting any of t opinions that men may have on tic. e he gs ti' to usit w orehe pro-choice philosophy when i point out to them that if a woma who did abhe han abonesa anymore children, that's out of the picture because of the pro-chce, aat s

thhift's b. e s te os rdhi got your point. anna quindlen? >> guest: theoint is if amaret, w t y o , ay ch b tsh an abortion, she gets to make that decision on her own. all i can say about that isne t hdhabh e tt imes, teo cleue t we face because it's not like anything else. all the attempts toanaliz hoalofdy to

another human being to grow and prosper is not like anything else onthece g gn rt attnsec is thywndy iat ve certain responsibilities in terms of how i treat myselfnd huumofigsauta an know tat it is something de ur mms contradiry apedn wch males were arguing about the jurisdiction. jurisdiction is here,d g m is

os lye-s doplye' back from the soccer game to hear the answer to this. been a big fan of yours ever since i heard you sak in lo nd ar a. prnth n -yolug w i y isr l da with a 12 noon soccer game. i'll catch a repeat. i feel i have a book in me, but i feel i c't sta towrit thout a l b stlra s. yeeat y y t y cr,an y vegens oc in follow to get started or to make it feel less overwhelming? i'm currently employed full time, turng 52, mrrie chen 2arnd yeld uellir ol, to make it feel less

overwhelming, don't think of it as a boo .. th d te tk tdppstsnhe bee s pe reporter, i always take it in bite-sized bits. bits. siwnnrof tou ths woay atit ucainounth wse h, bot gets writteuntil you actually write it down. but what you've got to remember is that what you're writing today may no be what's in the two years fomo so jtgo eouf. y ouf,h iwa

ayoouou k tan w. 'shing, if you do a thousand words a day for 85 days, you have 85,000 ws, at- nale i b sr e b n rti wi be, but you just have to make yourself do it. and be if you can get first sentence down on paper, ue actas tghou itinay ia. prit anyhow. you know, that idea that, you know, you're just noodling around here. this is not set in stone. just nude l aun u - odleroununl re kif g a ngodet >>t:l,"lnd enfe," 182 pages. how many words is that? >> guest: you know, i'm not sure how many words it is.

i thought it was a much loner bo -- foo leat aal 6 u a ihyo r i s. nioond t, oh, this one's so long. and then someone in my publisher's office sets it in a h dkn anwe tonightntnd nyds are on the page -- >> guest: i don't. if i hadto guess, i'd say that book isbout75,000 wors. age n i 8 e ouonr, 0, 1 >> host: so bleak house would be -- >> guest: however long it is, it's not too long. >> host: just an hour left with here atlt o t ermerl

uewh realized my kids could read, it was one of the most exciting moments of my life. beuse it enabd toan an blet em m anf se anh we talk about books, we are not always talking about books. sometimes we're talking about ourselves unrcover so that was ancrle buenhar tte d ibeui c ha ty e very discertain bl writing voices which, of course, is the key to being a successf writer, it wasmang. inege cto c om sai mov and i said, what novel? because he'd done the who thing withouever telling anybodhe was going i

it - woing wainmeorcio iny one 'st,sus an incredible moment when your kids can do something that you know is challenging and can do it really well.

and we are back live at our new york udio wit author anna quindlen. nine nonfiction books,six bn s, our guest. put the phone numbers up on the screen in case you would like to call this andta with quen. cutlnot ic -otfin. t. anngut it? >> guest: no, it's stillind of mushy in that way. i'm about 70 or 80 pages in, and you don't even rllynow exacy it'gotobe ,m,nu'wh bot le he

>> host: um, do you when you are writing a book, do you, do you change it? will it ghang thrghou plhainr hou cngehe g: alyoar the plot as the characters develop. what usually happens with me a from reading the memoirs of ot i k eits i know wie antotmu keeping that dramatic string taut through the middle, but -- which is, in fact, anissu-- is at hnsho gm , kn thhe arerur fft rs. a novel there are evenore than that. so it's, it's those choices you make along the way that you

don't ticipate uil you're we int theook, tyo h t- f pp ya pigeon in oregon, i had great hopes that the success of the feminist movements would make society and especially the woplace more humane, t akirntt ad ntrenwe n. , yindot pp instead, women seem to have been forced into the same mold as men with ever-longer hours, adopti coue engtm mindfetsrk ur tgh >>sterth from? >> host: klamathalls, oregon. >> guest: hend i are going to have coffee together because he absotelyightbo oftyieinid wngthene

mystique" which began some of thisin a relatively short period of time we've changed so much. hat enigt.hat means ishate ar dct men woase and mother alone. and then you go to an antithesis, and that's woman doesn't care about being a wife, anwe t wd.osnabout being d tu cupit of oe rye odnd ohe new ways are really terrific. let's try to put them together. but given the fact that it's been a latively short perd im n oor stsiweta d waat hot oo te trke nd it safest and most productive to at some level mimic their male lleagu. edvipait lrbethro

me swe d i for paternity leave, and i said, why not? i mean, i was doing what i thought was the obvious ing and what some the guys around me tht wathio n in d llaiim aitav a ly gh sdha. >> host: did you have to rescind the offer? >> gst: somebody else had to rescind the offer. it wasn't policy at that point. at that point in time so i nkt te s thneon ople who are now in their 2 and early 30s. they've grown up in a completely different world, they seoe emoerh anththeaal h ipaecf wangir parents for a

better worfamily balance. what that means is that i hea deir nert ho a kthngo , owa 80-hour weeks, and that's not including the time at home when you're on your iphone or youromputer. if what they're saying toous wewet ock t wo a0-eknk atesot sense. so i'm hoping, bayard, stay with me here, i'm hoping tthen leshosns mmore women esunopn pe, ts b erincthe w ight oso miein a ceenronmen >> guest: um, sometimes i do. when a big story baks, i ally misnoteingn a i in ago d b

ic a ce we a saido me wuld you like to go our newsroom? d i said, would i! and so i popd i eeme neomexngfd t tetor hohave wn office. >> host: little less than an hour left in our "in depth" progm, and the next call comes eu, an ir al t yorak with you. tak i'm originally from the newly-independent country of south sudan, africa. mom a ia aicin 95afte dd r. fiboddinom o eues u cu a artio feminism. and molestation and rape that

giwhven r.bf see. [inaudible young glsdme a scgeomspngut icin cni ties [inaudible] you're considered corrupted man, and you'resed ry b nug. n medrve il. elyro aut women issues and addressing them, but sometimes i question myself if i am strong enough to handle the criticism and consuenc that whicouu metho mericnder

s or r it w fom peisimited and run the risk of being unmarried, run the risk of re, discommunication and hatred? thank you. g: k schd wosaha dte t se le ftnd issues that need to be taken care of, american women need to remind themselves every day thathey don't fferith ny ohe plemsm, tt "tewk s"e or ers p t g woman in afghanistan who was speaking out about beg raped, and yet her someing n't ne auts,f wju htolr. atorli ily yehsf the government won't do so. so in countries around the world deh sinmeiwomenhoare facing

omtiec o b im tel and, you know, the one thing i would say to you about being afraid, um, about putting the book out there and about needing the strengthhich nsabs erf meat wluan isriheld inoelin ts n one els cares about this, nobody's going to respond to this column, i am alone on this. and then ioupublh t mnda wdpo yopea,han anou d tr m k f ngic those of us who sometimes feel voiceless. dindhihauresponsee he yo wd atrewa a

community out there th would say the sme. >> host: another e-mail from janveg, tis from linda i toea li, ope my freshly-broken heart to the truth that reading like -- reading the likes of sherwin wofuokdoldoedn a yr thstfe.cr dey w o we alwed to internaliza person's loss and keep them alive in my everyday life. and sherwin newland is one of aus yot,t untaheldlus >>ste mnt s inou a mnat ad freentlciteo me. it was a column that iwrote after my sister-in-law died about the nature of grief. ned'sooho h, im erwi

cn. s tav pde la ppleor which i'm deeply grateful. and i do have to say, you know, i said earlier, you know, i hte to write, it drives me czy, t oat wg . abwrg hau agsoatxamp, there are a number of times in this new book where through words i invoke my ther. en wha slon . toabo hae e aowh i do. >> host: '94, that's 16 years ago. somebody still remembers -- do you get that from time to me? leoninny g thlif t b or

mention it. >> host: do you enjoy book tours? >> guest: you know, i moan and drone about them, wall s lyseboinn anouw,ve america iso longer as pleasurable as it once was. and sleeping in hotel rooms can get old when you want to be at me. sead y k, thtundhe s er toasst ntc. att i ry,ea good. >> host: longtime fan e-mails in: i'm very interested in what her take is on errick nc hhednwh em b contry to the christian ideals espoused by these leaders. >> guest: totally corary. i mean, if y're going to pretend to folw the messe of eeweenhe w

rre yois t , oners ulve uo love your neighbor as yourself, and if you have two coats, you give one to the man who has none. d i allyeel that the ag t ntais atlleoe lal eayleto bve at k o institutions including government have a moral imperative to take care of those who can't take care of themself. and i asthein gohran sleea kery'sth o. an rea christianity as a call to community. and i just d't wn' lod mer i i ou prhe w ed h. yno iulel a cizenf i

discounted elderly citizens who didn't have enough to get by. so, um, me pro to be a be thventfm, t r ze socl security to civil rights. but it is tied to my faith, and i don't understand, , on eyt ihe n stt sstat anriesd view that everybody needs ttake care of themlves is front and center. ost a b siin a aucealmaf uedes. youknow, sometimes i'm asked to speak at all-female -- frequently i'm asked to speak at itcangm0om nations.

buwo a roio nr he ople w really, rally love my work enough to come out to a book signing, for example, are fele. and then every time isay that, so nicman t owd ra hannd sut meo ououin' >>t:lln d, adiou qioor anna quilen. anmsme eas fm the mesll with us? pe.ied o nstae, if alexander hamilton were alive today, he'd just say the congress, just tell eder resve abo t thonrkcahe an coaster would say, look, politicians know how to end

money, but they don't know how ay s. a0-ov t'slftme minor >> host: thank you, phillip. and we will move on to becky in ra,a.rs --eded , becky. becky, you with us? we're having just a little trouble, if we could tell washington we're having a little troubl withbeck isais ti a y ct ift or. ucre cleof itugf e tim? i'm a conservative who read the a section and the op-ed daily for years until rcently. i came to feel that the tmes is thra j iiiao

>> guest: um, i don't agree th him about the news columns. i think at no one should be surprised that the editorial pa ofthe w yois, cautfor not reading "t new york times," it calls out for balancing "the new yor times" withot newaper ascad onyivue , exe,n any gen night i will watch rachel maddow who i think is one of the smartest people on tv, and then we will switch tfo news us'sllpo t wevneyi oume pcuss oosard you're a newspapereporter. you're putting a story together,

sos hahort notice withhe be mes geca ion mes ses asi u,u'otfitl somee people who will talk to you are not the people who provide the most balanced view. sometimes you just didn't it storls co in,hitoo er rbed t theut omel new product every 24 hours. but the truth of the matter is with the web now reporters work much moreike wire svice rterinhatthe gi apng adi hestve cef anen'rint, inevitably you're going to make mistakes. i will put "the new york times"' correction column against the backstopping tt stio imes. iwnprt. cayoon s ol t oou k american

corporations saying, oh, and by the way, we sort of messed up with that product. it didn't turn out to work ver well. t thtidoha e y. ce atss t u t you ought to balance it with two or three other things. >> host: becky, cedar rapids, iowa. go ad, y'r tir >>lei. i adurks t. ale , and i've just finished "lots of candl and plenty of cake." i reallynjoyedt, but my thrfpedthis, do you have any rfwo benheor lkanheme a yt. uld you just share one or two of your faults? >> guest: well, there is a whole chapter in there about the fa that i had a prolewi

pr l.koo aur] d d k tifoud it dspassionate eye, what youee is somebody who's good at some things and not so good at others. anuesse viueldbe ateey eth gst mod a h ylsveha u stonurd any point. we're not going to ask you to do , don't worry about that. >> guest: you know, this entire tour i'veorn almost noin trsee dn ma p ve, ie guifaseg sl.cese ty >> host: did anyone ask you to? >> guest: no. [laughter] >> host: okay. next call comes from 'em mets burg i i'eama man many books

in my life ever since i learned in school that i was a much clater reader than most of my irteou leswh than pet u dld enough to be your mother, but i'm a liberal christian who spent my morning in church. m abt readyo at tha whao men amalheenol aio and the fella that called in and said these poor guys that have to raise children that they didn't wt, why didn you say to him, t asey ou whanurd u' t ninteg t rv i would call -- >> host: all right, thank you. all right. we'll just leave ihere. [laughte >> guest: or, or not even a sey, a and beseon tw d mr t

en on c-span. [laughter] >> host: probably not. but i did want to ask you, we are here in nework. dien ts. a lf pble he exorcois twe vealab 9d bo cled in the about it. as a new yorker, what did that mean to you, and does can it mean anything now nearly 1 ar somein allfus go o cs,heod wouldn't ask me for a picture id before i went in an office building. or i would be walking down the street, and a planewoul co ealond w so p. whr s ul ths ran osveosf in new york and in washington, too, because of the pentagon that i

don't ink the rest ofhe counycompte ses beuse 'sotttn thytrihe 's dncngor me, um, when i'm down by the river to suddenly see a building in thatpot because first i got ha tigtheytuto i anw e ng g used to having a new, um, new building there. but, i mean, i just think it ve usuchrofodenseof eritm, ttwe c tnwe o dec esa t l g ith way. it's not that it's gone, it's just that it's more offed. morpd. loyilaermata

at tasfyone b pe way that's not true anywhere else on earth. >> host: a little less than a half hour left with or guet this month on "de" a kainlis d. cosa toy.jth i ve t quiuesons for you. when i was in high school, i was trying to read "gone with the li wenlma os iel rto 'tke . dmy dmr wa saido me, you know, you don't have to finish it. and that was a whole new concept to me. tois.ta ndeerold thai borind a my sndquon,o you ever read books that are just for fun? i call them t readers fo the

brain? notrnalntenut t topu d tagon y ar uei tllse okrp beci used to think of those as the kind of book that i would buy in paperback, take on a plane, and bee i k o afaas long enough adi tavin seocin f oh a atowho o t yo know, i used to say a lot o them were mysteries, but the truth of the matter now is there's so many excellent writers writg myery novs, oomreo nis mry li caow rankin or p.v. james. i mean, they're terrific novelists even though therere mysteries coned he bee rsiimerno tifeer io pup o

leck i kind up reading mysteries then. and for years i had to finish a book, no matter how much i tosooisoon' rkfoha tni i ink it was probably about ten years ago, about the same time when i suddenly stopped caring what anyone thought about me, around age 50, th i w crsh cstriwhai n'dend w ye yoeadoli i y t wpean nt back and forth with her on that, and eventually i decided that it was, in fact, acceptable for me sometimes to not finish bustfiitllha oh osigck wrf okatlde olmmoea but aren't beach books, this is anna quindlen's list.

g: he wrf it m, w say that course. so many people love, as i do, 19th nt er bat,-m sl ismdy ea ,nnouar much too

accomplished to sayrom my sister and i as you did a few minutes ago. anr.d wifne east cas irish bee oheesve imposed by the encyclical on marriage and partly because i just didn't believe that stuf anore. ieso cni idy eishu tinnre t th a.obee >> guest: well, i couldn't say it better myself, and thank you for the grammar correction. sometimes when you're talking off the top of your head, cooler headseed pilm eler tou t t uat g r quenomro lillian in highland beach, florida. lillian? her: he .chance foril.

osle gea s,reliinam al it y , 8year-old canadian woman who's loved anna quindlen for years, and i'm delighted to be able to tell her so. but ileeh opn noatou not at the nepape youave a responsibility to do something whichis an aivico op e le llutsnd , tvi people who are telling lies. actual lies about the conditis of abtion t ction mehoein op uand wneo ecso that we all feel

that we are listening to truths. asmonedha ahis i't fmini, i'mot a masculinist, i'm a humanist. and i feel that we're dealing with human iues. thheehu anoito ec is der any re, will we become real human beings. but i'd like you to taken- >> host: thank you. liian,e'lleaveit er nain. ueweum hs re naic outts taking on some of the big lies of demagoguery whether it's political demagoguery or, , itagry trehib hargatatoct

presen de, d athe end of it they will fact check various of the contentions that have been me by the candidates. but i do agreehathere i unhs aditi he ash rin w n in all these areas so that we can recognize the big lies. i an, in a democracy reading thesing mor t e. 's irt ng userdh'rin to and because of the internet, we do have a historic opportunity to inform rselves about what's g: ge eotwrttheor dl march." her real name was mary ann

evs, but -- when you think of the fact tt sten bldri aju" de ad y n sve been out of print, and people read it today as though it's as vivid and as empory as whejane wot 2 se hi . 'sssh "middle march" is, in many ways, almost the perfect novel. the ore thing about george elliot is she was a great teectualnd a grete onsntou ast ct tepl hex dveay ftta ndsh w h because, as i say in the book, um, she was not an attractive woman. even tt,m rey-ag ra o anis some sense -- in some

sense it was both insulting to her and liberating because ther was the sense that she was goin to have to nd seray e g s t ed ilie,, , wa astibed omng sex object, um, in that way. and i always felt when i was a little girl th i sody sofd g-u f 50ar, d f o roprs d of rns why i haven't been as bothered by the signs of physical aging as some of my contemporaries is because i felt like i finallyrew int ofa apoogi o osouotf le tyakou io yly x visit. >> guest: i do. >> host: some filler visits? >> guest: it's funny. everybody seems to think that

this is so significant, a i ize 'sau yb esut ery a me iwiit h to yw, iver, if i ever had anything done, i would probably do x, y an z, and i'm looking at her going, oh, my d, who areeiddihe gh d us tht w g ri ahaut fanuthe is develop in terms of aging, i had to take note of the fact that about ten years ago i had these two big lines in between tht okik win dd th . en ioato m lyrmogist, she said, i can fix that. and so she did, and i did. >> host: next call for anna quindlen, about ten minutes left ourrome fm dgintay h. asu on sehe

>>leooten. 'slee al you, anna. i think of myself as recovering waallyep hao, whose chilood anat t o g ed i2t century -- [inaudible] and it was really quite a terrible form of abuse in that it took decades for meo ho ly bfe b . w, sl kul is horribly masculine, that it goes back and it's rooted in the old testament. blrior ho hnme usrl run by -- culture. run by authoritarian, dictatorial males. and i thk that's sllee

grd we ow in w,as iwornt r ar ano sossp chasing, futilely chasing drugs and drug dealers all over the country. yet when i came toiny o xpncwh ieo scinop hae uswoan creha uletuc hn happenstance. there was no real focus on it. i don't think there's any real focus on it today. i think it's an absolute dirace that women don't fee sa ihiun a t arftesheey h aig tas thomas, let's leave it there. >> guest: well, i actually would argue that things are better for women, um, in that area i hav a goo nds a whhesttd ith si, y couldn't bring a rape prosecution unless you

had a third party witness. i assume ideally a priest o liic shi d nk i tk e i ,, ise osiowowh are being abud, and even of kids who are being abused although nowhere near enough for the kids. umoue tthyo amta. ati atas ed , i was educated by a very, um, progressive order of chns, e sis ofhly d t mst i anthfo mrsat de the dfference for me. if i'd had to be ruled entirely byevus i wdnha h nctboth

anqueniso h he sin an unredeemed captain by john demos, the second sex, and the power broker by robert caro. jo demhenem ai ueiferinha thefuors"hichd was published early, earlier this year and reflects about three years' worth of reporting in maislumhich jt th peoondgo f art by these huge billboard-type signs.

it is the most astonishing nonfiction novel since truman te wote"ildoo wh obo t i wht leam it, and i've been talking about it because it's really an astonishing piece of work. beautifully, beautifully wrte ad the repors boorneore ia immensely appreciated how readinghanged my life. i closed my independent store last august, a victim of the ecy, e-booksnd e on lof re ien st at y >> gst: well, you kn, it's -- there are cities wher i used to go on tour that were anchored by an independent bookorewhere onoupp andogo tr te

th dav an indie bookstore. you know, people will say why do you guys always goo denver? we, o ove anetth oder wh y tnsit wellbecause of rainy day books. so independent bookstores are invaluable, and one of the things that i'm very excite bed abouis t -ciab neta ondeenl stwhis inashlle and, apparently, is doing quite well. so i'm hoping, um,that we cann only cle somedi iree upal e eepnt okstores have closed? have local libraries picked up the book tours at all?

>> guest: well, libraries and indies always had iommoth ctt wy, h, imehmb o lar hee t w ias kid saying you liked heidi? try "little women." i mean, they reallyshap my reading bavio thilphfr lry au eents but indie bookstores are still a follow crumb for literate people in communits nt toknow at ad, ae'otto epem ae. >>t:yr, el, nto booo clubs. she says our group of women met in a class 20 years ago and have continued toeet weekly around taas in a na veadnu o t msin'serst

we represenseveral commitments and are in our 50s to 80s, whato you think of reading groups in general? >> guest: oh, th're the best. mearyme onys ane, sth, cawhut fft esret t ifferent book clubs represented. and,n fact, when i wrote ne true thing got in draft about a mother and daughter durin the nal nthsf thhe fedit sme edheteinin thak-stveay that makes how they are with each other and how they learn to be with each other more vivid. so i created something called the goen goo ak ubremas tine htow c thheredio al about. because, of course, when we talk about books, we're never really talking about books. we're talking about ourselves. and that'sy book clubs are so

eat cathmenround atle e tinint ttey cut stho tr l >> host: burbank, please, go ahead, mary. we've got a few minutes left. >> caller: um, hi, anna. bun s prr ha vens hkeew jersey, and i loved it. and i know that you live there because i saw you speak at, i think our local bookstore and also at lry yo lgnerky. leobndwhut.o >> guest: we left about, um, 13 years ago. our three children were al alady ing ol n rk c s i sep omob tnhn y d ger oc

s were increasingly in manhattan. li nker eerinife t he cgehe s soidha sd come home. and that's what i did. >> host: and this is an e-mail from peggy sage in joplin. it iatou/le cande uso ndor w bfe hbac >> guest: oh >> host: i want to thank you for your writings, i lost my mother, too, at age 19. your writing on grief has helped me. how readchged lfe sts wer get. is this, doeople relate to you in that way? >> guest: s, constantly. i mean,eople will come up to me anday, oh, my boys ahe

reerdi t ybo "e th0s myheed w young, too, and there's really a sense of people wi say to me sometimes you've been writing my life. and what say to tmi prinomonn stn'ow ywe osnnin, a yo currently reading, and what is on your summer reading list? >> guest: what am i currently reading? i'm justinisng ng the di try heoi d tsrll kn a lot of the tudors, it's an area i'm interested in. doessterful job ney.llin ar thum pbl g ea n ced af wonders."

it has been getting a lot of attention. d ivereobro cenlve id e will be rding it sometime this summer. >> host: and barbo in dallas, you are probably our last caller. just a few minutes left, g ea alle gmog,nk u. , ntte yav adumofr bs. dm souc r nor ts"nho our political views probably differ somewhat. i consider myself a conservati. i believe we should have safety netsor people, but i just want to tl n- bo loodk. it tpago b re a pe,o i'vever gotten into th e-book thing. i love books and thank you for all you've done. and you're on my bucke list, mu: , k sohave a nneray

d dnt ic i nstian rain ng c tto each other with as much humor and respect as you just spoke to me? i meaomes i wsh icovenas heripe. >>t:yove g: ve s nstiveriends, t i live in manhattan. [laughter] you know, this is the ancestl home of liberals. in fact, ang some of our friei'monsired nd of de. viotrt en un h ahallwa omllan t t is from dallas. french girl. wonderful, have you done dallas thit mk igr d ,t av gin ecr ttd. >>st, 'se. xa aatla f books. i have not done dallas. the last time i was in texas,