is basically training us for college and life and stuff. >> thank you both very much. the book is called "fatherhood," rising to the ultimate challenge, the author is former nba player etan thomas. >> robert graysmith recalls of her mark twain's friendship with thomas sawyer, a customs inspector and volunteer firemen in san francisco to he would immortalized in the adventures of tom sawyer. the two met when 28-year-old mark twain befriended mr. sawyer over cardin drinks. during these casual meetings mark twain got stories about his use. this is 45 minutes. [applause] >> i actually left my cave. in the mornings i get up and it is oregon and i have a desk for

writing and the desk for drying and i like drawing better. and i work and anything in letterman's office is the most exciting adventure, ten books and believed or not i am 30 ahead that i haven't even shown, all illustrated, i am just having such a great time doing this stuff. they asked me what did i -- what were my prerequisites for writing a book and it has got to be simply a i say i am going to write it takes 15 years, i've had books take that long, i am going to finish. the other one is it can't be another book. i like subjects that have never been touched where you have the challenge of going back and digging and bringing this to life and the rule i have is tom's lawyer or mark twain came back today they would say how did he know that? that is my biggest joy. i wanted to know the name of the dog and the story of san

francisco, wind directions, which shop burned, everything that went on, as alive as i possibly can. the way i got this idea, it was 1991 and i was reading, it may have been already -- a little tiny paragraphs about boy firefighters back in 1850-51-52 who ran with the fire engines. in those days, no street lights, lots of hills, they didn't grade anything. the water engine these men kerri were thousands of pounds, 40 to 60 or 80 men pulling this. they couldn't see where they were going? the streets like quicksand. i reproduce pictures of people singing. they had guys riding their wagons and horses and were sucked down and they found them in the spring. that is how bad it was. i thought to myself, they carried fire to the fire, running with their porches and i thought that is such a poetic occupation.

i can't believe nobody has written this and i got to looking and found out the city had burned down in 18 months, please 16 months six times by an arsonist so i thought who is this guy? i got to find out. so i'm a true crime writer and that is what i went after and one of these firemen to, i read an interview, was tom's lawyer who told -- robinson i think was -- that he had run with the very first volunteer fire department in california and that was robert moline. back in new york where tom was a runner, for july, he had been in competition with broderick and when he came west to make his fortune he basically wanted to be a senator. that was his plan and he became a senator and tom came along and an assortment of the weirdest guys you ever saw, the world's ugliest man, heavyweight champs, gunslingers, con men, absolutely

amazing people. i got to write this. as i am working i realize we are very close, tom sawyer actually match mark twain 1863 about three blocks from here, the old building, in a steam room, and mark twain liked to talk to tom. they played cards and drank beer and played dice. that was the genesis of it. this has got to be written. all these years of finding little bits of pieces of diaries and stuff. this is the results. i took out 40,000 words. can you imagine? that is how i overshot the mark. i do love it. is fun. and i guess i could reduce some now if you like. it may take a second. i have never read in public before. i will start with a quote from tom sawyer and this is an

interview with viola rogers. i have to read this. you want to know how come to figure in his books, do you? he turned on his stool, acknowledged the report, raised his brandy and took a sip. they were speaking of mark twain. we were both on of telling stories and spinning yarns. sam, he was mighty fond of children's doings and whenever he saw a little fellow fighting on the street he always stopped and watched him. then he came to the blue saloon that he used to go to at night and describe the hole doings and i tried to beat his yarn by telling what i use this play when i was young. listen to these francs of mine. with great interest, occasionally taken down in his notebook. one day he says to me i am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days. go-ahead, sam, i said but don't disgrace my name and. that is an interview with the

real tom sawyer in october of 1898 so he gave multiple interviews. this is the prologue and this will give you an idea what he is talking about with the steam bath. it was the first times lawyer had ever seen mark twain looking glum. he studied as a journalist. he had fiery hair, long lethal looking cigar and mustache. a lanky man, mark twain did not really what but slouched his way through the muddy streets and back alleys of san francisco. normal dress was careless and disheveled, his clothes were not brushed and freckled with tobacco. at this moment, his chest a forest of matted hair, with one leg link from the arm of a chair, mark twain's eyes blinded like an eagle through sopping browse. this rainy afternoon in june of

1863 mark twain was nursing a bad hangover in the steam rooms half way through what was intended to be a two month visit to san francisco that stretched to three years. sleepwalking journalists regularly went to the turkish baths to sweat out any dark thoughts of suicide attempt asians which were not uncommon. at the bat he played any at the with the proprietor and sawyer, the recently appointed customs inspector, volunteer firemen and bonafide local hero. in the clouds of boiling seem he was mending his own wounds bowed his were from a nearly fatal ordeal aboard a burning steamboat a decade earlier. in contrast to the lanky mark twain, sawyer was a stocky round faced metamorphic. his blue eyes were comfortable to gaze into, his hair was a disorder haystack, dark brown

shock with sideburns, his chest with her and this and his body smooth, well nestled but without definition for two men. in comparison to mark twain, his mustache and goatee when not impressive. sawyer wore a coat of smoke and soot which as the three men played poker, the hot steam gradually watched the way. beneath their bare feet, an ancient secret tunnel and under that, a huge rack on which the massive four story granite building floated. two doors down was a distillery, two doors up was the gold wave facing devastation at half a block away was the bloodstained ground of murderous corner. he departed va c 42 month visit to san francisco to visit bill briggs, the handsome brother of

john briggs comment and a former classmate. mark twain habitually passed hours at the posh round room floor and barber shop and basement steam bath on montgomery street. a thorough very light and to just like being on main street in had a land being old familiar faces. the extensive chunk of granite known as the montgomery bloc dominated the southeast corner of montgomery and washington streets. number 722 and 724, montgomerie had been a gold rush tobacco warehouse nickelodeon theater and now the turkish baths where he hardboiled with firemen sawyer and another good friend. he studied his cards and have to a bottle of dark beer. a few glistening droplets in the mustache and he left them there.

and he could reportedly killing at 30 yards. he had become addicted to them as a cub reporter. he contributed his own clouds the roiling steam. mark twain bought the flavored ropes by the basketball for a dime and by the barrel for $4 including the barrel. for his guests he bought them in distributable square boxes of 200. he awoke two three times and right to smoke and held his cigar poised in the air and a few hero whiffs and scattered the vapor with a long sweep of his arms. mark twain had acquired a taste for steam baths in virginia city and while laboring under bronchitis at the serious cold that the minimal waters, and eight miles northwest, but the row between virginia city and

steamboat swings and a distance of seven miles. over the first daylong line of 9 beautiful columns the bottom constricted large house debate in. he likened the jets of steam needed for fissures in the ears with steamboats. they made a boiling, surging noise exactly as a steamboat did. he enjoyed placing them in a handkerchief and dipping them where they would soft boiled in two minutes or hardboiled in four depending on this move. sawyer of luxuriated in the hot mist, answered his column, the cards which were murky, and the baseboards were damp and the fresh bottles of dark beer were cold. in his 32 years slayer had been a porche boy. in the new york fire engine co.

no. 14. and the first fire chief. sawyer served with the other engine houses and toiled as a steamboat engineer flying the mexican sea trade. mark twain perked up when sawyer mentioned he was a steamboat engineer. the journalists, and danny boy who dreamed of shipping as a steamer or fireman, such a job he said knowingly has little drawbacks and the boiling steam room, he point out the furnace room where engineers standing in aerospace between two rose of furnaces which glare like the fires of hell and shoveled coal for four hours at a stretch. steamer and firemen did not live

on average over five years. sawyer survive twice that long because he was a fireman in every sense of the word. extinguished fires and stokes fires to fury. the new furnaces in every aspect of combustion intimately. the strong bid for out the bigger the fire should be, he explained. his face lighting up in the clouds of steam as he warms to the topic. of the fire's sickness is kept even and no hollow places are allowed to form under it, the furnace temperature gradually increases until a certain breath of fuel reaches a state of brilliant white incandescence. you can tell temperature by the cold's, within a few degrees. dull red means 1290 degrees fahrenheit. cheri read indicated 1470 degrees. orange and the temperature exceeded 2,000 degrees and white signaled 2370 degrees.

dazzling white meant the temperature was climbing far beyond the limits of the iron boiler and had to be damped down. before he abandoned the sea for good he had made a brief attempt at making a fortune in the gold mines with john mckay who did strike it big but not until much later. by then the bonanza was flushed. an unusual number of sailors headed to prospecting had been unusually lucky in their pursuit. fortune filled to smile on his efforts. he had gotten back to steam ship engineering as fast as he could. when he returned to san francisco 1859 he became a special patrolman on land and was appointed fire corporation yard keeper. he never realized his dream of becoming of a foreman of the hook and ladder company, it was all politics, he said bitterly, he achieved an equally lofty

position, he held the highest office in the city, literally, not figuratively, as fire bell ringer in the city hall tower. elevated 40 yards above the mayor. in 1862 because of his long experience fighting fires he was elected as delegates under the liberty those number 2. volunteer fire company helped organize a year earlier. february 18, '63 he replaced john rice as liberty host foreman. in new every byway in san francisco, every steep hill and twisting road. headstall wants the strong adherents of the rebellious and bloodthirsty vigilantes' had lived with his family on the top floor of the montgomery block since the building was erected over a decade earlier. before that he had the bad across the way. he was living there when james william, the self righteous muckraking editor of the daily evening bulletin was gunned down

out front. the issue was james kc, a former volunteer firemen with criminal pasts in new york. king brought inside the die was laid out on the counter. in life is huge head, heavy from so much brain will to one side. as he lay dying his head lolled over the edge of the beer stains table. when he died in room 297 of montgomery blocked a reborn vigilance committee lynched kc and set the city of flame. small still hit strong opinions. vigorously opposed to a number of his patrons especially the prominent lawyers and judges who were not to adhere to the law and order side. many were the heated arguments almost to the point the danger point that arose in that barber's chair. local author paul dean jacobson wrote when i first set foot in

san francisco in february of 1850 in the clouds of steam i wanted to be an engineer on a steamer. but got sidetracked performing the honest business of fighting fire and training a gain of ragtag adolescent boys to lead the engines with their torch's. the city desperately needed volunteers spent and these runners even more. sawyer's life-saving acts of courage had taken place on board a burning steamboat of which mark twain had a particular honor. the kind of dread that helped awaken a journalist at night and sent him shaking in clouds of cigar smoke. for that reason he listened attentively, sweat rolling down his brow as the story of fire and explosion on board the

steamboat independence in which hundreds died from hideous scalds. the steamer launched in new york city on christmas day, 1850 did not reach san francisco for the first time until september 17, 1850 one. the whistle a wide trail of foam and crashing her paddles with abandon, the independence and glided toward longworth, extension of clay and commercial street between alison's peer and clay street wharf. steam was screaming to the gauge cox, the cloud of white steam hanging above was normal. in such non condensing inches, exhaust steam escapes into the air like a virginia city hot spring. i will leave out the shipwreck which is pretty horrible not to spoil your evening, an amazing feat. , actually swam people ashore on his back through swarms of shark -- 90 people he was credited with saving.

i think about 150 died and were shipwrecked for a while but he came back to san francisco, and really made his mark and went back to see and came back in 1859. i thought you might enjoy this, chapter 1, that was the prologue. this is about when dave broderick came to san francisco to start a fire company and he was so charismatic that -- they came with him to be close to this guy. he had 49 when he called his shoulder strikers and they nudge people at the election pole and got them to vote the way broderick wanted in order to achieve the things he wanted, he became very wealthy. he figured out -- nobody was making money and if he made it $10 gold piece with a dollar's worth of gold he could live very well so he is now in san

francisco. it is christmas eve and he has seen the city for the first time. i will give you this little bit and see how this goes. in san francisco he awakened before dawn. he was not lonely. he had been such a beloved and charismatic figure in manhattan that many of his fellow firefighters trailed after him to san francisco. lying in bed he considered the range which had begun in early november and port without cease throughout december. early-morning stillness made him contemplate of. he was independently wealthy so what was he to do now? he leaned into the window wheezing, still recovering from the ellis he had contracted out bound from south america in which captain in the minds from serving his friend stevenson. pulling aside the maudlin curtain he saw the rain had momentarily stopped and the wind had faded away. the lull was a godsend.

northeast of san francisco four fifths of san francisco lander water permitting a steamer to shuttle up and down the streets and allow passengers to enter their second story city hotel room by window. the 50 inches of ice u.n. and shotgun blasts of black hail that soaked and pummeled san francisco all winter has not dispelled the fitful dreams of its citizens. they tossed in their beds inside combustible homes, heads with nightmares of what would happen when the life-saving downpour halted. they repose in front of their fighters listening to the faint clacking of sinkholes in which snakelike hits, they watch the clear glass of the lamp chimneys black and. instead of being warmed the feared the worst. they dreaded the high winds that would drive the soak wood to in

flammability and with neither water wells nor flame fighting equipment nor the inclination -- everybody knew san francisco would burn. four years earlier pittsburgh had been a disastrous fire but that was after dry winter six weeks without rain. san francisco's spring would be much different but the results would be the same. from his window broderick made out the end of the road where fog mounted and a trickle reforest coward. abandoned vessels had transported thousands of gold seekers who in turn had made the thousand ships orphans. broderick's hands were the calloused hands of a stonecutter. but practiced hands of a rough-and-tumble politician and consummate barroom brawler. during the night the ex firefighter had slumbered

fitfully feeling all around him billboards of cloth wall homes shaking and a rising wind. how strange the windy season past and how tightly it stretched his nerves. he knew the danger san francisco faced even if most of its citizens didn't want to know. as in most man-made disasters there were indications of the tragedy to come. someone burned the shades hotel in january. on june 14, 1849, two weeks after broderick first set foot in san francisco someone torched philadelphia at dockside. in a series of fires that got people to thinking, no action was taken. thinking was hard and a little frightening. as christmas approached people forgot to even think. instead the shelves of overpriced gifts based in fresh

water at $3 a barrel and curled up before their fires to shiver. none were willing to take the normal steps toward preventing the tragedy so feared and which broderick with his experience new was inevitable. instead they press their noses against windowpanes and watched black water flowed down the muddy streets to the shallow cove, a horse shoe shaped bite in the western shore filled with abandoned ships. i would like to say something about these ships. i have written another book that deals with these. entire city, 25,000 people between 1849 and 1851 but on board the ships, perfectly good ships, people got to the gold rush, jump overboard. there not going to wait a second, they're going to get up and mine the gold and left behind all these ships, 1,000 ships left, montgomery street

was the water line so on these ships we had 10,000 people. nobody had ever written about this so you have a gentleman with cows and servants and pigs and gangsters and refugees and deserters. it was absolutely to me the first real setting since the cow town where you have the fight down the middle of the street. is equally fascinating when it takes place at the same time. there's a scene in this book and this is a true story, tom realized if he rode in at night, he could find axes and all the things they needed to save san francisco and that is what he did. in fact afterwards, it was in the paper and other fire companies, eventually 14 volunteer fire companies as these six fires set by an

arsonist completely destroyed the city they immediately started rebuilding. unfortunately it was all the same kind of buildings that caught fire, the same problems with the wind and rain and it was thanks to broderick and his gang of 49 suggs, the ritter only thing that stood between san francisco and complete destruction. the fire coast, these buildings where the transamerica building is now, they were granite buildings with double windows and they saved the city but it took six fires and the capture of the arsonist and there's more to that story but that is when the fire stopped. to meet these men, we would not be here if not for broderick and his gang and tom sawyer and just incredible people. the interesting thing is every one of them met with a tragic end. they were shot down, deported, murdered in some cases,

broderick, these are really like peters says, rough and tough times with the toughest men, absolutely fascinating to me. i feel when i'm writing the book these are my friends. you look up and they're walking around in the room and i like to say you do it justice. i am not trained as a writer. i am trained as an artist. it is a the more difficult for me. i usually do 10 or 11 drafts can usually a 1,000 page book and then the hard part is cutting it down again. i will raise you the rest of this tiny opening. as of this dawn the day before christmas, 1849, broderick thought his terrible fox. in the breaking down that acts firefighters on the road come to life. he heard the calling of ducks and geese and tradesmen tramping

through the deep mud to portsmouth square. three sides of the square were taken up by the devil. gambling dens had thrown together hotels and drive time and in flammable kansas ruth's, nuzzling floors and oil paper walls and banneds who played music full blast. they were silent now. only on the fourth and upper side of the square had died taken a small coal in a small building where the rev. william taylor preached in thunder. the way of the transgressors is hard. the great calamity was surely to be called a great tinderbox called san francisco. reverend taylor was really wrong. the building material was all combustible a citizen complaint is friends back east, no fire engines, no hope or ladders and no water accept in deep wells.

is it not enough to make a very prudent man trembled? this president warned fire once again at the wind ridge side would be certain to burn the boom town to ash in an instant and he was right. christmas eve fire first appeared as the light of a candle in the second-floor window of a denizen's exchange, one of 30 gambling dens in the square and one of nearly a thousand in town. denison stood dead center of the fledgling city, and the east side of the corner of washington street, from roof to ground, this genie of all catastrophes was igniteability personified seated with cotton fabric and roof as roads are, even paintings on the canvas walls were executed in oil. throughout october and november,

the palace had stacked as an oil soaked rag ready to burst into flame at the touch of a match. 5:45 a.m. when the fledgling blaze was first noticed, a mild alarm was disseminated from the saloons, most of them had been preparing to open in five hours. virtually no wind stirred. that was unusual and fortuitous since the greatest threat to the city would be an aggressive wind off of the sea fanning the flames. at first the fire crawled as the alarm -- mailing across the square. the news was met by silence in the city hotel on the southwest corner of tourney street. there was a large adobe general merchandise store on the southeast corner and a crockett building on the northeast corner. by davies were busy hub is.

the gambling rooms and saloons had closed at new dawn and gamblers staggered home. it was silent at the scene francis hotel on the southwest corner of clay and dupont. all the guests were asleep. the only sign of activity was between play and sacramento st.. and laverne rising vegetable merchants and wine cellars setting up their stalls ridge whispered alarm, and absently took up the cry and passed it on in conversation, notice how prettily the fire colonels along the beams as he put his crate down in the mud. c healy house and bill union are on fire too. dogs began to yell and the tiny fire finally rang out. at his window broderick scared -- started at the first, observed ropy black smoke

curling upward. this indicated a fresh fire. from its color he could estimate its temperature from experience and he knew what a hot fire can do. recklessly he drags on his trousers, pull out his hide boots, clapped his hat on his head and rushed out in his shirtsleeves. the instant broderick reach of the square he began shouting, form a bucket brigade. fortunately in those days everything to the east of montgomery street was underwater. cold water lapped between washington and clay streets which ran from the northwest and northeast side of the square and rose half way on jackson. a few buckets were available that the brigade had to use canvas sacks, boxes and any containers that hold water. broderick used his half. i try to keep this sort. i personally love every part of this book. is always a little bit details. my drawings which i am proud of,

we didn't use them all. you can probably see they have millions of lines in them and i am pretty strict when i work. i don't like -- if i make a mistake i do it over. i am a bit of a bug on that. see if i can find that one. one of the things we did that is really unusual is i do have the mall. these are what they look like. i made a nice map and as you can see you are in this map, where the steam baths are. i wanted to use pictures of tom but they wanted to go with the drawings so we did that. there is one that the death of an exploding steamboat -- naturally i can't find it. this is my favorite person in the book, one of mark twain --

usually my pictures are sort of symbolic, taught him how to write. since 1863 they knew each other. it linked the two stories. they're sitting in a steam bath, telling all these stories and my favorite part and i probably will bore you, mark twain gives a speech about the future of san francisco and he mentions sawyer and hired him to laugh at the right spot but the part that i love is the part that is very serious, where have they gone, what happens to these men? and he sees the future of san francisco as bright, better than the best state and city of the world. i thought this is a wonderful piece of san francisco history which hadn't been told. i did find every mention of tom and tried to put the mall in here.

i find him to be an incredibly great and forgotten hero. tom got all kinds of legislation for the benefits of firemen, we had stories of a fireman who was depressed -- with a rough life, one was committing suicide and his last letter is to tom sawyer. tom became famous because of his connection with mark twain and he opened a saloon called the original tom sawyer's which is where the chronicle is. it is the southeast corner. when i came to the chronicle to be a political cartoonist in september of 1968, they were remodeling the building. they made us go to the southeast corner so for six months i worked on the third floor and the second floor would be tom's bedroom and the ground floor was

the original tom sawyer's which burned in 1906. this is a guy who never got credit. i wrote a book about the woman that was in the shower in psycho. that was not janet lee. was an actress and a model and a hush it up and wanted everybody to think it was janet leigh. in one year this forgotten woman, i heard first of all that she was dead. she had been murdered via a serial killer. i got to give credit. and she was cover of playboy, she was in francis ford--'s first movie, she was in the most famous scene in a horror movie in psycho, she was one of the first ten bunnies in chicago, she rode stallions with steve mcqueen. great store. i'm writing this book and they're always time-consuming and wasn't as personally involved so was not a successful book but it was a great story

and a great woman. i'm finding little clues that may be somebody else was killed in her place, i was in alfred hitchcock's shower in psycho so i went to the high school and they had gotten all together in las vegas and there was no date that there is a remark -- on a wednesday i figured out she is alive. i had been asking everywhere about her so i am sitting at my desk saying she has to be alive. i have written a book about a woman killed by a serial killer and she moved to the desert and she is alive. the phone rings and a voice says this is marlene -- it would have killed me did she had called tuesday. i always thought that is a cool thing. here's a woman who's forgotten, very modest, does that one year being a model and an actress and -- i like to do that. my other one that i enjoyed the

most was the bob crane story which became a movie autofocus and i went to the nevada desert. i try to keep my word with people, i will quote you write, i take everything. i went back with a suitcase, i had to buy the ticket, it was so heavy, this was a guy who had been murdered. we got a new trial after 17 years, new evidence, it worked extremely well. a fabulous movie. zodiac is on masterpiece and this one started great, william devoe, incredible job and they'll use a portion of my book but i thought i'm the luckiest guy in the world, i do love movies and we got an option for this new book. i can see that. big screen, the city in flames,

an incredible felon. i call him the light keeper. i got this idea because back when i was working at the stock room we had a guy coming, must have been 90 and got his picture taken and he was a sea captain and i thought myself he is really nailed it. i was not sure what i wanted to do and i thought look at him. you can feel the salt and everything and i thought that is what i want him to be like. started talking about these fires in san francisco and he says we call him the light keeper. i don't know how many people use that but i like the title and he would only strike when the wind was going away from telegraph's, they would light the torch is to the ships and stuff. i stuck with that name. i have a few things like that but when you find out the secret you will be surprised. when i am writing the book i found out who it was. at the end of this book for the first time in 1 50 years you will know the identity of the

man who set fire to the city and his motive. i can take questions. we have read enough stuff here. [applause] >> is a thrill to be here. it really is. special landmark. grades lloyd. hard to believe. i used to come and shot all the time and now i get to be here. thank you. yes? >> tell us about your research. >> i love my research. i wrote the first book on the unabomber. my way of doing this is i got up there while the cabin was still there and the snow was clearing and they built a fence around. i have pictures of the fbi, they tried to figure out taking this cabin away because we think there are bombs in it. they decided to fly it out and somebody said did you ever see the wizard of oz?

they built a road. it was months they were building roads on a mountain. i got to know the neighbors. i got in behind the fbi lines and got to stay with the neighbors and they would take me up on snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles. there's a big piece of wood and it has these mathematical symbols the unabomber had written. and he tried to get his brother to go in and lock him in and the neighbor -- they love this guy. i thought i would like to write a story in -- for get the unabomber, just this guy interacting with people, carving things, all black and smelling bad and ride through the town and the dogs chase him and he would get horrified and give everybody vegetables. what i did is went everyplace he stayed, all the hotels, rode the

buses, went to the library, we never figure out why the unabomber's bombs -- sometimes e-mail them to somebody, he would always have a return abreast -- return address to somebody else he didn't like so the bomb would go back. i had to know why ridge these things thisaddressed. probably not as big as this room, i go to the reference section, all the books for one or two years out of date. he had been going to this library and writing down the professors and geneticists he wanted to get rid of. i like that because i get 100 days to write the book and immersed myself. i saw a letter that his brother wrote to the lawyers say and we noticed similarities. i got a copy of the rough draft of the manifesto. i like to do that. as far as i know the next book, somebody else did a book on him

six seven years and it was about his time at harvard. i don't like to leave prisoners. it is all here. i want to give everybody their money's worth. that is another one of the reasons. thank you. very good. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv. send us an e-mail at booktv@c-span.org or tweak as at twitter.com/booktv. >> with a month left in 2012, many publications are putting together their year end list of notable books. booktv will feature these books focusing on nonfiction selections. attendees at the top ten nonfiction books. in the black count, glory, revolution, betrayal and the real count of monte christo john rice because the life of

chairman of -- the life of general alex bill haas. and 1100 mile bike along the pacific coast and explains how her travels changed her life in while:from lost to found on the pacific coast trail. in far from the tree, parents, children and the search for identity, national book award winner and drizzle and profiles the parents of exceptional children. richard lloyd perry, bureau chief of the times of london recounts the disappearance of a british tourist in tokyo. the ensuing investigation and long trial of a man accused of murdering her in people who eat darkness, the true story of a young woman who vanished from the streets of tokyo and the evil that swallowed her. in the remarkable life of julia child, bob spitz details the life of the famous chefs. for an extended list of links to various publications to 2012 notable book selections visit booktv's website