we are discussing salt -- "salt, sugar, fat: how the food giants hooked us". michael moss sat down with a booktv at the l.a. times festival of books to discuss his book and answer your questions. .. >> the venezuela general dubbed george washington of south america liberated six countries

from spanish rule. this is a little under an resource. there's so many friends in the audience so i'll pretend i'm by the fireplace at home with john and talking a little bit about this book. it's -- it's such a pressure to work on, and people find it hard to believe because it's not easy writing of a very famous leader on which everybody has an. and on whom so much has been written already. it's true there's 263 books in the library of congress, and i would say 90% of those are in spannish, but this is an

extraordinary life and a life that was lived in the largest sense, treechs through most of south america, and a life lived large in other ways as well. he was very dramatic and commanding personality. he was called iron ass by the soldiers riding 75,000 miles to liberate the six countries he liberated, really, an extraordinary physical feat if nothing else, but he also was a man of the enlightenment, someone who had been inspiredded at the youngest age of and came out of the experience, actually,

probably at about 20-21 with a very passionate sense of his country, the colonial yolk that it suffered or he felt it suffered under, and he was all for liberty and freedom, greatly admired united states and greatly add -- admired. there's the empire he did not admire, but this was he was a great womanizer. he had 35 mistresses, 37, i guess it was, 37 mistresses that we can count. after his wife who was greatly beloved to him died, he was 19

when she died, and he went on to pledge that he would never marry again, but that didn't mean he was not going to have a good time, and he did. he was a great dancer, loved music, said that he did the best thinking, really, on the dance floor, and whereas others needed to be away of the hubbub of life in order to think things through, he felt a ballroom with pretty women and dancing was the perfect place to think through everything encountered, and he would go back in the middle of the dance, a happy and elated and sweating in the middle of it, go back to the back room and dictate three letters at a time to dictate letters and then think more op his feet,

literally. i am often asked why did you choose to write about him? i have to say that in my whole career, i've. an editor for a long time, but as a writer, my whole career, i would say, has been to try to explain latin america and latin americans to english speakers. there's great, great differences and great divides of personality, heart between north americans and south americans, but every single book i've written has been another brick, i always say, in the the edifice of trying to explain who we are and how different we may think

from north americans. of course, you may say of a bicultural perp, and i see faces of whom i know who are bicultural, you know you think with two heads and feel with two hearts in between cultures, and i wanted a sense of the other side, the latin american side, which is so different and its history so different to north american english readers, so and brad's right i have always. captivated as a child by the bat 8. i-- battle. i was not a very well-behaved child, and very often dragged by my collar to sit in my grandparents living room which was dark and filled with fightenning porcelains and musty books, and i was made to sit

there in that dark, sort of chamber, to contemplate my badness, and i remember it as being on a hard stool, although my aunt and godmother, who is 83, bless her heart, says it was a big, soft, plushy cushion chair. i don't know about the memory there, but it felt like a hard chair, and i was made to look at the portraits that surrounded me, and one to the right -- sorry, the one to the left was my great, great, great grandfather who fought in the battle, a spanish brigadier general, and he was the first spaniard to charge and the first to fall killed with a sword to the heart right away at the very

beginning of the battle. he was on the left. on the right was a portrait of a wistful, beautiful young woman, and she was the daughter of him, by never met him. she was born a few weeks after that sword pierced his heart, and across from me was the rebel general that he eventually married at the age of 16, and the rebel general fought and charged down that hill, and with the forces, managed to free peru, and ended, by the way, ended all of spanish rule in

latin america. i always felt even though i was sitting there being punished for being bad, rebellion was great, throw over the old guys, throw over the yolk. i was fascinated ever sense. he was a towering figure, and i wanted to give you a sense of that by reading at some of what i wrote about who he is. exactly 200 years ago in 1813, by the time he began the admirable campaign, in which he was not known at all, he was known, and by the end of 1813,

he was known, really around the world, in washington, james monroe agonized over whether their fledgingly nation founded on liberty and freedom should support the struggle for independence. in london, hard bitten verett raps against the war were mostly irish fought, and in italy, the poet lord byron named his boat after boliva and dream of immigrating to venezuela with his daughter, but there's five more years of bloodshed before spain was thrust from lat -- sorry, 14 years of war and great bloodshed before thrust from latin american shores, and at the end of the war, one was accredited for single handedly

conceiving, liberating six nations, a population one and a half times the size of north america, a land mass the size of modern europe, the odds of which he fought the established world power, and the splintered loyalties of races would have proved daunting at the command, but he had never been a soldier, no former military training, and yet with little more than will and genius for leadership, he freed much of spanish america laying out his dream for a unified constant. despite all of this, he was a highly imperfect man. he could be imel pasoive, headstrong, filled with contradictions, spoke eloquently about justice, but he was not always able to meet it out in the chaos of revolution.

his romantic life had a way of filling into the public realm. he had trouble accepting criticism and had no patience for disagreement. he was single handedly -- excuse me, singularly incapable of losing a game of cords. they learned to sip human imperfections in their leaders, and boliva taught them how. as his fame grew, he was compared to george washington, called the george washington of south america, and there were good reasons why. most of them came from wealthy and influential families, both argument defenders of freedom, both heroic in war, but apprehensive of marshalling the peace, and both resisted efforts to make them kings. both claimed to want to return

to private lives, but they were dragged into the public sphere of shapes governments, and both were accused, as we all know, of undo ambition. those are the similarities, and it lasted twice as long as washington. the territory covered was seven times as large and spanned an astonishing geographic diversity from crocodile gung les to the snow cap mountains of the andys. unlike the war, could not have been won without the aid of black and indian troupes. the success in rallying all races to the patriot cause was the turning point in a war for independence. it's fair to say that he fought both the revolution and the civil war. perhaps what reallystguhe men ce

seen in the written work. washington's words were measuredded dignified, a product of a cautious and deliberate mind. his speeches and correspondence, on the other hand, were like jefferson's, firey, passionate, elegant, and beautifully wrote. they represent some of the greatest writing in latin america. although, much was produced in haste on the battlefield and on the run, the prose is leer kl and stately, clever, but historically grounded, electric, but yet deeply wind. it's no exaggeration to say that boliva's revolution changed the spanish language for his words marked the dawn of a new literary age. the old dusty single handedly se

time and in his remarkable voice and pen became another language entirely, urgent, vibrant, and young. you see, this was a man who represented, for me, and if i wanted to build this edifice of explanation of who latin americans are, boliva was really it because he represented the history that really defined the south america, and the revolution he fought was so different, in such contrast to the revolution that was fought here. he had to employ -- when he started, and it was a white man's war essentially because he was a rich man, coming from

probably the richest family in venezuela and one of the richest families in you'll of latin america, a very, very wealthy man. his parents had or family had been in venezuela for, at that point, 200 years or more, and they had accumulated wealth of cocoa, plan tigses, i indigo pln tigses, copper mines, owned 12 properties in the city alone. it began as an aristocratic discontent with the colonial power that spanish held, and people don't realize this, but spain was very, very assertive in making sure the colonies had no contact with each other, like

folks of the wheel. if there were -- you could not travel from colony, from vice -- from one area to another, you could not do commerce. you were prevented as a colony of spain from doing any manufacturing at all, prevented from owning a mine, prevented from any kind of commerce whatsoever, and it was punishable by ux cushion, so you see the whole business, you can imagine, looking together for a revolution in a place that's so isolated by the colonial power, a very difficult thing, and this is what he came up against. it was not automatic that

countries would welcome him to to liberate them, even though they wanted to be liberated. it was not automatic the races all play a part in it, and, in fact, the races shifted. in the beginning, the blacks on whom so much of the revolution pended were aligning themselves with spain because they knew what it meant. they didn't know what the revolution would bring, but feeling they already knew the evil that existed in the colonial system, they could deal with that, but they didn't know what was coming with the aristocrats of latin america, and so they were very hesitant. it was not until simone boliva, exiled for the second time because the revolution kept failing, the republic, each republic that was setup, first

by francisco miranda, who, himself, a tremendously marvelous romantic story, fell apart. the second republic fell apart. he found himself, boliva, in haiti welcomed by alexander. now, if you know the history of haiti, what had happenedded in haiti was they had had a very bloody revolution in which whites were sent running, killed, or slaughtered, and alexander said, you will never win this thing. you are going back now for the third republic. i will help you. i will give you ships. i will introduce you to all the english commercial

establishments and men who can help you, but promise me one thing, and that is the next time out, this is already 1815, your next time out, the moment you hit the shore in venezuela from haiti, you must liberate the slaves. you must end slavery. boliva had thought about this for a long time because, in fact, with probably a greater moral instinct than the american founders, jefferson or washington, he could not imagine there could be -- that you could fight for liberty, that you could fight for freedom, with slaves in the country. he immediately understood, and, n., already figured that out. he knew he was going to reach out and get the indigenous and

try years into history, there was a huge population with the blacks and the indians, great slave trade, obviously, from the atlantic slave trade, and he knew he had to engage those, many races in order to win the revolution, to really get it going. it was not easy. you can imagine. his -- lots of suspicions, a lot of, at the time, every general wanted his own country, really. the thing was it's difficult to fight for boliva, but there was a point at which, a daring point, and i'll tell you in a minute, in which the whole tide

of history changed, and that was that e he engaged and managed to engage enough of those who lived in planes who were able, at least, to give him the imptous or courage to think differently about how the revolution should be fought, and he had the very daring thought. this was in the middle of 1819, already, much blood had been spilled, and the revolution had grown so bloody that half the population of the -- of venezuela had been killed in the process. some towns had been completely wiped off the map. he had the thought, well, maybe

i will cease to worry about venezuela and hit the spaniards in the heart by crossing the andys and going to colombia. it was a ridiculous thought. it was rainy season. they were on the plains. he was looking at the andes, and the plains are parched in the summertime and absolutely flood ed in the rainy season and rivers become seas. the plains become lakes, great lakes, and no one would have suspected anybody would be as foolish as to take an army with the cattle and the women and the solders, through this flooded plain and over the snow-capped

mountains of the andes which everybody knows. you are taking an army over peaks that are 18,000 feet high. it was a revolutionary thought, if i may make a pun, and nobody would scht that he would attempt it. why would you go to another country when you have not won lick ration for your own? he kept it a secret. the soldiers did not know where they were going, but just wading through the water, that they were, you know, sometimes, having to carry the women on their backs, the bad -- paddles expiring one after another, and got through the bottom of the range, that divides the venezuela parts from the grenada parts, and then

explained what he wanted to do. the soldiers were for it. he took a battalion, several, army of 2500 people with women, with some of the officers, had their wives, and with cattle and hourses and whatnot and the printing press because he carried that everywhere he went feeling that words were the greatest weapon, and he pulled it off, going through the highest point where the spanish had nothing for miles, b went over there, came down the other side in tatters, as you imagine, so many died, a third died in the process, all of the paddles gone, many of the horses did not make it, but the number of

people who came down the other side of the mountain were terrified of banyons, and it was enough to send them running, put on a hat, a poncho, and left a million pesos on the desk, and he ran for cover. they were detonating all the ammunition, and he rode into the capitol, bogota, all by himself, and there's wonderful descriptions of that ride, which is the way that i start the book. it's a great story, full of adventures, full of romance. i could talk about his mistress, his favorite miss stress, about

whom much is known, but not enough is run. she was a great beauty, fierce, had -- said whatever she wanted to say, very very direct, had opinioning, spoke up, dressed like a man. she was like nothing ever seen. some adored her. some despised her, but she was, at three times in his life, the person who saved him from assassination. the stories are dramatic. they are absolutely hard to believe that something like this could happen, completely

sinmatic stories of boliva was sick in the palace in bogota, and manuella is called, sends a messager to bring her because she's so sick and everyone around him sick as well, the most unguarded moment boliva experienced in his whole career. she says, no, too sick, sends another messager saying you have to come, i'm feeling terrible. i need your help. she puts on her go lashes, goes through the rain, gets to the palace, and he's sitting in the tub trying to cool his fever because he's so hill. she comes in, reads to him, and eventually, he gets up, goes to bed, falls into a great sleep. she does as well. suddenly, she awakes with a barking of dogs.

it is a whole organized assassination of 150 people who have converged on the palace to kill boliva. at this point, he's famous, powerful, his -- some of his generals and his vice president, very suspicious of the power, and he says, what do we do? he doesn't have a pair of boots. they were out for cleaning. he has a sword and pistol, and he says, well, i'll open the door because someone is banging at the door at that point. she said, no, no, no, get dressed. he gets dressed. she says, put on my gloshes and jump through the window. he puts on the shoes, jumps through the window, just said to a friend a couple days before, that would be a great getaway.

as it happens, there are no guards outside so he's able to jump. she goes to the door, flings it open, there she is, the general, on the other side, actually, several soldiers on the other side, describe her as just a beautiful with a sword in the hand and hand on the hip saying what do you want. of course, the story goes on from there. i'll let you read it for yourself. [laughter] it's quite amazing at every level, but so you can see the excitement of thinking how do you explain the latin american personality, the character to a north american reader? you explain it by showing oh different the system was, how much history, and in this case,

the republics that e -- emerged after the revolution, and you describe it by a the insane, the pa las live lived, and how it changed from country to country as he progressed from venezuela to ceo tore, liberating panama on the way, down to peru, which was the hardest of all, the hardest not to crack. i hope you'll enjoy reading it. i want to hear your questions, and this is, i hope many questions, because this is always, for me, my favorite part. thank you. [applause] yes? >> that was a great speech. thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> i came here to buy the book because i read great reviews of it. i didn't know you had an in-house reviewer, john there, i read him every weekend, but this is superb, and i can't wait to read the book. spent half my life in south america, knew a lot about from boliva, but learnedded just by listening to you about thing, including the wonderful stuff in colombia and the battle. we hear a lot, and it irritates me as swhb who loves this hemisphere to hear about the late departed venezuela using him as a tool to badly govern a wonderful people and a wonderful country. to what extent, and boliva lived a long time in venezuela, to what extent was he distorting history doing the usual crap he did for 14 years, or is there a

serious historical, responsible basis for saying, for using boliva as part of the venezuelan package? >> thank you for the question, a very good question. there is very little, i speak about it in the epilogue of the book, there's really very little to compare except for the since since boliva died, died destitute, penniless, given up all riches, and he, chavez, by the way, died a rich man, opposite experiences there, but boliva was -- he was, let me put it in the most concrete ways. boliva knew that he was a

liberal, that he was a man of the enlightenment, and he was cast by his enemies as being anti-liberal. it's a mistake. he was not antiliberal, but one of the most liberal, enlightened leaders in the western hems fierce, but through the year after he died, and he died completely rejected by his own homeland, and on the way to exile, didn't take 10-15 years before brought back as the great hero. his greatest general, well, his closest general, daniel o'leery, irish, whom boliva loved, said of him there's something about boliva, it's the magic of his price teg. --

prestige. well, there were at least two presidents were hugo chavez who did exactly what hugo chavez did. take that legacy and use it as their own. it's amazing to see right -- people on the right use him, people on the left use him, for chavez who, i think, would have been horrified to see how the name was used in venezuela, but, you know, it's been used many times before. he was being brought up by leaders throughout latin america to argue different appointments, which is why people are very, very confused about just who he was and just what he believed in what hugo chavez and boliva have in common is this dreamed of

unifying all of latin america, a unified america feeling it was stronger, a greater counterpoint to the united states, which was growing very strong, and he, too, has a dream, and he has, you know, the nations that are ecuador and bolivia which have little to do with that. thank you for the question. >> two-part question. a bicultural person. one, could you enumerate several other -- what you consider to be gross misconceptions about

boliva on the part of north americans, how we misperceive his legacy and misperceive him? secondly, any truth to the story i heard about the locket with george washington's hair? >> oh, yes, yes. let me start with that first. george washington, a grand nephew, really, of washington sent a medallion with clippings inside to boliva because he felt that george washington, himself, would have want have been

associated with the name, and it was he actually who said that of all the people, of all the people in the world that george washington most admired, it was simone boliva, and he said that himself, and so the medallion was sent down, it was, for boliva, the absolute pinnacle of achievement. he admired washington, admired jefferson and the north american founders, although he knew the task was different and could not emulate them, but he treasured the medallion for all times, and, actually it's still in venezuela, very much on display, and if you go down there, you can see it. the question about biculturalism, the question i.

yeah, you know, boliva was, his whole life lived with people having misconceptions about him. when he was fighting for the peru, winning back to homeland, rumors he wanted to make himself king, rumors put forward by everybody, and it was a way of tarnishing the name, and he was the furthest thing of wanting to be king because when he met the other liberator coming from the south emergency, and they had been there, the one thing that really, really turned hymn against was that he really believed that south america should have a king, that peru should have a king and sent people out to europe to find a

king to come and rule in peru, and he said, no, i'm sorry, but we've, you know, we've sacrificed a lot of lives to get rid of kings. there's misconceptions there as well, and, you know, they were used against him by south americans so i'm not surprised of the miscop acceptions about him from north americans. thank you for your question. >> well, like yourself, i grew up here, but from guatemala, and i know very little about boliva, and i'm looking forward to the reading, but as a son of a wealthy family, was he educated in spain, or was he -- yes? it's -- i have to believe educated abroad from a welt yi family, he must have learned about history, and, of course, traversing the andes is similar

to hanibal's going over the alps to sack rome. >> other than happen bell prepared for two years, and boliva just did it. [laughter] >> right. >> thank you. the thing that is amazing about the education, a man that -- he could speak, you know, language. if he read in french, read another in latin. he was educated because when he went to spain as a young man, he was sent over at the age of 16. why? because his mother's family, he was a complete orphan, father dead, mother dead, sent over by the family to persuade spain to actually give him a barren at sea, or, you know, some noble

position, and he inned up in e under the to do lag of one who lived in spain for a long time, the one who brought him in, never had a son, boliva was an orphan, brought him in, taught him everything, tutors came in, and boliva ended up really astop ired by his own interest in history and literature, and music, and he was trained in everything from the personal library and from the people who came in. he was really, as i say, a person who changed the latin american language because he had listened to the european philosopher of the time, read

deeply and appreciated good prose. he was a deeply educated man. >> you answered the question, so i'll revise. why did he refuse to defend martijn? he was hugely talented military commander, and his crossing was more successful than boulevards, for example. >> yes. he crossed the andes, yes, and they have something similar also which was that he, too, wanted to unite america. what happened in the process was that he was sick. reaching peru, he was an ohm yum addict, had terrible art arthri, a soldier since 12, carried over

the andes really, but when they sat and met for the first time, and trying to say, come help me with her rue, and boliva was not convinced he wanted to help. the meeting was awkward, famous, and as years go on, enough was written that we know pretty much what went on, but he wanted boliva to come, and he said i will serve under you, and boliva knew that was what he didn't want because who serves under you have a greater prestige than the person ruling so he said, no, that's impossible, and when, well, boliva actually writes that in the letter saying he

wanted to serve under me knowing it was a mistake because they would have the moral advantage of having surrenders himself to me, so boliva refused, really, to help. he said i'll send you a few battalions, but he left him at that point knowing that in order for peru to be free, for boliva to come and actually bring the lib rating army, he has to make himself scarce, which is exactly what he did. he left lima in the middle of the night, took a boat, waited there awhile to see if he could come back, and then went into exile in france. it's one of the great moments in history with two liberators sitting in the same room vying for authority. thank you. >> what happened to slavery in the 6th republic?

take the haitian advice and end it? >> immediately. >> oh, he did? good. >> immediately. a lot was immediate in word and not in actual act. it was very, very hard for some people to let go of the slave, but imagine the revolution when the slaves, when the slaves have been freed, they were told that if they join the army, they will gape freedom immediately. it's so interesting to me that so few lat ting americans, and i've come across this, don't realize it was really the black forces and the indian forces that won our revolutions down there, you know, and i've had a great poet say to me, how do you speak such rubbish? all the white aristocrats leading, but, no, it was battalion after battalion of blacks and others who actually won the freedom against spain,

and boliva was very aware of that. >> can i ask, was there ever chance of the united south america? >> you know, he tried, and in 1926, he held what is called the precursor to the oas, trieded to call a conference of all the republics, called it the panamerican union, and he had written a whole, you know, a whole vision for this greater america, and people didn't come. they stalled. people died on the way. there were too many animosity, and then the vice president inviolated him to the united states, and it became what they

could remove as the unification of america. thank you. >> very brief. i just would like you to add a footnote to your answer about the education of boliva by including them. >> one of the early tutors, yes, and he was one of the great literary figures of america, and he was not too much older, and he was brought in. >> brought it in. >> yes, thank you, thank you for that. >> you mentioned one gentleman who is actually interesting, and that's leery. talk a loibilityd about -- a little bit about the person, who he was, and what influence he had in boliva, and then, if i could push you a little, second

question, but it might give an idea for the next book and second one, this lady, the mistress, is there any correspondence between her and say madam lynch who was irish also, and the broader frame work in which you, obviously, write and operate, i -- operate in it, okay, the emergence of the female in 19th century latin america as a political leader or influence on the male leaders? >> thank you, thank you. first, you know, when the wars draw to a close, and, really, a my -- hill tarrized europe and soldiers coming back to england, ireland, had no means of income, and it was heeople who

recruited, and some of them came, you know, they named whatever title -- the recruitment was really very lose, done by someone who didn't know about soldiering, diplomats sitting in london recruiting like mad, and so people would come and say, oh, yes, i was, you know, lieutenant colonel, and, in fact, he was just a scrub, but they could come over, and they were outfitted in the majestic uniforms, all over london, and they were given, you know, big champaigne good buys, and off they would come to the absolutely wild revolution where they were barefoot fighting with speers and sticks, and they were ludacris, parading around in these fancy european things, and

they could barely lumber along with all the heavy equipment they were carrying, and daniel was one of them, very, very young, and he identified him very early, and made him a general quickly, and dame was really not only one of the best generals, but one of the closest friends to confide in. he really liked having, i don't know where it came from, can't explain it, but liked having english and irish assistance and generals around him. his little tight force of the people who were -- his secretary and his assistants were almost entirely english and irish. he liked that. he had spent time in london and appreciated, i think, their experience in europe in the wars

and elevated them, and he was certainly rewarded him by collecting all of his letters. if you go, and 32 volumes of letters and correspondence and speeches, it was daniel o'leery who did it all, who collected it all, annotated it all. quite a gift back to simone boliva. anybody else? yes? >> [inaudible] >> oh, what i was doing? [laughter] oh, general behavior, don. i was a cheeky kid, fans singlee handedly -- fancied myself a tomboy, and i didn't have hair on my tongue

and said things i shouldn't have, and, you know, they made me the sort of prim little woman you see up here today. [laughter] thank you. >> another question about the irish, if i may, plus, one about a slightly different aspect of what you talkedded about. can you comment on what was going on in chile and the role of higgins and his role? >> of course, he was the illegitimate son of the voice roy higgins of chile was one of the closest collaborators, and the story is fantastic. somebody should write that in a romantic fashion. he corresponded with boliva. they didn't have too much in common, but i think boliva knew

that he owed people, and higgins that part, that liberation of that part of the continent and republicked him very, very much. >> the united states had a number of agents in latin america going on, correspondence -- >> yes, yes. >> between the agents, and our secretary of state and our president. could you comment on the extent to which that correspondence contributed to misconceptions on the part of north americans? >> absolutely, absolutely. boliva was in the middle of a very riff campaign. he was not only -- i mean, he was, if i may say, suffering from hemorrhoids, from any number of things while he was doing these 75,000 miles on horse back, and into this moment of trying to tame the plains, in

the plains of venezuela, the tremendous force, a huge force under the spaniards fighting to keep the grip on the colony, in come the american agents, and one of whom most famously a reporter, who came down, free lancing information back to the president and his cabinet, and he was not treated very well. you can just imagine. this is somebody coming with a scribbling pad in the middle of the revolution, not treated very well. the report that he sent back to washington were scathing, absolutely scathing, a little upstart, as you know, man with

the ambitions, and you couldn't say anything worse to app american than a man with ambitions, and so it was really through this reporting back they had a very negative reputation in the united states. also, remember that in the united states, slavery was the biggest commerce afoot, talking about 1815 and forward. it was one of the them described well, and it was rgnp here, slavery was huge commerce, and the worse thing washington could imagine, washington as a governing city, capital, could imagine was actually supporting anybody who used, who liberated slaves and was using them to

fight a revolution. this was just the maximum, and it was very -- the reputation began to get worse and worse in the united states because every sort of slander, i think, used against boliva including the fact people were dying in the revolution. it was a very bloody revolution, and it didn't speak well of the whole enterprise. thank you. [applause]

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>> next on book tv, laurie edwards reports on the over 133 million americans who live with a chronic illness which

constitutes about three-quarters of all health care dollars. the author examines the obstacles that the chronically ill face, including the limits of medicine, skepticism about many illnesses, and criticism that many have diseases that could be prevented. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> hello. thank you all so much for being out there tonight. so much of the writing process takes place alone or in my case when the rest of the war of the sleeping. so it is really nice, at this point in the process, to be able to be out and connect with readers and see people, especially at the to greek menu. it is nice to see it kind of come full circle because when i was a graduate student i was here all the time. so it is nice to be here. so i am going to talk briefly about the book itself overall and then read to passages. then hopefully we will have some good discussion