.. one of my favorite people in the literary world. of course a lot of you know the film is based on his book as well as his books the accidental billionaires' became the social network. bringing down the house became 21, and then you titled the book sex on the moon because you know they would never change that title for the film but the book we are talking about today is

"straight flush" how they created an entire, sort of. i want to begin by drawing your attention from my money to the greatest photographs since hemingway. [laughter] you look like someone -- let's welcome the great and talented mr. ben mezrich. >> thank you so much for coming. [applause] it's nice for the moment i am so excited john is doing this with me. we actually hosted a television show idled think any of you watched but it was called the world series of black jack and was on cnn and he was the host and i was the expert and we sat at a booth at the hilton hotel in las vegas for a month. we spent a few weeks watching degenerates from the world

compete for high stakes black jack and our cameras caught cheating and then we watched them do on savory things in the casino lobby afterwards and i got to know him very well because as much fun as i had hosting this unlikely show with him, they messed up the audio and almost all of the audio from the entire tournament was lost 67 and i had to spend of six months going to malibu every week sitting in a tiny booth. i was already a fan of him as a writer and i came to respect him as a man and craftsmen and how he went about making an extremely infectious redouble pieces of works of it is a great honor to be here and i guess i will begin by asking for those of you that haven't read your book yet, can you give an overview and why this story drew you in.

>> it's about a group of fraternity brothers from the university of montana. these were regular most of them are very poor so many that he sold at how to buy his first car. they were montana kids and they used to play broker in a vote called stockman. putting poker on line and make a lot of money. online poker hadn't started yet. there was one other company in 99 so it was before most of what we have today on the internet so one of the best on-line poker sites they moved most of them to coast of rica which was wild west craziness and they kind of sort of built this over a few years with a lot of setbacks in 2 million-dollar a day business. they were essentially weeks away from many billions of dollars which is a competitor for $13 billion. they were on the verge of that when the u.s. government decided

that online poker was a legal and in 2006 the bill passed that was a on the bill no one could vote against and they said that it would be considered illegal. they stayed in the business until 2011 so they didn't fold them is the way to put it and then in 2011 the department of justice rated the poker sites and they are facing an indictment. one of them on the island of and he'd come. he is not technically a fugitive. he's hiding or staying there and not returning to the u.s.. his younger brother whose main character turned himself in and is doing 14 months in a federal prison. so it is a pretty wild story. it includes a cheating scandal in the middle where they are one of the insiders and it turns out they were seeing people's cars so anyone that played on my poker that was afraid someone must cheating well there was cheating going on. but it is a pretty wild story.

and i guess i was turned on by it because it felt like a blend of 21 in the social network. >> it really seemed like when you take the back story of an enterprising group it was mit and 21. and then how they made a lot of money and it all sort of went wrong. you see zuckerberg and the movie going wrong and it sure did. what are your criteria? >> 20 to 30 a week in the last couple of weeks i've forgotten about a dozen alone and they are pretty crazy, not things i would write about. in a college kid who does something bad will e-mail me. so i get every kind of scandal he could possibly imagine. most of them are from prison, some of them are out of prison but it's something pretty wild. this one turned me on because it was about an industry i didn't know anything about that

vanished in one day. i knew a lot of people that lead online poker and a new coaster rico was pretty wild and had the girls and the money and all the things i like to write about and it just intrigued me. they built something huge and had it taken away. they were on the verge of being white mark zuckerberg and instead ended up going to prison or being fugitives. that blended together but i think of it as a blend of 21 and a social network. >> when you commit to writing a book on a certain story that turns you on, how extensive is your research process, how much interviewing do you do before you begin the narrative? >> i spend about six months researching. research for me is becoming a part of the story coming getting on a plane and hanging out with the fugitives or with 21i was strapping money to my body going to and from every week. with zuckerberg i couldn't hang out with zuckerberg but i hung out with eduad the

winklevi olympic rowers. they were perfect. hollywood would have invented them if they didn't already exist. but i try to get into the story. i get all of the cases. so every one of these books has tens of thousands of cases of legal case work. i go through all of that. i tried to make sure i get it all right and then i sit down and write. >> when we first talked about this a few years back you mentioned to me that your style of writing was to lock yourself in a room, preferably a loss of vegas hotel room and was 16 pages a day. if you got 16 pages done than you were allowed to have a life. >> i don't recommend this to anyone out there this is a miserable way to live. i write in this desperate kind of horrible situation. i don't find writing enjoyable. i love the research and everything about it but sitting down and actually writing is torture. anybody that is a writer knows that. but i like to write myself --

lock myself in the room. i used to write 15 pages eddy but now it's 12 to be a i'm slowing down. >> you have kids now. >> it is exhausting as anything can be. and it's one of those things where i have to be in this room until the book is done. so, for me it is anywhere from 2-6 months. basically around the clock writing as much as i can. you know, it's intense. i'm sure a lot you out there are writers pitting it's just one of those things that's hard to describe why you're doing it when you're doing it but when you are finished it is the greatest feeling in the world. but, you know, yes the process is still some other about 12 pages a day. >> do you write my hand in the research in process or your address? >> nothing is ever by hand. i most recently started dictating to software to the eye during an ad here but i dictated a good three-quarters of this book. and you have to repeat yourself to speak like your writing which

is the trickiest part and then you go through and that it but i find that even more freeing. i'm going in the opposite direction. >> do you work off of an outline? >> i feel like they are completely necessary. they are hateful. i don't know anybody that likes riding an outline that you don't have a good outline it gets away from using lie outline to the point i know the page number of every stafford before i write savitt is a very severe outline. >> to all of your books fit into a certain structure, do you use a traditional structure? >> i do. i get attacked for it quite a bit but i write like a thriller. when i sit down to write i have all of the points and i know what happened in the story. the nine essentially off line as if it is a movie and i write that we so you know when these big dramatic moments occur in the plot look, reality fits the thriller structure. all of us live these lives. we have obstacles, we fall in love and then we die. that is the structure to get so

i feel that reality it's very well into the structure and especially a story like this where they came from nothing and rose to a million-dollar the business and have it all taken away and the end up, you know, spiraling down with drugs and girls until the end of fugitive spitting it's kind of a perfect roller in that respect. but i do right in that way. >> i want to talk about the research because it sounds like a pretty fun part of your work, spending time with the girls and drugs and fugitives. [laughter] >> first of all, my wife is here -- [laughter] these guys were like any college kids were suddenly placed in a place where there is no boundary. they were up the street from one of the largest whore houses. there were 200 women working there and there is no small where they were. at one point they flipped a bmw. the main character runs into the bushes with a bottle of tequila, a broken ankle and a hooker and waits for the police he then bride. this is the world they were living and you get when i get

inside a story like this, like a fly on the wall. i made very neurotic and the phobic individuals the light of a dive in the way that thompson might have terry and i go there and i watched from the background pity if i try to stay as involved as possible. >> how do you insinuates yourself with your subject? does it take time to get past the level? >> first you don't know whether they are telling the truth and trying to appear better than they are and you want to become their friend and get closer to them because you want the whole story. for me i don't go in like a journalist with a notebook and a tape recorder to be a lot of people wouldn't allow me to go round of a tape recorder. i am going to be there at 2:00 in the morning hanging out with these guys. i easily fall for the people i write about putting it i find them very fascinating and a couple pitting it because as i said i'm scared of everything

and they put these enormous risks. then when i finished all the research i have to sit back and go through and see what i feel this true and what is not true. but my method is it is almost like i want to live that story. and of course as i get older i outgrowing the people i write about some it gets harder and harder to write the story but, it is still pretty fascinating to get inside like that. give me an example of a character that you fell for in this book. >> it is a very complex individual. scott thomas a lot of people like him. i find him fascinating to the i feel like it came from nothing from a portable background to the he ended up in costa rica losing all their money not one point then he gets embroiled in a cheating scandal but he keeps going. then fill what is past and suddenly it becomes a legal what he's doing to get he's sleeping with a gun under his pillow. it's that kind of world and he truly believes what he is doing isn't wrong. he keeps going until literally the government runs in with guns

and shot it down. i don't know. i'm fascinated by something like that. i find it appealing. i wouldn't call them saints. one of them was doing summits drugs his eyebrows fell out and lock himself in the room to the white he realized the rest of them didn't let out of the house of the pri in the house they didn't own for two weeks. >> the end up in a rehab. it is a compelling story even though they are not saints. mark zuckerberg is another example. he's a genius. he built facebook. he's a difficult individual at best. people that were around him and know him find him difficult to be around. whether he screamed at bordeaux, someone really i got as close as anybody could get by worshiped him any way. i think he's fascinating and the movie turns into a very over the top individual that you can't hate. a lot of people want to be that people i don't know i'm fascinated by these individuals.

i end up with them for so long and maybe i fall for them in a way of but i think you get to the heart of it by telling it through their eyes. this is a book through the eyes of the main character. accidental billionaires' is through the eyes of eduardo and a little bit through the john parker. if marquette written that it would have been a very different story and you never would have heard of them. but, you know, it is what it is. because of what happened to the real-life characters after your books are published and the films are made, the social network was a great adaptation and it was thrilling to see you on the face of the oscars that might. but when you consider what's happened since then with facebook going public with zuckerberg's ups and downs and eduardo's tax policies that makes mark zuckerberg the second most heated character in the book to some people paid to your subject ever take issue with you post publication with what

you've done and have you ever heard what zuckerberg thought of your book? >> guest: >> first of all people do take issue with me a lot to i tried to explain very carefully to the characters we don't know what is going to happen when this comes out to the people will either love your he cupidity it's become bigger than you want it to be or disappeared. you never know how people are going to react to be of the book comes out and these excitement there is a period that they wish this would never happen, i hate you, that kind of thing. not always but often because it never works out necessarily exactly how they want it to. some people -- eduardo got $2 billion because of that kid a i don't feel zuckerberg would have ever paid him off if we hadn't done the project so he ended up with $2 billion going to singapore and not paying taxes. but he's in singapore and is living the life most of us what if we hit $2 billion at 29. he isn't a fugitive but i really feel that it is hard to prepare a character for what it is like

having your life open to the world like that. i try to make it as easy as a process as possible. i let them know exactly what is coming to happen in the book to read these characters most of them have read what is in the book so they know what's coming. but in the and you never know how they are going to act to be i'm good friends with those from 21. i'm close to most of them and accidental billionaires' i don't talk to ed wargo. he had to cut off all contact with me and restraining orders to get his $2 billion. i was told that in the paper he signed that gave him that money and said you can never speak to ben mezrich again. for $2 billion i would never speak to ben mezrich again either. but that was part of his settlement agreement. but i still talk to john parker and everything worked out with them. so i ran into cheryl samford wheelan of you probably know from her look we went to college together. so after the book and after the movie i was at a reunion and she comes up to me and i was

expecting to get punched but she is a wonderful person and a genius and i think that she said you know the heated me for a year and then they all went to see the movie called facebook went to see it and the end up liking it and the invited me to come to facebook. so in the and i don't think mark thin one way or the other about me. i don't think i met his thoughts that much anymore. but he's worth $15 billion. hopefully he has better things to think about. but in the and it worked out great for facebook. mark looked very cool. the company did a grt because of it. he was on the cover of "time" magazine. it was a positive portrayal. and i've heard a lot of younger people went into the internet because of what they saw in that movie. sorted of of being very positive. >> [inaudible] >> it's an internet company so i understand some people were going to the internet will be for that movie. but yes, decide to try to become mark zuckerberg. >> so the scene of your work is really young people who are skirting the ethical lines. >> in the area between right and

wrong. people who are taking risks, college kids or right after who are really just going and doing something different, building a company to that i'm obsessed with that great american myth or the great american success story. college kids or right after who are willing to sort of take chances and -- and do something great. >> [sirens sounding] don't be alarmed, c-span viewers. [sirens sounding] doing it live on tape. how has what you have witnessed and documented as an artist affected your sense of ethics? have you still seen lines he wouldn't cross or have you come to believe that a lot of lines are very moveable? >> it's a good question. as a nonfiction writer i think the goal isn't to scream anybody. it's not to write a story that affects people negatively without informing them of some degree that that is the direction you're going. i feel, you know, i try to write

a true story as i can but i'm very open about my process. i write thrillers that happen to be true. all of the facts are correct as far as i can get. some of the dialogue is recreated but i tell the story as true as i can. there are journalists out there that do not like the way that i write and feel nonfiction has to be like an encyclopedia putative i feel that what i do is a very valid form and so for me i think the ethical things are really you have to be honest with it and truthful and you have to not really screwed them over to the also i am learning a lot about money. a lot of these people are willing to do a lot of crazy things for money. and i have to always ask these questions what are you willing to do for money and this story one question i asked people a lot is how long would you be willing to go to jail for $30 million of someone said you can have $30 million that you have to go to federal prison for a year because that is what some of them might be facing turning themselves in doing a year in prison. >> who would be willing to do in

your coming of a cushy federal pen, can we see him? >> there are seniors raising their hands on that one. that's really interesting to disconnect the other question that i ask people from the social network due to be cut to college kids in a dorm room the come up with a brilliant idea and he says you put up a thousand dollars and you can have 30% of the company. then the one that can up with the idea since the next 30 years building the company all by himself and it suddenly worth $30 billion. the first one comes back and says i want my 30% so does he deserve as 30% or does he not? that is the question i always asked. when you ask the young entrepreneur is that question the same know he was there in the beginning. he should get something that he didn't build this company. when you ask the venture fund people of course he put up a thousand dollars paid so it's one of those things that is what really happened in the social network. eduardo was there and he said

you get 30% of the company for a thousand dollars and five years later he wanted his 30%. so you get a lot of questions like that that i'm fascinated by in the stories. yes. >> you mentioned some of the critiques that you've taken from the nonfiction writers. how do you separate truth and fact when you are writing a nonfiction work? >> you talked about recreating a dialogue. >> for me i do all of the research. i get as much of the information as i can so i know what happens in all of the different points of the book. then i sit down and i write it as if it is the movies you can take something like that and say they talked about facebook or you can write a dialogue before the characters talking about facebook and i choose to do that. it's one of those things are some journalists like it and some won't. i feel like the truth is more than the fact. there's always different points of view. edgardo is going to feel

differently than mark zuckerberg. these guys that built this company are going to feel different than the u.s. government to profit down. so, depending on whose point of view you are writing from you have a different truth. if he were to interview the fbi agent that followed these guys and was making notes of them with the hookers and what in all these people lose money when was going down the feel like they are there to go to jail. if you talk to these guys, they were building the internet company just like everybody else and all the sun and it became illegal. they didn't know what to do at that point. they had shareholders and a huge company said they didn't shut down. that was probably a mistake because the end up paying for it in the end but there are multiple points of view. >> that was in 2006 to bid do you know why the government bush administration decided to make on-line a poker illegal? >> there were two senators from tennessee and you know we more about politics than i to get jon kyl. >> he's still in the senate,

isn't he? i am a political comedian. >> they were basically running on a platform of antigambling that they couldn't go against gambling because we all love to gamble. two weeks ago we were lining up for our cowal tickets. that's okay but poker is and? there is no reason at poker is wrong and the lottery is right. so what they did is they have a free port terrorism also there was a report terrorism bill going through and no one is going to vote against that for the anti-terrorism. the attached a rider to it that made the movement of money involved in online gambling it is already illegal. so basically the movement of money into an e legal gaming site became money laundering. how many people lost money on that? when it went down 150 million was lost. 15 billion-dollar industry disappeared in one day. it was a 15 billion-dollar industry vanished. television lost 300 million advertising. nseries poker went from 8,000 members to 800 members and built

itself back up. i was a massive loss of an industry for reasons still unexplained committed they didn't go after the football league because the nfl wouldn't let them because the nfl loves all that stuff and they didn't go after lotteries, they didn't go after casinos or horseracing in new york. they didn't go after all these things that you can gamble on but they went after -- bling go you can do after being dug in you can't play poker. the funny thing about poker is it is a game of skill. the department of justice last year passed a ruling they decided poker does not cover the act and it isn't considered illegal however different states of different laws. the state of new york considers it gambling so that is why it was the state of new york and the department of justice that went after these guys. >> so you are saying it can be risky? >> one of these companies went down the players that lost money

most of them knew they were involved in an industry that was a little bit shaky. i feel that for every one that lost money but you are giving your credit card to an offshore bank that was in between to an offshore gambling company. there was stuff the was going to go long. it's too bad it wasn't a regulated industry for instance in the u.k. and canada and most of the world pretty much set for us, iran and north korea is a legal and in those places it is protected and ensure that they pay taxes and there is no problem with it hit when it eventually becomes a legal and it will come right now it is in nevada and new jersey had almost in delaware and it soon will be everywhere, then will be regulated and taxed and your money will be safe. >> now we are going to move to the point of the program you will get to ask your questions. we will go by raising hands and someone will bring you a microphone. i ask you to be patient. it may take ten seconds here or there but let's begin if anyone has any questions for mr. mezrich please feel free to

raise your hand. while i'm waiting for the first person to not be shy -- over there. >> the best question gets to keep the microphone. >> the best question gets ben's home phone number. [laughter] >> how are you? >> excellent. thanks. >> so i know the next movie based -- >> would you mind holding the microphone to your mouth. >> the next movie based on your book is about the rock. what's going on with that, and in addition, how much do you have with regards to how the movie plays out? i know in 21 or bringing down the house they changed jeff's naim, kevin lewis. >> a few races got changed in that movie i believe, too. >> how much say as an author do you have a net and as an author do you find it insulting that would change your work of art for a movie? >> great question.

what was the first part of the question? "sex on the moon" was about the kid that robbed nasa, spread the rocks on the bed and tried to have sex with a girl and sell them on the internet. it was by the same people that did the social network and will who did it easy a and friends with benefits is working on a screen play. i haven't heard any updates recently so i'm not sure when or if it will get made this year. when you sell the product in hollywood you give up pretty much all control. they consult with you on the screenplay. you shall look on the set that you are as important as the caterer. no one wants you there to give you have fun with the actors and then they make the movie they want to make. the goal is to set up with people you trust that you feel are going to make a good movie. when you have aaron sorkin and

david pitcher you are like have fun fantastic. when they do the testing and they say justin timberlake is printed in it and you're like really? and then he's awesome. so you don't know what's going to happen, you don't have control. you meet with the director and screenwriter to be the most control you have is during the phase of the screen writer wants to use you as a consultant. but overall coming largest kind of an onset expert. they do change a lot. in 21 the main character -- i changed his name because he asked me to. he didn't want to be known as the black jack died when i wrote the book and when the movie was made he did want to be known as the black jack died the name was already changed. they did change it to a white guy but the woods a decision that was made when they cast it when they were auditioning people. and jeff ended up being a consultant on the sec. all of the mit kids were on a set at 21 which ended up getting crazy because we were kicked out of casinos the movie was shot but you don't have control. you have to look at it as two different projects.

the two movies that were made were phenomenal. i like both movies. one day i am sure i will have a bad movie made of one of my books and i am sure that i will be upset putative but overall i feel like if you take that and you let them do it becomes their project. >> do some offers have more creative control or final say? >> i am sure stephen king has some say. if i sold it as and in the film with a tiny budget i could be involved. i could make it myself if someone put up the money committed and i would have control. for me it's always been to go to a big studio, sell it to people i respect and who always wanted to make in the field of the project and try to get the pieces. i'm very commercial in that respect even if i feel like the movie just gets so many people to see it so your story gets to such a wide audience to build whatever is going to happen to make that movie made i'm very happy with. we could have gone the rounders phenomenal of about poker that very few people saw at the time and because it was so intense.

or we could have gone to the route that was a much bigger movie that a lot of people saw. i was cool with either direction the end up giving and i thought it was great. so yes. i'm sure there are authors that have a lot more control once they reach a certain state on helping solve the project but for me so far i am a witness to what ever goes on. >> next question. >> in 21 what happened to the character? what is he doing today? >> succumb in the buckets of a little bit different than in 21. he is not as much of a bad guy. he actually still runs the mit blackjack table and recruits college kids to read the part in the end of 21 wasn't based in the book where they were running around and he ends up getting taken away by laurence fishburne. that didn't actually happened. and in reality he disappeared for a while then he came back and now recruits another team. he came as a real guy that was

based on and he seemed like it -- seemed to like it so overall he is still playing or coaching black jack i should say. and that was the character. yes, sir. >> i am curious where in your mind wall should be for online gambling. >> there is no reason that it should be illegal. it should be regulated. there should be an age. i don't want to see high school kids paying poker but whatever the right age is, regulated tax and there should be a national legal online poker putting it there is no reason you should go to a casino and not play poker from your computer to be it may be there should be limits on how much money you should be allowed to put at a time. maybe there should be a limit on the bet that there is no reason that it shouldn't be regulated industry. it creates jobs and there's an enormous amount of comes out of it and it's a game of skill people play. there's a lot of people,

15 million americans are playing online poker pin made a lot people, 10% wanted to play at some point or maybe 5% i don't know how many people in the u.s.. but if there is a demand if the lottery is legal online broker should be kidding if you want to go after online gambling then i kind of understand it from the moral point of view to the i think as long as it is controlled and regulated. so that is my feeling to be idled by how i feel about, you know, the lottery to buy i feel like the lottery is more dangerous and upsetting because there is no skill involved. it's plain numbers and i enjoy it, to back that tide understand why maybe it shouldn't be allowed. poker i don't understand why it shouldn't be allowed. >> do you or any of your subjects have a problem with easy access for gambling addict squawks >> absolutely. they wanted to be regulated. in a lot of countries they were regulated. overseas and tear up they were regulated on who was allowed to

play. certain countries would say to them we don't want it in our country and they would ban that country. the u.s. just left it. they didn't say whether they wanted it or not given until 2006 there was no clue as to what the federal policy was going to be honest. get i think that most of them would agree that there should be regulation just like in a casino. if you feel someone has a problem they are not supposed to. although i've never been at a casino where they wouldn't deal to somebody to pick i have seen people dealt to who were basically lying on the floor. whether you look like to have a problem it is a hard thing to analyze. i think that online poker you could limit the amount of money that one could play in a certain amount of time. you shouldn't be able to go back to your credit card over and over again there should be a monthly limit to a line of the one that is going to draft the rules and regulations to the you have to be in nevada city twanging delete your cell phone and it has to the next to your

laptop. >> let freedom ring. >> next question. >> [inaudible] we haven't sold it to be a movie yet. we have a lot of people that have called and it's out that kevin spacey who's interested in doing it as well so we will see where it ends up. it just came out after, so it will be making their around over this week. i think it would make an awesome machine. >> for. >> can you unpacked that statement? >> i write for people who don't

read. >> everyone who does reed has ben mezrich books in their collection. i feel like i am competing with all forms of entertainment and not just other books. a lot of them are guys and don't read a lot of books. they pick up this book or the are given a for father's day or something and then they read it and they decide they like to read books. maybe i am of the harry potter of nonfiction. i like writing books that i would like to read to the time someone is obsessed with movies. anything that can distract me will distract me. like a cat with a ball. so, i need to write a book that would keep my attention. so a lot of times my readers are people who come up to me and say this is the only book i've read in the last ten years and it is my favorite book. but i do get that a lot. so i've always found that is fascinating but i like the fact love of my readers come to me

untrammeled by reading. but i find that it is a great audience and in a social network expanded my audience a lot but that's where i started, yeah. >> you've written fiction in the past. do you have a desire to go back? >> i saw the movie to 20th century fox with brad ratner, the director, and it could be a thriller in the did benge code indiana jones. so i wrote six novels none of you have ever read. and i wrote a tv movie based on of my books called fatal error starring antonio jr., the underwear model from melrose place. he played a surgeon, very believable casting. didn't know surgeons did so many set up in between patients. [laughter] and i used to write for the x files we back when someone used to write fiction before bringing down the house to be a i also have a children's book coming out next year from simon and schuster, which was just handed in which was about a group of

sixth graders who figured out how to be carnival games and math and science. so it is kind of bringing down the house and another level. it is an anticarn ey bod for next year. >> do we have anymore questions from the most attractive crowd and a literary park dwellers. [laughter] >> well, i want to ask about the show because i have you here. estimates of about me. >> no, no, i do a show on al gore under current tv every night at 8 p.m. that used to be hosted by keith olberman. will you come on my show? >> i will come on tomorrow. >> i'm so burned out on politics. >> i know nothing about politics. will be perfect. >> i got to meet ben and an unusual way. who at meyers was a very strange tv show, then as we mentioned at the top, spending months and months and months and the tiniest box in malibu. >> you think of malibu has a beautiful setting.

we didn't have a single window. and we were eating a tuna sandwiches they would bring, so it smelled like to and and was revolting. and we had to overdub ourselves watching black jack. >> she has 15. what does she need to draw next? it is a six. >> that was it for six months. >> you are a very good actor. >> thank you. was fascinating. >> any more questions? stat all right, well i want to thank you very happy to sign anything you want me to sign. i appreciate you coming out today. >> thank you come ben speed. >> for more information, visit the author's website, benmezrich.com. several years ago, my father told me about a german ship that sank at the end of world war ii. he didn't know much about other than its name, and that it was an incredibly devastating. and so, i decided to look that

up. and what i discovered that it was in fact the worst maritime disaster in a peace or war. more than 9,000 people died on january 30th, 1945 when the soviet submarine, the s 13 attacked the wilhelm gustloff, which was a former cruise liner turned ship. so to put that into context, that is about six times more than those who died when the titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. during the initial research into this incident, i felt that few people outside of the military took note of the sinking in in the immediate aftermath. and as the years went on, it was gaining a mengin uncertain history of world war ii that there had been nothing but was exploring it in depth putative and so, because of that, little

is known about wilhelm gustloff. and initially i could find no information and no explanation for the knowledge why did so little exist. but that actually piqued my curiosity even further to it i wanted to know more about the sinking and i wanted to know more about the people who were aboard that might because to me the story of the wilhelm gustloff is not only the story of the ship sinking. it is the story of how people came to be on board the ship. it was coming of age in the part of nazi germany that was still the 1940's and had remained in some ways isolated from what was happening to berlin. well, the first survivor that i found was an enlightening and not horest who grew up in east

prussia and today he lives about three hours north of toronto. he was a 10-year-old boy at the time of the sinking to made so light traveled to canada to meet him and the sinking unnaturally still haunts him. he thinks about it every day. the loss of life was massive and then the conditions that he was forced to flee, stories like him have remained largely unknown. i spent a few days with him but i knew after the very first hour of meeting him that his story and the story of the other survivors needed to be told. and so this book is the book of the story that i found. it's the result of interviews with survivors and times spent in the archives and within the national archives in washington, d.c. to the and i was fortunate enough to spend time at the holocaust memorial museum as well as obtaining records from

the federal archives and germany. well, in early 1945, the end of the war in europe was in sight. the americans and the british were closing in from the west and the soviets were closing in on berlin from the east. many civilians and some soldiers chose to abandon these volatile areas by any means possible. especially for those civilians living in east prussia at the time. the new what awaited them when the soviets were approaching. they knew that the same act of barbarism, the same massacres would happen to them as had happened to the russians of the german army had advanced its invasion of the soviet union in 1942. however, they were under orders. they were not permitted to leave until the very end of jan lardy 45. the nazi government forbade anyone to leave or to do

anything but have shown signs of defeated and an acknowledgment that they were going to lose the war. i don't need to put you on the spot but representative tom cole, what is on your summer reading list? >> well, i am reading the wonderful book "the hopkins touch," about half way on that now that is on peery hopkins legendary fdr and a grinnell graduate. you know, we probably don't have the same politics but i add my for the political style and it's a compelling life. probably next for me i haven't had a chance to read the book "act of congress," previews have been pretty compelling. and i think that is going to be an interesting case study. when you're reading devotee of all the characters coming you know barney frank and you know senator dodd and some of the legislators, it's interesting to get that perspective and some of

the staff. and then there's a book that i just ordered pond james byrnes who was a legendary south carolina public. actually, john martin in politico put this on the radar and said you're going to love this book. he was very nearly vice president instead of truman 44 continued to play an extraordinary role in politics and then became one of the architects and the south and then working with harry hopkins in 1940 and this book about the 1940 nomination of fdr which was pretty unique political work that felt i like to read the process and to study history. >> let us know what you are reading this summer.

next, curtis argues that authors christopher hitchens are misguided in their fate that science will eventually provide all the answers we have regarding the nature of human beings and the physical world. he says the religion verses scions debate left out the role that philosophy, art and culture have played in shaping the way that we understand the world. during this event hosted by immelt phill house mr. white is a conversation with lewis, former editor of harper's magazine and current at the turn of the quarterly. this is an hour. >> i am a long time at meijer on the editorial advisory board and