who were arrested or dielted or convict -- indicted of various crimes such as fixing races at the local track. buddy used that to engineer a coop which he took over the city council and the "l.a. times" did a feature about him. he said that in the jail population stalin is something like 1 in 10,000. it's one in eight. i had tried to one the person. they said he would got opening of an envelope and show up at any event. i remember being a young report aerothe the "providence journal" not covering buddy or the city hall. i was at another reporter's backyard cookout. we were drinking beer and buddy

pulls up in the lam seen as the mayor and shows up at the party. he was one of the last persons to leave. that kind of charming. he was a champion of city of providence. the city was a downtrodden city. he would, you know, go on national tv and go -- we've always had corruption. it predates buddy and post date him. it makes him -- at least he helped put it back on the map. so that's why people loved him. for more information on all of the cities visited by booktv's local content vehicle visit us online at at c-span.org/localcontent. booktv continues with president obama -- paul gregory. he profiles five women who lived

in the soviet gulag in the '40s and '50s. it's a little over an hour. good afternoon. i'm not paul gregory. i'm not -- i'm a hoover associate fellow. welcome to the concluding session of this year's hoover institution workshop. every year the workshop gathers some of the most promising and historians from around the world. and the workshop is lead by paul gregg i are's who is the afternoon's speaker for some of you paul will need no introduction. for others he's a leading economist and historian of russian under communist ruling. among economists he's a -- all economists work with threat paul is one of the few who understands the power of the story.

his book is a collection of stories in the hoover archives that range from the grid to the comic and curious. his book "politics -- is the poignant story. coerce and repression in the soviet union. there are millions of pages of documents. stalin's agents and account. among other holdings that tell the story of power and cruelty on the many meetings of the past central committee. and the personal archive and -- [inaudible]

these holdings illustrate the opportunity for the scholars that work here on the history of receive yet rule. -- soviet yule. there was a need and an opportunity the need for paul's book is illustrated by statistical comparison. in russia women die on average of db [inaudible] men die in the early '60s. only a few women are still alive they too will soon pass on. the stories needs to be told now before it's too late. through paul's book, the last survivors have been able to tell their story. they are women of the gulag. [applause]

>> thank you. this is a multimedia presentation. we hope it will go without any snags. so i hope you can all see the screen. i'm very pleased to present to this audience my new book "women of the gulag." portrait of five remarkable lives. as said about writing letters, it's more difficult to write a short than a long one. my book is short, and the attempt to capture sight, sounds, and smells of the great terror of 1937, 1938 through the eyes of five women caught up in extraordinary.

the hoover press. without which this book could not have been written. so there are too many here for me to thank them individually. i would like to thank you collectively. the death of a million is statistic. we think we can convince people of stalin's evil by citing the millions who died in his famines, the hundreds of thousand shot during the great terror 37, 38.

the millions of men, women, and children who sat in his concentration camps and special settlements. stalin's manied admirers in today's russia and even the west admit that stalin may have done some bad things. the tole talty is maybe worth it. today's stalin is among the most admired figure in contemporary russia which may be hard for us to believe. they tell us that overwhelmingly his victims were ordinary people confused why they had been singled out. they tell us with dividing line. between perpetrator and victim

unlike hitler's germany. the executioners became the execute. the story tell us that the wives and children of the repressed could contaminate others and they had to isolated from society also. each part of my book begins in stalin's office. as they filter down to our five families. in this presentation, i leave stalin out. that's for you to read about when you buy the book. i want to introduce you to four of five women. you have to read the book to learn about the fifth.

i read through hundreds, probably more than hundreds of unpublished memoirs, primarily collected by the -- [inaudible] foundation. million i found subject to describe in enough detail their lives during and after the gulag. i didn't want to write a story about women behind barbed wires, rather i wanted to get to know each family, and to share their tragedy with my readers. why women? i must admit i didn't intend to write a book about women of the gulag, but it turns out that the women, not the men, survived as

mark said. more over, women are largely overlooked in the gulag literature, and women, unlike men, in their memoirs give me the intimate information about family life that i need. men don't write about such things. as i wrote this book, i actually developed a bond with each of the characters. their account gave addresses, names, dates, i knew it was unlikely that any of them were alive. they they would be in the 80s or 90s. curiosity drove me in the indispensable research assistant, who will stand up. [applause]

we found three of our primary characters still alive. from age 86 to 96. still living, lucid, and typical of russia still living where the action of their story takes place. thus born the documentary which accompanies the book, if you get the e version of the book after a short while you will get an e book with a clip in which the women and daughters tell their

stories. and we will show you some of these clips here. also they recommend the account of what i call finding it one of our i i must relay the telling. as mark said, we have little time for the last witnesses, one being olga, you'll see the clip shortly. all that being said,let turn to our stories. we begin with -- i'm not going to give you last names. they would only confuse you.

she lived from 1903 to 1981. we have interviews with her daughter. who experienced much of the she was born in 1903 in a small town. they the regarded as one of the most beautiful girls in town. by both white and red forces. she married a red --

it means secret police officer. and she went on to marry a rising star. but first i would like to review just some fragments. i have deliberately choose fragments from ordinary life. some of the fragments are quite horrific, but it's important you understand my purpose is to tell who these people were before this happened. this is how she meets evonne. they took their places on a park bench and lo and behold three officers dressed in splendid uniforms approached. the middle one caught her eye. if i marry, i want only him.

sudden gust of wind carried off her blue silk head scarf and ran to fetch it. literally a whisk per in approach why did you do that? they were running to rescue your scarf. she deliberately allowed the next gust to carry away her scarf to be rescued by the evonne, who would become her husband. ..

and they went for a walk, had a long conversation, i guess it was somewhat shocked that sergei was a true believer. she learned this in a conversation, not in jest, sergei told agnessa he would no his it to to execute her if he found her to be an enemy, and he

added, after i shot you, i would shoot myself. there came a time where -- when mironov was elevated to become the number two man in kazakhstan, and at this point, agnessa has to decide, go with mirosha, the rising star, or stay with evonne, who is going nowhere. and here is the account of her making this decision. at the train station. they go to the train station, agnes sacker as -- agnessa, as usual, is dressed to the t, and

as agnessa waited for departure in miroshas compartment, he insisted that agnessa come with him to moscow. only for a little while. agnessa wore only a light dress with a jacket, carried a small hand bag. how can i go without anything? she objected. don't worry, he assured her. we'll buy you what you need in moscow. as the warning whistle sounded, he held her hand in an iron grip. i'll not let you go. the train started. so began agnessa's life together with mr. roche should -- mirosh. so now we go to agnessa with mirosha in kazakh stand.

aholding agulia, who you will hear from in a minute, who is actually agnessa's niece but she and mirosha adopted her. here's the story that gets a little more gruesome -- or agnessa accompanying mirosha on a camp inspection of kazakhstan camps. and miroshas boss is making advance toward her, and they called him pot belly, and to escape his advances she goes on the train trip around kazakhstan, and here is her story. as mirosha disembarks at the station, he rejected the bored

agnessa's request to come along. on his return, mirosha lay in the sleeping car without a word. the other inspectors told agnessa of miserable families, freezing in crude shelters. they said the female manager of the supply depot had pointed out -- take a look at that hovel. the mother and father died leaving behind three young children. the two-year-old died shortly after them. the older boy took out a knife, cut his brother into pieces, sharing them with his sister. that night agnessa told mirosha what she heard. they can't be all enemies, mirosha, she said.

mirosha had no answer. mirosha keeps advancing, and in 137, if i remember, he becomes the head of the nkbd. so here's agnessa. with agulia, and the fragment i'm about to read shows the thin line between executioner and victim. agnessa and mirosha began a heatedly contested game of billiards in the side office. in the midst of the game misch

roar mirosha stopped and turned pale. agnessa followed his gaze through the large window she saw three military men approaching in nkbd uniforms. agnessa burst out, what's the matter, mirosha, then she understood. for an instant she thought they were coming for him. this is mirosha's arrest, and becomes ambassador to month goal -- mongolia, they then return to moscow where they live in the government house for the elite. the government house is famed for the number of famous victims of terror who lived there. so here's the story of mirosha's

arrest. at a friend's apartment, mirosha got an unexpected cal call to come to the office. as he approached agnessa, he whispered, maybe this is my arrest. she said, what are you talking about? go, try no not to be late to the circus. they promised agulya to go to the circus. agnessa saw him off, gave him her woolen scarf, he wound it around his neck. agnessa understood. this might be them to thing from her he would -- the only thing from her he would have. agnessa returned home to find nkbd officers ransacking her apartment. agulya complained. what about the circus? agnessa: we have a circus here at home.

so, mirosha is arrested. i'll not go into the story of that. they removed agnessa and agulya from the government house. she and agulya were evacuated as the war began. in 1942, agnessa herself was arrested. for anti-soviet gossip. they then took her to moscow and figured out who she was, and then she was sent to one of the worst camps in kazakhstan. let's listen to agulya talking about the arrest.

>> we now turn to our second woman of the go lag. -- gulag. maria. here's a collage that illustrates her life. she was born in 1904 in an isolated village in eastern siberia. when -- as a simple peasant girl. her father was a simple farmer. when a rail spur was built, maria met her future husband, alexander, the engineer in charge of the work. they married and raised three

children, in a hard-working, well-educated family. alexander proved to be an outstanding engineering. he and maria lived in various locales along the trans-siberian railroad, and he finally rose to the elevated position of chief engineer of the division of the trans-siberian. that's a very important job. he had enormous military significant, mining significant, connected to the east. although maria had only an elementary education, she loved good books, and she imparted this compassion to her three

children. they especially loved pushkin. they accumulated a small family library, and her children, nod ya, olga and yuri were outstanding students at school. she was rather fashion blue addressed because she was supposed to be an example for alexander's many subordinates. she volunteered. she improved the quarters of alexander's workers. they were one of most respected families in town. at the end of 1936 she was elected to be a delegate at a

very important convention of women activists in moscow in 1936 this is quite an honor. she was looking forward to it. this is the last family portrait. alexander, yuri, nadia, olga, and maria on the right. last family portrait. in this portrait, alexander, as you can see, is in a military uniform that the railroaders wore. he was head of the entire section, the trans-siberian. he ran afoul of the locals nkbd, who had their eyes on apartments that belongs to the railroads. he thwarted this. they vowed they would take evening on him, which they did

after a rail accident. they accused him of wrecking and sentenced him to nine years in a nearby camp. maria was very happy, if you can imagine that, because she was only 15 minutes away from the camp. so they figured they could make it through. that didn't happen. i'll not go into the details. but let's let olga tell of the last meeting with her father.

>> as the slide tells you, their father did not survive. it was practiced to take

photographs of all prisoners before execution. we were able to find his last picture. as -- if you compare him in the family portrait with that, you can see what he had gone through. so, alexander was executed and even before the word of the execution came out, they arrested maria, and i'd like to read you more than a fragment of the arrest. on october 7, 1937, 11-year-old yuri-teacher told him they need you at home urgently. yuri dashed home, hoping papa had return. as he burst through the door he saw his weeping mother embracing nadia and olga. she rushed to him. thank god we're all together. the officer in charge paced back and forth.

curious neighbors peered in and her yesterday away. olga, innocently asked. look, that uncle put papa's watch in his pocket. the three children clung so tightly to may re -- maria the arrests officer could not disentangle them. he called for a car. the car veered through the arch of nkbd headquarters. get out of the car and sign the protocol. as maria exited the driver revved the motor, the children screamed. their mother lurched towards the car, and before their horrified eyes the men beat her to the ground. the driver took them to their orphanage. maria herself was sentenced to the famous al jeer camp for

women in kazakhstan shortly thereafter. and i believe we have daughter olga talking about this.

>> maria survived the camps. here's a picture of her probably in the 1950s with her granddaughter. as i said, olga died shortly after this interview. we now turn to adele. adele was born in 1920. she was only 15 when she was literally swept away by a handsome older man who was a member of the leading family of the leading -- the leading political family. nestor, and we have here nestor's personal collection, including his photographs with

stalin. so adial's new father-in-law was supposed to be a close personal friend of stalin. stalin visited their home. adile visited stalin's dacha. she told her story to the top prosecutors after the speech. the said, why read a novel. just listen to this woman. after -- who happened to be the rival of her brother-in-law, nestor was poisoned by baria. arrests began all around her, all of her family, all of her in-laws were arrested, and adile

fled to moscow to disappear, and in months -- moscow, she was sheltered by a very courageous woman named anastasia, who is one of russia's most famous actresses. so the story about adile hiding out in the apartment is an incredible story. going back to happier moments in adile's life, in apazia, which is where adile lived, it was still the practice for men to kidnap their brides, and this is her husband, emdy, the brother-in-law of nestor. this is adile.

i think she is 15 or 16 at this time. -- 16. after meeting the 35-year-old emdi at a birthday party, 15-year-old adile knew that nestor lakoba, his brother-in-law, ruled, and his sister, saria, was the queen of society. other eligible girls were dismayed when emdi set sights on adile. he did not listen to her objections to marry. within a year or two someone will steal you. i don't intend to wait. sew kid copying -- kidnapping occurred on october 20, 1935, at a party. adile was excited about the put at the party. emdis friends had her scriple

she wished to mary him of her free will. the exuberant bridal covered escorted her to a new room, covered her in silk, each one kissed her and gave her a gift and then they carried her back to dance. in the la coba household, adile at each party would be asked to dance before bolshevik elite. the wedding celebration ended at daybreak. as a choir of girls sang for the parting guests. emdi retired with his 15-year-old bride to the lakoba compound as a married couple. this was happy time in adile's

life. this happy time did not last very long. rival baria, at least according to family stories, poisoned lakoba in tbilisi, and thereafter the arrests again. all the lakoba's were arrested. adile's family was arrested, her father, and adile's father, who was a persian. so adile never had soviet citizenship. so everyone was being arrested. and adile, including her husband, emdi, and adile, who is now like 16 or 17, spent her days trying to find where emdi was imprisoned, and to bring him

provisions. and i'd like to read this excerpt about her standing in front of the prison, which is around 30-kilometers away. adile moved slowly in front of the prison where emdi was held. the august heat stifled the waiting mothers and wives with small children. the absolute silence was disrupted only by small children who pleaded with their mothers for something to eat, drink, or sleep. adile recognized emdis voice calling out her name. she searched the windows and saw em declinging to the prison bars and shouting, leave, go as far away as possible. i fear for you. they're probably going to send us away. do not believe that we have done anything wrong. the guards tore emdi from the prison bars.

the women around adile began to cry. a guard grabbed adile by the collar, dragged her to the gate and through her outside to the ground. adile was quite a character. and let's hear from adile herself.

adile was also sentenced to kazakhstan, where she barely survived. she met her second husband in kazakhstan. they had two children. her second husband was a greek and had no right to enter into the soviet union so they lived separately. here are her to children, the daughter on the left you see in the film with her. the son, unfortunately, died early. and the daughter is now 96 -- 93? 93. we go to the final character.

my favorite. and this is the story that natalia wrote. finding fiokla fiokla was born in the euro mountains. her father was one of the rich its farmers in town. fiokla and her family, the father is next to her -- second from the top left were departed to a special settlement as they were called, which was basically a lifetime sentence for the adults. the children could perhaps leave the special settlement if they

behaved themselves when they grew up. fiokla lived as a prisoner in the special settlement called markush until she was freed to become a school teacher. she became a professor and devoted her life to helping her friends and neighbors obtain rehabilitation. her pleasant childhood ended in 1930 when stalin ordered the dee gulaggization of the country side. the family was sent to markush where adults and children worked in mines and fields on starvation rations. so let's hear from fiokla.

>> fiokla writes a lot about her love of going to school. and the school turned her into a true believer in stalin, and in soviet power. here's fiokla on the right with two sisters and grandfather. she describes her childhood where the only bright spots of her childhood was going to school. but here is how she described it. in the winter the children pulled their threads to the camp water pump. if it was broken they walked a mile to the river. they returned frightfully frozen, red as the goose's webbed feet, trying to warm their fingers by rubbing them in their arm pits.

children succumbed to work related accidents the children worked alongside the parents. a runaway cart crushed a boy who came to the mine to share his parents' meager rations. and one was driving a horse-drawn wagon, and a 13-year-old drowned while fetching water. despite work and meager rations. fiokla still found time to be a child. they stage battleds and shouted. crying was simply not allowed, although the carnage often ended with bloody noses and other injuries. all the markush children were poor. they had little food.

often no shoes. but the school required that the girls wear a dress. in fiokla's family the problem was there was only one dress. and fiokla and sister katya had to share the dress. katya o. -- o. -- o. got in trouble in school. and they went in different shifts and if katya was late she had to wait for the dress. here's the story.

>> fiokla's teachers did notate her, her father was an enemy of the people and would always be an enemy of the people. as the arrests began they would usually arrest the men at work in the fields or in the mines. fiokla's father knew what was coming. he would try to stay up longer so he could play with the children. and one day fiokla's father did not return. as did most of the other men, they did not return. the next day, all the families went into town to see what was going on. and fiokla tells of this day.

>> here's fiokla today with her surviving sisters, as we interviewed them.

i have just the brief final comments and then there will be final brief film segment. there is not one big monument in russia to commemorate the victims of stalin. there's no holocaust museum. there's never been a final reckoning. never been an apology. these stories remain largely untold, and those who are able to tell them are disappearing. rather than my having the last word, i would like to let adile, fekla, and particularly the villagers of markush, summarize what this book is about.

bells bells bells ♪ bells ] [applause]

>> thank you for sharing with us your insight into the lives of these remarkable women. we have five or ten minutes now for questions and answers. so, ladies and gentlemen, the floor is yours. >> to what extent are things like this known in russia today, or are people interested? is it all so old that they're beyond it? what would you say to that? >> i can't speak for the people of russia. i think many people really do not want to hear these stories. this is something that happened in the past. it's unpleasant. of course, there are very

dedicated people, like memorial societies. very brave people under attack right now from the putin regime. clearly, the stories are not well-known. and the reason for writing the book, when you hear the personal stories, you are much more struck by the horror of this and when you read about it in books and read the statistics. so, clearly, not enough is known >> the gentleman here and then the lady here. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> i was in russia about a month ago. i did have some concern.

we had been able to hold international conferences on the gulag and stalin's repreparation in moscow. -- repression in moss -- moscow. the russians willing to tabbed, putin is unclear how she should act. it's a justification for repression and the so-called strong hand that rich needs. on the other hand, the number of victims was so large and the number of families that had victims so large, something like 15, 20% of all russian families were affected by this. i don't feel personally comfortable, but there are others attending these conferences who are in much greater danger than i am.

>> she needs the microphone. >> these all seem rather random in a way, and yet there seems to be a surprising thread of people that -- at least two or three of these -- who were executed dish don't really know why. i mean, don't know why they were selected. i can't quite understand this. this is horrifying to hear. but some of them i would have thought would have been quite safe because they were working in positions that seemed to be important to stalin. is there some common thread or some reason that you discovered that caused these people to be executed? >> well, you have to look at each particular case. the engineer was in charge of a

whole division of the trans-siberian, and this man -- if you're going to have a thousand trains, you're going to have a wreck, and the minute the wreck happened, he was already on the wrong side of the nkbd. they had orders that had already come down, we need you to execute so many people. so he was obvious why he was chosen. fekla's father was a kulag, and once a kulag, always a kulag, and when the orders came down, for these quotas of executions, there was a decision that prime target would be kulags. so her father had no chance. mirosha,ing agnessa's husband, s number three or four in the

nkbd. he almost survived. that's the remarkable story about him. but in the case of stalin, you had this remarkable phenomenon of the executioners becoming executed, and they all understood this, and this created a rather odd dynamic. adile got into trouble because she belonged to a family that had trouble with -- one of the worst murderers of the stalin regime. so each one is different, but particularly for the very simple people, you really can't find a reason for it, and their reaction, why us? we've done nothing wrong. we're good soviet citizens. many were true believers. so doesn't make a lot of sense. >> so here in the middle -- just this side of the walkway.

>> who are the kulags? >> excuse me. a kulag would be a farm family hat was wealthier than others. usually it's measured by the fact they had hired labor. they had a barn. they had livestock. so, in 1929, stalin ordered what was call de-kulagizeation, and is taking all their property and deportation to a remote area. so fekla's story is the story of a deported kulag. so that may answer your question. >> process sort of faded out and

then there was a time lapse and then the great patriotic war began. how long was that? >> the great terror ended in november of 1938. >> how did it end? >> stalin wrote an order. it's supposed to end, and it ended. >> and so then it was -- three years, basically. >> yes, two or three years, yes. >> and the lady in the front. >> given his background in the kgb, is there any suggestion, any evidence at all that putin is establishing the same kind of camps or same kind of process? >> well, his political opponents are now residing in the same

prisons and camps that are families of the women in the stories resided in much earlier. the three young musician women -- two of them are still in the camp. the prison is still -- is being occupied by some of the peaceful demonstrators from the may 3 demonstration. there are stories that the psychiatric hospitals have opened for political oppositionists again. so, very similar. >> ladies and gentlemen, i'm sure there may be many more questions. i'd like to invite you to join paul in a reception in the courtyard and i'm sure paul

would be willing to answer questions if he has a bit of energy left, and i'd also like to mention you can find a limited number of paul's book, complimentary copies on the table by the exit to my left, your right. so the copies are available now for purchase on amazon book stores and to conclude, i'm sure you would like to join me in thanking paul for a wonderful presentation. [applause] >> host: joining us on booktv, bill bryson, one summer in america, 1927. why 1927? >> guest: well, i had always been fascinated by the fact that

-- i just had it in mind that maybe it would be interesting to try to do a dual biography of these two guys with a meeting in the summer of 1927. that was my first thought. then when i began looking into what else happened in the summer of 1927, i found those were only just two tiny parts. there was all kinds of other stuff happening in the summer. the great mississippi flood. the biggest natural disaster in american history. and you had al capone beginning -- the beginning of the end of al capone, and the end of prohibition. the information that it was coming to an end. you had the -- building

mt. rushmoore, and coolidge announced he did not run for re-election. for reasons that are still slightly mystifying. henry ford had a madid -- a madid to build a city. so this book came not just looking at these two figures, baby ruth and lindbergh but looking at everything that was happening. it was kind of frenetic amount of activity, a great deal hoff changed the world, changed the way we perceived popular entertainment and so on. so it was constance general

shall and always interesting and lively. >> host: any reason all these events happened in the summer of 1927? >> guest: they just happened in the summer of 1927. that is what kind of interesting about it. sometimes these things just happen and all of these happened then. by and large there wasn't any particular reason. they weren't there because it had to happen in the summer of 1927. mostly they just happened then. there were connections. the reason that it lindbergh was able to fly first to europe bass was of the same storm system that caused the flooding in the midst, the great mississippi flood. the same weather systemed a -- system had all the other aviators pinned down in new york and allowed lindbergh to fly from san diego and get ahead of the others, so if it hadn't been for the weather system causing

havoc, almost certainly edmund byrd whoa have been the first to cross the ocean and that would have totally changed popular history a great deal. >> host: there was a contest going on at that point. >> guest: a contest. i didn't realize this before i started doing the book. i always assumed that charles lindbergh got in his head he would fly in the ocean and got a plane and did it. i it wasn't anything as simple as that. it was a prize called the ortiz prize, named after a french man, raymond ortiz, and just loved aviation. became very excited by aviation during the first world war with the dogfights and everything, and he put up a very generous pride, $25,000, a lot of money in those days, for the first people or team of people who could fly between new york and paris in either direction. so lots of teams were getting ready to fly and take off that summer, and every single one of them was better prepared and better funded than charles

lindbergh, and lindbergh was just a kid. really, 25-year-old kid from the midwest, who flies into new york, with a plane with one engine. no navigator no copilot, him and a simple small plane, essentially just a flying gas tank, and everybody thought it was suicide and if he got away first he would crash in the water, and of course he beat everybody because he had so much -- his plane was so much simpler and so much less that had to be necessary in order to get it ready to take off. >> host: you open the book talking bat fire in new york city and how people would gather for events. >> guest: it's amazing. this happened again and again. i didn't know what it was. i don't know that anybody can say what it was. there was just this impulse by people to gather in huge crowds for almost everything.

the fire was of a hotel in new york, on philadelphia -- fifth avenue, which was under construction, nearly fin i issued, and a whole lot of wooden scaffolding at the top and somehow it caught fire, and all the wooden scaffolding went up in flames, and it was a little bit like a matchhead, this great flame at the top of the building. and within a couple of hours, a crowd estimated at 100,000 people had spontaneously turned up. imagine what it would take to get 100,000 people in new york to gather in one place now. it would have to be something quite dramatic. then just a big fire did it. and lots of other things. the same summer you had shipwreck kelly, the flag pole sitter. he went up on a hotel flag pole in new jersey, and tens of thousands of people came to watch that. people would turn out for

anything. and they just -- i -- in the way of popular entertainment. there was something going on, great crowds would turn out for it. >> host: bill bryson, on a macro level when it comes to american politics, calvin coolidge not running, al capone, was there -- the economy -- was there something happening on the macro level as well? >> guest: yes. the economy was very interesting summer from the point of view of the economy because the economy was booming, and america was just -- it was motoring along and was overheating if anything and this was matter of some concern to some people. herbert hoof very in particular was worried it was overheating and he was right to because it was overheating, and the federal reserve bank of new york and then central banks of britain, france, and germany, all met in a secret meeting only long

island, not far from where behindberg had taken off, and they decided, very mistakenly decided to cut the interest rate everywhere, which was what really led to the stock market crash the following year and then the great depression after that. >> host: that's just a quick preview of bill bryson's upcoming book october 2013 "one summer america 1927."

>> mr. germond appeared on book tv to discuss his book "fat nab a middle seat" 40 years of covering politics and you can watch that online at booktv.org. on webs, am summon announced a new series will be available through its kindle devices later. amazon said it is working to hire celebrated authors to write about figures like edgar allen poe. and nine titles will be released bimonthly in 2014. book store sales dropped 9-1/2% in june. monthly book store sales in 2013 had been close to 2012 until a drop last month. >> the attorneys representing apple, the department of justice and state and consumer classes will return to court on august 27th to discuss

potential penalties against apple for ebook price fixing. the presiding judge said she is ready to issue an injunction for the attorneys consideration against apple but said she is concerned any injunction could inhibit innovation in the rapidly evolving ebook market. stay up to date on breaking news about authors, by liking us an facebook at facebook.com. ...