>> here's a look at the best-selling nonfiction books of independent booksellers across the country. topping the list this week.

>> next, an interview with ishmael beah from book of america on his book on the radiance of tomorrow. this is about 15 minutes. >> on your screen is ishmael

beah, author of a long way gone. the second book is coming out, mr. beah. why did you choose to make it a novel? >> first of all, i wanted to depart from the memoirs and nonfiction. second, the issues i read about in the new book, "radiance of tomorrow," it's about a lot of people. experiences going home after war another people six euros, so it is composite of the tanks. i want to have the freedom to play around with words and images. >> what kind of freedom is writing a novel gave you rather than nonfiction? >> with the novel, for me particularly there's room to play with language more than to actually maybe extend the recurrence is. you know, expand them more and traumatize them a little more.

they were also in the same time. the runaway coming to us whatever they wanted they wanted to do was this novel i talk about things that existed before the war. after work, and the existed again. so i try to put them together in a way that allows me to do that. >> what is in the novel? >> it was like that semifictional way in the remote part of the country, where people don't really care to hear about it. these are places that were devastated and people go back home and try to live. imagine going back home to your village that has been destroyed in the return and that's pretty much overgrown. how do you do that? how do you find a way to sustain your family?

how do you live next door to your neighbor who may have tenure and a major in the war? what do you lose? what do you gain? how do you get around all of this? >> after a long way, as published on your first trip to sierra leone, what was that like? >> my first trip was very, very difficult in the sense that it's going to please and also function as a new child. i was going back as a young adult who's written and is summarized now. it brought back a lot of memories. but also, people recognizing as well.

>> yes, sir, i am. i tried to hide under the radar. i speak the languages very well. it's good for my writing as well because i want to observe. so i've become a regular person. >> now, "radiance of tomorrow" is coming under january 2014. had he finished the book click >> yes, i finished the book. we are to have some surveillance. this is just a mop. the macbook we see here in this little booklet is not going to need a cover, correct? >> to tape you have fun there will be the same thing in this picture will be in the back and then there'll be another cover. so this is just the first chap to your. but it's done, so it's coming

out. >> is this written more in the tradition of sierra leone rather than a long way gone? >> everything i may to me. when you write about any human next. , i am a political scientist at background. you can read about it in big terms and kind of take the humanity out of it. or you can have a sub roll, miracle story and people can draw those conclusions you want them to draw. you don't need to give them the theory about xyz. i would never say that in my book. i would just describe how the public and the people who live in that country, how this affects them in the reader would know what this is. for example, instead of singing that joan cried, the reader will know that joan is crying and.

so they experience what is pat. this is how i write. when you tell people a story early, you have to capture the imagination and bring them so they can see, hear, smell and be part of the experience. you have to tap into the imagination. >> word of the title from? pingback it comes somewhere in the book of a woman who's trying to tell the old story to some of the young people. is really calm in the book where she's had a story of why she continued being hopeful and allowed to go forward. >> now come you talking in your second book, "radiance of tomorrow," about the war that never ends. you mention the civil war, 10 year war that is never ended.

>> yes, because in any kind of devastation, the physical wounds are the ones that are more visible and can heal quicker. everybody can see that. internal ones come in the psychological ones and all the things that have happened taking much longer time. so the wars they and physically. but all the things continuing in people and all of these things take a much longer time. >> why is that on? people are still trying to find a way to live together. you continue this in while you try to mend what has been or can. so it's very, very difficult thing that requires a lot of patience, requires people coming back into society and looking at the different ways.

you will not be able to live in peace next to them. you have to find a way to reconcile with them. >> can't be reconciled yourself from this? >> to some extent. there's nothing i could do to undo what happened. but the memories, you can never forget. you learn to live with the memories of war and you learn to not react. what triggers an emotion from the war, i have no control. the simplest thing. so i have is not react to them thinking they been standing on the corner of sundstrom washington d.c. or new york. put it in a different context. that's all i can do. that's the difficulty of living

with the memories of war. we have defined ways to do with them so we don't pass it on to your family and insight that. the >> wilbur the experience is a frightening a long way gone and "radiance of tomorrow." how are they away, how are they different? >> they are very different. i never intended to publish it. you know, to find a way to find to my thinking, so they were to speak five, 10 minute in a sustained way about what i would say. and later on it became a bakery to publish. where's this one i wrote with the tension of publishing. so this was written when i was an undergraduate. this has been written in six countries. so i wrote it in the united state, new york. i wrote it in italy.

in aspen, colorado. >> have you grown used to living in the states? >> yes. i still miss them when i go home frequently. i am his sierra leone and with american tenant leaves. that's how i describe myself. i am part of the cultures now. i would've lived in the united states about the same year that that sierra leone. so i find myself that's wonderful for my life, my thinking. >> how has a long way gone and changed you and your family because of his success? >> it changed her life completely. when the book came out because of the content, people may not believe read it. beyond what i'd expect it. so i really did not unders and

what it meant to be a public%. so i had a few missed aches that i made. i was just a regular kid. i just got here from college, so when the book came out, a friend of my college buddy and i moved into an apartment. all of a sudden we started hitting these calls. we got 20, 30, 40 calls. we were like why are they doing now? [inaudible] so for me to realize that deceptively named and also from "the new york times" magazine had a photograph of me on the front cover and i was in the subway in new york when sydney morning i'm sitting there and literally everybody -- [inaudible] it's funny to me, you know?

and a simple person and it remained that way. but it changed my life tremendous need. >> from "radiance of tomorrow." it is the younger may be the beginning of another story. every story begins and ends with a mother, karen albert, grow, child. >> i think again, going to the oral tradition of storytelling, use server-side image are discovering and at the end of full-grown. so every story is giving birth to son team. an idea, he thought it can introduce him to people to new landscapes, so you are burning them alive. because women are the ones who give her to all of us in the world, so every story starts with us, this is actually from

the older tradition storytelling my grandmother, also being a very strong impact on my life. no understand that 10 years from now. so that's what this is. >> wendy s-sierra down like today i >> sierra leone is coming along. but that the war behind the war and officially in two into one of development has been coming slowly. a lot of young people are turning back and doing small businesses and people going back home. but the sense that politicians are still not the ones we want to be in terms of people who couldn't really move this country forward, who can be at the service of the people in the

country. cities are some of the reasons why the wars target because we didn't have a government really care for the people. it's a really small country. if somebody is interested in shaping this country to be one of the best of the world can be done. we have leaders to care for themselves and how well they are actually serving the people. ..