[inaudible conversations] >> what you find from the larger corporate sites typically are the things that would appeal to the broadest audience or the things that are generally perceived as most profitable, and most profitable being the key thing. and what aye discovered is that -- i've discovered is that that isn't the stuff that actually feeds us, it's not the stuff that's going to uplift us. so if we're going to be with able to share information about things that really enrich us, all of you are going to have to help do that. because the large corporations simply will not do it, it's not

in their interest to do it, and they haven't demonstrated propensity for doing it. but one of the things i feel is lacking is lately our willingness to promote our stuff. and we are losing, we're hemorrhaging platforms. now, there's a good side and a bad side to this story. you know, actually, i brought a list of the bookstores that have closed not since i started my web site but since i started keeping track of 'em. and it's, the list actually, if you do me a favor and just hold this, this is a list of bookstores that have closed. >> now are those brook bookstores? >> these are all independent bookstores across the nation. >> what's the count, do you know? approximately. >> over a hundred. i mean, honestly are, i don't know the count -- >> 300? >> oh well, this is, this is how many are left, and this is

counting the schomburg, this is counting the studio museum's bookstore, this is counting the hub at howard university. so if we were to look at the number of black-owned independent bookstores in this country, there's less than 50. and when we talk about the number of bookstores per black person many this country, we're looking at -- in this country we're looking at numbers like 800,000 to 1. you know, states like alabama doesn't have one. the last one closed i think last year. the cradle of the civil rights movement: i mean, i'm getting upset just thinking about it, and i don't feel this anger anywhere. >> you can watch this and ore programs -- otherprograms online at booktv.org. [inaudible conversations]

>> next from chicago journalists bill and willie geist talk about their book, "good talk dad: the birds and the bees and other conversations we forget to have." [inaudible conversations] >> hello, hello? one, two one, two. you got it now? [inaudible conversations] should have something now, one two. excellent. >> good afternoon, everyone. we're going to go ahead and get started. my name is john dudley. it's my honor to welcome you to the 30th annual chicago tribune printers row lit fest. i want to give a special thank you to all of our sponsors who helped make this great event special. the author's book, "good talk,

dad," is on sale currently in the main lobby. the author will be signing copies of the book today in the cafeteria after this presentation is over not the usual book-signing table but downstairs in the cafeteria. today's program is being broadcast live on c-span2's booktv. we have a microphone set up in case there's time for q&a at the end of the session. if you'd please use this microphone located to the left of the stairwell here this would allow the viewing audience at home to hear your questions as well as the author and the moderator. if you'd like to watch this program, coverage will reair tonight at 11 p.m. central time. please keep the spirit of lit fest going all year round with a subscription to the printers row journal. this is the tribune's premium book section, fiction series and membership program. this year we are also introducing a new digital bookstore through our tribune books app. please take one of the promo cards located outside for

information about the app and access to special book deals. before we start, if i could ask you guys to, please, turn off your cell phones or put them on silent. we do encourage you to take pictures. just please turn the camera flash off on your cameras please. we also encourage you to post those pictures on twitter instagram and facebook using hashtag, printersrow. without further ado, it gives me great honor to welcome the chicago tribune's very own senior writer and columnist rick hogan to moderate today's program. put your hands together for rick. [applause] p.m.

>> i am assuming you know which is which. fellas, this is a funny book. you might expect that from these two men if you know their tv work. it is also filled with a lot of heart and a lot amazing honesty. bill you used to be a reporter here in town. and when you were -- >> they didn't let me downtown. >> one of the many great mistakes the "chicago tribune" has made. it is very very long list.

i want to read something. i am going to do some reading from the book because i like the way these two guys write. bill writing to willie until you were 12 i had been a newspaper reporter saying his parents owned a paper in illinois. but i guided you away from newspapers. but because they were becoming extinct yet but because i had bad experiences like being trapped for eight years in an office writing about sewer board refrend refrend refrendem. remember when i had a column -- anybody remember that? he could not move up from the suburbs. here is one reason. mike rick likeded my column so

much he put his hands around me neck at an christmas party saying you young punks are trying to steal my job. bill was flattered by that. willie, do you have any membery of your dad as reporter for the tribute? >> i was born at -- [ applause ] >> i was born at evanston hospital in 1975 and we moved when i was five years old. the new york times came calling. the chicago tribune, the downtown paper didn't come

calling, but the new york times did. we moved to new jersey and i grew up around new york city. my dad likes to say he was providing a service because raising a child in chicago as a cub fan under illinois law is child abuse. so he said the yankees are won a couple world series so he had a chance. >> i used to tell him winning and loosing wasn't important. he would eat everything and fall asleep in the six inning which is a good policy for any cub's fan. >> but still watch this -- how many of you are still loyal cub fans? >> why? why? >> i am still a cubs fan too. but i don't know why? >> for someone who moved at the

age of five i had a lot of allegiance. my parents met at the university of illinois. >> my second senior year. >> he said it was a good thing he flunked his classes oh he would not have met my more. i had people on my wall from chicago. >> these two never had the talk of sex in this book. and there is a great deal of it. as willie writes i was thrust into a version of eyes wide shut. people were having parties and spinning the bottling and disappearing in the closet for seven minute increments. i know the book was seeded and the idea came from a mutual

agent. but it seems like something you would say no about. >> i think we did. a lot of people said because we are in the communication business they said you caught ought to do something together. and my dad's long-term agent had the idea. we thought it sounded like a hassle. and a couple years ago my dad went on cbs sunday morning and announced he had parkinson's disease. >> that was to get attention. it was the same week anderson cooper came out. [ applause ] >> about that moment willie writes that he did do this it was your proudest moment as a son. >> i was proud of him because i knew how difficult it was.

my dad has had parkinson 22 years and for the first ten he didn't tell me or my sister. we thought he was slowing down and probably too young in hindsight. but we have family here who can relate. when you grow up in 1950 campagna illinois there is not a lot of hugging and touchy feeling. >> there are so psychologist there. they keep opening and closing and running away. >> my sister and for years said just tell meme. viewers, family friends who you have not officially told know. i knew how hard it was to do. we were sitting in the living room when it was live and we watched it together and i was incredibly proud and there were a lot of tears in the room. >> bill you are a private man.

how does a very private man deal with that very public role of being on television? even though you are telling stories, it makes you a public figure. >> you can appreciate this rick. as a newspaper reporter you are with the person you are interviewing and i don't have to face many. this is the biggest audience i have faced in years. >> be nice everybody. >> it is very much just talking to a camera and over the years you try to forget about camera being there. everybody with all of the videos are comfortable now. everybody is used to it. >> you come from a vastly different parenting time. here is just another bit -- and i am reading so much of this because the writing is very very good and compelling. let's be honest sometimes the

job of parenting is too big for any two people. this is you writing willie. sometimes you have to call in for backup. we call it third party discipline. anybody in a uniform does. police man fireman, lifeguards gas station attendance movie ticket takers and anyone wearing a hard hat will do. bill you were not particularly -- your father wasn't at all an emotionally outward sensitive fellow. >> a couple of my cousins are saying no right now in the audience. he took photography so he would go down and there. he would close the do if you have opened it it would ruin

everything. he was a high school teacher so i think he had enough. >> i have a 4-year-old and 6-year-old. and our 4-year-old boy george is great but he acts up. he will throw things around the restaurant and at the diner they have the window where the food is coming out and we say the chef is watching. and in the neighborhood my son worships the new york city police department and loves firefighters. there is a restaurant we go in and down the road is the 20th prestinct and we go in and they give him batches and equipment. and 1-20 times we take him in there when he has been bad.

we talk walk in and she senses something is different. and the cop comes up with the badge and uniform. and we say george has been hitting his sister and i know you have bigger fish to fry. and the cops are like george, don't hit your sisters. no vegetables. let's go george clean it up. and he is back pedaling against the wall and it buys us like a month of good behavior. >> he's going to be seeing one of those psychologist. >> he will need therapy but that is done the road. >> yes, it is not today. >> it is obvious if you are watched or read them these are funny men. you say laughter was a daily bond between the two of you. is it genetic?

>> i don't know? i had not thought about that. >> yeah probably, but it was also the tone in the house. my dad wasn't a heavy handed disciplinary man but he was funny. he worked hard and came home and there was laughter and it was funny. i think you pick up a world view which is not sure and you have a bs detector and you are curious. i don't know if it is genetic or the feel in the house. >> the read jeep story must have been influential. bill what did you spend our advance on of $10,000. >> we put a list up and the kids put down private planes and

yachts. so i went out and blew $7700 on a red jeep. there were no seats. options were passenger seat windshield. >> the red jeep, for you, willie had a once family -- >> it is worse than dad describes. it was a c-j 7 and it was our family car. it wasn't we keep it in the garage. it took us on vacations, grocery store, drove us to school. and the floors rusted out through the bottom by the time i was driving age. and first year didn't work and now power steering. your foot would go through the floor because of the rust and you had to start it in second which on a hill can be exciting. and it was actually my mother who taught me how to drive and

she would take me out and teach me how to drive on the hill and i would be cursing the car and she would be laughing. and she told me if you can drive this car you will me able to drive any car for the rest of your life. >> it wasn't that hard to drive. >> in that state it was. >> driving on a manual jeep cj 7 with no power steering is like teaching a child to read on a toll story. >> your wife and willie's mom has one of the most suspect quotes and endorsements i have ever read in my life. are you sure this. i would like each of youou to talk about the importance of your wives and they are in the book.

the importance of that long term relationship not just for you but that notion of family. >> it is great. it was expressed in unusual ways. we didn't have the big talks. we got a lot through osmosis. i tried to teach him the things i young man should know but i hadn't been taught that. i would take him fishing and golfing and i could not do it. >> that is where my mom stepped in. she is from barrington by the way. she was a cheer leader and they added an extra letter in the cheer to make the cadence work. >> they didn't know it until i corrected it 50 years after the

school. >> they were the broncos but it became bronchos. she didn't know it was wrong. they met at the university of illinois and she has been a social worker every day of her professional life. she worked in the robert taylor homes and it is what see loves to do. she is a social worker to this deign -- day -- in harlem. i think i got from her charity and emathy and all of those things you don't also get -- empathy -- >> you would not get from me. >> exactly. that is where i was going with this >> i wanted to get there first >> this is a father-son book but as you read through the lines you see my mother is the biggest

influence. >> and your wife. childhood sweethearts. >> i met her at 11. >> got married at 12. >> that is the kind of father he was. >> reporter: >> the other interesting characters in the book and it is about a father and son but there are other interesting characters. the grandfathers are fascinating. one is in the hockey hall of fame. >> my mother's grandfather played for the red wings in the 1930s and won two stanley cups and was the captain of the team and enducted into the hall of fame. none of those genes were passed on. i am still the kid with the figure states on grasping to the wall >> we have a picture at the enterance saying keep this guy. >> perhaps that is the most

impress impress impressive thing about me and my great grand father is in the hall of fame for hockey. >> bill your son was a very talented athlete in high school and beyond that. >> not beyond that, no. >> you were a raucous father watching the games. >> yes, i was one of these people that should be sent to a mental hospital. >> have you seen dennis hopper in hoosiers? my dad would get on the ref and he was often the only voice in the gym. he was clever in his insults so

he got away with it. >> was there pride in seeing him excel in athletics? >> yeah, it was fun to watch him. i always said i am his biggest fan and i still am >> my first basketball game i scored 16 points. my dad had an assignment for the times but he raced back to time square and wrote a game story that is in the book and it is great family hair loom. >> you did try to teach him -- you left his drinking? >> we talked about that two weeks ago. finally had that big conversation. >> i like the uncle who comes into the book.

a functioning alcoholic counseled me drink scotch and water and you will not get sick. it was a tip for teens and in that fall i was the only 16-year-old in town who drank scotch. do you ever remember having a kind of first formal cocktail together? >> i don't remember the exact cocktail but he said we are going to do it under my roof. but it was okay to have a drink and friends over. we are not throwing a party but you can drink and watch the game. >> so a hundred people would show up. the police came to one of these functions. well, they came to all of them. we got to know them very well. a guy walks out the driveway and

i run out and say we need to turn the music down. and he said it isn't that. it is -- the bus was left on on a neighbor's lawn. there was a charter bus idling because we brought in people from out of town. >> out of state. we took project ad venture in high school where you repel and rock climb and we took it as practical as 17 year olds because my friend had a third floor to himself. it was a great place to hang out for teens but the second floor was where the dad was and he was tough. so you were not getting up the stairs with anything. so we started a system with pole up the house and we had people repelling up and down.

>> the father called me and said there are ninjas going up the side of the house >> maybe you learned that kachlt. your camp experience is great. camp served not just a place for carefree boys to spend a magical summer but a safe wooded refugee for convicted gang offenders to serve out their sentence as camp counselors. >> his mother and i wanted him to go to real camp up in the northeast with pristine lakes and the pine scented air and they make lanereds and so we found the place -- we went to park camp expo and looked at 200 different camps. and the guy came over and gave apressina

presentation in the living room and a $25 off coupon. so we dropped willie off at the perfect camp. >> it was me and another friend because the others went to a camp. it was the lake activities and we were identifying leafs and fantastic. but the counseling program there, the counselors were rehabillitated gang members and they fought a lot. one night they slashed each other's tires in the parking lot. that was a banner day at the camp. at any given moment a couple different ones were having relationships with the nurse who was the only woman at the camp. god forbid you skin your knee and knock on the door and it was always locked because they were busy in there. >> a lot of paperwork in health

care. >> and then one day an an outbreak of empentigo and they didn't know how to treat it. so they stripped us down and power washed us off. and i still have a scar on my arm. this was 1988 from this because they don't recommend power washing for such disease. my father had great intention and send his son to camp and we get it wrong in the end. >> and when you were a senior it maybe the influenced of your bodies at camp but when you go to your dad and say you want to get your ear pierced i say that

is something pirates do. >> this is supposed to be a great act of rebellion and i told my mother and she said if you do it i am taking you to do it stow is done right. others were jamming the needle through the ear on ice. so when you mom takes it takes the rebellion out. >> at the nail saloon. >> it is true. she took me to her nail saloon. she said let's get your ear pierced and i sat there next to the women and got my ear pierced with the rest of the team. >> much of this book is based on the charming memories and would you -- in the writing of this book, would you trade chapters? what was the process like? >> we were in different rooms that is for sure. >> we started out -- the best

part was sitting down with my mother and wife and the four of us and hashing through -- you come out with the best of your best. it is long process. thinking about your entire life is a daunting process. the camp chapter my dad started with this is what i intended to do. we edited each other. >> that is a fascinating process. it is like self-psychiatry. >> it was. i said about the project whoever buys or how many few copies it sells the idea that we are going too in a bound volume all of our stories and i can hand this to my kids and they will know who i was and their grandfather and it will be on a shelf somewhere

priceless to me. >> there are universal stories no matter how functional or dysfunctional your own families were you will find something in here that mirors that or evokes it for you. before i could read or write i knew elvis' birthday of january 8th. why is that? >> my dad was obsessed with elvis. i guess it would have been his 40th -- >> we are assuming he is long gone. >> he is in buenes aris with tupac maybe.

so we dressed up and there are pictures in the book. to give you idea of what the house was like. and you don't realize it was strange as a child. we had a ceramic bust of elvis on a ped stool in the dining room as though it were high art. >> he deserved to be on a ped stool. >> the other thing is my dad was a steak and shake free. i didn't know this was strange either until i went to other kid's houses. the art in the dining room was the three stock photographs of the food they hang in the restaurant. we framed the steakburger with the fries. the other was the milkshake and the other was the chilly fries. that was our art.

i didn't realize until later how strange it was. >> if andy worhol did that he would have made $10 million >> who is the late film credit who is obsessed with steak and shake? >> roger ebert. so they should stop writing and stop being doctors. >> we just got one in new york and it is right next to letterman's studio because he wanted a steak and shake. >> bill, you have done more books than willie. talk to me about the different joys in writing for print and television? you are a brilliant television

writer too. >> thank you. i always write something too long where the editor should have gone shot. >> most editors should be shot. >> there are not a lot of words in a television script. 500 words or so. they are both gratifying. it is fun to work in tv with a group of people working on a project but i don't like other people's opinions so. >> who does? all ex-journalist don't. will, what about for you? you had jokes for conan. did you want to be a writer? >> i think i got it from my dad. he has been on the tv but he was in the papers first. a producer used to read his

column called him and said you ever think about tv and he jumped in. >> bill, did you say that looks easy? >> no he called me i had never met him. he called me on a weekend morning and said have you thought of tv and i just read an article saying andy roony got a million dollar advance and i said yes i have. it came to me recently. and the rest is history. charles crow called me at home and said come do it. it will be fun. and i said if you talk to me about the dental program i would not have gone. and it turns out i am a sucker for fun. and willie is that way, too. >> no question. willie how did you -- you sent

jokes to conan, right? >> i went to vanderbilt and i was a fan of conan. i sent a package of jokes. i was working at a liquor store and i remember the mailbox i put it in. i was 22 years old, put this packet of material and sent it to the address where his show was and waited to hear back. i did get a letter back and i remember holding it and i was like i am going to preserve this moment because this is when i got the job. i opened it and it was a form letter saying we have not used your material but we have not read your material. and they had to say that for legal reasons because if they did a joke with something i

wrote i could sue them. that was my first whiff of rejection and then is a long story but i moved to atlanta and started working at cnn after that. >> bill watching from the sidelines as thooe guy who shouts and screams, have you found yourself doing that as willie's career has progressed remarkable well? [ applause ] >> or shouted in private and given advice? >> i think when he first started i gave him tips. i am still a newspaper reporter on tv. i was never told what to do with my clothes and air as you can see for yourself -- hair -- but he got on tract and was great and as i say i am his biggest fan. he was on tv too early for me.

thank god for dvr's. >> i had a show on at 5:30 a.m. >> you may have missed it. >> and after about the first two days i noticed my parents stopped commenting on it. but he didn't sit me down saying get into journalism but just his example and watching how much fun he had and inthe places he went and the people he met i could see it was a fun career. >> that is kind of what the book is all about. it is like the birds and the bees. sgr >> it is also about the shadow a father with pleasantly cast not on just one child but all of your children in ways that you don't realize you are casting it. i will end this so we can get questions. haven't these guys been amazing? [ applause ]

>> i am telling you thing. there better be more people than buy the book than cub fans? how many are going to buy the book? >> about two hands. >> it is remarkable book as are some of bill's other books. i have not read yours willie. one of the most touching and real and honest portions of the book, bill, is when you write about and you never did that before or spoke about it your experiences in vietnam. he said i have never talked about that or anyone even myself but you do it on these pages. how hard was that? >> it was hard because i denigrated people that came back and told war stories. i think people do it in bars for a free drink or to be entertaining. i didn't want to be enter

taining or trade on the problems like death that some of the people over there -- >> willie what was it like reading this session for you? >> this was the one piece, you know someone 40 years, and you think you know everything, but i knew nothing about it. he was a combat photographer. and i have seen the pictures and i wanted to know the stories. and it was just something ever time it came up he would drift away and it was clear he didn't want to talk about it. and i said dad, it would be nice for us if you would write a chapter about vietnam and he blew he off and one day i was walking down the street and get an e-mail and it was the chapter that is in the book. and what strikes me about it is for someone who said he put it away and tried not to remember it he remembered everything. >> it is unbelievable.

and tell me the writing can get more honest than this. i don't know if i killed anyone in vietnam. i shot at lethal bullet spewing bushing trying to kill us and enemies were later found behind them. and he ends this by saying when they announced the fall of saigon i went into another room and cried for the 58,000 who had died for nothing. not even to serve as a cautionary lesson to never make the same mistake again. we already have. how many of you want to buy the book now? [ applause ] it is quite a remarkable story. you can laugh your head off with this book but it exist for me on a number of levels. many of them terrible heart felt

and serious. you are the role model of what a father and son should be and you make a lot of money in tv and it isn't as hard as delivering babies. it anyone wants to ask a question, step up to the microphone. >> no state capitals please. >> since no one is stepping up willie what is matt lower really like? >> he is an old fashion gentlemen. he shakes everybody's hand he is good to everybody. you look up to certain people my dad, and matt and brian williams and you watch how they conduct themselves and you sit back and watch. he knows everybody's name shakes hands, holds doors and he is a good guy and a role model to me. >> that is great. and willie is matt lowery

tomorrow. >> i am filling in tomorrow in new york >> you must also know these two gentlemen landed at o' hare at 1:20 and made it down here. >> the taxi from the runway to the terminal was as long as the flight. we thought we landnd in per. >> bill how do you feel? >> ups and down. it is draining the energy you put out. when they said i had parkinson i told willie i was going to write a book called "i would shoot myself but i might miss". >> i thought that was dark.

>> i cannot believe anyone has a question. you know what it is? i am doing a great job with the noort interview. >> how many wish the tribune hired bill geist when they had a chance? how many think now they should offer both of these guys a sindicated column? [ applause ] >> yes, sir? [inaudible question] >> in the same manner as matt lowary -- >> if joe scarborough was here you would be laughing and impressed by how well he understands politics. he is a good friend and why i am here today. morning joe started because his

radio show was on msnbc for three hours and when he got in trouble for talking about the rutgers women's basketball team and he was let go. and they were pulling people off the street to >> host:. you got an hour in the morning to get an nbc idea. joe had a primetime show at night and it was his idea to take the morning and turn it into politics. he was watching me and he plucked me. i didn't know him well. and dad knew micka better. i owe joe a great deal of gratitude. morning joe was the first time i hosted a tv show. >> willie i want to know if you have ever tried to parallel park in chicago because i understand

you are one of the best in the world. >> top five. i said in an interview years ago someone said what is your special skill? and i said i am one of the five best parallel parkers in america. and sure enough the first day they had three cars and they made me on live television i did a little love tap and cracked under pressure. i don't think i have done it in chicago but new york is tough. >> chicago they tow you away first. >> tow them away ♪ >> i will end this. i have enjoyed this. and i enjoyed the book. and willie has something in the

epilogue that gets this. it is half a paragraph that is funny and touching and that is what this is all about. the great gift of writing this book, besides the opportunity to teach you dad over the phone how to attach a word document to an e-mail -- >> still doesn't know how to do it. >> it allows us to sit down and review ow life together and not many people get that chance. you guys did. bill and willie geist. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> i hate to be the guy that breaks up this party. another round of applause. they did a great job. bill geist and willie geist thank you, gentlemen.

they are going to be signing copies of their book "good talk, dad" and they will be downstairs in the cafeteria so head down there if you are interested in getting it signed. have a great afternoon and thanks for coming to the lit fest. [inaudible conversations]

>> we just heard from bill and willie geist on the many conversations between father and sons. more from chicago in a couple minutes.

booktv is on facebook and twitter. like and follow us for book industry news, schedule updates and behind the scene author events and to interact with authors during live event. here are a few post from the last week. we tweeted on the consent of hilary clinton's soon to be published book. and we posted on article about the swearinging of susie levine. we tweeted and posted our author programs on tianam square. we want to know what you are

reading this summer. send us a tweet or post on facebook or send an e-mail. watch all weekend long to see what prominent washingtonians are reading. follow us on facebook/booktv for more news about the world of publishing and what is happening on booktv. >> what is the d in d-day stand for? >> it stands for nothing. soldiers joked it stood for death. or it stood for day. day-day. it is just a code. and you know people are tried retrospectively to try to figure out what it stands for and it has no meaning. >> why june 6th 1944? about 69 years ago today. >> that is right. it was supposed to be june 5th. that was the date that was picked by the president and it is very tricky to invade the

norman coast. the tides are amazing. 23 footswing in the tides. the moon has to be right to go at night to allow paratroopers to see and the pitletslots taking them. the wind and weather has to be wrong. and the weather was wrong. they never had good luck with weather. stormy for the invading of muroc muroc -- moracco and sicily. he had a narrow window in which the tides would be suitable for this invading. if he had delayed it much longer the next appropriate period was several weeks later.

there was anxiety that the germans would find out. if they had 24 hours of warning this force was coming to normandy it probably would have been catastrophic. so the anxiety level is unbelievable when the decision is made to post pone it but they did and got away with it. >> number of troops? number of deaths? >> there are five divisions that go in. two american and three british and canadian. and then three air borne division. so a couple hundred thousands troops going in. most of the deaths -- the worst beach was omaha where one of the two american beaches. there were several thousands deaths there. there had been concern that the number of deaths could run into

the tens of thousands but this didn't happen. the deaths were not light but they were less than anticipated. at utah beach, the farthest right, they had a tough time but by the end of june 6th they were 600 mild inland and at omaha they were no more than 400 yards. so there was a disperry in the resistence they found and the availability of pushing inland. you want to push the enemies artilly out of range so cannot shell the beach. at omaha beach it took several days to get to that point. but nevertheless it turned out to be successful and the deaths

3,000 or so, they are lighter than many feared. >> you can watch this and other programs about d-day and world war ii online at booktv.org. search d-day or world war ii in the upper left hand corner of the home page. >> what roll should the government play in housing finance? if you want to subsudize housing put it on the ballot sheet and make it clear and everybody aware of how much it is costing. when you deliver it through third party things like fanny may and when you deliver through

private shareholders and executives that extract a lot of the subsies themselves that is not a good way. >> read more from our book notes and q and a programs on c-span sunday at 8:00. [inaudible conversations] >> this is a look inside jones college prep. one of the sights of the lit fest here in chicago. we will be back in just a couple minutes.

>> here is a look at books being published this week. hilary clinton recounts her tenure as secretary of state in hard choices. and in the people versus obama editor at large of bright bart argues the obama administration has been marked by abuse of power. then we recount the supreme court's justice life. and dan emmit relives his career. and then a report on women overcoming poverty around the world. in obama's enforcing, eric holder

holder's justice department present a criticism of eric holder and the justice department. look for the books in the next week and look for the authors on booktv and booktv.org. >> hilary clinton's book is coming out on tuesday. "hard choices" we were in new york to talk with some of the people involved in the production of the book. >> i have been totally involved through all of the books actually. i am not the official publisher of the current book but i have been involved in the process way back in the whitehouse and we went down there to persuade there publish a book which became "it takes a village". i was there trying to help

convince her to do so. i have been involved in every publication. i am not the editor because that is not my core strength. but i watch over the publication and i help get it all organized and make sure things are on track. it started with living history and making sure our best people are working on it. >> we are publishing "hard choices" on june 10th. i was the editor of the book and i have overseen the aspects and working closely with the people at the company. >> as the editor, is there a lot of e-mails back between you and the author? >> every case is different. you know in this case i have tried to give just asmuch much attention to secretary clinton's

book, buts we are publishing james web as well who is a terrific united states senator. so i don't want to favor one author over another. >> when we acquired the book jonathan karp knocked down and asked what we could do for an e-book and we talked about idea and when the was the right time to act. we have been thinking of it was as it digital project from the beginning >> my role is to work with the media team that works with hillary hillary. >> what is an effective media campaign? >> depends on the book and the potential for the book. there is top down campaigns which are campaigns like hilary clinton that begin with national media and breakout from there.

a few big hits generate a number of things that sort of create themselves. >> my roll is working on the marketing side which has involved a website for the book a facebook page the release of content on the web. my role up to now has been a digital marketing role. it has been a fun one and so many people are watching and care. we toil away and make a lot of videos. we don't have many that go up on the home passenger of aol on the day we hand it over. or yahoo picks up and puts it on a major page. that part is fun. >> watch for hilary clinton to a peer on booktv soon to discuss her latest book "hard choices"

>> next live from the chicago tribune printers row lit fest a conversation between our guest and the book essays and dispatches from the rust belt. ...

if you could

i have a particular passion for the kind of books will be speaking about today. narrative nonfiction, creative nonfiction, particularly about plays. i've named this program a sense of place rural and urban. i am powerfully drawn to books about land and culture and the

south in the way we live here those are the types of books we will be talking about today. tulane bear to my right brags about her life on and off her families kansas farm. her first book was the award-winning essay collection one degree wise and her work has appeared in the "chicago tribune" terminator times in several anthologies. julene bair is out of the university of wyoming and iowa in her new book is the alcala wrote, and a mark of love and reckoning. [applause] and david jeff willes is here from akron ohio. it's his hometown his whole life and the subject of both of his books his first book was all the way home and a second book, which we'll talk about today is a hard way on purpose.

essays and dispatches from the rust belt. it's appeared in places including their times in "the wall street journal." thank you for being here. [applause] i thought i would again with a subject that might not come to mind when you think of plays and that is bad acts, namely our sense of beauty. this does attach us to things in many cases. julene at the start of your book you search for the battersea creek did she remember from your childhood and you describe the hydride planes landscape as it once was any right our sense of beauty is a survival instinct. of course i just lost my place. telling us they can sustain us for generations to come. not everyone thinks about the high plains is exactly beautiful. can you tell us about the

landscape and why it's a matter of survival to find beauty. >> okay, first of all, like any western wide-open place, it you can't really see it from the interstate. it is important to get off the interstate and drive down a gravel road at the very least not asphalt and then get out of your car. but of course, it also helps if you are a native grass, which is harder and harder to find these days. the native grass was its own ecosystem in support of 50 to 70 million days and along with the water that flowed in those days. the grass was very beautiful. it was a mild green color and when he looked out across the grass, it has this sort of eternal aspect to it. it seemed eternal life sky. these two complement each other aesthetically, but the grass

once it was found under his longer able to sit and life as it had passed and same with the water. once you come to groundwater out from under a place, the streams can no longer flow. >> exactly. we'll talk more about water as we go along. david you read about akron, the rubber capital of the world a place built on tires basically. the industry has posted there. it epitomizes the rust belt. many buildings have been abandoned and yet throughout your book utility somewhat rhapsodic description averments basically. wonder if he could talk about that. >> is as important as the places to a raiders sense of what he's writing about is the time you experience it. there is a word i use in my book as a kid from another source. but it was useless to describe

akron admits industrially heyday which is a word i really love because it's a word that doesn't mean ugly. it means a different kind of beautiful. does the city i therein came in to an understanding just at the moment of collapse. though as a young person interested in exploring my city for the first time in my college years akron was for a short time almost like a root, just a completely abandoned downtown full of buildings into k. for me to be young enough that naïve enough not to recognize economic and social complications that he abandoned playground was like happening to the back lot of hollywood studio. semi-friend and i would break into a factory thanks for the old can now in the alleyways behind the building overall

empty. to me was full of possibility and you could do anything here and we can have all of the spirit of i lake this reclamation, early reclamation for us. to me that was nothing that exciting and i still think of those landscapes is beautiful in and on dutiful way. >> very interesting. we're talking about places that have undergone serious chain. akron was built and abandoned by industry. western kansas, which for millennia underway assist tanning life including farming and the most industrialized and ran into all kinds of problems. i wonder if you can talk about the changes that have been made. the other theme you to share his adversity. really have to struggle to lebanese bases. if you talk about that. >> when i was going on, we were livestock ranchers and dryland

farmers. the word drive and firming according to this historian walter prescott webb who wrote about the great thing is the science of finding the ring always efficient. because the 19 inches of rain a year where i grew up. so they had to be really scientists and artists it containing the moisture in our soil. so that combination of grasslands and dryland winter beach, those two crowds were quite beautiful. one was not really a crime. it is what it always anathema to what we grew on it was a crowd that in our case is a thousand head of sheep which you have 1200 lands there about the new is a very sensuous or sensory existence of a lot of wildlife around us much of which we would catch and try to tame and every domestic animal into the sun and our own family, which we had around her idea of wildlife within our family.

so i grew up in a way of life really. when irrigation development came to our area, farmers realized they could make three times as much because they could get three times the crop with irrigation water to it they started mining the ogallala aquifer, which is to groundwater under the great plains from southern south dakota to north texas and i watched the landscape become gradually industrialized and more prairie guys formed under. >> david, you write a lot about living the hard way. an interesting part of your essays is what difficulties do in terms of building there. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about the carrot do you find inspiring. there's a time every year around

this time of year when we believe for real but the invincible when the world theories and just if that starts to fade, they start training crammed, so there's this terrible cycle of life for people who've lived in that region for the past 50 years which is how long it's been since we want any aim. this hope that comes from the cycles around. so there's quite a bit of sports in the book it's not really about sports at all. but it are great metaphor for the kind of people who stick it out in places like that because akron, ohio in the 1960s the decade i was born its population peaked at nearly 300,000 it is not just under 200,000. so a third of the population has left. people who stay and commit to a place like that commit with this

kind of hardscrabble hope because the title is "the hard way on purpose" on purpose. it's much harder to move to chicago. he migration from the midwestern rust belt 80s the scrape chocolate is this ambler five of an industrial midwestern five. those who stay take a pride in doing it out for and i think you can be prouder to be a perennial fan of the cleveland indians and even the chicago cubs. so i think that becomes its own if you can do in things are hurt by becomes its own aesthetic. >> an interesting example. >> it had a real challenge when he found out what was going on with the aquifer. you have inherited part of the

family farm, and the deep roots and all of that and very sent it to the community they and the attitude people have towards firming and yet he felt duty bound to kind of raise the alarm of bit about the water situation. this very interesting themes for which i attacked people about this. i wonder if you could describe a particular scene where you go to a meeting, which sounds like some form of torture actually and i guess it was. and you find a way to talk but is there further polarizing. >> actually, it did not talk when i went to the water board. when i went to the water board meeting i was there is the next use to try to be in the area just in case i would run into ward who was the man i had fallen in love with at the opening of the book. at the opening of the book i go out to the watershed to explore it because i feel guilty about the aquifer.

i want to make sure that there's still some water on the surface that we haven't trained every last drop and indeed i did find one of those rare springs that they but i else a mantis rancher who have read my first book and it turns out he liked it and even consider writing to me through my publisher. i certified a story handed to me on his love of platter in a sense. as the story evolves there becomes a moment where bored and i are estranged and i find an excuse to go with water board meeting in western kansas, which would be the first time i've been to this building because i interview the director of the water board before. i would put back at the meeting and regret i hadn't been while poking because he refused people who were all themselves irrigators. they were in charge of their own water and they kept looking at me. they would make these jokes and

then they would look at me. i got to send that maybe they sort of asked her to someone to call them on what was going on and someone to raise real issue is sort of the elephant in the room and begin to talk about that yes we are using a water that our grandchildren will be in order to have a life here. this doesn't make any sense. since i didn't actually speak at the water board meeting i got courage later when there was a symposium on the ogallala aquifer and they really spouted off at that meeting. i just told people what it which would have been too saying we are talking about the firming mentality here. my father was a farmer. if he could have harvested the stars come even if you let this charge and love talking about infinity and how the universe was created in all but the committee would've done it if you could make a profit.

>> i was struck when you're just scraping talking that you spoke personally. you didn't have a power point. i wonder if that goes back to what inspires you to become a writer in the first place. when did writing come into your life in the idea of writing so personally about your life yet when did that begin with? >> when i was a child, i think i was as natural born transcendentalists. i would write poetry about the prairie and may be ready my horse with this use and reach out and grab a tumbleweed and it would become part of me on the wind would care me a long. so then i went away to the bay area and together singing for a long time. at one point i reduced every my child land cruisers and into the mojave desert and i refurbished

in my plan was to become this modern day hero. i'd be a successful writer supporting myself. i was sent to receive "the new yorker" in the atlantic like mike about this rejection of such a paper of my outhouse wall switch. and then i wound up back in western kansas, which is all part of the story about how that happened in setting my sights on iowa a graduate program and i did manage to get myself there did manage to the program and the fiction program. when that happened i began to learn how to write. and you were doing it here the personal is very essential. if you want people to identify with your story, you need to tell a personal story that a

person can identify with. >> indeed, it's very powerful. david come you sell a about it looks toward akron and your love of looks. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about your early breeding. i am curious, you describe a reading on this fiction, but you went toward sternal is in. maybe you could talk a little about your love of stories. >> yes i loved to read and i loved books when i was a kid. as soon as they learned how to read a new i wanted to write. that's like saying you want to become invisible. it doesn't seem like a career but that location. the thought of love books and there was this used bookstore in accra that my parents would take us to an address must be basement and office bookstores. a fairly physically identify

that place. an alternate school and in growing up i knew i wanted to be a writer, whatever that is. the only thing i knew for sure is they didn't want to write for a newspaper and a week later i started writing for a newspaper and did that for 18 years. by this weird connection if they come in the i began my hometown paper. and solid phase locked plume of smoke as i'm trying to finish a less lovely dawned on me. my childhood bookstore where i fell in love with books is on fire. if you ever have the opportunity to watch a books were burned to the ground it is tragic but it's an odd firing site. nothing burns like a bookstore. so i watched it turn down and

there was this strange sort of deathlike akron you're pretty much watching -- remember how when the popeye cartoon sleepy with wind down and everything falling apart behind in and that's what it's like to live in akron ohio where he watched the whole world crumbled behind you and you feel like you're trying to stay one step ahead. did i answer your question? >> yes better. so speaking of avoiding gashes barely avoiding disasters, to continue your story trillion, when he started writing about turns and your personal life what are the challenges involved in that and how did you sort of want that line between meaning to tell the stories you need to tell them dealing with family and loved ones in the whole story which is quite intimate. >> well, people tell you you

should just write it and worry about it later and i did do that. my mother died in 2009 so it didn't have to worry about her anymore. but i guess i feel like it is a story if you are brighter there's a sacrifice that you make sometimes. you are a worry to the people who have the most somewhat. they have to make a certain sacrifice unfortunately. you try to always be fair minded. you try to let them have the last word sometimes. they're certain lines that won't cross depending on your relationships with those people and it's up to the individual writer with those lines are. as far as ward i fictionalize

10 and almost entirely. i gave him new family members. i didn't change his occupation. i made a fictional town for him to say then. i did actually change his occupation to reassert extent. i did everything i could to camouflage his identities or he would not have to pay her by telling my half of our story. buy gas, it is something you commit to when you commit to writing. if you are going to write you have to write and so you just find a way to make peace with all of these relationships and how you're handling non-in the story. >> do you feel your work has helped open the conversation up about water? >> yes i think it has been a matter of fact, later this summer i'm going to have an opportunity to talk to kansas legislators about water.

i really want to be part of that dialogue so it's giving me an opening. i'm really one of the only people out there that i think it's saying the obvious, which is we need to get the federal government to stop subsidizing through the farm program the growing of crops that are way too thirsty for their preaching. and we need to reverse the ethanol mandate. >> you have written that if things continue the way they are going that water will be gone and 85 years. >> those under our lamb. some watery surrogate on. basically all the farmers on the high plains are headed for a crash landing. some of them have heard it crash landed. what we need to do this engineer softly in team for the farmers and it's just a question of political will asked whether that will happen. >> you know, that is a big quandary when you have people's

livelihood and way of life from the same in the city that we all have such respect for and it's absolutely crucial and you have to look beyond the environmental concerns in the chemical pollution is really terrible for the aquifer as well. i always feel the two books you have written, that workups the dialogue continue. david the way you write about akron, you talk about hope and loss and sort of the idea that things can be remade. you describe a lot of these ruins and creative ventures that first writing of them at the site. some of those that claimed city. it vibrates to the. wonder if you could talk about this example is the rejuvenation. >> yeah, i think the one word that akron is aware of specific

entity because the book is about loss of identity and the whole rest fell city really underwent this loss of identity where you are known for some thing and you have an easy way of explaining yourself and other places to stay akron retirees than a certain area of the 20th century was an easy assist the nation. as though you look for something new that is true, that is not just some inventive new identity, but it's true to your core. in akron, the word is reinvention because it is the city very much built on invention and in very much built on reinvention. in akron in particular, because all of the aspects of the tire industry where they are and not anywhere else, it was each are center. a lot of the research and development, which came at the university of akron's engineering programs is still there. that has been a big part of the rebirth of that city in

particular. i'm trying to use akron as a model for other cities like that. i'm interested in for instance how pittsburgh has rejuvenated his love, building what it has. if water is beautiful and the bridges are a beautiful part of the personality. the city of the city has used those things as a physical infrastructure to build on. detroit is trying to do this right now. to see how to treat is taking what is true about detroit and try and save and rebuild from that is interesting to me. so akron has like some of the things that just happened there's a lot of music in the book and i cowrote a book. it could not have come from any other place except akron, ohio

which is a uniquely weird city. the truth is they could've come from anywhere. because they came from there, it starts to define a certain lineage of an ascetic of the singer from the cramps this from name and not the black keys who comes straight from that legacy. he starts to build on those things and say these are like our calling cards. for instance the first essay in the book a long essay about lebron james and it's not basketball at all. it is about how you seize on your new sort of ambassadors and make them part of the truth of who you barred under the telling your story? >> it's interesting that david is talking about loss of identity and if anyone asked me what my book is about, it's also about that. one day when someone asked me just popped out of my mouth. it is the hardest in for a

writer talk about what her book is about probably. but this came out of my mouth and it's about how we destroy what we love and then won it back. we didn't know consciously that we'd love to land. as a matter of fact that is to freeze we could never use few people in that area would never use a phrase like you to the land for a man of the soil. they would think it was corny and psychobabble or something. basically we were told to hang onto her land. as my father's name to mehmet lespinasse of the narrative of the boat as to whether we are able to live up to the expectation. but the reason we needed to hang onto it was yesterday taken a lot of work to build it and would be kind to be ways sell it, but mainly because he was realist day. it was real.

if you invested in cash or if he sold it, take cash, investments docs, and a number of things could happen. the land would always be there. so it was this value that we corrupt ways. it is because it was profitable that he wanted to hang onto it. ultimately he was profitable so there was this tension in me between loyalty to the actual land, to what it really was coming to the ascetic had given the growing not, the beauty, the wildlife, the history of the native americans everything that to me was real about it. the way we made our living on it, which became increasingly invasive and abusive. >> very interesting. very powerful stuff. >> listening to you talk when you read books about specific places you wonder why should other people care.

why should people in chicago carrier about western kansas are sitting in ohio? i wonder if you could talk about what you're hoping to tell people that know nothing about either of these place is. >> in my case, that was an overt instinct because when i was working on this book and i started to see whether this really about a sort of relay something is a journalist i carried a lot of one of the biggest problems in ohio in the larger rust belt region is the loss of talented young people of my generation. i wrote a lot about the brain drain effect. when i look at the demographic numbers i mentioned earlier, the city has lost basically a third of its population in the time i've been there. but what about the two thirds who state they are and what

about all the people of my generation who exceeded our rust belt cities. is to miss their story? so i never read about myself unless i feel like it's representing about bionics areas. buffalo in gary indiana and where in ohio we are ignored or misunderstood except every four years and they come and wait for to decide. so what i wanted to do is try to tell my story of the people who say and there's millions of us. it's about a place i hope represents a much larger set of

very particular places. >> i'm trying to decide which thing to start with. the biggest thing for me is that i think the planes the wide-open center of this country i think american identity is very much rooted in that open, hopeful center of our nation. when the destroyer very center, you have a problem and its metaphoric for everything this country is doing in every way we are going wrong when it comes to how we are finding our land and what we do to our air and water so on. it's sort of takes the heart out of you. this is the heart of the heart and we are talking about here. this is the water being pumped on the surveys make it impossible for life going all the way back to paleolithic times in the center of our

country. beyond not the intergovernmental panel on climate change tells us how we are going to need our groundwater aquifers in order to stay in the dry land crabs come and wants at the grove without the aid of irrigation in the past. we are talking about the breadbasket here. we are talking about the grain for the additional the 9 billion people that were supposed to have on the planet by 2050 we are being told. so is deceiving the people we do have now with our hearts in green we are putting we are now told it takes as much fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol has figured out. we are putting another 40% in two lives..

the cala process protein weight at 22 not one, so we are based on the protein by fatty piece of cotton fessing gives us hard and cancer and diabetes. so those servers, but also this is just a story. it's worth of relationships. why should you care about any relationships between a mother and her son, looking for my son to have a father like i had trying to carry on the family lineage. about my relationship with my father. it's a love story so as much as you relate to any story you would relate to this one. there's other reasons, but i can't remember them all right now. >> thank you as that was very beautifully put. david starts his book with a quote from a local hero here, said terkel. it's very short.

he just says it's practical to hope. you don't address the practical matters. i wonder if you could talk about hope a little bit. d.c. evidence that a quick spreading it up as a hopeful act. >> i think the best communities are the ones that realize that they need to be tended to. you know i think the instinct that i saw and a lot of people in my generation who left and never blamed anybody who left. i do resent anyone for leaving because i understand why the maritimes than i thought i could leave. the instinct was suddenly go somewhere where i can make it and make it easier and make it here. the realization is that replaces its own struggle and the mature realization is the circle is oval point.

the hope and struggle become intertwined. if your life is based on hoping your name and things that could happen that means once they are accomplished from beneath the next one for your life to otherwise it just becomes this empty howard hughes in a hotel room trying to find something to worry about because you've got everything. i guess that's the core of notion and hope in life shows that quote. i really like the hardscrabble industrial midwest notion of it being practical. but it's not a romantic thing. it's a practical thing to do because we come from practical places. >> factly. julene, a lot of what you talk about is the sa> factly. julene, a lot of what you talk about is the same. >> those people at that point will be beginning to do things differently on the planes.

people going back to organic farming for instance, which is what we always did before we had chemicals are we just didn't it that. other people are raising alternative crops and summer farming without the use of irrigation water and shipping merry yak and merry yak meat in their free range chicken. they don't have a market locally so much that they ship it to the front range, which is only a couple hundred miles. but their anger is being made there. to me the act of writing and any activism that you are at least doing something yourself and that's hopeful. you can live with yourself if you are trying to do some thing. eb white who is a very well known sas and who many may know as the author of charlotte web

talked about when he got up in the morning he was torn between whether to dave were savored the world. many of us have that same sort % world. many of us have that same sort of pushed all within us and we could be tormented by that. if they got to thinking about it, got to thinking this is actually a false dichotomy because if you really have a relationship with nature for a particular place it is like having a relationship with a person. and if her mother for his sins or your brother were in the hospital and say, would you try and make a choice about whether to have a cape with the doctor and try to save their life were between favoring those moments that make last within. it comes naturally if you truly have a relationship with the place to try to do both. there is hope that not too just without eyes. for your own soul i guess. >> thank you.

dutifully put. i hope there's questions out in the audience here. there's a microphone over here if anyone would like to ask a question in our last few minutes. >> meanwhile, i am actively searching my brain to think of an opportunity as the phrase the yak meat next time i sit down to write. >> i'm not sure there's telling yak butter. you and i cannot yak butter quite >> i guess. we will negotiate later. >> i know you touched on a little bit so you may advance are part of the question. that is i guess it is at six. you need permission to use real names with people or is it a lawful name? speaking of memoir writing. >> just because he said he changed his occupation. bush is what you to do unless you get permission, right?

when you change a name, i never feel comfortable with it because i know them by this name. how do you go about the process either one of you? there's actually legal formula with a certain number of identifying features have to be changed so that legally you can say you are being sued. so there's that. i think it goes much like all questions about eggs more beyond the lot is what is right and what is for. for me, i would never chain the name or i would never -- it's a matter of trends. the. if you do it and first of all your editor knows an somehow i don't know if you have a disclaimer that says can change. that's where it begins. but then the question as was the

reason you're doing it and what's truthfulness? when i write about people i know, they irrigation off in the process that they know i'm doing it and i offer them the opportunity to use the interfax check with an understanding i've written my version but i also am i hope humble enough to realize that memory is fallible. so i tried to use those people as resources. my friend john is a big part of a book and and i talked constantly. so he's very aware of my process and how you would be portrayed by virtue of being apart from the process, which is a different case than you're doing. >> yeah, different circumstance as in my case. once i changed the character's name, the person named to ward over time he became more to me. that was to come will either verse because he was obvious a

very distinct individuals to me. he became sort of an amount from any sense of these fictional characteristics that i had made in the original person, but to me he became ward. if i were ever to speak about him now i would probably just slip into word. i have done that at different times. >> when you think of the real ward and the version of word that exists in your book coming to think of them as sea monkey dance and first maladies to you? >> like i said they are sort of an amalgam. they have different physical features characteristics. so when i think of ward in the book, i think of the ward i described in the book. i guess that the answer. >> which one do you like better? >> which one do i like better?

[laughter] it's a tossup. i can answer that you're a good question though. >> throughout the book you are constantly equating him with plays. he really does become this embodiment of the canvas you are sort of wrestling with. it's very interesting and kind of wonders to your really pushing. >> one of the reviewer's said he was almost metaphoric in the question being could -- can we work out our political differences as a society if these two individuals, ward and i worked in three different politically. he was very everyday then i was very liberal and so becomes a question of candies to find a way to his elder difference is and if they can perhaps that is hopeful for what i am saying about working out the differences on how we farm the

planes. >> any other questions? [inaudible] >> i was asked -- i wrote a very complex narrative with lots of different dreams to it and she wanted to know how i will cease altogether. i was just asked this question recently in an interview so i really think about how i did it. i figured out what the two most important narratives were. those two most important narratives were ward and julian and their romance. more important than not a family's relationship to their land and whether we could live up to my father's edict that we hang on to it.

once you have a four-time narrative, other things you can string a long as not story in central to this is to write unit way like you're watching a movie, a story unfolding before your eyes. if you're doing that, sort of like a locomotive pulling a freight train. you can pull along some of those other seven narratives so to speak. the other thing that really works for me i think his unity of aim. absolutely every relationship in the book goes back to that land. our relationship with the land was more important probably than any of our relationships with each other. that defined who we were because everything we write about, native american history, they drank in the same stream that watered us do we manage to live there because we were thinking

the same water. i was when i read about the native americans, i was sort of out of water always tied to the spring for it came to the surface of the water sustain our lives so i was able to write about going to the mojave desert and living there and just relishing the spring that i found to because water was central to everything. >> this is a question for david. ruth has become the fascination for scholars. we hear terms like bruins people who go to detroit and new orleans try to wonders and is crumbling infrastructures. i'm curious these pictures come in these stories are not about people. there is no people in the scholarship. your work seems to approach the

topic from a different active. would you say a few words about that quite >> there's a whole chapter in the book in the biggest issue i have with it is a lot of the work, especially about detroit. detroit has been such a death nation, especially for photographers as it's been in a state of profound decay. the edges of those photographs seem like the end of the story. the cbc pictures were up like a salvador dali painting works internally melting in the book depository for the abandoned books are growing out of them. doned books are growing out of them. the truth of detroit is the next

neighborhood over somebody put in a community garden in somebody's trying to make something new. this don't make it into the photographs. in a way it is this superficial -- profoundness for official in interesting to see. but it's not the whole story of so much has been told that it become the narrative and the truth of detroit is that if the dying city. other than a city that was called dying and it didn't die and i know a lot of other cities that died. i think it is probably impossible for an american city to die in the way it seems like detroit is if you look at these photographs. so every other book that came out of the last two years was about detroit. so some of the story that's been told is the way there is this fight to bring it back in the investment going on in downtown detroit where there are real bargains to be had and things

like that at those pictures are so dramatic that they make it harder for the subtle work that's been done to kind of rice up to the same level of drama. >> is so interesting to compare that to the fact we are completely oblivious to things like the aquifer. we seem to be drawn to the wrong things so often and that is why we really need writer's to help reorient. so i think we are out of time. thank you all so much for being here. thank you off her questions. [applause] >> thank you everyone for coming. thank you again tour moderator and to our authors ms. bear and mr. giffels. there are so the bobby. everyone have a wonderful time. the authors will be signing

copies outside the door if you're interested in speaking with them, go outside. have a great day everybody. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> nostrand three and david giffels from the jones college prep in high school in chicago. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> every month we have a new book for her book club and this month we have chosen so they, either the original edition orthographic edition. so if you would like to read along on economics, depression anti-a lot of things in today as well. amity shlaes "the forgotten man" is our book club questioned for the month of june. pick up a copy digitally get a copy enjoin a state leading. if you go to booktv that overcome at the top you'll see a

typist for to set up card. beginning the fact her name, we will start posting your comments. we want to see what you have to say about "the forgotten man" the book club selection for the month. >> well, i am hopefully going to get to three books. zimmerman telegram by barbara tuchman, and a book that senator levin just sent over to me the jewish pirates of the caribbean by edward kirkland. the first two books, workbooks that i found the zimmerman telegram when i was at the l.a. book festival speaking on my book and was just really intrigued by this story. for me is the first jewish woman to refuse in florida in

congress, historical depictions and stories about the jewish experience really just intrigued me and i think the past is prologue to have an opportunity to learn from the experience is the jewish have been through and in that story is really, the zimmerman telegram specifically is an interesting story because those that telegram did by great britain to essentially try to get texaco into the war against the united states and the story goes through the balancing act that great britain had to do to not reveal that they had cracked the code but at the same time,

notified the united dates of the impending danger. the jewish pirates of the caribbean is really the book that focuses on the past been prolonged and the history we been through. there were jewish pirates who are fighting the spanish inquisition and you wrote the high seas and napa senator levin told me tells the story in their ventures and antics in the outcome of those. in the 12 tribes of hardy is a story about black migration throughout american history, but particularly the great migration from the south and the struggles of african-americans have gone through and the tough life that

they've lived. this is a fictional story that depicts the family and a mother who prepares her children, her nine children for the difficult challenges will face throughout their life. >> what are you reading this summer quite tell us what is on your summer reading list. post it to our facebook page or send us an e-mail. booktv@spam.org. [inaudible conversations] >> more from chicago in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations]

is [inaudible conversations] >> what does the d. in d-day stands for quite >> it stands for nothing. soldiers joke is good for dad or that it stood for a day, day day. it is just a code. people have tried retrospectively to figure out what it really stood for. in fact, it has no other meaning other than d. >> watching six 1944 about six to nine years ago today. >> yes that is right. it was supposed to be june 5th the david eisenhower picked. it is tricky to invade the norman coast. the tides are extraordinary.

23-foot swings in the tides. it has to be right in order to allow paratroopers to be able to see sufficiently and the pilots who were hauling them. the winds have to be right, whether has to write. the weather was wrong as it turned out. as in our never had good luck with this weather. its survey for the invasion of morocco and the invasion of sicily and was tormey in the comment. unusually in june 5th 1944. he can usually count on benign weather in the coast of france. it was awful so he posed on it for a day. he had a narrow window in which the tides in a minute and all the rest would still obtain in a way that was suitable for this kind of invasion. if he had delayed much longer the next appropriate. it's going to be several weeks later. there is