the mockingbird next door:a look into the life of reclusive author harper lee. ninth is can't we talk about something more pleasant? a memoir. michael lewis wraps of the list with flash boys, a report on high frequency trading on wall street. that is a look at this week's nonfiction hardcover best sellers according to npr. >> booktv is on facebook. like us to the publishing news, scheduling dates, behind-the-scenes pictures and videos, either information and to talk directly with doctors during live programs. facebook.com/booktv. >> now on booktv, coverage from the annual roosevelt reading festival from the franklin roosevelt library and museum in hyde park, new york. over the next three hours five authors will present their books on the 32 president and the events that marked his tenure. we kick off coverage with david

cross's visit to the presidential libraries. >> good morning, everyone. my name is bob clark and 9 executive director of the presidential library and museum and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the eleventh annual roosevelt reading festival. fdr established the first presidential library in hyde park. he envisioned it becoming the premier research center for the study of the roosevelt era, very consistently one of the busiest research rooms in the presidential library system. one of the reasons we love this day so much is we get to see the fruit of the labors of all the people who use our research room throughout the year. it is our pleasure to have you here. let me go over those formats of the day and a couple housekeeping matters. the first is would everyone please take out your electronic

devices and turn them off so the presentation isn't interrupted today? thank you. the housekeeping matter, the staff here today will be happy to give you one of these library buttons and that will get you into free admission to the exhibits we opened a year ago after our 3-1/2 year renovations so i urge you to check out the new exhibits. finally i want to thank our friends for c-span for being here today. they are always great and showing their support for public programs at the roosevelt library so i appreciate them being here today. so the format of the session is our distinguished guests will speak for 30 minutes after which there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. because c-span is filming in this room what i would like you to do is come up and line up at the microphone so they can not only capture your question on tape but also your smiling face to see how much you are enjoying

yourself and after the question and answer period i will with the guests out to the lobby where he will be happy to find all the books you were going to buy at the new deal museum's board. so david cross is a free-lance writer and trial attorney who lives in philadelphia. is trial manual how not to think like a lawyer was his best seller in 2013. his earlier books cross-examine to the collection of published essays on literature, history, music and travel. his new book "chasing history: 1 man's road trip through the presidential libraries" came about from a desire to flee the criminal courtroom of philadelphia in order to get to know the presidents a little bit better. when not writing with mitigating he spends the bulk of his time quoting bob dylan and trying to decide which 3 he would take to it desert island and the box at the loud. david is married to his lovely wife nicole and is loving father

of david, mchale, cit and betty so our good friends david cross. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. it is the delight and an honor to be here at the franklin roosevelt library to discuss my book. when i decided to take a road trip across the country to visit all the presidential libraries i really had no idea what it was i was going to find and i had no specific point of view at that time. i had heard the academic criticisms that these are all the giant mausoleums for ego, that they don't confront us in of with both sides of the presidents and the most damning of all criticisms that academics have levied, that they are like theme parks, that young people

might come to these places for fun. so when i came, i didn't know what i was going to find and the first library i visited happened to be the franklin roosevelt library. that was pure serendipity. i live in philadelphia so it was the nearest one. i came to this library and fell in love with this place and i can't say none of these criticisms are ever worthwhile. i found so much that was positive about the library's, and franklin roosevelt did a lot of spending but this is one of the big ones. i think everybody interested in american history and everybody interested in the president needs to thank franklin roosevelt, we didn't have this idea before and there's nothing

like this. when i started, who would be opposed to this? who would be opposed to having a presidential library? and when roosevelt was president most of the presidents used to put their documents in the library of congress the documents went all over the place and we know lincoln's documents went all over the place. some presidents had a bonfire and many of the papers were eaten by rats. george washington was the first to have the idea of the presidential library. he was meticulous about protecting his paperwork but he did not have the guts the to say let's create a presidential library for me. that took franklin roosevelt and franklin roosevelt came up with that idea and we talked about we are in the most partisan of

times. and to allow for this library that is right here, whether or not to allow it to take place, you realize there is partisanship throughout our history of course. a lot of people thought it was a bad idea. the man who thought was the worst idea was hamilton fish who is from this district. if roosevelt said it was sunny he said it was dark. we know some hamilton fishes out there. this is not a new thing. he said this is a terrible idea. first of all, it is a giant monuments to this man's ego. more importantly we got the library of congress. we are going to have to -- if roosevelt has won every one is going to want one of these libraries. that is a great title, driving from square dunked of podunk.

my publisher didn't think so. he said any title that requires five minutes to explain is not a good title so i didn't call it that. when you come to the roosevelt library and a lot of libraries use see this wonderful thing, when you go to where roosevelt was, when you see the hudson river, when you're in the house you live that, you got close to him and it is one thing to read about a president and is another thing to be where he is. if you are a writer this is a wonderful opportunity. it is a wonderful opportunity. let me get started. up our point presentation here, this of course is the roosevelt library. this is actually a different room from where the research takes place now in the roosevelt library but this was what you've would find in the back room if you saw where the researchers

were doing their work and as you see the gentleman back there with his camera that is how most of us get our information now. i am old enough to remember when you had to come in and request and they had to xerox. now you come in and snapped the picture. i came into that room and i want to know how the presidential libraries came on about. i want to know how franklin roosevelt did this. the gentleman who introduced me, bob clarke, wheeled me up one of these carts which you can see and i opened up the first box and took out one file and what is wonderful about this library is before the freedom of information act took place, even the white house before franklin roosevelt left the white house were able to organize the paper is very well and i looked at

this first file and 20 pages were cross referenced. in other words it might be something that is cross referenced to those and i saw that and i thought my god, if i am a writer and footnote this it looks like i have done this for six months. for all of these books we read and this is why my book "chasing history: 1 man's road trip through the presidential libraries" i'd dedicate to the archivists. you don't see their names. they may not even be alive anymore but for the wakullas and doris kerns goodwin, a the not be what it is without their work. everything is self aggrandizement , as i drove across the country i never met so many people who loved coming to work every day and love their low in this and they won't get their name in many books. some of them are in my book but for the most part they are going

to have that feeling they helped bring history about and this is how it looks, this is a card you are going to get. a lot of people feel are you allowed to go? anybody in america can go. you can go and hold a document that franklin roosevelt signed or winston churchill signed. here it is something with fdr, when you look at that it is hard to describe how exciting it can feel to see the actual material. they were fighting to get this library put forward and saying here is fdr as santa claus giving him hide park memorial. there was a lot of -- and more

because of the economy. there was a lot of criticism about doing this. you learn some times by bumping into someone. everything i always read about roosevelt was at pearl harbor, he was depressed, couldn't believe the navy was gone and here he was thinking about his presidential library the next day. roosevelt had his hand in everything and one thing you do is you look at these presidents and learn lessons about how to live a you see that roosevelt would never have had to say this guy ran my bank account, i didn't know this, if you the get the documentation he keeps his hand in every pot and there is his car that you can see, the mansion. this affected me, looking at his elevator. you all can look at this today if you want.

you read about somebody you understand about somebody and we know about his physical limitations but this heavy wooden elevator, was told he would pull himself up and bring himself down on it for exercise, you realize his wheelchair was not like a modern wheelchair. it was heavy at you realize the upper body strength he would have to have in order to do that. this is a drive way, so again, in a book i like a lot by tony horwitz, confederates in the closet, robert hodge who is a reactor's says it tvkos you that that combination of history and landscape, that is the brilliance of franklin roosevelt's idea, to combine history and landscape for scholars and anybody else who is interested and here you get the

opportunity to look at the cabins he created. this library has been recently refurbished and i want to show if you go to this library you will find both sides of franklin roosevelt and a little bit more about that. the next one i went to was the kennedy library and it is a complicated issue what should go into a library and what shouldn't. to understand john kennedy you need to understand about his physical limitations. these are things that are bypassed in that library. i spoke to the director and the director told me we don't go into personal things because they are relative. it was interesting because after i had that conversation i came out here to the roosevelt library and looking at the lucy

mercer thing you just saw, i looked next to me and i was here at the anniversary and to is there but eleanor roosevelt's granddaughter. i was ready to catch her but she didn't. in case anyone at the kennedy library is watching this. and jutting out into the waters the john kennedy actually sailed in, he had chosen to have his library in hovered and it was such a flight. harvard was so unhappy about that and there was so much fighting going on that he was not able to do that. again there is a lot of talk about kennedy and classical music and the dresses that jackie wore and right now there's an argument going on between the bobby folks and john kennedy folks because they don't

feel bobby has been given enough attention and the roosevelt library does a good job incorporating eleanor because she is such a part of the story. bobby's family is interested in may be going to different place. i would go and do a research topic everywhere i went so what i wrote about in the kennedy library was this man, a jazz pianist. if you want to hear is that store you know where to get it, "chasing history: 1 man's road trip through the presidential libraries". gerald ford, once he gets a library is the official. everybody gets a library no matter what. is library is very interesting though. 01 problem with the library the director would tell you is they have the museum 100 miles away from the archives. as she told me, she wouldn't want anyone to go through the

difficulties she has to go through. it is considered by everybody that that was not a great idea. to have a little disco hall to talk about what was going on in a the ford years. one thing about the ford library is he was very willing to put good things and bad things, there is the famous stairwell we all recall from the end of the vietnam war and when kissinger saw this he said what would you put that in your library? ford said it is his story. each of the library's tends to create a replica of the oval office at a time of that. this is the type of video tape that probably existed for eight years, very difficult to access. the w library has to deal with e-mails, there are a lot of technical issues each of these places has to deal with.

this was what i saw for several hundred miles. then we get to the hoover library which was interesting because i came to the hoover library the whale lot of people come to libraries, really not knowing a lot about hoover, knowing only what my teacher had told me, that he didn't care about the depression and was very grumpy on that car ride with franklin roosevelt. it is a great library. some of the funniest archivists i met. that is a quote, the third world of presidential libraries. no one ever announces office from the hoover library. what they were doing when i was there, they were all guessing and many of us are in offices and have these basketball schools and so forth what their pool was how many days a year

did hoover stands in his vacation retreat. i saw them discussing this and i thought this is cool. i learned a great deal about hoover's there and this is the house he grew up in. he had a keynesian childhood. and getting these memoirs, and the first volume is very interesting. he had quite a sense of humor and so one of the things academics don't seem to comprehend when they criticize libraries for not showing both sides and so forth that you can't beat confronted by positive information as well as negative information.

of course it is the first step. it is not last step to go to a presidential library and you learned everything but what you do at the presidential library does its job is you got to go out and read about that president. there he is. tom schwartz actually is one of the people who created the lincoln library which changed the way we do these libraries and now he is the director of the hoover library. it went from the top to the bottom. but he got tired of having to beg for money every 12 months from the state legislature so he is happy to be in the federal system with herbert hoover. if you're doing a road trip you have to stop at captain james t. kirk's future birthplace.

independence missouri, this place is as interested in truman as springfield is in a lincoln. he went back there after he was president. so the town is really everywhere you go. truman street, truman coffee and let's go to the truman bar and here is something we won't get in the future, letters. i just ended up reading all of his letters to his wife and they are so touching and he really are able to see a different time and a different place and i am very concerned about the future of our presidential scholarship. nobody writes these things any more. they did a great job at showing both sides of the issue and it

is funny. they did this incredible job about discussing truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb and attacked what we grew up hearing, they quote eisenhower saying this war would have ended soon anyway and they quota the people and say leave your own thoughts and page after page after page says the same thing. my uncle walt told me he would have died if they happen dropped the bomb. they god truman dropped the bomb. only one guy disagreed, said that was so dumb. my favorite part to the visit was they put me downstairs. his cards, his id and interestingly the hotel towels he and his wife stole as they

drove across the country. so i went to abilene, kansas in 2011. tough economy, tough town. let me tell you, not a lot happening. this is main street so not a lot happening and i went to the tourist spots and told this lady, this elderly lady who seems like she hadn't seen anyone coming in in quite a while and she said what are you doing here? i said i am travelling across the country to visit all the presidential libraries and she said you don't know how lucky you are. we have 1 across the street. [laughter] >> the museum of tela funny.

i had to have that here. eisenhower interestingly, there have been a slew of new books on eisenhower in the last couple years and people looking at him a new. the feeling has always been he was vague and then connected and didn't understand what he was doing and now people looking at him taking another look at that so that is one of the interesting things that happens with presidential history. there never is a ending to it but you look back at eisenhower's time and there's not a lot to complain about how the economy was going and many things that were going on and of course much of it deals with him as commander in chief. thank you starbucks. when i did my trip i was staying in kents a lot of the time and visiting the library so wherever i was i was able to get a copy and was able to plug in and to write my blog so i don't think i would have made it without

starbucks. nixon, as he always does, pushes things to the level where you start to have some problems. when i was at the nixon library, the director is fair, there was an absolute civil war going on between folks at the national archives and the nixon people. much of this had to do with the watergate exhibit which went up along the knicks in line if you read nixon's book arguing his total innocence on it. not particularly different from what clinton does in terms of his impeachment museum. bob bosh point who i interviewed did the original watergate exhibit. he created a new exhibit which folks at the nixon library are

not crazy about. is a new exhibit but there's a lot of debate about what are these libraries for? for the president's point of view or history's point of view? there is a funny sign he put on because somebody complained there was a statue of mao. a chinese person complained and said this doesn't mean the united states government is supporting mao which seems a little obvious. there are hitler pictures in the eisenhower museum as well. recently there was an op-ed piece about his concerns the nixon library people are going to put up an exhibit involving vietnam. the question is, is this up to the library or there should be a governmental board that really looks at what the content is? i will say one of the great things about these libraries,

they are not like going to holiday ins. all these places are different and the law are like their president. i don't want to get what i would get if i looked it up on the computer, i am ok hearing other interpretations of history. history is an argument without end. there is nobody who can tell us, certainly not in this country, what the proper history is. this is his house, a beautiful place back there where they seem to be constantly having weddings which is sort of interesting. then you get to the reagan library. the reagan library brings in the most money and the reagan library does whatever it wants to do and it is a gorgeous library up on the top of simi

valley. you are going to have certainly vote reagan point of view. this is my favorite part. knockdown regulations. insane--instead of a angry birds, knockdown federal regulations. here is the game of life which everyone wins because reagan is president. one of the things i found fascinating at the reagan library is i was looking at the speech he gave about the evil empire we all remember and i found out first of all he meant to do that in england but had been blocked by his own state department so he snuck it in the bottom of a speech that he was going to do in orlando, fla. hoping his state department folks don't see it. about a day before he was going to give the speech some of them did see it at the ended up making the speech anyway and those who remember that time

everyone said oh my god, he is crazy, how can we have him say this? at the reagan library a jewish visitor spoke about when that speech came out he was in prison in a russian southland he heard about that speech and it gave him so much hope. and he was in solitary so the only way to communicate was talking through the toilet door doing worse code so he tells the person next to him in morse code and they all told each other that the united states president had finally said the truth about the soviet union. you can be confronted and when ronald reagan was president there wasn't the thing he did the by thought was a good thing and then i came and heard that story and i thought that is a completely different perspective that i had never looked at. so that is one of the great

things we get. the only library with a public. reagan when he went to ireland had gone to a pub, you was to drink because his father was such an alcoholic but he went to a pub and after they closed down they shipped it out and put it into the reagan library and here is air force one. ..

again, history and landscape looks pretty much like it did when he was there. the school he went to, his original home, and then we see this ranch. and now the people of the roosevelt library and not know how lucky they are because if you are an archivist out there you need to be able to take care of cattle as well. he said i wanted still to be a working ranch commanded is and he also said no one should have to pay to get to the lbo -- lbj library. there is no fee. you have to love a place that combines a liquor store and post office. [laughter] and there it is. to isn't it looked strong. his wife came up with the idea of actually turning the papers into a work of art here. and there are files of folders that makes up what johnson did. of course johnson is about accomplishment.

you ask -- it was wonderful. the allied behind him. you can see what is coming up. of course he visited. this book is about the whole country. he says when he first saw those files he almost turned around and went home and came up with a new project. the author, it's funny, when i interviewed him at top of the project are was doing he said, that is going to take a lot of time and effort. that is not really taken seriously. you think back. well, robert caro said this is going to take a lot of time and effort. their i am happy as can be. i got a roosevelts muggy, a bush schofield book. i am in heaven, and i am in austin, texas where the bats also up at one point in the day in austin. and then we get to the george bush library. this is when his stars to

become hard to get your hand on any archive spirit are was able to find a lot of documents which pushcarts the oak ridge boys. there great, but i was not able to get a lot of documents about the arms race. i wanted to look at the letters nixon had written. there were are considered high security cover even though there is no soviet union. so are worry about what they're roared caro who wants to do this thing about george bush is going to do what he cannot get his hands on these documents. we all heard you jump out of a plan a couple of weeks ago on his 90th birthday. god bless him. of course where where john kennedy was assassinated people sometimes ask, if you had any advice to president obama what would you give? don't give too involved in your library. one of the problems that the

current library had been a think it is because of bill clinton's our involvement was that he did not realize how interested he is. we get all the accomplishments without an art and the way to understand it. we all know that these libraries get redone and redone and redone. it is evolution. i am sure it will move on. kvass they had a discussion of the impeachment of the did not mention she will not be named. but it did have someone saying, i think it is very fitting that he was acquitted on lincoln's birthday because only great presidents like lincoln and clinton evergood confronted with things like this. so here is his house. 2 feet in front of it is says -- the trend. discussed how difficult it is. of course essential i were

you see it looks exactly like we all remember it on the film, one of those coups but moments. i have the opportunity to see president clinton up close and shake his hand and watching him and the plan pennsylvania he was speaking for the just really drove home the difference between these presidents and the rest of us. as we all know, a remarkable man. and then last but not quite least, jimmy carter. jimmy carter's library until the roosevelt library redid there's, i think there's was the top in terms of the modern gizmos and so forth. it is about five minutes away from atlanta and it feels like a different world. it is a wonderful library. he just shows one day in the life of a president. you see all of these meetings and discussions and things that are going on. now, you remember the reagan

gain. i would have played their video game, but i did not get my ph.d. a very complicated. and then where it all and says i went out to see that george w. bush library be opened after they invited me because i asked. it's all there could not be there, but i could watch it on c-span in the basement. there is the director, but i had the joy of actually getting inside the c-span bus. as you can see, i snuck through. and there we have it. and it would be delighted to answer any questions. [applause] [applause] >> if you have any questions, please come to stand at the microphone. [inaudible conversations]

>> how long actually did it take to do all of this traveling and writing? >> well, the traveling took me about two and a half months. and that was that easy part. it was not until later i realized what was being told panetta thought he was saying the trip would be hard. the trip was easy. i know if anyone has read books that combine traveling and history, they look easy to write to. it becomes very hard because you start thinking, well, i'm talking about myself too much, this too much. the rate -- the way i wrote a book which i would not advise anyone to do is i wrote everything and then spent two years editing,

editing, editing, cutting and was about a thousand pages when i first wrote it. it took me a couple of years to write it. >> did you ever at any point in time ever feel caught up and those political or defensive school of thought one. >> the only library that had any was the nixon library. everett @booktv terms of different people having different issues. it is pretty seamless and most of the libraries. everything gets along pretty well. i go to the nixon library in the nixon library you go through the bookstore. and then there is an elevator brick behind.

she is anywhere you're sending pre she says to my don't know. i was picking up on these weird things. he told me not to use his name to masako m. marks alton my book. this was his library. and they're not letting as tell his story. he is just trying to push this liberal view. and so it became this thing where the two sides were not even speaking to each other party and, you know, when gen became the director he made a comment they were offended about. i am not here to run the shrine, and he basically took over the process of doing this watergate exhibit and would not allow any

involvement from the foundation. and it took him about two years to put it together. and then he said, you have a leak to respond. so they got a few more weeks to respond. and then they wrote like 150 page thing. it really said, we understand it is going to change, but we disagree with this and this. it often says things like unwelcome the white house did this criminal act. the white house is a building. dual-use saying dated. they have a lot of other criticism. by changing anything in so again i thought it was a very good exhibit, but right now they are still going through that. they're planning to put some exhibits together. they don't have a director.

at all think they want a director. >> was it as much fun as it seems to be now? >> yes. i was never as the very first day because i had read books where people do these party on the first day they always talk about how great they feel and some minor nose is that everyone. they're all going to work in taking this track. i kept thinking, i can hardly wait to start this trips like and do that i felt very spirited felt, you know, what happened to anita was supposed to feel this like how women are supposed to get that instincts to clean house before they have their baby. and then it occurred to me, they all have advances. so that is probably the difference. yes, sir? [inaudible question] >> accumulating newspapers. would you consider that to

be a presidential library? >> second severe it to be a presidential library. that has to do with the designation with the national archives to read that does not mean it is any worse or better. i have not been there since they refurbished its pre but my understanding is, it is an incredible library can't get it that is not pejorative in any way. it is not part of the official. if i had not just talk to those 13 libraries. >> now we consider this one. what do you think he will right next? >> and not going to say what it is specifically this point have an outline. i'm so excited to have an outline in the first place to work off of.

thank you for your questions . [inaudible conversations] >> thank you. >> coverage from the 2014 rose of of reading festival continues with amity shlaes on the great depression. >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is bob clarke, deputy director at the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum. it is my honor to up welcome you to the 11th annual roosevelt reading festival parade before i introduce our distinguished speaker let me go over a few things. everyone please take out your electric devices and turn them off so we don't have any interruptions of our present