and then he said there will be a new society. more football than any other sport. >> in my book i mention that. >> do you have this? to you already have this? >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org. tweet us at booktv. post on our wall, facebook.com/booktv. >> up next on booktv, mark obama ndesandjo, president barack obama's half brother talks about his relationship with the president and disputes barack obama's take on their family history as it appears in dreams from my father. this is of little over an hour. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to bonds and noble. our special guest this evening,

mark obama ndesandjo, is the half-brother of president barack obama. in his new book "an obama's journey," marc offers another glimpse of their father, once married to barack's mother and mark's jewish-american mother ruth, a kenyan border american pianist, writer, businessman, mark uses his talents to work with orphans and is donating a portion of the profits of this book to promote art education among the children around the globe. please join me in welcoming mark obama ndesandjo. [applause] >> hello, everyone, how are you doing today? great, great. i am so very honored to be here at barnes and noble. this is the first time i haven't had a book signing in the united

states. as well as -- i got to stay here, i guess. okay. is that ok? okay. great. my book is "an obama's journey: my odyssey of self-discovery across 3 cultures". the reason i wrote this book was to tell my story without having other people tell it for me. it is also about my family. in the united nations of sorts but also a family that tries to make a difference in its own way is. and my story begins about 50 years ago when my father, barack obama senior, went to hawaii. that is where he met the president's mother, sally dunham, they got married shortly after that. barack was conceived, my brother

barack, my big brother barack, and after it that they divorced as you know, and barack obama sr. went to harvard to pursue his doctorate in economics. at that time he met my mother, she was teaching, and she fell in love and love is a powerful thing. in 1964 there were a lot of crosscurrents that were very difficult to maneuver, to deal with. black and white and racial relations in the united states. my father went to kenya later that year and invited my mother to follow and get married. she tells me she remembers when i decided to go to kenya, my

grandma says you can't go there, you are all black. love is a powerful thing and they were married in december of that year. she had never been on a plane before but she was a dreamer. they have tremendous force and power and vitality, was born in 1965. so my book starts with kenya. and three cultures. with the bumpy road. i will start with a couple of readings, welcome comments or

questions anybody has. >> this is not working. >> kenya, where it all begins. africa is a place of sublime contrast, average in difference, hunting and killing, muscles hurtling in the sun, to pick up the body with just its teeth and beneath the new great blue bowl in the sky that seems to stretch to in finnerty. it was a humbling experience.

and b and a harshness. i can only share memories that pass in and out of my consciousness like sunlight through a diamond faucet. the years, days and hours shift and blur like a mirage of drug burning hot row. born in 1965 i lived in kenya and july was 18. also furnished to me with bricks with which i later built my spiritual house. growing up there was wonderful and terrible. because i came with a mixed-race family, africans denied me their brotherhood. to my face children maia age called me epithet's i hated. at one point i had grown to believe it was a term the purest abuse. son of a bitch or a-hole multiplied 1,000 times. some use to with a casual

familiarity with which one might say a share, but it had the same effect of me as the white supremacist in effective. you are a hot cast, argued? left alone, i don't like him. i was a white negro, or black zulu caucasian in swahili. i was black to whites but whitewall blacks with no middle ground. unable to bond with my black brothers i adopt a culture of my white mother and her more polite caucasian brethren also there was a point when most would not let me be friends from the judge is allowed me to make social advances. for a long time that was enough. once stroked lately i put the pedal to the metal and zoomed ahead alone and self reliant. the next section just to get

some context talks on a little bit about kenya and we used to visit my father's homestead and it was a fascinating place. let me show this year. okay. every now and again -- who has been to kenya? has anyone been to kenya? yes? maybe there are some kenyans in the audience? yes, sir. hello, how are you, welcome. kenya is an amazing place. africa is an amazing place. the sky which curves above you almost like a cathedral. there is a sense that you don't change africa, africa changes you. that said, when i was young, my mother, my father and i and my

younger brother david would drive about 400 miles from nairobi to our traditional obama of homestead. this section starts there. every now and again we would visit, set off by car in the morning and after a daylong drive to our in sister home there was a time when the roads were too dangerous for many travelers to use with the driver having every likelihood of smashing into a park or broken-down bus or falling into a huge pot hole for veering off of an answer this track. the police might ask for bribes. these days the roads are considerably better and tourists can cut across the 5 mile road and bypass, our car would pass by the great rift valley and mystic mountain. i remember spotting by the side of the road almost hidden behind a thick bushes the remains of the old chapel built by pows during the second world war which is now refurbished forced

attraction. the land would turn richer and fields of sugar cane, wheat, called greens would appear in shivering waves of green and gold. white colonial farmers once usurped the land, developing an industry with the best key in the world. i was five or six years old, my brother david was just a baby and i don't think he came with us on those trips except for once when he got very sick with malaria. in general someone would care for him back home and my mother would count the days until she could hold him in her arms again. i never understood how we had to leave our home in nairobi to go to this place where people in she closed spoke a language i couldn't understand. not speaking the language i thought i was never accepted.

my air of reserve was taken for aloofness and met with disdain and hunting. was very strange and intimidating. there were later more surreal moments. a 1-room house with a single light bulb and rows of benches against the wall. there were flimsy tables, huge vats. the air was thick with of the law to is oily smell, people thought to be heard over the sound of rock and roll on a local radio station. my father drank with the villagers into the night. we would regularly sneak away to a storage room where there was a tiny iron threat. tired from the effort she would get up to leave me. let's go home, i pleaded sometimes, and the clinking of beer bottles and music from the

radio. you can sleep here a bit. she would gently touched me in. i would not want to go where we were staying but return to nairobi which i knew and was used to. i would try to sleep but the noise of the party was deafening. unfazed by the harsh glare of the overhead light bulb the mosquito's would bite me when i dozed off. one 9 the clamor was so loud i had no choice but to come out of the storage room into the bar. i stood glumly next to my father and mother and women and men who were happily gossiping. wooden tables filled with beer bottles and glasses loomed around me. the song rose like a ghost the whale from the alien landscape that surrounded me. i looked around and saw the source of the sound, a strange musician, the bugler dressed in a loincloth, long necklaces and a traditional hats, distended

potbelly and jolly face for a terrifying sight. he was weaving between the revelers like a blank santo without rain gear. i heard that sound again. when he looked at his wooden clara night like corn to his fleshy lips his cheeks blew up. dizzy gillespie fashion. to an incredible size. it was as though both sides of his face had been hijacked by shining, coffee, soccer balls. i looked in amazement at the two glistening words, afraid they would burst, so tight with the bulging skin. above those bulbous cheeks and small eyes were narrowed to slits that were maniacal intensity and then that sound issued forth, high-pitched and yodeling as if to the very gates of heaven or hell. it was deep, throatyy, feminine and masculine all at once as it flowed out for the gorgeous

valleys thrusting through the streets like a banshee. just as suddenly the sound would cease and the distended face would shrink back to the jovial blubbery visage of the old bugler. what is wrong with that old man's face? i gasped in horror. it is nothing to get upset about. the muscles in his cheeks are worn out. it is normal for him, she murmured, smiling at me. i identified in some strange way with this bugler. i wanted to be as free as the sound he made. free like my father's mother to fly away over the hills, away from this confusing place. the next section talks a little bit about my first meeting with my brother barack. i was in 1988, it was a very

intense meeting. i had just graduated from brown university and was on my way to stanford and come back for the summer to nairobi to stay with my parents. barack was on his way to harvard law and i remember i was actually -- i was in my room reading a book, the devil drives by sean brody, a great history of -- biography of the great colonial adventure and i heard a crunching sound of gravel outside. i knew a car had arrived. i heard sounds of voices and the door opened. my mother was in the door and she was trembling. my mother is a big lady, she is strong, she is a mountain climber, not literally, but she

is up person who has gone through many challenges in her life and survived. that she was trembling. it was like there was this the motion and what happened is she said to me mark, your brother from america is here. i said what brother? i had -- memories and rumors and stories, sort of nebulous things that talked about a brother i had in america but i had never met him. this is a totally unannounced visit so it was a big surprise. anyway, i said my brother from america, would the mean? your brother barack from america is here to see you. i all of a sudden -- you know, after the divorce i had shut out a lot about the obama name. i wanted nothing to do with it because of the domestic violence we suffered for seven or eight

years. i refuse to even take the name obama at that time because i remember my mother and the pain of seeing her being unable to protect her. but all of a sudden it is like we hadn't been in contact with other members of the obama family. after a space of 10 or 15 years, all of a sudden all these memories and feelings coursed through me and i was thinking all the things i tried to forget coming back. and i instinctively said no, i don't want to meet him. and she said he is your brother. he came all the way from the united states to see. mothers have this way, they can persuade you to do anything. they can persuade you to do anything. i relented, i stood up and walked into the living room and i saw this person who looked almost exactly like me with a

huge, bigger afro than me. big gained legs and he was sitting on the seat, simple polyester white shirt, cotton pants, he had these big hands and when he shakes your hand the fingers reached your elbow and he was smaller than me. he stood up and said hy, i am barack. i greeted him. that was my brother. that first meeting was able intense. we didn't say very much but these skeletons in the closet were clanking in the background, walks into the room. you don't have to confront so many things, marriages, relatives you don't know that well. barack wanted to talk to me

privately with more solitude. it was a few days later. this section talks of little bit about what was taken from that session. that is what happens when you read a 372 page book. okay. now that i think of that i wonder why he was waiting for me outside, all our other guests had always come straight in, sometimes surprising us. there was a visible barrier between his part of the family and my own, they were the obama clan levin in nairobi, centered around the old men as many family members called barack

obama senior. my mother and i could escape the squabbling domestic violence tainted by my early life. i faced the second meeting with trepidation. my mind wanted to shout my past but grew into a menacing presence, it was hit in elephant grass. barack stood in front of the car, a volkswagen. he was taller and thinner than me with a huge mass of unkempt hair. his nose was large and broad, piercing and direct, his clothes were very plain, a common share and greeter pale blue trousers. how are you? he spoke very loudly and clearly, almost paternal leave. he didn't smile. was as though he had recently been upset. i reached out my hand, hello, barack, how are you? he shook hands awkwardly.

when i said barack, everyone called our father. i learned my brother preferred barack. he didn't correct me and i probably repeated this and number of times during our conversation. i looked more closely at this tall brown apparition that appeared in my life. why is this this serious, this unwelcomed the necessary mission? his was a face with secret plans and goals, discreet, ernest, particularly my mother. perhaps an account of what others had told him. from the way he stood in the driveway, rigid, his 5 children a little to the side as the listening to an inner voice, a person was searching for something. it was the look of someone who has decided on a verdict but is still struggling with and for questions and imprecise doubt. as we talk later and discussed a good deal, i sensed he was looking for something in me, deep and simple like a melody

among the moist. i wanted to meet you he said during the first meeting. let's take a drive, i want to talk to you, he suggested. i still remember my brother barack's words to me. what do you think of our father, what do you remember about him? he peered at me earnestly. all these years i kept my up memories of my father far from me but i remember my siblings me at and bobby and the bitterness of the family breakup. i recall the drunken rants of barack obama sr. and the sounds of whiskey bottles clinking on the floor. barack looked at them calm day. grateful for the interruption. a few seconds of silence my eyes wandered around a mostly empty room, the glossy red and white walls seemed to shout out and greasy plates from the checkered

plastic tablecloths. i remember i thought it ironic that we have located it. food arrived almost immediately spicing must fall and rise. not hungry at nibbled at fried dough that. i remember my younker brother who by the way past away a few years before and i had used to make some together. we dropped spoonfuls into boiling oil. our mouth with water as we look at the golden and crisp the doughnuts, expand and filled the kitchen with their sweet smell. as the reading my mind barack stopped eating and turned his eyes on me. i am sorry about david, he said. i think you would have liked him, i replied, glad to change the subject. everyone i know here speaks well of him, barack said, his brown eyes suddenly warm. the man sitting -- this off

kilter image of myself -- i am jumping a little bit ahead. as though my father refused to let go no matter where i went, there will always be some relative to a fear and invited in my life bringing along the memories i tried so hard to obliterate. i was ashamed of myself for my pettiness and for letting history overcome what should have been the july of a moment. despite the tone of our conversation i felt barack was trying to be honest with himself. the shock of it was being dipped into a lake of ice cold water. this off kilter image of myself sitting across from me was my brother barack. i felt i could hide nothing from him. there was nothing in my life i experienced that he had not been for him the results might have been different. looked so like me in some ways, his gaze, his face, even his

voice so it was deeper than mine. i should have been happy to see him but i was not. like me he was mixed race and must've been rejected as i. like me a had been in an ivy league university. like me he came from a broken family. unlike me he had holy embraced his african side. and like me he was attempting some reconciliation but something or somebody even if not me, thoughts tumbled through my mind as i look at his half familiar face. this big brother who is going to harvard, why can't i, i thought. he is probably smarter than me and can discern lies from the truth including mine. i felt afraid and expose, like there was something dirty about our kinship, that was found on a lie, we had been dealt a grubby fragile deck of cards but the quest that barack and later i would embark upon required honesty however brutal it was to ourselves or others close to us.

so with all this in the back of my mind i lashed out at him. why bring up all that garbage about my father? he was a drug, he beat my mother, i have learned to move on. life is hard enough without dwelling on the problems of race. barack seemed to flinch, almost imperceptible movements. i saw his eyes turn hard as he stared at me. it was as though he did not understand. after a moment of silence continued with his questions. have you not heard my outburst, i was astonished. part of him seemed to have shut out my words as though he has pretended i was not said them. we were both blind. whereas at the time i could not see my father's verges barack might have formed high opinions of our father, even idealized him, likely no one had told him the truth, the shameful details about the episode of a grand dream. as though he had been conditioned not to explore these matters having already formed an opinion.

clinically and without passion. his demeanor was cold. i felt then he was an arrogant bastard who was too polite to say so to his face. i did not enjoy being treated as a research subject. i did not want to be pitied or ignored by members of my family. i needed someone to tell me when i was being a jerk and needed to straighten out. that would have been okay too and we could have still shared a beer. how i would have loved for him to have thrown his arms around me and said brother, your big brother is here, i am looking out for you, man. i would have cast his arms aside but i would have broken up inside. instead barack said i see. i was succeeding academically but was already forming the seeds of my own failure. a big brother's and vice might have helped me then. i wanted to hit the ball back at me like a tennis ball after practice law. that would have woken me about it was not to be. barack was not made that way.

he absorbs my answers and adjusted them like an amoeba in a vat of sugar. i talked about music and physics. rolled his eyes. i see, that is good. but do you see any meaning in it? i love music and philosophy. physics is cool but chopin, nietzsche, are my idols. don't you want more, he said. nonplused i stared at him. what more is there? thousands of years of western culture, there's some much more one can learn from and will you come back to kenya? of course, my family's here but my home is where my family is. if they live in america that would be my home but it would be difficult to get a job as a physicist in kenya. it is hard enough getting a telephone service. barack seems to side. i tried to change the topic of conversation again. how do you like kenya so far? i like it. i am having a good time here, he said casually, his eyes on the placemat, his hands casually

resting on the table. the next session talks all little bit about love and it takes place actually in china. let me see if i can grab that. right here. who has been to china over here? a lot more people. the gentleman in the front. where did you go? did you know some chinese? great. another international family. that is great. china is an amazing place. and the people are amazingly

warm and welcoming. in many ways sometimes you have to be away from the things you are very close to and for me also in america i love america and kenya but at that time, 12 years ago, it was wonderful to go to china because everything was so strange and wonderful and curious. let me see if i can find -- right with you. all right. is it here? like i said, 372 pages. it is somewhere here.

okay. okay. actually. i tell you what. while i am looking for it may be i will take some questions and i will be curious to hear about your experiences too and also i think we can just leave it open to the floor. what do you think? >> we have time for six questions. raise your hand and we will call on you. okay? questions if there are any from the audience. >> yes? >> have you ever visited the president at the white house? >> yes i have. the first time i went to the white house was the first inauguration and the old family was invited. it was a wonderful feeling.

there was a tremendous sense of energy in the air. was optimistic. there was such enthusiasm and i remember we went to the white house with members of my -- our extended family and barack was there and it was to for him. this was right after he was inaugurated. as president. you have a lot on your mind but he still had time for us and give us a tour of the white house of 30 or 40 minutes and i remember we went to various rooms and we did know what room as they were and i remember barack saying this is the red room and everything was read. and i waited for more but there was no more and we went to another room and was all green and i think he said do, this is the green rome. very interesting because, you

know, he really wanted us to be part of that special day. i remember walking up the steps to the oval office. my father's first wife kezia have a little bit of a leg problem and i remember walking up the steps and barack tried to help her up the steps. this humility that i thought was absolutely wonderful. and at the end of the day what happened was even in the presence of such a hallowed institution as the white house there is nothing more powerful than family with all its contradictions and all its learnings and teachings. that was an amazing experience and i remember it very fondly. thanks for asking that question. how are you? >> fine, and you?

>> great. thank you for coming today. [inaudible question] >> you know, there are two parts to that. the first one reason parents to the relationship. when you are president, things change. when we met we had a tremendous meeting in austin and it was warm and very welcoming and at that time i gave some of my calligraphy and he said how do you hang it? this way or that way?

it is horizontal and vertical. i told him is this the way you spell your name in chinese? and he was okay. i remember it was the first time we met in 20 years and it was a powerful experience but at that moment, it was like seeing two people. there was tremendous energy, the president of the united states, and at the same time this was my brother. it was difficult because i see him as my brother and many others see him as the president. when i right in my book, coming off of beijing when he met us, he looked little tired and i see the wrinkles in his face and and he looks older. i remember some people said to me how can you write about somebody like that? that is what you see when your

loved one comes in after a hard day of work because they are family and you see these details. coming to terms with the brother and the president is a little difficult. the second part of your question was? >> when did you realize your brother would be the president? >> to me, i knew it way before many of my other friends from china and kenya, the way i knew it was maybe the others did too, may be less skeptical, but at the time of the debates and before the nomination there was a sense of motion, sense of momentum and it was a sense of millions of people moving in a direction, it wasn't about barack about all the people around him. that was the moment i actually

decided i became proud of being an obama. that was the moment i became proud to be an obama because he sees these millions of people and this movement toward something at that time which is tremendously inspiring. and i said -- he made me proud of my family. at that time i remember chinese friends saying he could never be elected, he is black. not all chinese believed this but this friend of mine who was a very good friend said that and i was so disappointed. as though to me it was so obvious but too much of the world was inconceivable, it was a game changer. i hope that answers your question. the gentleman in the back. >> how do you come to terms with quotes like professor cornell west, political correctness, to stand in that spot in two weeks

calling your brother a counterfeit. or michael more, how do you come to terms with the following quotes? the question? michael more saving besides the fact that he was the first black elected president barack obama will be remembered for nothing by history. or clint eastwood, icon of political correctness saying recently that barack obama is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon the american people. >> thank you for your question, by the way. you know, i don't get too much into politics because i am a pianist, a writer, a musician and a calligrapher and there are people who know more about politics and the details of politics than i do. that is why we have teams of people in government who do these things. but that said it is tremendous that in america you can stand up

and say these things. the fact the we can still do it and in many countries weekend, is all wonderful thing. that said, i think that in many cases people expect one man to solve many problems and is very difficult to do that. the one thing which i think we can give my brother credit for, maybe you agree or maybe you don't, he is able to inspire people that he has inspired people. a lot of people who perhaps were less fortunate than you and me to go to good schools and perhaps also to do things in a beautiful city like new york and the barnes and noble over here but the thing is in many cases people like that need something and going around the world, i have seen many people and been very inspired but of course there are problems, things he was not able to do and people

with strong opinions. that is america but i tell you what. i believe that he believes in what he is doing and he is trying to do something with that. for me, i would say we have lots of differences. my thomas hicks and my brother's politics are not very similar. and our grandmother's -- his grandmother probably could not -- like mine could. the thing is we still come together and i hope in the future, two more years, you will have an opportunity to make another choice and that is a wonderful thing about the united states. [applause] >> i will take some more. i really enjoyed this. >> cultural -- >> how are you?

welcome. >> which culture are you the most comfortable with? >> that is one reason i wrote this book, so i couldn't answer a question like that. because my book is about three cultures. it is called my personal odyssey of self discovery. the reason i wrote this book is for much of us in an increasingly globalized world we are straddling several cultures, kids, sisters, parents, are part of multiple cultures. it is so important that we understand this bumpy road. i went through this in a very difficult way and i think barack went through it in a difficult way. i would say we are always -- for mixed-race kids they are often on the outside as well as on the inside the matter where they are but it is a unique thing. getting back to your point, i think the gentlemen -- the gentleman who shared his ideas and opinions, one thing which i

think helps us in understanding my brother is that he has been able to be on the inside and the outside of multiple cultures and the question is how you use them. for me i always felt to be an american is to be able to take different cultures and follow your own behalf. an all encompassing constant about being an american is being an individual. there is a saying in china that i will use to express an american concept, it means go your own path, let others say what they may. but thanks for that question. >> one more question? >> we stand up? >> i absolutely will but i am

still looking for this section. it is something about my grandmother. i don't know if you know, but my grandmother was an amazing person and she was a person who helped me understand myself and introduced me to music. when i met my wife i imagined what would happen if my grandmother had met her. if you just bear with me i will find it somewhere here. 318? is that it? wonderful! this is a man who knows how to read! give him a hand of applause please! thank you! did you say 318? he knows my book better than me. that is scary. okay, let's see here. 318. is at the end of a chapter and it is close.

let me see here. this will take one minute. okay. >> looking for a quote? >> there is a part about me meeting my wife. it happened towards the end of the chapter -- here it is. i found it, great, fantastic. okay, thank you, everyone, for being so patient. this is in china. it is about my wife who has been the source of so much, given me the courage in so many ways to write even. during the inauguration, during the campaign if it hadn't been for her, he said -- she said he is your brother, go and see him. i took my money for piano, this is a conviction.

this is how do you say it? pounds of persuasion. i use that to buy a ticket to go to austin's the next week after a particular event which is mentioned in the book. she has been the one who gave me the courage to write because as all writers know, writing is like pulling teeth. you have to go deep into yourself and try it be to be as honest as you can. it is like music. i played piano. when i play piano whether it is fast or chopin, people in the audience know if it is good music. how did they know? because it has to come from here. if it is not, no matter if the notes are right, people will not connect with and writing is like that and my wife helped me understand that. that said, this is a little vignette from china, hong kong,

imagine hong kong a few years ago. china's newest city, only 40 years old, has a million people. this is my first date. i still have a photo of that ride we took to the lake shore, a few miles from my apartment. she sat on the back of my bicycle, as young lovers in china do. we sat on the pier and splashed in the water. in a photo from that day her foot is next to mine, hurtful is spread out. i would laugh because it looked like a big radish. at that moment i realized i was falling in love. i invited her to my apartment,

gave her a special gift i had made for her. i took a bowl of water. why are you giving me this? look closely, i smiled at her. my goodness, she looked more closely. i hadn't something on each kettle. pitt, then dropped imam water. we dropped the pedals and saw them float against each other. she didn't say anything but i saw from her eyes, it will not take much to make her happy. and her parents were farmers, she was raised in poverty. like the many -- like many migrants she had a dream of living a better life than her mother and father. she wanted to do something and set up her own business. continuing to live and work there, my carefully laid plans pursuing a corporate career were

vastly important. and all points of having a high-paying job had come to not. i could have gone back to corporate life in america but would have meant leaving the orphans and possibly her. even at that release age i knew it would not be happy in america. i remembered my own happiness when i left kenya for america. i recall the time my grandmother visited and wanted to bring one of our kenyan domestics back to america to help her around the house. i could give her a good salary in a place to stay. all she needs to do is help me around the house. how much do i want someone to help me around the house, sweeping leaves in the path every morning, what a short? juliet on hearing this proposal, no more than that she was part of the family and on hearing this proposal was ecstatic. it will be great to go to america. but my mother quickly talk her

out of the idea. she wouldn't be happy there. she would be away from her people and it would be a huge shock to her. you should consider it these things. maybe you are right, i eventually conceded. that was that. i loved her and knew she had strong ties to her family and to china. i didn't expect her family to welcome me with open arms but it was still a shock to hear her describe her mother's reaction on first hearing about me. she was horrified to learn her daughter was dating a foreigner. you will leave me and go away with him, she cried. my grandchildren will not be in china to live with me. i will lose my daughter. was distraught after that phone call, eyes red and face flushed. i did not know what to say. i had enough trouble dealing with my own family let alone hers. for now we at each other. at times particularly at night in that dream state between wakefulness and sleep i had strange thoughts. pictures in my mind encompassing

images of my youth in kenya and my present life in china. i felt my life was mine to mold into whatever shape by pleased with no obligation to my mother, my father, my friend or even that long departed but ever-present kindred spirit, my grandmother. i could imagine having a dialogue with her. i found this terrific girl and i did it myself with no matchmaker. don't tell me you fell in love with some schmuck the doesn't value you. you girls these days are treated like limits. the man comes along, does his thing and forgets to clean up. granma, how can you say that? it would not be my fault, would it? of course not. it is always the women's fault. we use men and look at the consequences. i have some leftover borscht. want some? i even have a little default the fish that mary brought me the other day. if you don't like some aiken 5 to the shop down the road and get a court before pastrami

sandwich. i think i am going to marry this girl. in my dream she would come to me, gently put aside her porsche and look at me so closely, i could smell the baby powder on her cheeks. if you love hurts that is the important thing. she has all little hot spot and cooks you good food, that is something. is she blonde? no. her hair is black. she is chinese. doesn't matter. grandma would give a long sigh. all the world is going to be brown one day. just love her and all will be well. have some roles. i forgot, you don't like them either. and her kind and with the strength, strands of hair would fade back into the night at one with my dreams and the self

china sea. [applause] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. tweet us, twitter.com/booktv or post a comment on our face book page, facebook.com/booktv. >> my book is an intimate on the ground portrait of israeli society in israel/, and this single state under one discriminatory regime. at the culmination of a transitional phase that began after the crushing of the second intifada with the rise of what is really planners call separation, and bears eerie resonances of the african term apartheid which simply means separateness. this is manifested in the separation wall which cuts deep into the west bank which was built in the words of benjamin