>> there are a million ways to do it. and one which is not often talked about is you really come up with an idea and you try to find the perfect writer or the person whose passion for the idea matches yours. that is one way you can make a book happen. and in other ways you make sure to talk to agents as much as possible and see what kind of experiences they are enthusiastic about. and you raise your hand in the hope that they will send you a good proposal. and sometimes you cultivate and plant ideas with them and you hope that over time that they will come up with a project that they really want to spend five or 10 years with and make a

great book out of. >> have you ever read a newspaper article or a magazine article that could be a book? >> yes, i've read an article 10 years ago about how very shortly in the 21st century households in america will be supported by women and that that is a giant change. and it may result in exploring the implications of what that might mean for men and women and for marriages and for raising children and for love and for courtship and i got a great book out of it. >> was the book i'll? >> it was called the richest sex grade it was written by a terrific reporter who is now at

the new america foundation in washington and it generated a, it landed on the cover of "time" magazine and that includes how we all need to adjust our lives to this economic reality and is this good for men and women. and i think bad we decided, yes, anything that makes a couple stronger and live up to their potential is a good thing. >> one of the pair of authors they worked with were nancy gibbs and michael duffy on the presidents club, a book that are "q&a" program covered. what was the process working on the presidents club with those two? >> i wish that i could say that i came up with that idea because

it was such a brilliant idea that i didn't -- i mean, they had been working on that for quite some time, nancy and michael, and the idea came to them after they had written a very great book on billy graham and they realized the degree to which the president talked to the ex-president and how much that clubs help to shaped the presidency and out is what gave them ideas to explore this in a thorough way. and so it was a very modern idea because obviously we had to get to the 20 century to get to longevity. for practical reasons for this to be possible. but what they found is that it was actually made stronger and sometimes challenged by people in the cypress club.

and they had relationships with each other going towards the past and the future. so it did challenge was how to structure the book. if you look at how the book is built, we have an introduction to certain key partnerships all along the way because it helps the leader keep track of who the characters are in a helps them move along chronologically while honoring history and the relationship as they actually happened. >> so they wrote the presidents club, what was your role? what part did you play in the book? >> my role helped to structure the book to give it an architecture that makes it so accessible to the readers to it,

they forget that they are all these multiple characters on stage at once and they can see that they're not so overwhelmed by it. my role was to do something that i was a big believer in. and so my role was to make sure that some of the inside knowledge that they had was made completely transparent to the reader so that they knew where things came from and how you new things. but essentially when you have authors as talented as nancy and michael, you get up in the morning and use it to work. >> what is your editing process? would you do with your manuscript? >> it came in a section and the

first thing you do is you -- you can't really do serious editing and you are in an office. and you have to completely immerse yourself in the book. there would be times when i would leave the book and go out and get dinner and still be living in the middle of the nixon administration and run back and get back to it. so you want the ability to sort of sink into the story as much as possible so you can see the beauty and occasionally make it more beautiful. >> you take a red pen to a? a pencil? >> i take a pencil to it. it comes from my days as a newspaper and magazine were an editor and it allows me to move

and forth easily and it allows me to sort of give it back to them so that they feel like they can look at those notes and absorb them as they were on their own terms. kent: >> another author that you work with, did you choose him? did he choose you? out of that work? >> i auditioned for it. i got a call from my publisher and he asked me to go down to washington. it was the first book that i was asked to edit. i had been a journalist for 30 years. and he had read up on me and what stories i had covered. we had several things in common and i had actually covered him as an editor for many decades.

and my argument is that you should hire me because this is my first job and i can't screw it up. and it worked. >> is it different working with a personality like that than it is maybe working with nancy gibbs and michael duffy who are not as well-known? >> well, i think that every writer has to put themselves on the page so the process is a process by definition that makes the writers phil honorable. >> feel vulnerable. and i think that the job is to protect them and make them feel comfortable with what they are saying. one of the first conversations that i had with carl was you can't start the book at age 30. you have to start the book with the pain of your childhood, including your mother's suicide

and your father losing the home and finding out later that your father wasn't your father. when he went to me your real father. all of those issues have to be on the page, as difficult as they are to talk about. because it's part of what made you eat yourself and if this is going to be a biography, then it needs to include that. and so he told me later that oftentimes when he gets stopped by readers, you bring up the childhood stuffed because they have had experiences like his and i think that that is one way you make a personality more accessible to people. >> because of your background as a journalist, do you work on a lot of nonfiction political books? >> yes, i do. i work only on nonfiction.

and some of the books are really more -- not so much political as they are books on journalism. a book on veterans, a book on the industry of meat that is now becoming an oligarchy. a lot of books that involve journalist spending many years of their lives getting into some of the issues that we face in trying to make them readable. someone that you will want to spend a lot of time went. >> you can watch this and other programs at booktv.org. booktv asked bookstores and libraries for a country about the nonfiction books they are most anticipating being published this fall. here's a look at the titles chosen by this bookstore in

coral gables, florida. this begins with a reflection on medicine in being mortal. coming up next, the first latino and openly gape presidential inaugural poet talks about his life. in the republic of imagination, arguing for the reading and teaching of american literary classics. also their most anticipated fall titles is the innovator's with walter isaacson's history of the digital age and wrapping up the list is the underpinnings of rock 'n roll in the history of rock 'n roll in 10 songs. as look at some of the nonfiction titles that they are anticipating being published this fall. please visit the bookstore in coral gables, florida, or online at books and books.com.

>> coming up next, paul ryan discusses his book, "the way forward: renewing the american idea." >> thank you. thank you. [applause] [cheers] [applause] [cheers] [applause] thank you. >> it is great to be here. it is not where we wish that we were, but it is great to be here and it's wonderful to be with paul again. we had quite an experience and i know a lot of you think it must be awful that you have to