this the country we want to live in? i certainly think most people don't because moats people are at the short end of the stick. >> host: most people are not in the privilege evidence position, that's for sure. some people with whom we deal are in that privileged position. their families are and kids are. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: all of those kids have right to be at these schools. they've worked hard and done well. i don't want to say oh, no, only take the person who is in some way disadvantaged 0 to be part of our ecosystem. that's not fair either. it's a balance. >> guest: let's be honest. you can't afford to because the business model of the private institution requires rich people. >> host: students and family no question about it. well, i want to thank you for this robust and stimulating stid inciteful conversation, and ail can say, i'm looking forward to your next book. >> guest: okay. thank you very much.

that was afterwords in which authors interviewed by others familiar with their material. after "after words" at 10:00 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9 p.m. on sunday, and 12:00 a.m. on monday, and you can also wall "after words" online go to book tv.org and click on "after words" in the book tv and topics list on the upper right side of the page. >> now joining us on booktv is dennis johnson this to the copublisher of mel veil house, publish-the intelligence

committee report on torture. mr. johnson, what's the purpose of publishing something that is in the public domain? >> guest: well, for one thing, it's not readily available as a print book, and we felt that was an important format for it to be in, so that it could just circulate more widely, be more accessible to more people, be more affordable and findable to most people. we also felt that the edition of it issued by the government, which is a very low resolution pdf format, was very difficult to read. it's not laid out and properly formatted like a book. it's just like a huge collection of manuscript pages and it's very difficult to read because it's so low resolution, very difficult to search. almost impossible to search in fact. so we wanted to make a better edition of that so that i don't know if people really want to

read that edition the way you read a book but it's more useful to have that for researchers and academics and things like that to have a more searchable edition of the book. >> host: now, how much of the report will you be publishing? will there be editing, commentary? >> guest: we are publishing exactly what the government has released. the only -- the full report is over 6,000 pages lock but has not been declassified. what has been declassified was declassified in april and only just released this month, was the summary report issued by the senate subcommittee, and that came with an introduction by the head of the committee, -- diane fine fine and that will be included. we're not amendmenting anything else to it. it should just be the core

document. it's an historic document. it should not be freighted with in eye kind of apparatus that would give it bias or dilute the par of the report. >> host: what what goes into publishing a book of this sort where the material is already written but you're organizing it, i guess, would be the word to use? >> guest: we're not organizing or changing anything, just trying to make it reedable, and as i say, it was issued as a low resolution pdf, very hard to scan, almost impossible to scab. it's a low resolution. a lot of corruptions in the document if you try to scan it, and say there's a smudge, that smudge might then be translated as a word, it might trigger repetitions or deletions. so we really lad to take this document and basically retype it and reformat it just to be able too lay it out like a proper book so that it would be much more readable than in the edition the government issued.

>> host: introduction, commentary? >> guest: as i say just the introduction that came -- that its actually part of the summary, an introduction to the findings of the committee, written by senator diane feinstein, the head of the committee. >> have you published books like this before? >> no, we haven't been allowed to publish books like this before. previously the government has taken these reports, such as the philadelphia commit -- the 9/11 committee report or the investigation into the financial crisis and has awarded those books as if they were contracts to large publishers, and gave them the report early so that they could lay it out for the government and publish those books simultaneously with the government's release of the document. i've never quite understood why that was allowed. those are public documents, should not be given preferentially to one publisher or another. they belong to the people of the united states. the government did not do that

this time, senator feinstein has been opposed to that in the past the government has ethen given production money to some publish tore do this. senator feinstein was opposed to that. didn't happen this time so those publishers, without that advantage, declined to do it. so when we realized that's what was going on, at mel veil house, we decided, well, these documents must exist as a print book, they must exist as a more readable digital book, and so we jumped to do it as quickly as we could, but there are all kind of difficulties in doing that. on short notice. it's called crashing a book. it's christmas time so it's very hard to get into the system, book sellers have already ordered books for the season. warehouses are already shipping those books. it's hard to get on the trucks to be distributed. hard to get printed. printers are very busy at this time of year and hard to cut to

the front of the line. so we had to pull a lot of strings, ask for a lot of favors. we had five consecutive days of the entire staff and a team of volunteers staying up around the clock to basically retranscribe the book, cowboy edit -- copied dealt the transcription, proof it, compare it to the original to make sure we didn't gift anything wrong, lay out and then print it. it's been an amazing five days just trying to jam that book into the system at christmas time. >> host: is it being published as a paper book and an ebook. >> guest: that's correct. it will be issued simultaneously as a trade paperback and also as an ebook. >> host: "the new york times" is reporting your initial print run will be 50,000. is that accurate? >> guest: that is accurate at the moment. although we're getting just del luged with requests for the book, not only from booksellers, large and small, but from libraries and all kind academics

are contacting us, asking how quickly they can get the book. so it's looking right now like that number may have to go. >> host: when will it be available? >> guest: the official publication date is december 30th. we will have the book printed and in our warehouse friday, three days from now, and we will start shipping immediately. may start popping up a little before the 30th in various independent book stores but it will be fully distributed around the country and available on online retailers and in brick and mortar retailer ands chain book stores and you name it on december 30th. >> dennis johnson, pressurer of mel veil house. here's the cover, the senate intelligence commitee report on torture. thank you, sir. >> thank you. ...