>> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer >> so i am a big history buff. right now, i am reading franklin and winston, a portrait of a friendship that is written by john meechm. it talks about the interfriendship that the former president and the prime minister had particularly during world war ii. how it evolved and how close it was and how they talked together to bring the victory that was necessary so that we can live in the country we live in today. it reminds me as we talk today of the need of the continued relationships that we have with the united kingdom and our european allies which i think is tremendous. i am reading that and hope to finish that shortly thereafter. then i went to one of the

progression series on presidents and they had a book that they distributed that i am very interested in reading dealing with thomas jefferson and sally hamming. it talks about that relationship and what it was. i just want to read what the relationship was and how they moved forward and thomas jefferson was one of our founding fathers and as an african-american his believes in either free sally and his relationship with slaves at the time so that is a book of particular interest to me. if i have the time then i would like to try a third book which i brought with me and it deals with called in the black a history of african-americans on wall street which is -- i sit on the financial services committee and i am from new york. it is important, i think, and when you think about the investments and what is taking place on wall street that

becomes tremendously important and there have been pioneers, many of which no one talks about and no one knows and i want to make sure i became familiar with who they are and what sacrifices they made. i am looking to reading this book. i think that will do me for the month of august. finish one, get into two, and then back here to washington d.c. >> congressman, thank you so much for your time. one more question. you started to talk about how you analyze different texts in history and analysis of history to assess how we can move forward with our allies today. how does looking at those books allow you to do that? >> it reminds we mooe a lot of things we are dealing with today isn't the first time we have had these issues in the country. what it meant, is people, even

though they come from different parties and the grit greatness of the country because we had the ability to figure it out. it looked gloomy at times. you can see as we are reading about the book sometimes it looks

up next on "after words," syndicated columnist naomi klein discusses no it's not enough resisting trump politics in the world we need interviewed by medea benjamin of code