book. the other is called curious where you get an ememevery e-mail every day and hates different things fromhumanities to science, and every day something in one of those areas. so those are the ways that you have to keep your mind active, and especially like somebody like myself, where i have to go from foreign affairs so appropriations and name the issue and when you get on the away from la raid dough to houston, from houston to washington you spend a lot of time on the explain this where is you use the aarps -- the apps to make sure you keep your mind active and you're constantly learning. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading sensessed your reading list via twitter, or instagram, or post today our facebook page, facebook.com

slash book tv. booktv on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> author james past at theson, think i read somewhere, told by somebody who knows this, that one in 36 books in the united states has your name on it. >> i hear these things but -- fake news. i don't pay any attention to it. a lot of people who like my books, which is terrific for me, and especially with people going into book stores and library jazz how many books you're working on right now? >> guest: i lose track. usual lay dozen or so books i'm doing at one time. last year i wrote two books and this is a weird one. if you think this through, wrote 2500 pages of outlines last year and all my outlines are a draft

so draft of 2500 page warm it's all imagination, all just making up stories. here's a story and here's hour i see the story going, we have the -- a book i'm doing with president bill clinton,, and its in outline. >> host: you've done the outline? >> guest: oh, yeah. we are halfway through, we meet frequently, talk on the find lot and it's great. he is a good story-teller, too, and he has information about the presidency and the government that other people don't have. so it's going to be a really -- the president is missing, and i'm so proud to be working with him. >> host: so who is the first draft drafter? >> guest: i never get into how it works but that isn't how it works. >> host: when it that due out. >> next summer.

>> host: where did alex kroft come from. >> guest: a long time ago but a peace what when is was agreeing up may grandparentses had a small restaurant in upstate new york, and the cook was a woman named laura and she has waving problems with her husband, and the family said, move in with us, and she moved in for three years, during that time i spend an incredible amount of time with her family, and they were smart and funny and interesting and their food was wonderful there, and i took kind of preferred being with her than being with my own family. and that always stuck with me in terms of just the workings of her family, just families i met during that period. so that's kind of the -- essentially where nana mama came from. nana mama is a combination of this woman and probably my

grandmother, who is one of these people that we -- she would go up and fix her own television when she was 80 years old and up on one of this rickety doing up three stores, my gosh, she's going to fall. that's not how she died. >> host: when did childrens books become part of your -- >> guest: the childrens books thing, when we have -- we have a son jack, who's 19 now, and when he was little -- very bright kid. not a big reader, and when he was eight -- i'd been sort of stimulated to write books for kids because my books, people turn the pages and that's useful for kids to get them involved, and -- but when jack -- he wasn't a big reader and that summer were we said, you're going read every day, and he said die have to? we said, yes, unless you want to

liver in the garage. so we went out and got about a dozen books, some at the library some in book stores and by the end of the summer he read all 12 and his reading skills went crazy, and when jack cook sateds he had a perfect score in reading. that is what can happen. it's not going to necessarily wind up with an 800 s.a.t. but the kids become good readers if they read enough, most kids. and parentses need to take responsibility for that. they need to understand it's their job. the same way you teach you boy how to throw a baseball or your girl how to rite a book and that's good to be but getting them reading even more important. >> host: prior to becoming an author you had life. >> was in advertising for several years. but i've been clean for over 20 years now. so, i don't know why you brought

that up. no, it got me to understand communications better. got me to understand that there's an audience. you are going to talk to people and you have to hold them. you have to hold their attention and they're not necessarily interested in what you have to say. i think that's particularly important with childrens books. >> host: the first manuscript you wrote, what was and it was itese to sell. >> guest: the first bike wrote, i was 25. had gone to graduate school and i wrote a detective novel and was turned down, and then i was bought by another publisher and it won an award. for anybody who is wroting, you can get turn down and sometimes just not paying much attention

or they're just not that smart. i don't know. whatever it is. >> host: you have been with little brown -- >> guest: i left for a while and then came back. i've been with them in part over 25 years. it's been a really nice relationship. >> host: you have another nonfiction book that you're working on. where did this come from? >> guest: i wrote murder king tut and then i wrote filthy rich which is about a billionaire who is accused of having relationships with several underage girls who we would bring into his house, and i'm doing one right now on aaron hernandez. >> host: why? >> guest: it's an interesting for and we leave a lot of insider information in terms of what went on at the university of florida, things about his

family, various thing about at the patriots. don't want to hurt anybody but it's a fascinating story when you get somebody who had not just a physical gift but was a bright guy. had the gift. he obviously was making it in a big way, just signed a $40 million contract, and yet something was wrong about this guy, and some of it goes back to his father died very unexpectedly when aaron was 16, and something happened there. something went terribly wrong, and so i just -- it's a story that i just couldn't get out of my head and it's going to be -- i think it's going to be a terrific book. >> james patterson, we are also fight you as a literacy advocate. what are you working on? >> guest: well, we just do an author -- my wife and i, we have scholarships for teachers or people who are studying to be

teachers at i think 30 universities now. we have over 450 scholarships for teachers. that's one thing. and i'll do graduation speeches. did -- some of these schools, at mississippi state, arkansas, just did the university of the pacific. we have programs for scholastics, we gave away almost two million to school libraries last year. this year we'll do classroom libraries, which is i think even cooler, because a lot of times teachers are putting up their own money to buy books for the classes, and so that's -- so far -- in ten days we got 20,000 teachers saying, please help our classroom. we do a thing in the holidays where we give out diplomas to people who work in book stores

around the country, and a lot of ways that the most gratifying because they write letters and the letters articulate. people don't have much money and $1,500 or a thousand dollars comes out of the sky, and i remember -- one woman wrote back and said i can go to the dentist this year, and that's the reality. a lot of people working at book stores just not any money there. so that's a very rewarding from. and other things we do. >> host: how anonymous can you be these days walking down at the street? >> guest: it's not bad. it's not like you're tom hanks or tom cruise or nikole kidman. people will notice and might smile. mostly people give you the space. here, a little more because it's full of indy book sellers and a lot of them -- they'll come up

and go i'm such and such from this place and you gave us a grant. it's very emotional and they want to meet sue and i. it's very gratifying at times. >> host: james patterson, author and hit rare advocate, author over over 150 books, thrillers, romances, childrens books, young adults, 350 million books as of january 2016 have been -- that's crazy. don't think about that honestly. it just is nice to be able to -- somebody said you're luckier you find something you like to do and then it's a miracle if somebody pays you do and it that's my situation, obviously. and especially -- i have my own childrens imprint at little brown called jimmies and re-do my book and other authors help mission of jimmy is when a kid finishes a jimmy book, he will say please give me anotherback,

as opposed to i don't like to read. it's good, smart way to go and that's what we try to do. with can get books in kidder's hands and they say give my another book we religion go a long way in terms of making this country more compassionate, more thoughtful, a little less -- a little better judgment when we're dealing with the political side, et cetera, et cetera. >> host: thank you forking into on book tv. >> guest: yeah. >> booktv recently visits capitol animal ask members of congress what they're reading this summer. >> well issue got a couple of books. never read just one book at a time. read in pieces. i'm finishing a novel by one of my favorite authors, robertson davis, a canadian, called the cunning man. also in the middle of reread jfk's