speaking a little bit later in the date you have a chance to talk with them live. now in just a minute working to go into the history and mcafee room here biography room here at the national book festival. you can see that you can hear from sidney blumenthal. the most recent book is about you will hear from her as well. and some of the other authors that we will be taping. if you want the full schedule for our live coverage today go to book tv.org. we have the schedule it's over on the right-hand side of the page. you can read up and down. everything that we are covering live today. plus if you are on twitter follow us at book tv will be sending out scheduled updates behind the scenes pictures. we are also on facebook and book tv. and instagram book -underscore

tv. i know that's a lot of information to throw at you. will go we will go into the history and the biography room and this is where you will hear from sidney lowenthal talking with his most recent book is about abraham lincoln and his final years. it's called wrestling with his angel. the 17th annual book festival. [inaudible]

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>> good morning. i am at a vision of the editor of the "washington post" sunday section which is our encore for ideas essays arguments personal narratives and also thankfully for nonfiction book coverage. the post is very happy to be a sponsor of the national book festival for many years. before we get started couple of quick orders of business.i want to remind everyone that you can donate to help support the festival which is a really cool event. all of the information is in the program. after sidney blumenthal

finishes there will be q&a, time permitting. in addition he will be doing a book signing downstairs from 12 until 1 o'clock. in my decade and and a half of living in washington, a lot has changed. but one thing that has not changed is that the city is very much a place of transport sometimes these groups, journalists and politicians and the operatives and policy scholars and lobbyists and diplomats and advocates, sometimes they have symbiotic relationships. and sometimes parasitic ones. and sometimes they do not interact at all. but rarely does somebody pass between them and almost never with the facility and adaptability and the skill of sidney blumenthal. he started his career as a journalist and he worked at

tim's my alma mater's. then he covered washington for the new yorker. which is generally regarded as the summit of analytical and narrative political coverage covering dc. in his work as a journalist, before he was an early detection system for a problem we all know very well. and term permanent campaign. then sidney blumenthal went to the administration and surfer president clinton for his second term. portfolio had every political issue in the white house. after he returned to journalism. he worked at salon and read books about the clinton and bush administrations. now, sidney blumenthal has gotten to parlay his most ambitious project yet. giving abraham lincoln the -

treatment. i cannot think of a political figure more relevant to this debate. a self-made man started a course of the beginning and i remember reading coverage when it first came out. the word magisterial appeared frequently. we give it a nice review also. now he has just dropped wrestling with his angel, the second volume which covers the years 1849 through 1856. which is the battle against douglas and the resident a new political party, the republicans. he could not have picked a better moment for a book about political realignment. so now, please help me invite him up here to talk about it, sidney blumenthal. [applause] >> great to be here. thank you adam for those very

kind remarks. i am honored to be here at the library of congress, national book festival. last night at the first event, i had a conversation with david mccullough so we really need lincoln now. he said he needs them all! [laughter] >> the library of congress building, one of the most magnificent buildings in the country did not used to be such a distinguished address it used to be the location of a row of boarding houses. facing capital and inhabited by congressmen. and one of those was abraham lincoln. he lived on that site. in the fourth point. he was a scholar whig.

it was a boardinghouse that he stayed in which was also the center of antislavery operations in the district of columbia. and i also want to sit and very happy to be here speaking to those of you who are fellow washingtonians. the "washington post" in talking about the national book festival said it is a chance to hear people imitate charles dickens and takes out please. i do not know that dickens took sophie's. [laughter] but i will do my poor imitation of dickens talking about this second of the four volumes about the political life of abraham lincoln. this volume, i've entitled

"wrestling with his angel". i've taken from the story of jacob from the bible. jacob wrestling through a long night. with an angel! or himself. and emerging at dawn as somebody else having resolved himself and assuming a new identity, he takes a new name. the name he takes is israel. and something like that happened with lincoln. but it happened in his wilderness years. years lasting from 1849 until eight and he assumed a new identity. so let me pretend to be dickens for a minute. the more time i spend with abraham lincoln, the more i have come to understand that his words and actions where the careful results of his intent

and self-discipline. they described his melancholy was also a mask for his concentration intellectual absorption and focus. his depression and it deepened his self-awareness this informed his acute understanding of human nature and politics. even when his life seemed to have been reduced to insignificance, he was scanning the horizons and interpreting its size. the young lincoln in his first formal speech at the springfield - for young men in 1838, so importance of a crisis to come. at what point then he said, is the approach of danger to be expected to i answer, if it

ever reach us, it must bring up amongst us. it cannot come from abroad. if destruction be our life we must ourselves be as author and finisher. "wrestling with his angel" describes lincoln's dark night of the soul. lincoln coming to his revelation. on a house divided from which he emerged as the recognizable link in history. he would be that man until his assassination. after abraham lincoln's one term in the congress, and his return to his law office in springfield, he stared into the distance. for long periods of time. his partner recalled him breaking one of his prolonged silences with a cry of anguish. the political world was dead. herndon wrote, things were stagnant and all hope for progress in the line of freedom

seem to be crushed out. lincoln was speculating with me about the deadness of things. and the despair which arose out of it. and deeply regretting that his human strength and power were limited by his nature to browse and stir up the world. he said, swimmingly, despairingly, sadly, how hard, oh how hard it is to die and leave one's country. no better than one had never lived for it.the world is dead. death to its own death struggle. made known by universal cry, what is to be done? is anything to be done? who can do anything and how is it to be done? did you ever think of these things? almost as soon as abraham lincoln came back to springfield, his wife, mary todd lincoln turned him right around and since my mission to

her hometown of lexington, kentucky. to serve as cocounsel to recover the todd family fortune. which was considerable. lincoln found himself dressed into the vortex of his native state politics tended to mortal kombat between antislavery and proslavery forces. the lawsuit and the politics were intertwined. so bear with me and follow these threads if you will. for nearly 1 decade, mary todd's father, john s todd, senator henry clay business partner and political ally had tried to rest the todd estate from a man known as robert - also called, the old duke. he had married a todd cousin

who held the estate that passed away. he was also leader of the post-slavery movement in kentucky. john todd running for the state senate against the movement, though a slaveholder himself, was demonized with the worst work that could ever be used against anyone in politics, abolitionist. in the middle of the campaign, in july, 1849, he died of cholera. lincoln arrived to pursue the family just in time to observe the post slavery movement we triumphantly rewrite the state constitution to eliminate the kentucky law prohibiting the slave trade within its borders. lincoln lost the case and the

todd family lost the estate to him at the same time that the political legislative henry clay, the statesman and mary's beloved father, were destroyed. if those events were not sufficiently and bitterly there was another factor apparently it was a profound but concealed transport from memoirs, the mystery underlying the clod is the case emergences and it was the todd family secret.there was a living area was the grandson, the only child of her son that had done at a relatively young age. but the heir is not a person

under the law, he was in fact a slave and he had been immense affiliated and shifted like the area. in 1878 the former slave, the invisible man of the story, and he had a name, alfred francis russell. he was elected vice president of iberia. in 1883 he became president. so that made him mary todd's second relation to become a president. back in illinois from kentucky, lincoln spoke with john todd stewart, his first law partner. a political mentor, a conservative old trendline. the time would soon come in which we must be democrats or abolitionists since do it. and stewart went eventually join the democrats. when that time comes, my mind

is made up lincoln replied. the slavery question cannot the compromise. lincoln expressed to many of his friends, his anger at the rising slave power he had observed in kentucky. he was livid that in antislavery trend nine whig lawyer would be there and he would be elected to the supreme court. lincoln described privately, young fellows and getting headed kentucky slaveholders with slaves trudging behind them. the most glittering, ostentatious and displaying property in the world. human property. lincoln would get excited on the questions that one of his friends and believed that the tendency of the time was to make slavery universal.

he told another friend in a few years we will be ready to accept the insufficient in illinois and the whole country will adopt it. the todd ayres case with this hidden history left lincoln smoldering in private until he emerged five years later. at the time for lincoln to step forward and not come, not yet. a great revolution was required to bring abraham lincoln out of the wilderness. lincoln's orbit in these years revolved around the eighth judicial district of central illinois. day after day, with judge david davis and our - i shall never forget the thomas a mr. lincoln recall the criminal attorney that became one of his closest friends. and will be instrumental in the political campaign.

he came to the town of danville where lincoln was trying cases. when i called at the hotel it was after dark and i was told that lincoln was upstairs in the judge's room. and the region where it had been brought up the judge of the court was usually amended more or less gravity so he cannot be approached with some degree of deference. i was not -- i climbed the unvented staircase defined myself so near the presence and dignity of judge davis in his room i was told i find mr. lincoln. in response to my timid mouth, two voices responded almost simultaneously. come in! imagine my surprise when the door opened to find two men undressed. or rather just perfect, engaged in a lively battle with pillows. tossing that in each other's heads.

one, a little heavyset man who leaned against the foot of the bed and puffed like a lizard answer to this description of judge davis. the other was a man of tremendous stature, compared to davis he looked as if he were eight feet tall. he was encased in a long indescribable garment. -- reached to his heels from beneath which protruded two of the largest feet. i had up to that time been in the habit of saying, this immense shirt for shirt it must have been a look like as if it was part of the original abode of flannel with pieces joined together without measurement or capacity. the only thing that kept it from slipping off the tall and angular frame it covered was the single button at the throat. and i confess to its succession

of shutters. when i thought of what might happen should the button by any mischance lose itself, i cannot describe my sensations at this apparition with modest announcement. my name is lincoln, strode across the room to shake my trembling hand. i will not say he reminded me of satan but he was certainly the ungodliness figure i had ever seen. [laughter] who was this lincoln? this lincoln was not an abolitionist. but he was, as he insisted, naturally antislavery. his deepening understanding of slavery in its full complexity as a moral, political and constitutional dilemma, began in his childhood among the primitive baptist antislavery

dissidents and backwards kentucky and indiana whose churches, his semi literate parents attended. as a boy, he rode down the mississippi river to new orleans. he was the original huck finn. where he discovered that new orleans was an open air emporium of slaves. on option, on display and it shocked him. as a congressman, in his single term here in washington, he lived in a boardinghouse, abolition house. he experienced the invasion of slave catchers coming to see is one of the wages as a fugitive slave. undoubtedly, he knew the secret of the house where he lived. that it was a station in the underground railroad. he denounced the mexican war is fortunately started and voted numerous times against the expansion of slavery.

in the new western territories that had been gained in the war. with a quiet assistance, of the leading abolitionists in the congress, he drafted a bill for emancipation in the district of columbia. something he would make good on even before the emancipation proclamation was issued. and it is why we in the district today have emancipation day. but that first bill of lincoln never received even a single hearing in house of representatives and then he came home to in obscurity that seemed as though it would never end. at the lowest moment of political despair and retreat in american politics, to that time, marked by a widespread loss of faith in democracy itself, lincoln emerged with his cause. suddenly, in 1854, the once and future rivals of lincoln

combined to go to smithereens a cornerstone of political peace. senator stephen a douglas of illinois, lincoln's eternal arrival from the beginning of his political career, seeking a transforming adjuster that would carry him to the democratic presidential nomination in the white house. join with secretary of war, the dyck cheney of his day, jefferson davis of mississippi. care to slaveholding wealth and the de facto acting president of the united states. operating behind the weakling, franklin pierce and their collaboration on the kansas nebraska act. that act repealed the missouri compromise that had forbidden slavery north of the line through the country that

prohibited it in the north except for missouri. but now, it's repealed made possible the extension of slavery to the west. it made possible the nationalization of slavery. lincoln's nightmare. and in a stroke, the entire old political order cracked apart. we were thunderstruck end and stuns and in confusion. said lincoln, describing the atmosphere of the early resistance. but we rose, each writing, grasping whatever he could reach a chopping as a butchers? repeatedly struck in the direction of the sound. into brief autobiographies lincoln depicted himself in his wilderness years as strangely content in a kind of internal exile. becoming merely indifferent to politics. immersed in this legal practice. as he was contemplating his

race for the presidency, he told the chicago tribune in 1854 his profession that almost superseded the thought of politics in his mind. when the repeal of the missouri compromise aroused him as he had never been before. it was about this decisive juncture in lincoln's career that herndon, his law partner wrote of lincoln's. that man who thinks that lincoln calmly sat down and gathered his ropes around waiting for the people to call him, has a very erroneous knowledge of lincoln. he was always calculating and always planning ahead. his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest. now lincoln clung to the sinking whig party longer than somebody else knew the new coalition against the extension of slavery, it must be organized.

in this period of party chaos, lincoln cast himself into the world. he sequestered himself in the long library of the state capitol in springfield. and drafted a speech against the kansas nebraska act. stepping onto the podium to speak of the illinois house of representatives on october 4 1854. he never again left the stage of history. lincoln, the defender of the declaration of independence and its precept, all men are created equal, involved the blood of the revolution. the american revolution. lincoln, the shakespearean pointed to the moral wrongs of slavery. andy leading to his favorite play, macbeth and the scene where macbeth tries to wash out the spot of his guilt. lincoln said, like the bloody hand you may wash it and wash

it and wash it, the red witness of guilt sticks and stairs hardly at you. he was referring to slavery. now in this chaotic period, many movements swirled across the landscape. against slavery, against immigrants and against liquor. but the nativist and temperance movements in front of the development of the antislavery war. meanwhile, antislavery democrats and antislavery whigs regarding other with suspicion. but they understood in a political sense that they needed a more proficient and gifted political figure. to draw the elements together and that brought them to abraham lincoln. that brought them in fact the very platform where he was speaking the illinois hollow

representatives against the act. and when he finished a small group of radical abolitionists asked him to join the meeting they were holding that night for a group that they call the republican party. it was a radical group. and lincoln dodged them. he had a case in a distant county. he would not attend this radical group at the republican party. for years, lincoln turned over in his mind then minutes of slavery to democracy. until in 1855, he envision the prospect of what was to come i think that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery and prospect for us. he wrote his proconsul a kentucky judge, the signal failure of henry clay and other good and great men in 1849 who

have gradual emancipation in kentucky together with a thousand other signs extinguishes that hope utterly. yet, in another complicating factor entered into the equation. between 1845 and 1854, 3 million immigrants arrived in the united states. the first great wave of immigration. about 40 percent report, irish catholics fleeing the potato -- another 40 percent were germans. fleeing the crushing of the liberal democratic revolution in germany. of 1848. conservative protestants viewed the irish especially as a source of crime, corruption and poverty. both the irish and germans were beer drinkers. [laughter]

a habit that aroused temperance presenters that call them drunken, lazy and sinful. a new party arose. in this period of party disintegration. it was a mass political party. it was anti-immigrant party and the party was known as the know nothing party it took the name because members were told that when they were asked if they were members they were to reply, i know nothing. it sprang from a small nativist sect in new york city called the order of the star-spangled banner. within months after the 1852 election, it attracted estimated membership of more than a million. it's program had one plank and one only, only native born protestants would be allowed to hold public office in the united states. and they had a slogan.

americans only shall govern america. as the crisis deepens, lincoln wandered how he could be effective writing slavery while maintaining his identity in the crumbling whig party. on august 24 he wrote to his longtime intimate friend joshua who she had shared a room with. her now was with his family could they agreed on many things and disagreed and others including the question of slavery. but in the forefront of lincoln thinking at the time was the threat of the know nothings. i am not a know nothing. that is certain lincoln wrote. how could i be? how could anyone who opposes the suppression of negroes be degrading classes of white people?

our progress appears to me to be pretty rapid. as a nation we began by declaring that all men are created equal. we now practically read it that all men are created equal except negroes. when the know nothings get control it will read all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and catholics. when it comes to this, i should prefer emigrating to a country where they make no pretense of loving. to russia for instance. [laughter] where -- without the base ally of hypocrisy. even then, lincoln had a way with words. state-by-state the republican party was being organized. in illinois a group of antislavery newspaper editors

invite lincoln to join them as their leader at a meeting to organize a convention of the new party. lincoln was absent at the time recalled herndon. and believing that i knew his feelings and judgments, i took the liberty to sign his name to the call. john todd stewart, with his first law partner, the conservative old whig breath into the office trying to remove lincoln's endorsement. stuart excitedly asked herndon if lincoln had signed the abolitionist call of the newspaper. i answered in the negative, adding that i had signed his name to the question, did lincoln authorize you to sign it? i returned emphatic, no! then explained the startled and indignant steward. you have ruined abraham lincoln.

i thought i understood lincoln thoroughly. herndon said. but in order to vindicate myself i immediately sat down after stuart had rushed out of the office and wrote lincoln who was then attending court. a brief account of what he had done and how much stir it was grinning and the rest of his conservative friends. if he approved or disapproved, i asked him to write or telegraphed me at once. in a brief time came his answer. all right.go ahead, we will meet you. radicals and all. at that meeting, on february 22, 1856, george schneider, editor of the german language newspaper, proposed denouncing the know nothings. the nativist present strongly opposed it. the conference threatened to collapse.

schneider announced that he would submit his resolution to lincoln and abide by his decision. gentlemen declared lincoln the resolution introduced by mr. schneider is nothing new. it is already contained in the declaration of independence. and you cannot form a new party on other principles. this declaration mr. lincoln as sandy recalled save the resolution and in fact helped to establish the new party on the most liberal democratic basis. lincoln's judgment made possible the creation of the illinois republican party which became the instrument that would in four years, carry him to the republican nomination for president. but he could not foresee that distant future. nor can he predict the shocking 10 days that shook the world, that was soon polarize the

coming conflict. on may 19, 1856, senator charles sumner of massachusetts delivered his speech on the attack on democracy, the crime against kansas then being taken over by the slave pattern. on may 21, two days later, an army of nearly 1000 proslavery missourians had a banner that said seven rates. they ransacked the town. the next day in the united states senate, while sumner sat writing at his desk, congressman preston brooks of south carolina approached him as he was sitting and battered him relentlessly with a gold handle cane over his head nearly killing him retribution for his speech. blood streamed across the floor of the senate.

two days later, may 24, along creek in kansas, radical abolitionists john brown, and his followers hacked five proslavery men to death in the middle of the night. and five days later, abraham lincoln stood on the platform of the new party that he founded in illinois, the republican party. within two years of assuming his new identity as a republican, lincoln founded his own note destiny. lincoln's language was drenched not only in shakespeare but also john from two passages of the king james bible. from the gospel of mark, if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. and if a house is divided against itself, that house will

not be able to stand. from the gospel of luke. every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste. and a divided household falls. on june 16, 1858 declaring his candidacy for the u.s. senate he said if we can first know where we are and whether we are attending we can better judge what to do and how to do it. i recall just a few years later he was despairing. he wondered what is to be done? he thought the political world was dead. he had not thought through the crisis and now the crisis was upon him and this is what lincoln says. a house divided against itself cannot stand. i believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. i do not expect the union to be dissolved. i do not expect the house to fall.

but i do expect it will cease to be divided. it will become all one thing or all the other. by now, lincoln's sense of historical time and political timing had become acute. two weeks after his defeat to douglas he wrote to a friend that the fight must go on. we must not surrender at one or 100 defeats. in 1860, beginning his campaign for the republican nomination in his speech at the cooper union in new york city, lincoln concluded neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us nor friend from it by menaces of destruction to the government. nor of dungeons to ourselves. let us have faith that right makes might. and in that faith, lead us to the end, dare to do our duty as

we understand it. lincoln's political education was long but many of the mums of lincoln's awakening from the period of political slumber were not publicly known until years after his death. at about the time he was thinking this through, this problem, in early 1855 traveling the county court circus in the boardinghouse his discussion with the former judge and lawyer -- another conservative old whig went deep into the night. the judge decided that was a -- lincoln argued ultimately slavery must become extinct recalled another illinois lawyer that was present. after a while they went to bed. there were two beds in the room and i remember that lincoln sat

up in his nightshirt on the edge of the bed arguing the point with me. at last we went to sleep. early in the morning i woke up and there was lincoln half sitting up in the bed. dickie said lincoln, i tell you, this nation cannot exist half slave and half free. go to sleep replied dickie. a little later, but in this. 1857, a free black woman known as polly, appeared at the office of lincoln and herndon with a tale of woe. her young son hired himself out in a boat and the mississippi. something like lincoln had done earlier. but when he reached new orleans without free papers proving he was not a slave, he was imprisoned and about to be sold into slavery. lincoln appealed to the governor of illinois fully informed lincoln he could do nothing. lincoln appealed to the governor of louisiana who rejected his request.

so lincoln dropped a subscription list and herndon raised money from lincoln's friends in springfield. lincoln drew from his account of the springfield marine and life insurance company. when he had. and they located new orleans to purchase the young man's liberty. and soon his prison door swung open and he was returned to springfield to his mother. lincoln had bought a slave. in order to free him. it was abraham lincoln's first act of emancipation. thank you. [applause] >> i think we have five minutes

and i think i can take a couple of questions if anyone has a question about abraham lincoln. sir? >> can you hear me? >> yes. what led you to believe that you were able to answer this and of what you have just said, what has not been known previously from other authors? >> thank you for the question. when i held on this, i had no idea when or how i would emerge and i am still done this already. but i thought that would had to offer was my own experience. as a journalist, as somebody who understood washington. as someone who grew up in

illinois his family is about politics and as somebody who worked in the white house. and participated in and observed a presidency firsthand. and so i thought my skills might be brought to bear to provide some original insight and interpretation of lincoln. and i hope that i have done so. in the first two volumes in the in the next two to come. particularly about the house divided, country torn apart and the emergence of lincoln's political leadership. and how he dealt with that. and how he developed his argument and his words and where he took it from. because he was only one person. and how he managed to develop and find the means that eventually would save the

country and lead to emancipation. there is no loss of the united states. the question is what were the views on immigration? there were no laws against immigration. people just came into the country. there was a lot of prejudice against this new wave of immigration. the irish and germans particularly. and this movement developed against him. lincoln as i noted, -- but only to its own private. he operated behind the scenes believing that has to be undone by political means throughout

the duration of his friends and lincoln did work behind the scenes to undermine the know nothing movement. engaged in even methods that were familiar with today in places like chicago. when he described the know nothing party. entirely without anything a prince. using his friends. but he did so with the belief that he needed to draw them and get them to participate in the antislavery coalition that became the republican party. and until he, as he told one of the leading radical abolitionist who had come to lincoln and wanted his leadership he said you know, the time had not come yet in the mid-1850s. but eventually did and lincoln had to wait for the right time. and that is one of the other things about lincoln. he steps, he says that he would

take a step depending on the timing. and some people would criticize him for being passive and vacillating and compromising but he said i never took a step back once he took a step forward. and in order to take a step forward, he wanted to have the greatest possible political support for what he was doing. and that was part of his political genius. one more question. >> thank you very much for such a wonderful synopsis of your story i can listen to for hours. >> thank you. >> enter the audience agrees with me. >> thank you. [applause] >> my question is about your perspective on the ways history going forward and back and forward and back, i am sure you

have seen that in your research and studies. there are many of us who admire the intellectual lincoln and other notable presidents and was struggling with the events and the present conditions.i was wondering if you might have a chance to put some of that in perspective so that we could leave this festival with hope perhaps. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you for that! let me refer to abraham lincoln. [laughter] in that speech in springfield in 1828, called on the perpetuation of our political institutions in which lincoln warns of our own self-destruction from within. he says, there is a flaw in the system. and this is what lincoln says,

he says there may be a man who emerges seeking - and these are lincoln's words, not mine. celebrity and fame.and distinction beyond what is normal in politics. and he may seek to trample down what exists. in order to achieve distinction for himself. when that happens said lincoln, the people must unite together and then lincoln's words, act intelligently. in order to oppose him. now lincoln may have had in mind stephen a douglas. but he was warning against the danger of demagogy and how it might upset the american democracy. and lincoln's words echoed through the ages.

thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> this booktv live coverage of the 17th annual national book festival in washington d.c.. it is at the convention center the last several years and this

segment he wants to know what you are reading. we also often show you some of the authors are writing the note you are reading. 202 is the area code. for those of you in the east and central time zone, 202-748-8201 dial-in and we will see what some of our viewers are reading. coming up in about 15 minutes, margot lee chatterley. we will hear her live she is the author of hidden figures. which of course was turned into the movie. after her, jd vance, the best seller that has been on many bestseller lists as well as recommended reading lists. a little later this afternoon, david mccullough and thomas friedman will both be doing call ins.

-- that is what's coming up this afternoon. if you want to check for yourself what the schedule is, go to our website booktv.org. the schedule is on the right-hand side of the page. you can click on it, look at it, printed out, whatever you want. you can also follow us on social media as we will be doing behind the scenes videos and pictures from here at the convention center as well as posting schedule information. @booktv is a twitter handle. if you on twitter give us a follow we are also on facebook and instagram as well. those are some of the things going on here. let's hear from you now, what are you reading? tracy in hoboken, new jersey. your first. good morning to you. >> caller: good morning it is a pleasure to be on the show. i love this show. i'm reading a book -- selected writings and speeches by emma goldman.