tv. >> a lot. i appreciate it. been a q could also watch them in any of our other programs in their entirety at book tv.org. type the author's name in the search bar at the top of the page. >> i am pleased to introduce carmen. an attorney in private practice and cofounder of apron and hair. she attended harvard university, lumbee a university and cornell law school. she believes she would be monitoring the behavior in order to avoid another financial crisis. >> recording the life episode.

big banks and the government body set up to regulate them. ruling the world. a noncompliant gutsy whistleblower detonate the metaphorical device inside the previous -- powerful federal reserve bank of new york. the shameful regularity. new york fed and the wall street banks. welcome carmen. [applause] the mac i will rearrange this. >> this will not work for me. it is too high.

>> like this are like this? >> i use it to climb everywhere. grabbing all the plates. >> a workout. yes. let me take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you for being here today. a very busy place with a lot of options.

>> sorry. the mac for now we will try. is? >> oh my gosh. it looks different from here. i do not like it. it wrote me off. i would rather be down there. >> i feel more comfortable speaking a little bit more.

i want to leave plenty of time for questions. i do have a tendency to be very fast. if i talk a little too fast, like this. then i will slow down. it is normal because i get really nervous. it is quite a surprise for me to be here in a sense. federal reserve. about three the federal reserve. you work at a bank which is really important.

stability and security and trust in reality, i am here here to tell you, a legal made. $10 an hour, you know, i want more than that her our. i went to law school and did that. i think that it was great preparation. just great preparation. walking into the federal reserve had made it clear. there was a mess that needed to be clean. attending booty untreated meetings we had goldman sachs executive. representing and double seeking their way through meetings.

also we think my colleagues at the federal reserve had been there for a very long time. trying to suppress evidence in a systematic way and expunge it from the record. this is serious. this is evidence that can be used i other regulators use by my colleagues. use even by the federal reserve to hold admin goldman sachs accountable. how likely is it that you will be able to be effective in fixing it.

this was a mess beyond my ability to fix. also the on the ability of my colleagues. i think it was the ability to fix. in charge of supervision. a parallel team of regulators that were sort of side side supervising the bank. we were assured that these were fake. the space for other jobs out into the fed.

lose your job. it became very clear that they were not going anywhere. a couple months some of these people supposed to be eating got promoted. and then they are not eating. trying to stop or try to push back. very basic ways. we are not talking about convoluted point. you see these other regulators systematically stopping any kind of accountability from happening and then the moment came.

yes, it happened more than once where was asked to believe evidence. i am not saying that it happens, but you do get asked. of course, i have done this before. no, i am not doing that. i have done this before. it became very clear. i sort of go through it in the book that this is sort of coming from above. i am very lucky. lawyers and friends and professionals.

i don't know if they respect me, at least they humor me. once in a while. i started to ask for advice. what should i do? this is not normal. without exception, you really need to start the evidence. you need to start preserving. i am a lawyer. it was just a concern on their face is. it really sort of make me pause and think. the moment came and then i decided it was time. it was time to preserve the evidence. making a very compelling face to

me. if nothing else it will help me do my job better. i was hoping that things would change. i would be able to find ways to sort of turn things around. there was still hope. occupy wall street was purpose and around the world. whether you agree or disagree with occupy wall street, they very much had a point. the fed was asleep at the wheel. things needed to change. there is pressure to deliver. it became clear that this was just not going to happen. walking you through that process in the book.

asking to delete, suppress, take your pick. evidence shows it was at that point that i was fired. from a personal standpoint. the way i see it, i go through all of these. it meant a lot. i will be a hard worker. i just get another job. thinking and going back to this, i started to share my story with colleagues in my friends. they were absolutely horrified.

i cannot tell you how many people came up to me and heard the story. you need to do this. this is important for the country. not just for you. we as a society have always led to believe that the fed is above this. we have entrusted this for reason. there was a lot of reflection. i can walk you drew these. got engaged. here i am planning a wedding. it is what i ended up doing.

i took a break to get married. very helpful. such a big group of people. it is incredibly helpful and supportive. some of the media that were kind enough to listen to my story up. bringing the story to light. hoping that things would change. a congressional hearing and then of course nothing changed. after you read this book you should go back. it is an eye-opening experience. i will just leave it at that.

looking to advocate for less transparency and less over the federal reserve. promoted. a number of regulators working with me. my other colleagues had come in just like me to try to help. they're not working at the other regulatory agencies that they were working. that is a problem. i decided it was important to tell the full story. i had a lot of requests from a lot of network that you can name they all wanted to talk to me

and work our stories together. i very quickly realized to really explain and show the depth and the scope of this systemic corruption that has just rotted away inside the federal reserve, you really need it for that format. really tell it in a detail that would create a compelling case. it does not matter. 50,000-foot intellectual sort of discourse. i think you really need to really just see it. what does it feel like to fit there? say the things that they a. i hope that it will begin a very

important conversation. somebody who is an expert in the field. the most important first step we need to take is understanding the mess we are in. we have that much time left. when the sun is still shining. it can be really tough. it is not a democratic problem. this is an american problem. worldwide consequences.

they will not go as far. they are not doing their job. good hard-working taxpaying dollars. anybody that uses this to pay for their bills. i think i will leave it at that for now. i really want to open it up to questions and answers. [applause] buick don't be shy. i don't buy.

>> new york time. when wall street writes its own rules. the most important content says remain untouched. i don't know what happened. i am kind of a the neck. the more things change, the more they remain the same. i am not really hopeful at all. this audience is not really have to worry. the average person will not make it. you don't have to worry, i don't have to worry.

the way i see it, one day i'm going to be 83 years old. i don't want to be sitting in my apartment afraid to go outside. people outside are starving and hungry. no hopes of the future. sits there and watches the 11 and 10-year-old make fun of her because she cannot ride the hover board we have to take it. sleep. restore him. we are tired and i agree with

you. i think the average american knows that it doesn't work. as you pointed out in the article, special interests has led to wall street rewriting some of it own route. not the loopholes. enforcing the rules that there are. these are the basic things we're talking about. >> that is a good question. other contacts. potential solutions. we have other regulatory agencies. we had the consumer protection

bureau. we have state regulators. >> i would like to see it put on the table. consolidating the supervisor bodies. really separating the position of the rules from monetary policy. i think it should be left to the professionals. people of other agencies that actually do it. i have to agree with you that we need to reset those agencies. it is a personal story. i am hoping we will connect with people. that does not mean that this is

an isolated problem. it is not. one person cannot fix this. this is a cultural problem. it is a systemic problem. it will take starting in our daily lives to stop rewarding bad behavior and start rewarding good behavior. everyone can do this in their daily lives. you have children. a lot of you have grandchildren. we start turning that clock. people working there learning new tricks. i think this is a going forward concerned. beginning to start turning back the clock on that.

>> enough about the cultural differences. a difference in terms of people that work in the private sector. what i encountered working at the regulatory actor. you want your bank to win and you want your bank to be trusted everybody in the bank is better off.

how unfair it was for all the other banks and systemic risk that having a bank that can go about having to comply with the american rule of law. what kind of immigrants does that create? i can tell you about the difference in those two cultures the head of the fed when i was there. what do i think? >> i confess. please do not say it is all in the book. >> i have not read it either.

>> a systemic corruption. concrete examples. at least i speak for myself, i do not know the material enough to imagine or know what you are referring to the other part is, what is the cyst of incentives and motivation of systemic corruption? >> excellent question. i think i will try to answer the first one. >> having written such a well documented book. things have been different than what is in there.

there was a meeting we were discussing. in that meeting, use the one of these regulars, this person went on to be promoted. sweep this under the table. helping to do something about topping foreign regulators from making goldman sachs comply with these rules. we are not talking about complicated issues. we are talking about something simple. you are supposed to have the appliance data on the file. they apply. they want to open an account with you. this is very basic stuff. you have a foreign regulators,

can you give me the files which mark. >> turning them over. when they turn them over, there was a lot of stuff that wasn't there. it is just not a complicated thing. raising other issues. imagine putting your bank -- keeping track of who owns what. >> their angle of the exam was for money laundering. it is very upsetting to watch a regularity tell you, not a big deal they gathered this basic data. this is the kind of stuff that nobody inside the industry talks about. it is so basic. that is an example.

sitting there trying to listen to this person. we have the same finding in japan. looking at this. trying to convince them become upset and deflated. the second person was sitting next to me ruining her party. not letting her do her job. that is an example. they went through a lot of those examples. you don't need to be a lawyer. you don't need to be an economist. seriously. the second question, i think that that is an excellent question. i did not really understand why they did it. i will put it this way. you will become a lawyer. this is not -- i will put it this way.

very comparable at the fed to what i was making before. it really was not that much of a difference. measure by the hour. i was making more as a regulator then i was in the financial industry sector there. fifteen hours a day, evan days a week sometimes. right there off the bat, per hour, making more. .... .... one thing i remember most vividly is the sense of fear, just people live in fear. you sort of see how they are

afraid of their supervisors and eventually because i was goldman sachs you realize they're afraid of goldman sachs. it's a good reason. the book walks you through a scene where there's a regulator that got fired from another regulatory agency because goldman sachs pushed for it, and the fed pushed the other regulatory agency to do it. so these people are afraid to lose their jobs. and i like to tell the people, look, there are people who have personal circumstances. they have to bills to pay, kidded to pay, life, grandchildren to pay for, so for them, there are other life circumstances where they find themselves really afraid to lose their jobs. what that is going to mean in their daily life. so there's no one answer. >> next question. >> ready? >> yes.

>> thank you very much for everything you have said so far. you said in the very beginning you referred to paul voelker retired but i'm retired from a specialeyed agency of the united nations which thanks to paul voelker now has certain oversight mechanisms in place that weren't at the time of the iraq oil for food program. you're aware of the inquiry he led. so, i would be very interested to follow up on the question that was just asked, if you would say something about what kind of mechanisms for oversight and ethics function, et cetera, you had to deal with when you brought -- you talked about whistle blowing, but you -- that's a very broad general statement. what is in place already that doesn't work? >> um, that's a really good question. i would say this.

i mean, i think when i arrived at the fed they were just beginning to -- i mean, supposedly, just beginning to revamp those mechanisms and sort of saying, we have an ethics officer, an ombudsman, but in practice you got fired before you can trigger the mechanisms. so -- yeah so from a technical standpoint, i did trigger it and as a lawyer i can tell you, i informed my supervisor via e-mail, this is happening, can we meet to discuss? and then i was fired. so, i triggered the mechanism but wasn't able to trigger it completely because my supervisors basically turned around and fired me before i was able to create the record from within the fed. one thing talk but is exactly -- a little bit in the book is exactly so what happened when you trying to file the hissing blower lawsuit and you march. so one decision that the team

made was, we're going to call the fed and say we have all this evidence, did you want to do something about it? they didn't want it back. they didn't want to do anything about it. they could have taken it back, and then i would be -- you wouldn't know the story. but, hey, they chose not to take it back. >> if i may, just a slight parallel question. you referred briefly to what you think is a partial solution, bringing together other bodies such as the consumer financial protection bureau, which is very weak as it is right now. would you need stronger oversight mechanisms for whatever you put in place? isn't that the -- >> i would say, yes if would say, look, this is an enforcement issue. >> exactly. >> it really is. the mechanisms are there the statute of limitations of didn't on of some of the statutes that are currentfully place that can be use to hold the federal

reserve employees, goldman six and goldman sachs employees collegable, statute of limitation have not run out. these crimes have very long statute of limitation is. prosecutors can choose tone force them. there are some that trial lawyers could arguably choose to enforce as well. i think the question is, what is the appetite for enforcement? i think the problem is, you have the american people waiting for something to be done, tired of watching happy hap hazzard slaps on the wrist and wonder what to do when the government is failing news every branch. one thing i talk about in the book is what happens when the judge that gets assigned your case used to work with the lawyer representing the federal reserve and is married to a lawyer that represents goldman sachs. this is what happens. she discusses her conflict with

respect to her husband and 24 or 48 hours later, something like that, dismisses the case. that's what happens. >> thank you. >> three quick comments and then a question. i don't know where to begin. >> take your time. i know what it's like to be nervous. >> not nervous. just have so many questions. >> you can ask them at once. >> somebody once said we get the government we deserve. just a comment. unless we get involved and vote with intense and ask the right questions. there was a time when people used to go to jail for white collar crime. i think of the savings and loan scandals. to the best of my knowledge not very many people went to jail during this time that really

ruined so many people's lives. >> no one that mattered went to jail but the statute of limitations the crimes have not run. >> so the justice department, even under the obama administration, vote for this guy, believed in him so they didn't take that on. to me that's political problem. my question now is, is there anybody out there that is running on this issue that you think could give us leadership to at least focus attention and create some popular support for meaningful change? i'm asking for presidential candidates. >> oh, okay. yeah. that's a very tricky question to answer because to be perfectly honest, one thing that happens when you write a book you disconnect from the rest of the world. you have to. i wrote -- it didn't just happen by magic because i'm not a writer, i'm a lawyer. so i had to tap into skills i hadn't used since college.

and i had to write and be right and i ended up writing 600 pages. so to be honest -- that's not to give you the run-around to your question. i legitimately in terms of the book was not finished until short time ago. and because i have a job, so i need to work for a living, because these things don't pay -- i finish the job and have to jump into legal projects, that sort of swallowed up the rest of my time so i'm not caught up in terms of that. i can tell you this. i mean i think that our citizens we do need to start educating ourselves and i think -- i hope this book will help people in terms of understanding. i wrote it on purpose to be very simple. you don't need law degree or economicked degree. think that the one missing factor in this conversation is the american people. i think that american consumers are the most powerful consumers

in the world. i'm not saying that political options are not important. i think they are. but i think that we also need to be realistic and we can't sit around and wait for goddaugh. we have to put pressure to industry supervision from the fed is a start. putting pressure to hold goldman sachs accountable is a start and looking realistically at how do you educate your family and how you protect your family in terms of knowing how the system is working and not working, more importantly, and how do you hedge for that? i think that the problem that we face right now is that it's become polarized environment it feels like there's no room for the issues that matter to everyone, and this is an issue that should and does matter to

everyone. and i think that regardless of what is going on here in d.c., i think that outside -- i'm not from d.c. my friend are not from d.c. i can tell you that. outside of d.c. people get this. they get that this is a problem. and the solutions that people are going to start implementing once they lose hope in the government's ability to fix this are going to be potentially detrimental to the u.s. and they're going to going detrimene dollar. i think we're getting to that point where -- i hope we're getting to the opinion where people will pick up the ball and realize, we need to put politics aside. this is an issue we all need to work together towards fixing. >> carman, congratulations on the book. and i think you have done a great public service. three quick questions and

they're interrelated. correct me if i'm wrong but a lot of people think that the federal reserve bank of new york is a public entity. >> it's not. it's a private bank, just like citibank or goldman. >> it would be helpful to explain that because it is a private entity. >> yes. >> so most people don't know that. the only federal reserve that is public is the one at the mall. every other federal reserve bank, there are. >> 12. >> they've all private entities. so consequently i wonder if after the financial mess, some updated ethical imperatives or guidelines have been adopted? because i heard -- i don't know if it's true -- that it's a revolving door and people are intertwined and your cousin works at the x bank and your wife works at the other bank and you are the fed. because in at least in the federal government, we have

sufficient safeguards -- as imperfect as they are but pretty good and we got nepotism rules and all that stuff. so i wondered inford reserve bank, private what's the status? and, two, when we adopted the big -- too big to fail concept, has that changed the perspective of the operational procedures inside the bank? so, i think those two questions by themselves are pretty complicated so i'll smith the third -- dismiss the third fish gee the the reisch sever bank and the 12 banks are private banks. they are not public entities. and again, that's why i start by saying we need to put pressure and strip the supervision away because the fed reserve act makes it clear, there's charter exists until congress decided it

no longer does. the mechanisms are there to easily strip the supervision powers away. it's easy. it's do-able. and i think we should do it. why -- to phrase it differently, i work in private banks all my life, before joining the fed. every one of those private banks had issues, but the level of competency and the commitment to setting up the actual legal compliance programs that work and the understanding that it's important for customers and for the system that they work, was present in all banks. it was completely absent at the federal reserve. that's just -- please don't leave this room thinking there's in shred of hope that these people get it. they just don't. i think the book makes that very clear. i think in terms of updated ethic standards, whether they happen or not, i think -- i well

tell you this anecdote because it is sort of starts to kind of make the point. a few months -- i think maybe could have been as much as a year but i think less than a year -- this will -- resigned, there was a story that was published in which he had not disclosed he had a conflict with respect to i think a family member working at another bank that hehunt disclosed, and i go back to my point. it's like, you know, a slap on the wrist, it's an enforce. issue, not a question of there not being ethics rules. these things are common sense. right? i'm not sure that having -- i will tell you this. there are over -- thousands of banks in the u.s. which means there are a lot of compliance and legal officers out there who are trained to do this. there's no need to have a revolving door.

i if you're going down that path you can make this sort of -- wednesday you're a regulator, you're always a regulator and that's it. i think that i can unfortunately see problems to that as well because, again, if you don't have a culture of an appreciation for the rule of law and the importance of upholding the rule of law to give credibility to the banking system, then you are going to end up where you are right now. so, i think the problem is not more or less or different rules. i think it's deeper than that. it's an enforcement problem and it's a cultural problem. i think it needs to be a commitment by people to say, we need to stop rewarding bad behavior in our daily life and that will trickle into the community not rewarding bad behavior, and then the states not rewarding bad behavior and then employees at the federal

level not rewarding bad behavior. we need to swing that pendulum. i don't think that more or less rules are going to make a difference. >> thank you. >> i just have one question and a comment, i guess. i have read that the financial crisis in 2009 was triggered by all these mortgages that were given to people that couldn't possibly pay them off, and then resold to the public at large, and so on. does the new york fed have any regulatory power over that kind of a thing? because of course tim geithner was head of the new york fed, he then became secretary of the treasury, after the crisis, during the crisis, and another

goldman sachs president was the secretary of the treasury. so that it seems to me it's just kind of built into the system. is that one -- you talk about regulating the banks. the fed people say, we never saw it coming. and it seem's me that any regulator would have seen that coming. so i wonder if you could comment -- >> there's so many things i could say. i was in the industry and i could see that coming. regulators were not looking. that's the bottom line. i don't see how they could say that i didn't see that coming. think the long -- the short answer to your question as to whether they have the ability or power to stop these things from happening is, yes, they do. they are -- they have an enormous amount of power. one of the things i talk about

in my purview with the american life was that i was afraid that coming in three years after the financial crisis and -- let's put ourselves back there when i joined and i did the interview, i didn't think i was, like, landing in omaha beach on the first wave. thought that part was done. i thought i was coming in in the third wave, already took the beach, it's going to be safe to land, it's been three years, but, no, it's like this was the first wave, people. and they quickly -- i showy in the book -- they quickly shut this wave down. the intent was the opposite. it was the new people who got -- it was fake supervision by us, not by them. but in the short answer is they have the power. the choose not to exercise it deliberately. and that is just not acceptable. it's not acceptable to me and

shouldn't be to any american. >> you soldier to suggest it's going to take some messianic political figure to change the landscape. with so many politicses on both parties on all levels, taking money from goldman sachs and all these other companies, where does that leave us? i also like -- i wonder iryou can comment on these back channel efforts to get -- to change the international currency. seems to be picking up speed and that seems to be a real problem for this country. where is this going to leave us? >> yeah. >> what do you think but that. >> that's just a couple of point is would say. i think pre problem is that -- i get what you're saying about the jesus christ thing and i actually talk about that in the book. we need to be our own jesus christ. let put it that way.

we need to think that we matter, because we do. >> we don't. >> we do. the american consumer is the most powerful consumer in the world. you can call your bank and say i'm going to take my money out of your bank unless you stop doing business with goldman sachs. call your pension funds funds ay how come you haven't got. my money back from them. no as consumer wed have enormous power. we choose where we put our money -- we choose how we hold our money and where we hold our money and who we spend it on. yes, we do. and that's my point. it's like, re don't need to wait for a jesus christ to come save us. we need to start saving ourselves. because it's in the collective action of each one of us saving ourselves that we save the country. we can't sit back and wait. it's not going to happen. >> i agree but how do you make everybody wary and mindful 0 the need to do that? >> i think that to your second question, and that's my concern,

in a sense, is that you -- i have a real sense of the desperation that is out there, and i know that this book is going to -- the reaction by a lot of people is going to be, see, i knew i was right. and that can lead to places that are not positive. hope not. that's not the point but that's not why he wrote the book. i wrote the book because i want it fixed. i want to be they 82-year-old who walks through the park, not the 82-year-old who is afraid to go out of her apartment. but i think we just need to be mindful of the fact that as a country we are very powerful consumers but the world is watching what we're doing and what we're not doing, and they are free to make decisions with respect to what they do with their money, too. and how they hold it. i think in an uncertain world,

it's important that we make sure that the u.s. dollar is a reflection of the country and that our banking system is a reflection of the country, and that we need to start putting pressure so that it reflects the actual majority of people, because the majority of people in this country go to work every day, they're hard-working people, went they're money to be safe in the bank. that's why they trust at the bank and they want this to work. i think the fact that special interests don't doesn't change the fact that we as the people are way more powerful than them. >> i could by wrong but didn't president obama say the $400,000 check was from goldman? >> i don't know because i -- like i said before, one thing i write in the book you stop reading everything else because just didn't get done. it's possible. i think -- i think a question as a lawyer, which i am, i think

there's two things that are really damaging to the country. obviously at some point we have to figure out how to fix it. one is the press in the sense that there were laws that were overturned at the end of the '80s that required the press to present both sides and to sort of act in the public interest, and not as a private money-making exit. think that has been harmful and i think we're seeing what that means today. i think the only thing that is harmful is special interests. i again, that's not surprising. >> how hasn't the media become a special interests? corporatizeed these days. >> i agree. special interests don't work if we don't let them. i'm not saying she shouldn't change hoe laws. we should but i'm not the kind of person who wants to sit here and wait. it's like we can put pressure and we should because we should

not lose hope, but we also have to be realistic. i think if we choose not to, and if we choose to exercise our power as consumers, we can nullify the effect of special interests. all the special interests in world may promid-goldman sachs but if we decide we're not going to let our money be touched by them, they're gone. it's really that simple. >> can you comment on dodd-frank? two, i think the -- all the big banks are subject to credit examinations now. and for what i understand, they all get a healthy bill of health. so i'd like a comment on that. lastly, for -- you could argue, you had the bear stearns and

lehman brothers have a cleansing where everybody went burst and then start fresh. what do you think of that as a solution? >> to answer the three questions, i hope i remember them. dodd-frank. so, dodd-frank, or frank dodd is a prefer to call it because frank wrote it, not dodd. gave more powers to the fed which is why i'm stand hog saying we need to strip the power from the federal reserve. because look what they've done with it. nothing. that's what my book shows you they're deliberately choosing to not do their job and we are paying a lot of taxpayer money to them. the second question. credit exams. another way of asking has anything changed since -- in the ensuing years. look, the fact that david

soilman bach the ceo of goldman sack is all i need know and all the american people need to notice. remember david very well. david is in the book and i have plenty of notes and recordings to remind me of david. if i happen to forget him. and he was one of those managers that, you know, one more from goldman. double speaking, lying, misrepresenting, the book makes it clear, i had a bunch of attorneys read it. they disagreed as to how many lies in the book but everybody was, there's at least one. so i would say the fact that the fed have the power to stop that from happening and didn't stop it from happening tells you everything that you need to know about the credibility of those credit exams. and the third question? >> lehman brothers, bear

stearns. >> i think you're question is a very good one which is should we make bailing the law of the land? yeah. -- should we make failing the law of the land? yeah. we should make failing the law of the land? make them, especially the executives, putting their money first, before we put in any money. and i think that will begin to change behavior. i think -- i know this is the last question. paul voelker this morning -- i promised somebody i would comment on this, so i'll tie it back to your question, paul voelker this morning advocated for more supervision, and i couldn't agree more. it was nice to wake up this morning to that level of support. so what i'm advocating. and interestingly enough, he depressed advocate for the federal restore be the supervisors and to have the federal reserve to have more supervision powers and that's right. they need to be stripped.

they have enough monetary policy, and i think as people we need to make this happen. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. >> i didn't say that was the last question. >> i'm sorry, but we are out of time. >> you should have said before. >> you can ask me. >> we can do more questions during the signing. thank you very much. campen segarra. we have your books available behind the signing table. and please fold up your chairs. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> c-span launched book tv 20 years ago on c-span2 and since

then we have covered more than 300 book city ofs and over 40 programs with presidents. in 2004, president bill clinton spoke but his memoir, "money life." >> arealy think anybody who is fortunate enough to live to be 50 years old should take some time maybe just a couple of weekends and sit down and write the story of your life. even if it's only 20 payments. and even if it's only for your children and your grandchildren and your closest friends. young people today have access to more information than any group of people in human history. they learn how to use the internet, for good or ill, at early ages. they see 60, 70, or more channels on television if they have satellite. but they still hunger to know about their roots. they don't want to be full of facts and information and upreed from their past. and one of the most amazing experiences for me in writing this book was seeing it through

my daughter's eyes. >> you can watch this and all other book tv programs from the past 20 years at booktv.org. type the author's name and the word "book" in the search bar at the top of the page. >> this weekend we bring you a few author discussions from the recent fall for the book festival held in fairfax, virginia. first up a discussion on the recovery of the columbia space shuttle. >> hello. good morning and welcome to recoverying the columbia space shuttle. at the 20th annual fall for the book literary festival. we appreciate your attendance today. thank you for coming out. for more information on this festival and other programs throughout the year, please visit