it changes every other minute. >> grace kennan warnecke, daughter of the late historian george kennan, also author of "the daughter of the cold war" published this spring by university of pittsburgh press. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> keep an eye out for more interviews from the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. you can also watch them and any of our programs in their entirety at booktv.org. type the author's name in the search bar at the top of the page. >> good afternoon. i want to welcome everyone here who is with us today in nashville and those joining on book tv to the 30th annual

southern festival of books. before we begin and introduce our author, there are some housekeeping things they asked me to share with you. after the session is over, we will be meeting in the colomnade for signs if you would like to talk to bob, find out more about his book or get one signed, you can meet us there. also, if you want to support the organization that puts on this event, you can go to humanitiestennessee.org and learn more about what their activities are and how to support that. bob spitz was born, lives and went to high school and college on the same street in reading, pennsylvania. once he strayed off the block, however, his life veered into diverse and fascinating realms. a long-time musician, he moved to new york in 1971, where he met a promising young songwriter named bruce springsteen, whom he managed and occasionally played with for the next six years.

in 1978, spitz moved on to manage elton john, eventually retiring from the music industry in 1980 to pursue his love of writing. he is the author of nine books, including "barefoot in babylon," the eye-opening documentary of the woodstock music festival which will be republished next year on its 50th anniversary. he wrote the beatles, his definitive best-selling biography on the phenomenal super group. his screenplay "the silent victim" was made into a movie he hopes no one ever sees. his articles have appeared in almost every major magazine including "rolling stone" and "new york times" magazine, "washington post," "esquire," " "gq" and the oprah magazine. his one-woman show about julia

childs will be on broadway in two years. we are here with bob to discuss his most recent work, reagan, an american journey. please join me in welcoming bob spitz. >> thank you, nathan. i'm sure you are very eager to hear about a time when there was a little more civility in washington and i imagine a few of you have said to yourselves hold on a second, is he grover cleveland's biographer? i have a confession to make right at the outset. i didn't vote for ronald reagan. twice. that's right. carter and mondale, two losing efforts. in fact, if i'm going to be completely honest with you, i should admit that i never voted for a republican. sorry, i'm just not wired that way. which is why it might seem peculiar if not downright inappropriate to some of you that i stand before you today as

the biographer of ronald reagan, a man who united the republican party and broadened its appeal in ways that few politicians can envision. f if you're asking yourself how something like this could have happened, you can imagine the uproar it sparked when i first proposed to write this book almost six years ago. my democratic and republican friends found one issue that they completely agreed on. you're crazy, each faction announced in perfect harmony. i tried reassuring both sides of the spectrum. i kept reminding my liberal friends that reagan had begun life as a democrat. it's kind of like reminding my christian friends that jesus was jewish. they just don't buy it. my republican friends and by the way, i have more republican friends than you might imagine, both of my republican friends thought that i couldn't be

objective. my agent suggested i take on someone more appropriate, more suited to my sensibility, and my wife, god bless her, said she would support any choice that i made and then she brought up the possibility of separate beds. why everyone wanted to know with the rich stockpile of subjects available did i, bob spitz, lifelong democrat, biographer of the beatles and julia child, choose ronald reagan? i see a few of you out there sharing the same skepticism. sit back and relax, ladies and gentlemen. there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. as a biographer, as someone whose curiosity about a single subject is inextingushable, i know a great story when i encounter one. i write stories about people who made a dramatic impact on the culture. the beatles changed the way that the world listened to music and

julia child, julia child changed the way americans eat and live. when i was looking for a new subject, i realized that ronald reagan was a figure who had brought about a dramatic shift in american politics and the way americans regarded their country and their government. he also happened to have led an extraordinary life. as the beatles rose from obscurity to become the voice of popular music, and as julia child morphed from a timid housewife without a sense of purpose to become an american icon, so too, ronald reagan's life story followed a remarkable trajectory. three aspects of his saga were like catnip to me. what was that life? reagan lived a great american rags to riches story that spanned the history of the 20th century. two, he had an immense impact on

this country and three, he was widely admired even by many who disagreed with him in a way that would allow me to look at an all-important question that remains central to our public life at any time and that is, what are the qualities that make a successful leader. i'm going to talk about each of those this afternoon, but first, let's look at that life. ronald reagan was a beloved american icon to millions, a controversial figure to others, yet the fascinating details of his life and his private character are little known. his story was made for the page and i was itching for the chance to bring it to life. it was an extraordinary adventure, spanning nine decades of encounters with the most important issues and the most influential players on the world stage.

i was excited by the prospect of showing how his character evolved over the years, telling the story of the man, not just the face on the postage stamp. although the arena of politics is not my usual beat, i realized that ronald reagan was the ideal subject for a deeply personal biography that explores the full life of the person, rich in detail and drama as well as the full cultural context of his time. he is cited every day as a political beacon and yet few people truly understand who he was as a person and as a leader. i wanted to study how a relatively humble person from an even humbler background managed to achieve things few of us can imagine. he would be the first to say that he wasn't the most brilliant person, or perhaps the most informed in his world, and yet he managed to rise to the

top of, very top of four different -- difficult professions. the early days of broadcast radio, hollywood stardom, corporate spokesmanship, and ultimately, the highest level of politics. it was a spectacular american success story. but first things first. if i was going to profile ronald reagan, i knew the book would have to strive for objectivitob. i would have to step out of my liberal mindset and be open to all points of view. in these polarized times i thought my book must not be a partisan one, but a thoughtful, even-handed saga of the man, the history that shaped him and that he shaped in turn. and that meant that i had to have an open mind. i had to see ronald reagan in the flesh, metaphorically

speaking. consider this relatively modest self-effacing man's life. descended from dirt poor irish immigrants, reagan was raised in a series of what were flyspeck towns in the midwest by a pious mother and largely absent alcoholic father. his father jack, a gregarious shoe salesman, could never hold a steady job and the family frequently had to skip town under the cover of night when rent came due. their series of homes were modest, to say the least, often without indoor bathrooms, and reagan and his brother neil often had to share just a single bed. awkward and severely nearsighted, young dutch as he was called lived in his own world. he found his first brush with popularity, even fame, as a

teenaged lifeguard who, legend has it, saved over 77 people and captured many more young ladies' hearts. thanks to his first love, his high school sweetheart, he imagined a way out and he made the audacious leap at the height of the great depression to go with her to college, a modest school but still light-years above his family's lowly station. he earned mostly cs and ds but was all aces when it came to sports. reagan was a cheerleader, captain of the swim team, in fact, he was the swim team. a star of the theater troop and he joined the football team as fifth string running back, last man on the bench. but most important in college, ronald reagan found his voice. his proudest moment was when he was selected to give a fiery speech at a student protest over

college policy. he rallied the crowd with his dramatic delivery, a skill that would come to define his future. by the time he graduated, his natural jovial personality had blossomed to transform him in a man of great charm. yet he still had little experience with the world. still, he had the chutzpah to imagine a radio career and damned if he didn't get his foot in the door, landing a job at a station in iowa. it wasn't long before he wedged the rest of himself in as well. soon he became the voice of the midwest. he was known throughout eight states for his silken delivery and riveting play by play broadcasts of cubs and white sox games, games he never saw but recreated and embellished from teletype dispatches. i love telling the story in the

book of how, in the midst of announcing the famous drake relays, the college president, a well-known blowhard, barged into the press box just as the long-awaited final race was beginning. the guy hogged the mic and he talked college policy through the entire event that ended in a breathless photo finish. dutch sat there stewing, but without missing a beat, he recreated the entire race, having committed every aspect of it to his memory right down to the 48-second timing, and he gave his audience a heart-stopping experience. when listeners wondered why there was no crowd noise, reagan said the crowd was too stunned by the action on the track. talk about resourcefulness. he was a gifted announcer. that much alone could have been a crowning achievement, but ronald reagan relied on his

natural confidence and personality to conquer other, even bigger worlds. incredibly, he had the affrontery to imagine himself on the silver screen, moving to hollywood where he became a bona fide movie star, hob-nobbing with all the celebrities of the day, william holden, humphrey bogart and bette davis. he dated all the leading ladies, too, eventually marrying oscar winner jayne wyman. i enjoyed learning how he broke in by wrangling a screen test at warner brothers and eventually winning the role of the gipper in newt rockne all american by suiting up and throwing in a few passes in his old college days form. his sometimes-co-star olivia

dehavilland, the 102-year-old grande dame, told me how his aw, shucks midwest manner landed him the best friend parts opposite flashier leading men like errol flynn and jimmy cagney. on the set, everyone gossiped about what a chatterbox reagan was, always pontificating about politics between takes. liberal politics, by the way. ever since childhood, he had been politically minded, influenced by his parents as so many of us are. their views paralleled the principles that he was taught in church. let us not be weary in well doing, be kindly affectioned to one another with brotherly love, and god loveth a cheerful giver. schoolmates bullied young dutch for his stance on compelling social issues. adopting his father's politics, he disapproved of what he

considered the robber barons controlling banks and railroads, and a fierce union advocate, he never missed a chance to speak out for the working man. he was violently opposed to segregation. it inspired him that william s. hart, his boyhood cowboy movie hero, opened his ranch for the benefit of the american public of every race and creed. young dutch was a champion of the needy and those affected by the epidemic of homelessness. my god, ronald reagan was a liberal biographer's heartthrob. by the time he was an established actor, he had become if anything more political. he loved sparring with his passionate republican buddies, william powell and robert montgomery, really going at it, then patching it up afterwards over drinks at the brown derby. reagan relished how jack benne always called him governor and

how robert cummings referred to him facetiously as mr. president. they considered that a joke. ha, ha. ronald reagan's colleagues respected that he was able to talk politics without making enemies, so much so that they elected him president of their union, the screen actors guild, and not just once, but for six terms running. there was something about this young man, a quiet, confident and willingness to take risks that led people again and again to trust him to take on roles for which he seemingly had little experience. as union president, his calming manner proved valuable during the violent and tension-filled days of the blacklist, even as he stirred up animosity by siding against his hollywood colleagues who were ostracized for their views.

maybe that's because his once liberal politics had begun to skew to the right. until then, he hued faithfully to the principles of his hero, franklin d. roosevelt, guided by his compassion for his fellow man. i followed the story of how all that gradually shifted as reagan's movie career declined, influenced in no small part by his experience with studio politics and his growing distaste for paying taxes and for what he started to refer to as big government. after world war ii, movies got darker and there were fewer parts for a handsome guy with a sunny disposition who was beginning to show his age. in the book, i go into his rock bottom low point in 1954, when he took a gig hosting a corny variety show in a las vegas casino. he was recently married to nancy

and had a new infant daughter to think about. he had to dig deep to reinvent himself again. television seemed like a step down, but general electric offered him a new role as host of its sunday night anthology drama series and the company's corporate spokesman. reagan loved that the job entailed something new. speaking to ge's workers around the country, espousing corporate positions on the benefits of free trade, small government and even smaller taxes. he became a true believer in the message. ever restless for the next act, though, reagan began to crave something more meaningful. the leap into politics was easier than one might have expected for a movie star with no background in government. in 1964, as barry goldwater's presidential bid was sinking,

the smooth-talking reagan, by now a polished speaker, was approached to appear on goldwater's behalf. several wealthy california businessmen paid for that speech to be broadcast on national television. the footage says it all. he was telegenic, charming, reassuring, all while promoting a candidate that most of the electorate had rejected. the businessmen realized that the wrong candidate was on the ticket. they decided to launch ronald reagan into politics so he committed himself to something much bigger than acting, serving the country that had given him so much opportunity. and so began an unlikely quest to become governor of califor a california. yet another audacious move by a man who has frequently stepped into careers that were seemingly out of his league.

once in office, he backed such obvious conservative causes as cracking down on student protests and welfare recipients. but some of his policies were more progressive by today's standards. he signed one of the earliest laws in the country that permitted therapeutic abortion and he backed bill after bill preserving wildlife and the environment that he so enjoyed at his ranch in the foothills of malibu. let's look at that abortion bill. this was in 1967, six years before the roe v wade decision. what was i to make of this? i actually called the late, long-time california democratic assemblyman who had sponsored that bill, and i asked him how he convinced ronald reagan to sign it. reagan was opposed to abortion, he assured me, and he opposed that bill, but he was willing as

governor of all the people of california to listen to both sides of the argument and to study the results of hearings held around the state to sound out the constituency. governor of all the people. that's a pretty stunning comment. in every state, in every city, in every room, there are people with opposing viewpoints and different ideals. as governor of a largely democratic state, reagan learned that cooperation and compromise were the twin axes on which successful government turned. these were principles he followed once he became president. you can imagine how much pleasure i took from chronicling the reagan presidency. it was full of moments of high drama that we're all familiar with, but i was lucky enough to get behind the scenes and speak

to many, many people insiders who had never opened up before. just think about some of the more transformative moments of his administration. there was the attempt on his life, only weeks after he took office. i was able to talk to the doctors and nurses who attended him, and was struck by how his chipper personality stayed intact throughout this life-threatening ordeal. nancy reagan's press officer, sheila tate, touched me with a story of their agonizing ride to the hospital as the president's life hung in the balance. and people who were in the situation room at the time gave me a blow by blow account of how chaos erupted there in the deepest recesses of our government. to international front, reagan's closest advisers provided new and intimate details. for example, when the president first met gorbachev in geneva to

discuss nuclear disarmament there was a tussle over the optics. jim kuhn, reagan's executive assistant, told me how he refused to let the president greet gorby wearing his nubby woolen overcoat. he worried that if the 54-year-old gorbachev emerged from his limo without a coat, and looking spry, the 74-year-old reagan, all bundled up, would get killed in the press footage. moments before the soviet delegation arrived, kuhn ordered reagan to give him the coat. reagan refused. the argument went back and forth. he loved that coat. he wasn't about to give it up. finally, he tore that coat and scarf off and he threw it at kuhn. all right, jim, damn it, have it your way, he said. now, looking every bit the aging ex-movie star in a gorgeously

tailored blue suit. gorbachev, meanwhile, got out of his limo wearing an overcoat buttoned to the ears, a scarf muffled around his neck and a dowdy black fedora. as the two men stood side by side, their ages seeming magically reversed and for the rest of the summit, before each event, gorbachev leaned in to whisper to ronald reagan, will it be coats on or coats off? i also got the inside story of the iran contra affair as his national security officers opened up for the first time about the covert back story. my goal was always to try to put my reader in the room where the action occurred and reagan's personality was most revealed. one of the most affecting examples was after he left office, the morning nancy, her chief of staff, and the president's doctor delivered the

devastating diagnosis that he was suffering from alzheimer's disease. even in the mounting confusion, reagan crossed the room, sat down at his desk, and hand-wrote a letter to the american people explaining his condition. throughout my research, i was fortunate enough to be the first person to smeee many of reagan' private files. i got to hold in my hand his famous three by five notecards where he hand-wrote many of his public remarks, as well as the handwritten letters that he wrote to many private citizens. nancy reagan was kind enough to share her family's private scrapbooks, including one she began compiling as a teenager. there were, of course, the moments in his public life where he did not make the right choices. the iran contra episode tarnished his second term. and he was slow to recognize the terrible toll of the aids

crisis. of course, people are still debating whether his economic policies are paying dividends. but what to me is notable about his life is that so many people admired the man and his style of leadership. why is that? i would like to just make a few of my own observations. one was his relatively nonpartisan style compared to the divisions that we have seen since. even though democrats profoundly disagreed with his conservative policies, the two sides often reached across the aisle to consult experts and to compromise. ronald reagan never lost sight of the fact that for american government to work, it had to be a collaborative effort where people with opposing viewpoints were heard and respected. he never questioned anyone's patriotism. he never vilified his opponents

or disparaged someone's looks or background. ronald reagan believed in honest government. he and the democratic speaker of the house, tip o'neill, fought like cats and dogs over the major issues of the day, welfare, taxes, the budget, covert military operations and social security, just to name a few. but they maintained respect for each other's positions and they got things done. they were bitter rivals but only until 6:00 p.m. each day, when a cease-fire prevailed. often, reagan would call tip o'neill and say hello, tip, is it after 6:00? at which point they might chat like two 70-year-old irishmen, or dip into the president's liquor cabinet. ken guberstein, president reagan's last chief of staff and

coincidentally, my childhood camp counselor, mourns the wonderful evenings the staff spent socializing, dining, talking and playing cards, with colleagues, most of them democrat. but those days are gone, he told me, expressing great regret. today, he said, if anyone is seen with someone of the opposite party, it could end their careers. there was also reagan's management style. he knew he wasn't the smartest man in the room, and he wasn't insecure about that. he hired experts and when things got complex, he was humble enough to listen to them. then he made decisions based on a consistent steady set of core principles that he held dear. he wasn't a deep thinker, but his thinking was deeply felt. the public also admired him for the speeches and symbolic

appearances. in his public persona, his intention was to comfort and inspire. he saw his role as uniting force in troubled times. he had all the good to project that image, a warm, raspy voice and co and cock of the head to convey the feeling he was speaking directly to you and his willingness to use soaring language. who can forget his speech the night when the space shuttle "challenger" exploded? he stepped out of character and spoke directly to school children, explaining how sometimes painful things happen when it comes to expanding man's horizons, but he insisted it was important to take chances to preserve the concept of scientific exploration and discovery. and of course, its famous line recalling the last time he saw

the shuttle's crew waving good-bye as they slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god. one viewer watching at home recounted being overcome by the president's words. as i listened to him, i had a tear in my eye and my -- and a lump in my throat, tip o'neill admitted. ronald reagan's greatest service may have been in restoring the respect of americans for themselves and their government after the traumas of vietnam and watergate. the frustration of the iran hostage crisis, and a succession of seemingly failed presidencies. when critics describe reagan as dr. feelgood, he took it as a compliment. his greatest triumph may have been the restoration of american morale. what i learned most from all the five plus years of working on the biography was that ronald reagan had an ineffable sense of decency and integrity in everything that he did.

i didn't always see eye-to-eye with his policies, okay. i rarely saw eye-to-eye with his policies. but i wound up with respect for the way he conducted himself as a politician and as a man. as george schultz pointed out, his most endearing aspect was his fundamental decency. i came to admire the gentleness of his nature and his willingness to see the good in people and the enduring concept of america. reagan never stopped believing in what he called the american miracle and the good people responsible for it. in his final address as president, he described that shining city on a hill as the place with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, and if there had to be city walls, if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the

doors were open to everyone with the will and the heart to get there. that was ronald reagan's america. welcoming and inclusive. he knew that part of what makes our country great is based on the common creed that all of us are created equal and we share unalienable rights. after delving into the vast sweep of his 93-year life, i came to appreciate how this vision grew out of his many extraordinary experiences. the humble childhood, the soaring ambition, the self-made success, the bedrock of beliefs. through it all, he held to the everyman persona. it was an extraordinary privilege for me to bring his story to life in all its complexity and drama, and to bring it to you, and i hope you enjoy it. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> if anyone has any questions for bob, please feel free to cue up at the mic. bob will take those now. >> anybody have questions? here we go. one brave soul. >> i have two questions. >> okay. >> one is he was such a father figure to america, what kind of father was he personally? >> oh, boy. >> and the second question is, i'm curious about your own writing process throughout the project. >> okay. thank you. she asked, of course, what kind of a parent ronald reagan was. i wish i had better news for you. ronald reagan wasn't the best parent and i think his kids feel like he wasn't there for them. he was really wrapped up in his career. you know, his kids came of age while he was governor and president, and he was really consumed with his work, but when he was growing up, i think

reagan had to turn inward. his mother was involved with the church, his father was often not there, he was suffering from alcoholism and reagan didn't get -- he just didn't have a lot of input from his parents. and i think that was reflected in what happened with him and his kids as well. also, he and nancy, they were like an island unto themselves. they had an incredibly strong relationship and i don't think there was much room in it for anyone else, and so i think unfortunately, his kids suffered for it, and i've heard that from reading books and from talking to them. as far as my writing process goes, oh, boy, i wish i could really tell you, but it's usually the same with every book that i've written. they're all quite long, of course.

i usually spend two to two and a half years talking to people. i really like to make sure i have eyewitness input from people who were colleagues of the people i write about, friends and family, because i always feel there's new information to be had that we haven't heard before. so i really comb the globe for two and a half years. in fact, i had been corresponding with somebody who gave me a lot of interesting information about reagan's years in hollywood and his role as the president of the screen actors guild and we had been going back and forth with e-mail, and finally i said does this person -- this person lived in paris. i said my wife and i are coming over. can i come to talk to you directly? so i had the incredible experience of spending three hours with olivia dehavilland, who was on the cusp of her

hundredth birthday at the time. she was fantastic. she was more elusive than may. she really had a perfect memory about reagan and how he fit into the hollywood community and how he approached his job as leader of the screen actors guild, during a very violent period in hollywood's history and she had all her notes from it as well. she still had them intact. i was really fortunate. those are the kinds of experiences i had when i was doing my research. ed meese spent about 80 hours with me, bud mcfarland, john poindexter, hundreds of hours. we talked long and hard about all the things in reagan's life. so i do that for about two and a half years. then i write. my writing lasts about two years. i write seven days a week.

you really become acquainted with the person you're writing about, to the point where i could interview someone and they could tell me they were in the room with reagan and this is exactly what happened, and i would know that it didn't happen that way. you just get to know so much about the person and their life and how they behave that you can tell when a story's authentic and when it's not, because nou t you know the person so well. it's an extraordinary process. when i come out of it, i feel like i've learned so much. i had to learn so much about american policy. my wife recalls the night i sat there studying the difference between the mx missile and the cruise missile so that when i went to talk to a national security adviser, i didn't come off like a dunce and i could ask good questions. this book was very difficult for me to write, unlike my other books, because it required a lot of information and knowledge about american policy. challenging but really rewarding. anybody else?

another question? yes. [ inaudible question ] >> you have to appear in front of the mic. thanks. >> you mentioned there were two policies you agreed with him with. what were those? >> that i did agree with? >> that you did agree with. >> oh, i did. wow. that's a hard one. no, i'll tell you. i thought his policy toward the soviet union was brilliant. it was interesting how it came about. ronald reagan, he came into office as kind of a saber rattler when it came to the soviet union. he was famously known for saying the soviet union was the evil empire. he had no rapport with the soviet dictators, premiers,

excuse me, but three of them died very quickly in office while reagan was in his first term. brezhnev, chernenko and andropov. reagan felt there was no way he could deal with the soviet union. he was building up our military industrial complex and this was the height of the cold war but nancy reagan, nancy reagan had one thing in mind for her husband throughout both of his terms. that is she had one eye on his legacy and she wanted that legacy to be as a man of peace. so she set about from the very beginning when he took office, she set about almost to the point of nagging him to make peace with the soviet union, to find a way to reduce the tension between our two countries and to of course reduce the threat of nuclear war. this writes i agreed with

reagan. reagan went -- he made the effort to sound out gorbachev. he went to geneva. he got him to agree to sit down and talk. reagan always believed that if he could sit down, he always said like man-to-man across the table from each other, we could solve the world's problems. and i give ronald reagan a lot of credit for that. i mean, i found very quickly, and i began by saying i'm a lifelong democrat, didn't vote for reagan, i found very quickly in my research and my time writing things to really admire him for. and this was one of them. this was definitely, this was a big one. yes. anyone else? here we go. >> during your introduction, you mentioned three different biographies you wrote about the beatles, julia child and this

most recent one with reagan. did you see any similarities that behind the scenes drove these people to become successful, to rise out of obscurity? is there anything you can mention about that? >> wonderful question. yes. i always believed that you can't know anything about a subject until you know where they come from. so the first thing that i do in each of my research strategies for the book, is to make a beeline to their hometown. in the beatles' case, i went straight to liverpool. julia child's case, right to pasadena, california. in reagan's case, i went to illinois and then dixon, illinois and eureka, where he went to college. i found almost the same thing in each of these people. they were either -- not ignored by their parents, but left to

their own devices as young kids, and had to make it on their own. and because of that, they were each dreamers. they dreamt about something much better for them. the beatles certainly in liverpool dreamt about becoming rock and roll stars at a time when that was an idiotic thing to say you wanted to be. nobody told their families that they wanted to be rock and roll stars, especially in liverpool in the late 1950s and early 1960s. julia child definitely ignored by her parents but with dreams of seeing the world, of thinking that she had something special inside, and i think with dutch reagan, the same thing. he felt from the beginning that there was something special inside of him that he needed to explore and he tapped right into that. he could never really quite put his finger on it at the

beginning, but once each of these people got recognition early in their careers, of course with the beatles, playing in hamburg, with julia in france, and with ronald reagan, being a lifeguard growing up in dixon, illinois, and being written about as a hero in the local newspaper, i think they each found inspiration to dig deep and to make something of themselves, something extraordinary. they felt that they were gifted and they would not give up that dream. and that is what is so hard for me about finding the right subject to write about. i always want to write about someone who is beloved, someone who has changed the culture, and someone who is a great dreamer and just lives to make those dreams come true. and i think there's a -- people always ask me, how did you

write, go from the beatles and julia child to ronald reagan? well, there you have it in a nutshell. i think they are all very similar. yes. thank you. >> we're almost done. i have a question. >> yes. >> based on your research -- >> go to the microphone. >> i should have to do that. based on your research, what message do you think that reagan himself would want our current leaders and our current politicians to draw from his life? >> you just threw a hand grenade at me. >> a softball. >> yeah. without mentioning any names, i would say that ronald reagan more than anything would say we need to find some common language so we can get something accomplished in this country. we can't be on opposite sides. reagan would say we're all

americans. he would be horrified about the divide in the country today. as i said earlier, he was a unifier. he was not a divider. so you know, i think reagan would probably take to the airwaves and find some way that he could inspire the country to pull together and you know, use his shining example of america to go forward rather than go backward. i think he would have a big problem with the way things are going. yes. >> given your criteria for topics, what is your next book project? >> i'm going to go back to the music world. i come from music. music is a big part of my life. in fact, when i was writing about the beatles, and it took

almost eight and a half years, i realized that i was writing my life story in a way. and so i looked for another way to go back and tap into that, especially at the age that i am now. i'm going to do another book about a musical performer and unfortunately, i can't tell you what that is at this point. but in the meantime, i'm in the midst of producing an eight-part documentary based on the reagan book and a documentary and a broadway show about julia child, so i'm involved in that now as well. lot of writing. it's all happening. >> thank you, bob. unfortunately, we're out of time. if you would like to talk to bob more, please join us at the signing colonnade at the war memorial plaza. you can get a copy of bob's book and speak with him more there. thank you, bob. [ applause ]

>> this past year, tara westover, author of "educated," jerome corsi with "killing the deep state" and jonnah goldberg, who authored "suicide of the west" appeared on book tv's after words program and were among the most-watched book events of 2018. >> here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to publishers weekly.

some of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online at booktv.org. >> you're watching book tv on c-span 2. television for serious readers. here's tonight's primetime lineup. first, gina loudon, a member of trump's 2020 campaign media advisory board offers her analysis of the current political climate. at 7:30, political communications scholar kathleen hall jamieson examines russian efforts to impact the 2016

election. at 8:45 p.m. eastern, john carlin, former assistant attorney general for national security, on the cyberthreats facing the u.s. today. and on book tv's after words program at 10:00 p.m., activist deray mckesson offers the framework he believes will move social justice activism forward. we wrap up prime time programming at 11:00 with joseph kelly and a history of the jamestown colony. that's tonight on c-span 2's book tv. it's four days of nonfiction authors and books on this holiday weekend. television for serious readers. first up, here's gina loudon discussing her book, "mad politics." >> gina loudon, author of "mad politics, keeping your sanity in a world gone crazy" is our guest here at the miami book fair. thank you so much for joining us. >> pleasure to be here. thanks for having me. r.