no matter how much i appear to have change i was still her at best to people with a fractured mind. she emerged from an crossed the threshold of my fathers house. that night i called on her and she didn't answer. the decisions i made after that moment were not the ones she would have made. they were the choices that they changed person. you could call it transformation, the betrayal. i call it an education. >> host: thank you so much for writing the book.

monthly in-depth program with best-selling author brad meltzer his novels include the inner circle and recently published thriller the escape artist that debuted number one on the bestseller list. also the author of the ordinary people changed the world series for children and forth title the first conspiracy the secret plot that killed george washington. thanks for joining us on c-span2 book tv. i want to begin with your latest because you wrote the following i believe every book is a good one to be read. beis book helped me realize the difference between being alive and actually living. the book is called at the escape

artist. i wish it was smar i was smart o figure out the theme right when i start that this is going to be the book about my need to figure the differencout the differenceg alive and actually living, but i'm not. i what happened is i finished the book and got to the end of it thathen i started looking at it like this is what i'm dealing with in my own life. hy parents both passed away and the truth was i thought it was over. i'd written for different books to try to deal with it but there was the point of dealing with the death of my parents and then me and selfishly saying when you go through that we all have a moment and it may be frombu addiction or abuse or the loss of a loved one but we are in that hole and you've got to climb out of it and the escape artist plus my way out of it. harry houdini was so obsessed with death he gave his family and friends passwords, code

words so they would know if he came back to life in a séance they would know if this really an come i, your codeword as lib. so if you come back you'll know it's really my friend. he's obsessedi with his mother's death, could never get over is the secret word he supposedly gave to his own mother was this word, forget. the most powerful word in english language antheenglish ld for all of us again whatever brings you in it whenever you want to escape you have to use the greatest magic trick of all and forget starting with yourself and that is where it blew open for me. you've written a dozen fiction books where does the creativity come from how do you go about this? >> guest: i know one thing after doing this for 20 years, i'm not that special. i just know if i love something

there's got to be other people out there that like it just as much. that's what happened in the escape artist. i was honored to go do it. that's when i got there we all know dover air force base even if you don't, you know the flag covered coffins coming off the planes and it was like this place is going to be incredible to write about. when i got there i realized i thought it was going to be a transaction buti i thought like writing about the white house or the capitol, i'm going to go in, they will tell me the secret stuff and i will write a book that's when i got there it was different and i was humbled by what i saw. you have the men and women that will spend 12 hours rewiring someone's jaw smoothing it over

so a family can get a good look at their sons were rebuilding a handth from scratch because a mother wants to hold her son's hand one last time i don't care what your politics are just as a country right now where we are starving for heroes whatever side you're o you are on and the our heroes these men and women who work on the fallen troops but best of the best of us working on the best t of the be. so the creativity for me came in the moment is a spectacular i've got to write about this place. for the story side, i take my plots and i give it to the people that work this in the case of the escape artist, went to one of the top and got to meet a lot of them and i would ask all the same questions i want to do a hit in note inside someone's body, can you put a tattoo on someone, have you seen someone try to pass a note, does the plot that was a lie and they said to me and this is true if

you eat a note and are on a plane about to crash and the liquid in your stomach will actually protect the note upon the crash, the time and the speed and everything. that's not an idea, it really happened. they said it really happened and i said no i didn't and they told me they opened up someone's stomach and there was a note inside and they would and tommy" it said for privacy reasons, but i love that idea but in that moment as the plane is going down, that person is getting what we all do. they are someone that is loved and wants to be loved and they are reaching out saying please hear my message and i love the idea that you can be heard so i thought that was the escape artist, our hero and they open up the body of a woman from when she was little and she's now a soldier, he opens up her body with a secret note inside and it

says something far more mysterious. you were right, keep running and he realizes the woman on the table isn't who he thought, she's on the run and is the escape artist and that is chapter one of the book. i just read chapter one but that is chapter one of escape artist. the plot and the idea comes from trying to figure out the other characters and making sure i can fill those in and that is a creative process. >> host: it's obvious that you take real-life locations and events and leave them into fiction. >> i just told you chapter one. i've been at this for 20 years. i was like don't do it. i had this kind of literary midlife crisis and it was after 20 years of doing this you can just do the same thing. i know what i'm doing i will figure it out as i go or you can stop and have a moment of

humility and that's what i was obsessed with for like 20 years. i took a hard look at the books i'd written and i said which is the best one. i want them all to be the best. i went back and identified three different ones and these are the best and what do they have in common? the characters we know there's a million books written about magical people that the reason we love. potter is because we love them as people. i realizi realized the starkests cookie-cutter plot, but don't start until you have the woman on the table and like you just said, i was at a base here in virginia, not far and they were giving me a tour and what i saw was an army base it was a museum they had all these paintings on

the wall. why does the u.s. military have all this ar are made since theyd paintings of adolf hitler and they said since world war i the u.s. army has had a natural painter on staff, artist in residence at its disasters as they happen. whether it is normandy, vietnam, 9/11. you are telling me everyone is racing in with guns blazing we have someon someone gracing theh their pocket,in i've got to meet that person. they said you mean you want to meet her and i said of course, it's a woman and right there my character was born. i love that people have compared her to the girl with a dragon tattoo that is i unfair but i wl take the compliment. but that character was born and raised us into disaster and that's where the book started

taking off. >> host: your first 1997, the justice was that the most difficult for you? >> guest: the most difficult was the one before that. the first book i ever wrote was a book i wrote out of college and it quickly got me 24 rejection letters there were 20 publishers of the time and i can't 24 rejection letters which meant somebody wrote me twice to make sure i got the point. but this kind of a love letter to right it was me pouring myself out there about what was hard was the rejection, 24 rejections. when the tenth justice came and the fact it even got published it was like catnip. i couldn't wait to get to every page. i could have edited a book for ten more years because i was excited for the world to see if so the first one is in the heart when it's the second one after everyone's seen it and you've been out there and you've gotten

your bad reviews, that is the hard one. i love my bad reviews. my thing is the inherent flaw in any critic is that they are human. that's it i don't care who you are or how smart you think you are. i remember the tenth justice i was 27-years-old when it came out and i don't even know the bestseller list wa was at that point it made the bestseller i list and i remember watching and the fax machine came through and i saw that it was on the bestseller list and at that moment i turned to my wife and this is week number one of me as an author everyone said the book was great, "vanity fair," "time" magazine, you name it. i turned to my wife and i said let the backlash begin. right after that, the next week

entertainment weekly gave me a d+ on the same book and i ha thd to embrace it so i've embraced my bad reviews and i did a whole video showcasing them because i was like you've got to take it publicly. >> host: the writing g is both good and original uploaded as goooriginal booklet isgood is ns original is not good. >> guest: i have much worse reviews than that. so, i'm born on april 1 and my wife for my 40th birthday reached out to all of my author friends and said i want you to write the worst review of brad that you can write. so they wrote worthless reviews and they were spectacular. one of my favorites set up like

i love his books and i use them all the time as toilet paper. i was like that's so creative it was great. the best part of the story, it got picked up and the la times did a whole postis about it andy agent called me early in the morning on my birthday and said did you see what happened it was a phony i funny and practical jt i thought it was real. i'm like you're my agent would do you mean you thought it was real. >> host: the wink an wing came f crappy fiction. >> guest: you get the chance and they will show their creativity. >> host: do you ever have writers block? >> guest: i don't know what it is in terms of a specific thing in the dsm but i have days that don't go as well as others of course. other days i feel like it is

just flowing but on those days, the first thing i'd do if i get up and leave where i'm sitting at thing really stuck because the phone only rings when you are in the shower so i may just walk around the block or get in the car and drive but one thing i want to do is give up on it. i will sit in that seat around the block the only way to write is to fight it. writing a novel is like building a sand castle. first you are lik you are like t down that one grain of sand you've got nothing. second, you have two pieces next to each other but you do it every year writing a page a day every year and you will have a book and that is the key. >> host: let's go from fiction to nonfiction for a moment. this is a letter outgoing president george herbert walker bush left in the oval office to the incoming president and it's a letter that he gave you.

when i walk into the office just now i felt the same sense of wonder and respect but i felt four years ago and i know you will feel that. i wish you great happiness and i never felt the loneliness some have described. there will be tough times and you may not think it's fair. i'm not very good at giving advice that just don't let the critics discourage you or push you off course. you will be our president when you read this note. i wish you well. your success now is the country's success i'm rooting hard for you, good luck. george. >> guest: by many years ago got the greatest fan letter i ever got and it was from erpresident george h. w. bush ad i thought it was completely fake. when i was 18-years-old my first job i used to work at the

judiciary committee and we would take the senators stationery and i went right to my friends and told them they were being deported. i live in miami. that works. i thought thisis is just my friends playing a joke on me because it was signed george. i called the presidents office in houston and i said to someone on staff asked for a signed copy and they said you'v paste that e president later. i got to meet president and mrs. bush and we just became dear friends and had a fun time together. i told him the tim that i was researching the book and i said i just love when i met him first it shows how bored he was like how a bored are you than you wee just writing letters to novelists and it's so amazing to me that you're the most powerful

man in the world one day and the next day you have to stop at red lights with the rest of us. imagine right now if someone told you you've piqued everything in this world after this moment it's going to be downhill not as good as it was today and that's what it's like to be a former president. it's just like it does to your psyche. i would love to see what your life is like and he in full kindness if i don't d become to houston for the week and hang out with us and we are giving you unprecedented access. we had a great time together and when i started writing the book it became a book of fate. i was working on another book after that and i had heard the story about these letters that ronald reagan when he left the oval office and a secret letter for george h. w. bushal had said don't let the turkeys get you down and keep it in the oval office desk and then he left a letter for clinton and one for

obama and trump, the greatest modern tradition of the president and i said to him could you hide secret messages in those letters that is what i wrote to l him and he was helpig witwould helpme with different d questions only he would have answers to some of these things. i opened my e-mail and it said the president wants to have this and this is like a decade ago. i checked the attachment and it's that letter is the secret andt no team left for bill clinton. my first thought was the secret code so i checked to see if there were freemason codes and the first letter of every one said i heath you bill. at that time he should have hated bill clinton he just beat him for the presidency. whabut he wrote what you just r, one of the most genuine letters i'm rooting for you and the escountry's excess and of course it was just an incredibly humble thing he put on paper.

his biographer was mad because they were like you didn't have that letter to me why did you give it to brad meltzer and i still to this day don't know why he gave it to me that he gave it to mean all those years ago and i love the fact we were the first ones to bring it back. i never asked him i just felt like it would be rude to say why did you give it to me. i said the only thing i thought george bush would say which is thank you and i always think i'm for his kindness to me was beyond what was even normal. we just had a wonderful relationship. mrs. bush and i, what i loved about her she reminded me of my mom andd my mom is one of those people she didn't care if you're the king of england or the person sweeping the floor if you didn't have something interesting to say or something funny to say, get out of my face. she didn't care what your title was or how much money, get away

from me and are you interested or not. she didn't care where you were on the social ladder so we would always just sit together and laugh. at one point, they invited me to a private lunch at the white house this is when w. was president. it wasn't in the big open area a with a state dinner wa at us and the president's private dining room upstairs in the residence and when you go there it's a serious thing. there's like ten or 15 people in thet whole room until you exacty where you're going to sit, there's a little card that says mr. meltzer and it has a beautiful engraving of the white house. my first thought was i'm totally stealing my car and mrs. bush leans over to me and she says you know they come here they all want to steal their card and i'm like i know, all of those novices. what, with peter ginsberg --

ruth bader ginsburg and i took my card. >> host: when is the last time you saw president bush tax >> guest: just a few weeks ago actually. i was up at kennebunkport were doing a literacy event to honor mrs. bush and they told me when i got there that it was going to be probably he would be sleeping, she was sleeping i was at that point and we knew it was a matter of time they said he has moments of clarity for now for the day you will be totally clear and he had one of those moments and i got to thank him and say goodbye and this was literally just maybe a month or two ago, so we all knew it was coming but there was nothing like the kindness and i think if you did a search on all the things tha that have been said t him, look at how many times the word decency is mentioned.

and i think part of that is of course because that i is who he was and part of it is because of the country that is what we need and what we miss and i don't care what your politics are or what side of't the aisle you are on we are not talking to each other decently anymore anyone the opposite of your opinion you hate it is us a versus them, thy did this or that whatever side you're on and i am tired of us versus them and george bush media rest itherest in peace wat the. >> host: is responsiblthe. >> host: who was responsible for the tone? >> guest: he's responsible for the tone. it starts at the top. i always say people want to blame the media like the media is this or that, but if we don't watch them as a culture if the say no we don't want that, they will stop doing it. you can't force that so it's

easier to plan and say it's the president, the democrats, the media or facebook we blame everything except the one thing we should do the only thing that the worldd has ever changed you start by changing the world by changing yourself wit that every single person forld the moment d looked at themselves and said how do i make the world a better place i'm going to stop forwarding nonsense that makes me mad. i'm going to stop writing mean things on flickr the world will change. the question is do we have someone who can show us that is the answer. >> host: be sure to follow us on facebook and also on twitter at tv. three hours with brad meltzer. you've written a dozen plus books. >> guest: 12 thrillers, 16 kids books, nonfiction, comic books and some really funny limericks and birthday cards.

>> host: we will be talking about all of it. (202)748-8001 east and central time zone, 202-74-8801 for those in the mountainous pacific time zones and we will take your comment on this and you can send an e-mail booktv@c-span.org it's talked about the book ron doyle who i thought guys at the beginning of the book but doesn't. >> guest: this was a book i was writing about a former president and i'd written about the white house before. this is probably my favorite chapter one ever written and it opens up at a nascar race of all places. west is our hero and a body person to the president. every person has one. it trumps just left the office, but who is truly a pair and hands the president but she needs. if you need straps dickies got chapstick, if you have a

headache, i have had so, you have a baby you need to sign, i've got a pen. i loved that job. the person that has the job i met allhe of them going back to president bush and i interviewed all of them. every single one i could find. they had one thing in common they all went on to do incredible things. they had great jobs, they were right there with the president of. my friend allen of the top alane at starbucks and others. tommy works in the financial world. this is the start of your life, and i loved that job. so what happens is in chapter one keys like i'm going everywhere everything is going to'm go great. a crazy personre calls out a gun at a race when the president will announce the start of the

race he goes to shoot the president and shoots the chief of staff by accident and another bullet hits the hero in the face and in that moment all of his dreams by and what you find out heme o,that is the end of chapt, he dies but comes back to life. woat you see in chapter two is a decade later and life hasn't turned out grand. a has giant scars across his face from that day and the president at that moment actually grabs in trying to dodge the bullet he looks like a coward or a still picture he just looks like a coward and everyone's thoughts that this guy theyik called welland the ln was actually a cowardly lion and his presidency came from that moment and now his life is

terrible and boring and no one cares about you anymore and were not on the news anymore and that's what it's like to be out of the white house and he's backstage doing a speech and out of the backdrop walking backstage is the man who died a decade earlier and he stops and goes what is going on h he's ale what happened. and then finding out i just ruined chapter one and two but finding out what happens is his ability to try and maybe this is my obsession lately but to try to come back to his own life and figure out maybe it's not the end of it actually the beginning of it and president bush that helped me all the research you see in the above is all based on my time in president bush's office and the layout of his office with all those details i love filling the book with so you can see what life is like. host: spoiler alert, what

happened? >> guest: they don't want to ruin the ending. one of my favorite things in the book is that it hinges on two things. the person who kills him is a guy that hates the freemasons and if you look at the signers it is 14 times that they've taken the white house and i love dealing with the secrets of the freemasons in the book. one of the other things i put in is a secret code thomas jefferson used to use when he was president he used a secret code so people couldn't see what he was talking about, he ranked all of his staffers and would use a secret code so no one would knew what he really thoughto of those men whether they were trustworthy or not and i love that idea. that's why i asked president bush and president clinton had become up to his office while

researching that. but what was great about that book is i'm not one of those people that think freemasons are trying to take over the world were stealing your car right now. i work with them on a number of books that people see there are great secrets, but the best thing that happened out of the book is the head of the history channel read the book of faith and said c to me i love the sect codes thomas jefferson was using. we want to do a tv show based on those books and that's how he got decoded which was the first television show on the air and at the time it was the time of the da vinci code and the truth was they were capitalizing on the love of freemasonry and all that stuff and i said why do you just want to rip off sam brown, he did his thing and that's wonderful but why just take that and they said what would you do i said why don't we do this instead in the 171792 when the first piece of the white house

was put down it was put down in a freemasons ceremony, and all the freemasons gathered and put down first piece of the white house and 24 hours later the first piece went missing. no one knows to this moment where the cornerstone of the white house is. .. . >> how many of these

facilities is the national archives operate and could you visit any of them quick. >> this is my favorite. again, this needs so as we know it is one of the great places in washington with the declaration of independence, the u.s., constitution, you can see the magna carta, it is incredible things to go see. anybody can walk in. and the archivist of the united states is one of the most incredible places. what they taughtd me is that there's so much stuff you can put it in one building so there are hidden places all over the country that house documents not because it is secret like batman did it but the temperature down in a cave

it is much cheaper to keep it cool land air-conditioning. we have caves all over the us and st. louis and all over the place they let me go see them. so at this point i forget there are not one or two but there are many. those that have old film those recordings or military documents i iron mountain is truly a mountain carved out of the mountain build underground to go down word it when you get there army navy air force marines archives as you are walking through the caves where you think you see the batmobile you are literally walking through here is the pentagon and some of the great pictures of marilyn monroe.

because they keep all their stuff down there to protect photographs our history is underground it is an amazing place and i have to write about this. i won't ruin the final scene but it is revealing. >> how did you come up with the hero of the bookss quick. >> a few years ago i got a call from the department of homeland security asking me to come in and brainstorm different ways a terrorist could attack the united states. i thought if they are calling me we have bigger problems than anybody thinks. but i was honored to do it. they called my friend brett, producers and directors and secret service agents and chemists they gave us a target like washington d.c. and said destroy it i would come up with my way the secret service would say no here's the better way through security than the

chemists they use the chemical instead because it said quickly in the air and we would destroy a place like washington in an hour and you don't go home feeling good because you realize how easy it is. but i was honored to do it and i was struck why me? they could call anybody they want. but i take it back through history to george washington. i found out literally it's crazy it still happen but his own secret spy ring that was made up of regular ordinaryy people. and that is in the book. so i realize the reason washington picture that nobody

looks at an ordinary person. so i said wouldn't it be cool if you found out george washington spy ring was alive this very day and they said what makes you think it doesn't and that's where the book was born so what if you have an archivist to loves history and he finds out that aspiring still exist to this very day housing in the national archives of our great history and beecher white was born. and truthfully out of my nerdy side. the first character i n s wrotei don't think i'm a better writer but a more honest writer and in the beginning the first five years or ten years that say everything is great i working everything is wonderful and just happy to be

here. but i was so terrified of complaining i am so lucky and blessed to have this job to talk to imaginary people how can i possibly complain? i just wasn't honest myself. my love of history and all things along - - and nerdy. so that is right built him so that was my alter ego. . >> born in brooklyn grew up in florida. >> my dad lost his job at 39 years old. he had no money. $1200 to his name. we were worried about her own safety at that point what do we do? he moved us to florida for a do over.

when we got to florida they gave a fake address to go to the local public school and change my life that i heard of this thing called college i didn't even know i said i don't how to get there what the sat is because he will go to a four-year college in a changed my life i went to columbia law school and i got a job working for eli siegel who said come to boston and in the week i got there he left the job and i thought i wrecked my life and while i was there what everybody does i said i will write a novel. i wrote my first novel and i got 24 rejection letters but i fell in love with the process. >>host: going to katie good afternoon.

>> good afternoon. i just want to say thank you to book tv this is such an interesting conversation. i think it is transcending not just nonfiction but i do want to mention because it is so interesting i love decoded that you said h.w. bush sent you that letter after you asked about the ability of one president to send a message to another especially because of his association with the cia and the skull and bones. did you look at it through that i lens that do to your history of what you had written due to conspiracy without ability of secret things going on? that even the untrained eye cannot recognize. >> trust me. you have no idea how proud i looked at every skull and

bones every code i coul find. the one who ran the caa was skull and bones and president of the united states and says do you have good secrets you pay attention to the letter. you have to. [laughter] but sometimes a duck is just a duck sometimes they are just being generous but yes that is exactly what fuels the books. >> good afternoon. i want to ask what brad is currently reading and his favorite novelist i knew he would be on so i read his latest book the escape artist.

but it was so good i didn't want to put it down. i loved it. i plan to read some more of his stuff but why are you reading right now as far as novels thank you so my favorite author, i just cannot lie about this. it's a guy named brad meltzer and i say you've done it again. and obviously why do you say stuff like that but i read everything every genre from young adult to thrillers it was agatha christie and judy bloom were the first grand dames i read in the john

grisham. . >> what about murder at thet vickery? . >> the first mystery i have ever read. i remember picking up agatha christie murder at the vicarage. do not call in and tell me. i don't want to know. i do not want to know. i remember at ten years old and getting into that book and their was a dead body. i remember being shocked by that. in that moment i asked myself that one question for over 20 years now. who done it? it changed my life. this dead body and who done it. but when it comes to thrillers today i don't read many thrillers that the mechanic of the rental car i don't enjoy

the ending. i always guess the ending anyway. i got it and she says do not say anything i will kill you. mitchell say where you write and i'll say my way was better i cannot help but to rewrite those and i love my friends who do this whether jodi picoult or brad thor but for me i read a ton of nonfiction because the george washington book i am working on is about a secret plot to kill george washington i have been reading a ton of revolutionary biographies.

and that is where my reading goes. and so reading about george washington the fact with a children's book called i amle george washington writing with invisible ink cap between the lines that's where you get the phrase in between the lines we use to write in between the lines in the kids book i said we've got to put that in there they said we can i said it is so cool. i reading the book with my son and he said he wrote in invisible ink that is so cool. i said i know. i take these nonfiction. ideas and use them into kids books and nonfiction books as well say like you are a prolific tweeter. >> i am on all the time. it is the one distraction i take during the day.

>> a couple of tweets that said what is onene subject you have not written about you love to put on paper just for yourself or your family? . >> people on twitter know me and get into my brain one day want to write about my mom and dad. they both passed away may the rest in peace my mom when borders was still around the head of sales said guess were your books sell more than anywherean else? new york city? know. washington d.c.? know. number one place boca raton on 1 mile from the furniture store where my mother would work she single-handedly beat 8 million new yorkers and my

dad used to go into the local barnes & noble and say where is brad meltzer's new bookok is my favorite author we know he's your son and the marketing plan was very simple we would unleash these two people on the planet and they will do the job and god bless them they dead. when they died cleaning out their apartment there were stacks of that myoo books in their closet they were buying them the numbers in florida skyrocketed but they were secretly buying them. they didn't have a lot of money but they were buying the books so i love to write about them in the stories that i tell about them i wrote their obituaries but it is about the sales of books but their love for me so everything that i am

today my humor and confidence is about that love that my parents always showered on me. >>host: another tweet. first when will we see nola again or a brad meltzer movie? . >> nola brown the sequel to the escape artist is what i am working on right now. that isha coming. but no lot is coming back. the escape artist just hit paper back so that is timing. the second question? movie? we are working on that not as far along as i wish we were but the next tv project we are doing is our i have books to pbs tv show. so a number of years ago i was tired of my own kids looking at reality tv stars and

athletes and there were so many better so i am amelia ehrhardt i am abraham lincoln. if i tell my daughter amelia ehrhardt flew across the atlantic ocean and she says big deal but if i say this is true, at seven years old she built a homemade roller coaster in her backyard and came flying down the side through the air as a seven -year-old my daughter says that is interesting. we have done i am rosa parks. einstein, jackie robinson if you want a sports hero this is what a real hero looks like. and making changes in people's lives i am lucille ball not just to be thin and pretty but it's okay to be different but spectacular. >>host: just one little tease

with you and barbara bush but give the audience a tease. >> barbara bush and i the favorite scene is the lucy chocolate conveyor belt seen. i will not give it awayon but if you have that scene in your head. get ready. i am helen keller when she goes blind the pages go black this is my name. we put real braille in the book. i watch my 17 -year-old kid closed his eyes and feel the dots even though they for a five -year-old or a ten -year-old try to see through somebody else's eyes. but something amazing happened as trump and clinton we're going after each other's heads to of the books took off i have george washington and i am martin luther king, jr..

it was a democrat or republican but parents and grandparents were tired of turning on the tv tov see politicians they wanted to show leaders. there is a difference and we aretw using our books and i am martin luther king, jr. giving those kids and nieces and nephews these books here is what a real american leader looks like we have done gandhi and harriet tubman and neil armstrong look at where the worldse is today neil armstrong never use the word i we did this we accomplish this he would say that about the space program not just the astra

program but the scientists, mathematicians, thoe who sowed his spacesuit together and in the culture that they are good at getting attention for themselves look at me that is who we reward i am tired of that i want to go back to neil armstrong with the great american value and it should be again. the biggest biography was neil armstrong and mister rogers i want to teach my kids to be humble again also the value of hard hardd work neil armstrong was the little kid the big dream was to climb the silver maple tree in his backyard so if you have to grab this branch and this branch and you have to engineer and figure out a solution one day armstrong is a little boy climbing the maple tree grabs the branch and it snaps and he

falls to the ground his sister comes running says i will get mom and what i wrote for my kid the most important thing he does is gets back climbing he gets his pilot license he is so young and then becomes a test pilot so the lesson is you don't get to take that giant leap until you take those thousands of smaller steps beforees that. and to be hard-working that is where we need to celebrate and then i am billie jean king sonja soto mayor that just came out.

>>host: three children? . >> 17 down at ten my middle one is 13. they are the reasons for these books they gave me an entire line to write about because we all have a legacy i love the fiction books of course, i built that house with my own hands but the greatest legacy i know forever will beil my children and i wanted them to have heroes they could look up that whatever your politics are they are there you just have to find them. so people take our books they build real libraries of the

kids i love that it's holiday season all these kids write me letters dear brad this is the first year she did not go as a princess thanks yearbook she went as amelia ehrhardt. and to be responsible. and then they fall in love with these characters. with a style that was like peanuts. and calvin and hobbes had their own style that kids they love it. and then to have something better to look at. . >> ashland virginia you are on the air. >>caller: good afternoon

with that very important information mister meltzer saidma related the media and to change the world also praise c-span for always allowing all points of view. and for what has been proclaimed on december 12th as i love america today. and exactly who e they are. and to take personal responsibility. >> thank you. that should be every day we don't need a day for that. that is our responsibility.

be kind to each other. and that should be called human being. and so if you are on social media you are meeting every one - - reading everyone who disagrees with you you are doing a favor for yourself you need to go out there and follow people you don't like and see what they see and what they are mad at. the only way out of an argument is to look through somebody else's eyes so maybe you can find some humanity there. and to find a battle you know, nothing about. . >> are you there god it's me. >> that's the best.

judy bloom. my first love of books but real books after comics. i love that book so much even in millionaires there's a character named fudge after the fourth grade nothing character. i have been using those references for years he said are you there god it's me robert that is the pun of it. but i was upset with girls i thought it was amenable to help me figure out about girls. it was nothing about that. and always been one of my true literary heroes. >> and to be a giant game of

telephone. starting with the first whisper conspiracies but the scariest of all is a true story. . >> that is where the next book is going. . >> and to have that pre- social media it seemed pretty bold back then a game o was telephone of course, it is every single day watching just one station that has your point of view. so that fax or bad news or misinformation.

it spreads like wildfire but the scary story these we to the true story is so i foundnd out a plot to kill george washington. there is a real secret plot? then asked the next book because it just scared me so what if we lost at the time he found out about the plot he found those who were responsible and took one of the ringleaders it was the largest execution in north american history and he brought the hammer down. don't mess with me. i will be on money one day. he was not messing around. so the next book i'm doing that comes out in a month is

the first conspiracy. completely nonfiction my first adult book that is nonfiction the secret plot to kill george washington. >> who was the ringleader creek. >> at all went to ruin the book but one of them is the governor of new york or the mayor of new york along with anotherew guy. . h >> not just the war but george washington. so yes for anyone doing that and for a president anyone out there and also the first conspiracy. >> somerset new jersey.

. >> good afternoon. wef read recently every citizen in their country than rate their behavior. for a book that they may write? . >> i love that story. and we are not that special. we think we are but we had hopes and dreams. and the idea to watchth a pattern of behavior. that is a terrifying idea.

so i will look into that story it is a good story. . >> and to have that opportunity. thank you to c-span for have these opportunities. then to see everything they have done. >> the actual title is called brad meltzer's decoded. what are we having for brad meltzer's dinner tonight? she said go sleep on brad meltzer's couch.

it is our truly supersecret membership grew. if you love decoded go to social media at history. tell them that you want it back that's the only i way that you want it back. i am so obsessed a with doing decoded as a conspiracy is a bookbo i wanted to do a decoded episode. but if you love it it is in book form and through that invisible army. that's how dirty we are and it literally has benefits that go with it. . >> what are the benefits? .

>> so if you want a card you order the first conspiracy on my twitter account you will see and then to be part of the invisible army. so those who love it they have been with us for years. . >> but are there any other dc character titles you would consider working on and are you developing any own c creator owned? . >> dc comics. not washington d.c. i write those as well. those are my first love. the first thing i ever read.

. >> i love the thrillers i love the firstbo conspiracy but when i can sit in my house and put words in batman's mouth wearing my underwear that is the best day of all. and't the most important part of the story is not superman but clark can. and for action comics 1000 so the 1000th issue and faster than speeding bullet it is superman flying full speed and then you see what he sees a gun is held to somebody's head

and has pulled the trigger the but - - the bullet is already going through the gun and he says i won't make it but i have to try. then he goes even faster as fast as he can and he still won't make it that he was focused so much on the man he didn't see the woman she pushes the head just to move a fraction of space but it's enough that the second that i need so he catches the bullet but what nobody knows is the whole story takes place in half a second but at the end of the seed this woman he saves save yourself you should think about being a cop.

she said my dad says everybody's here for a reason. and said your dad is a smart man but the woman is my daughter. she was the hero of the book. and the great part of it is i can say to my daughter that superman says your father is a smart man. >>host: there is an article about another book who saved a teacher's life. >> yes. so this is sherman with my history teacher in 11th grade and when we were doing

decoded and to say thank you to my history teacher and she wrote me a letter that she was sick and she needed a new kidney and she would die. i went on my facebook page she said can you put on facebook and twitter for me? i said of course. if anybody would give a kidney my history teachers needs one. amy wagon here said yes and volunteered a number of people said yes but she was the natural match. i was there in the hospital right after that picture was taken. she came to florida, saved her life, if you give a kidney you are the character in the next book so with the escape s artist

an amazing woman is amy wags named after the real here love - - hero we love her forever for that one. >>host: and gilbert arizona. >> with that computer compiler. >> you ready for this you have no idea what you stumbledea on. an amazing navy hero. with a computer about.

but i love her sowo much that to read the inner circle there is a character everybody think she is an incredible hacker and then to do a book on grace hopper and that comes out with pbs next year we are doing vim books as a tv show and she is on that. a heartfelt thank you.

so what hissing historical items to pursue? . >> i would love to use a tv show. and to give a reward that this is the flag from 9/11. but the flag went missing nobody knows where it went but we will give you $10000 to bring it back. what nobody knew at theon time a few days after the first episode everybody when - - a guy walked into a fire a station and said this is the flag and i need to return it. and really we picked the items that we wanted to come back and i just picked what i thought was important.

>>host: i am brad meltzer? . >> kids are amazing they would come to the book sightings. and a list of demands with who the next i am book should be. but now they write them for me i know that's crazy but i am so easy to draw. but they go and find out about my life when i grow up from the university of michigan so

now it does look just like me but i love that they are determined to write my own book. >>host: aurora colorado you're on the air. >>caller: thank you c-span i want to bring up the last speech of abraham lincoln two days after what he was talking about restoring the union. with the right to vote and there was a man in the crowd that was so enraged to swear that would be the last speech of abraham lincoln and three daysat later shot abraham lincoln.d

lincoln was a hero from the voting rights some people said he did not care for voting rights but he died for black voting rights. >> yes. 100 percent. you have it right. when we did i have abraham lincoln the most important pageim of the book is gettysburg so they could hear that flat out to have 271 words the most important were all men are created equal. i don't care how much nonsense you see onh twitter or facebook or anywhere else thatan is true and why abraham lincoln to this day is the greatest president. i do love some modern presidents but the moral

character of that man is unimpeachable.e. . >> we are in a modern day civil war we just do it on social media every day. and to have a great enough politician to work both sides to say we have more in common than we don't. i truly believe that. but that moral clarity to

remind us we are better than our worstre selves. . >> what word you write to president trump wreck. >> it's not about a guy who spend so much time saying things that have to be fact checked.hi my wife worked for donald trump sister and i know the family very well. i have met him before. but you have to look around today to say, reagan's great campaign are you better off four years ago now is the country better off right now? we have to ask ourselves in two years. where we are right now if you feel like things are going better and headed in the right a direction? if you do then he get your

vote if not then he doesn't. >>host:. >> we are planning a big trip to dc next year so what are your secret must do things that should be on our list i'm trying to take hints from your books but i'm not sure what part is total fiction. >> take the books and go. one by one. the president's shadow the lincoln memorial that below is real you can see it from above ground. and then to see what they come out. and then the zero game that

with that capital the capital was actually built. and those that were there the air-conditioning used to come to the air vents to circulate air underneath v. it wasn't modern day they just ran them all together. iet remember going with the curator of the capital crawling on our hands and knees right after 9/11 to the air vents in the tunnels below to see these things. and he said stop. don't move. they just put in sulfur if it smells us it will set off an

alarm in the capital they will evacuate. we will be on the front page. so i always change security protocols always on purpose i want to write a book that is interesting whenever someone safety. i don't make those that. . >> jeff in texas go ahead. >>caller: thank you for taking my call. and first of all, how long does it take to compose an

entire book and what are your daily writing habits like? . >> he is like screw you i want to write my book. [laughter] but a section that was published. i i treat it like a job i start about 9:00 in the morning i try to write until i peter out when you squeeze a sponge only you get so much. i usually write straight through to 2:30 p.m. i take a lunch you want to go as far as i can without interruption of very late lunch sometimes i can keep going sometimes i'm done at six or eight. but i like every day. i don't work on the weekends

but every single day i try to sit down and do that. in terms of how long it takes realistically six months of research than another year or year and a half of writing. the i am kids books take me a couple of weeks of writing that months of reading biographies and research. of course, then the artist needs is time to do the art but almost the first conspiracy started a decade ago looking into it. when you have an idea with the book i knew after seven years and it was still with me and i could not shake it that i've got to do this book.

and let's do this book coming out of a ten year process. every book is its own animal. . >> what about the millionaires? . >> you know, you take your atm card at the richest time in the world bill gates doesn't go to the same bank. these private banks cater to the wealthiest people in the world. if you have $10 million that's a nice start if you have 50 million they will get into the private jet and come see you. private chef, private gifts there is a whole universe out there for the millionaires.

i said what do you mean they have a world we are not in? so every book comes from the need that was my obsession what does the wealthy have that we don't have? my story oliver and charlie is very simple to working-class kids working the backo rooms of a private bank they find out they have been betrayed their boss ruins their career on purse one - - on purpose it is a victimless crime they take a $3 million from a private account of someone who had passed away in a bank like that nobody misses $3 million but when they check the account they moved itt into another 313 million and they are screwed and they are on

the run. i will say the opening chapter of that book is based on a really famous person. i went to a friend and said the scariest day you had to work? he worked at one of those bankss and a gay - - a guy that you all know. everybody knows him. friday afternoon. 5:00 and the phone rings a famous guy says really mad he wants to be on the "forbes" 400be list but the bank account has to be in a certain amount and it hasn't been transferred he's screaming get my money in there you better do this my friend hangs up the phone he calls his boss but he has to get the millions of dollars of transfer was 20 million sora he

panics he calls the guy and figures out transfers the money gets it done right before 5:00 then a buddy says to him are you sure that was really him on the phone? and my friend had a heart attack it doesn't know if it really is him. >> i won't ruin the scene but i heard that story and said. >> how does 3 million become 300? . >> that is the book. some money was hiding in the account and that is the mystery of who done it. >>host: pennsylvania go ahead. >>caller: thank you. i am very interested in your plots with the books.

and i just watched your ted talk but we started a pro-life charity and we started just with one because she said i cannot afford this child she was thinking about abortion so the director said i wish we could do something and i said offer her some money. so far we have saved 101 babies so we learn from you how to get the story out there. >> that is how history works. i don't care how much money you make or what the title is

but regular people to affect change in this world. ordinary people change the world people like yourself who have a passion or a cause and to make an opportunity wherever it might be that is how the world is changing. one person committed to in a deal to fight. so as you saw in the penthouse you have to tell your story how to get more people? more interest? tell your story. it is a bit and fax you memorize but it's a selection process that uses every single one of us every day. do you hear the call? she heard the call people are out there i guarantee right now saying she is pro-life. pro-choice. but whatever your cause is i will add them. fight for your cause as long as it will help people, that's a good thing. to me i love it's not just the

wealthy were connected. especially today the power of regular people is apparent - - important to. every book i i write that is at the core especially george washington's character. and the escape artist what she was referring to but that is change even by the soldiers themselves you saw the ones who just came back from dover with that incredibly horrifying at what they do but the world changes every single day. that's how it should be that's how it will always be. >>host: there was a brad

meltzer trivia a jeopardy question. >> somebody sent me a picture for the escape artist that saidd this brad meltzer book what wasas it? it was the escape artist but i think the better one about me personally? the honest answer it always goes to my parents for me. and my kids. i don't have a d shocking right intellectual amazing answer i write for my wife and my kids the honor of my parents passing away that is the core of who i am. that's why i do what i do i have nonfiction books because of kid kids.

when i got married i wrote a book about a married guy. when i went to michigan they had no money to do it they should not have sent to be there initiative sent me to the state school. but my dad said i will get you there. he had no business doing that but he did that for me and my sister. so that is at the core of it that goes back to them. to them. . >> and your wife? she keeps me humble she reads every book she's the first editor she takes out all the jokes. i'm a very funny person and i know that because i just said that to you.

i know i'm funny with everything that i write and she says you're not that funny it's not about funny i am so funny you have no idea how i am right now. no one keeps me more humble. my daughter and son said i hate to read you do know what i do for a living? you know, how you get fed? even recently my son came home from school we had to find the 9/11 flag he comes home you have to read an article and respond to it he wrote an article about finding the 9/11 they mentioned you in the article ha ha ha a tv show. not you. i said you're going to crush

this assignment. it was picked up on yahoo because i tweeted about it that the teacher called me up i'm so sorry i did not know it was you. i did not know you help to find the flag but it was a humbling moment. dy question. >> guest: there it is. you even have that. >> host: stanley in chicago that afternoon with brad meltzer. >> caller: i read your escape artist. kudos to you. my question goes to the dover delaware mortuary. in my previous life i was him tn and ballmer but my question is the detail, the respect that you put in. my question at this grand facility i didn't understand, did they involve civilians because three dead military,

what do they do with the rest of their time are they just local contracted and ballmer's, do they cremate on scene or let the local magicians or whomever did the cremations? your detail is so amazing, i loved it but could you just tell the little? >> guest: yes, thank you. e-mail me through my website because i'm always looking for people who've worked as an ballmer's, so tell me you were the one who called in because i want to ask you some questions. >> host: why?re >> guest: research. he's got a story i guarantee y you. to answer the question they are civilian, they are not military people and sadly there's a lot of work to go around.

i was just talking to one of the ones, one of my friends i met while i was researching thein escape artist he said we show these pictures when there's three coming up that we forget that at the height of the war there were 30 coming home every day and there was just so much work to go around. in terms of civilian deaths, the only thing you will see civilian deaths worked on is if there's somisn't theresome kind of conne case or its important. all the victims from the flight from the pentagon all went there. the astronauts from the challenger explosion went to dovereiei and so you'll see cern cases where they will go in d there and you also see sometimes john glenn went in because he was just kind of a man obviously a huge publication a famous

person they wanted to make sure his body was done right so sometimes you'll see peopl you e like that going through but it really run the gamut but if therepe is a regular civilian ty will go to someone local. i love that he's basically asking about the business side like how are they getting paid him only the real mortician knows that so he has an entire experience as that job that's going to form a character of mine i promise that. >> host: kansas city, missouri. go ahead please. >> caller: thank you c-span. i appreciate what you all do. i'm really fascinated on hearing his story, brad's story. i'm not that familiar. my question is, and i know he said the children, but will he consider for pim books, a child advocate marian wright alderman.

>> guest: she hosted my very first book party. i love to work with children. she hosted the tenth book party. when i first went in and said i wanted to work on the im children's books, i am a millionaire heart, i am abraham lincoln they said how many do you want to do the two were three and i said no, 100 my goal is 100 i want to do an entire library of heroes and mary wright alderman is someone who certainly deserves to be on their she does incredible work. we did two books a number of years ago when my kids were first born. on the day that i was born, my father went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of champagne and seven going to open this bottle when my son gets married. and i remember we moved to florida from new york. the things you get to the movers and the things you take in the

car with youou that's your life and i remember when we drove down from new york down to florida it was my mom and dad in the front seat, my sister and i in the back and behind the two head rests with two bottles of champagne that would roll back and forth i turned it and know anything about taking care of champagne that we were their lives and what they cared about and i when my son was born my first son was born, i said i don't care about the champagne, i want to write a book that's going to teach him to be a good man and give him rules to live by to be a good person, how to be kind and generous and i figured one day i would present him with this book and he would say to me thank you you are indeed the greatest dad of all time, i had this planned for myself it was going to be spectacular but the book was carthage. it was like saying be good and expecting your kid to be good a friend of mine told me an amazing story about the wright brothers from everything they would go to fly the plane they would bring enough extra

material for multiple crashes which meant every time they went out they knew they would fail they would crash and rebuild and f wcrash and rebuild and that s where they took off and i love that story. i wanted my son to hear that story, my daughter, everyone to know if you dream big and work hard and have stubbornness you can do anything in the world. not a book of rules but a book of heroes so i wrote he rose for my son and he arose for my daughter and they are filled with 100 just one page stories of inspiration that starts with the wright brothers but that is what started me out and doing that.t and that question about marian wright alderman, i put all these people in there who are not just famous people you've never heard of. my english teacher from ninth grade is in their, who changed my life by saying as i said, you can write. and i thought everyone can write and she said you know what

you're doing and she tried to put me in the honors class but i have a conflict so she said here's what you're going to do you go sit in the corner the entire year, ignore what i do on the blackboard, every homework assignment. but she was really saying is you are going to thank me later and i tell you a decade later when my first book was published i went into her classroom and knocked on the door i said my name is brad meltzer i wrote this book and it's for you and she starts crying. she said i was going to retire because i didn't think i was having an impact on anyone. 30 students and one teacher and she had such an impact. but those people i selected are all these incredible people through history and was the first place. just one of those great people.

>> host: that trip from brooklyn to florida is that the trip we stopped in washington? >> guest: how do you know that one? some of the things i wille give you i honestly don't know, i told the public biden trying to figure out where you saw that. i just told this story to my sister and she didn't even know it. we didn't have any money for hotels when we drove. we had to make it quick. if you driv they drive we stayee hotel and just write down. we couldn't stop in dc so what we did when we drove through, i was 13-years-old and i have a kodak camera and my parents knowing i wanted to see these things that i've never seen them before they would pull up to the monument or the white house or the lincoln memorial and they car and i would get out of the car i remember i ran up the steps, took a picture with the disk, got in the car

and then i went up to the gate and did the same thing at these monuments and that was my first moment of washington it was a 52nd tour but it changed my life and needless to say i made my way back. good for you on finding that story. earlier we teased this brad meltzer with barbara bush and lucille coble. explain what they are about to see. >> guest: this is how much barbara loves literacy. i wanted my daughter to have this book we used to watch lucy together and we used to do these storytimes we would read the book with someone and do something fun and funny and i said what if i dress up like lucille and we re-create the conveyor belt seemed.

the office said that's great for going to be in washington said they put us in the car together and we are going back to the president's office and i figured she had been briefed and knows everything so we are in the talking and she says what are we doing anyway and they realized they didn't tell her and now it's up to me. like i'm not even going to tell you. i told her this and this is what she basically said yes to is creating the scene and a thousand chocolates. >> host: we are through the conversation on c-span2 book tv and this is the final of the series in which we featured fiction authors. our guest this month brad meltzer. we will come back with calls in comments and e-mail questions but this runs about six a minut. brad meltzer with barbara bush.

we are going to read a very special book my favorite author mrs. bush went on to tell us who wewe are reading? >> find lucille ball by brad meltzer illustrated by christopher. the writer is who we want to focus on. here we go. i just want you to know we are going to do a conveyor belt seemed and you are going to do that with me. i am lucille ball. when i was a little girl my mother tried to dress me in ribbons and bows but i was different from other girls. my idea of fun was forcing around with my dad he used to throw me into th up to the ceilg always catching me and making me laugh. put her downam right now that isn't a game for a proper girl i don't think this one is a proper

girl. when i was 3-years-old at the local grocer used to let me put on a show in his store and my favorite was a fraud routine. and you are like lucy and ethel don't you think. >> yeah. skipper and gilligan. are you a not? by the time i was 12 i realized there was power in making people laugh. the principle of my school realized it. heso was the first person to lal my wild and fun behavior as talent. when i was 17, my mom sent me to a fancy acting school in new york city. it didn't go as i planned.

on the cover o two of the 70 sts accepted into school they narrowed it down to 12. i didn't make it. i failed. from there i tried being a dancer but nothing much changed. i never let that stop me. at one point i was so poor ii ws down to my last forcing. that's it, for pennies. to ease they waited for a customer to leave the restaurant of theand i would grab some lefr food before it got thrown away.g i went to so many tryouts i even wore out my shoes but no matter how hard i tried, the message never seem to change. eventually i did find work and then with a bit of luck i finally got my first big break in the movies. i was 21-years-old and selected to be one of the girls in the background ofk the movie roman scandals. as the director came to inspect us i grabbed some red crepe

paper, tore it into shreds, licked it and lucy was born. >> host: here's the key part, pay attention to this important part. in time that confidence led to the role that changed my life. i left the movies and was working in radio then cbs had a brand-new idea for a tv show. to prove them wrong, my husband and i took our show on the road. we turned it into an act come in old kind of shows that have lots of funny skit. it became such a big hit cbs decided it was ready for tv. he asked for one thing to film the show in front of a live audience. hearing the audience people at home would really feel the laughter. the tv network was worried about

the cost of film. they said it would be too expensive so we made a deal. they could pay us less money but the show would belong to us. this is the part. eat all the chocolate with me. that wasn't the best example of me admit. here we go. every episode lucy and wrecked a long with their friends at all and fred would get into a crazy adventure. every day america turned to see what lucy is up to they wanted to see what's new trouble i would get into and who else would show up. we had famous guest stars like superman, that's right, superm superman. >> i love superman 20s my favorite. >> your mouth is full. >> 1952 and 1953 the first tv bosses said no one would be interested.

two out of three households with tv sets are watching i love lucy on the night. what was the secret of the show's success? [laughter]le you could always find a laugh in what anyone else is taking so seriously. >> i have so much chocolate in my mouth you have no idea. >> yes i do. >> you've done this before? >> no. today people come to the greatest comedian of my time and one of the most belovedd entertainers ever i was also the first woman to run a major hollywood studio. remember what i said when the tv show belonged to us? our studio used the money from i love lucy to produce other shows, star trek and mission impossible. >> this is my favorite part by the way. >> people believed because i was different from everyone else, they didn't like the way b i

looked or the way i talked or even the way i was always clowning around. this isn't a joke don'tt let other people change you there's no such thing as a proper girl or boy. be true to who ever you are. >> host: as we look at that, first of all what was her reaction after completed that? >> guest: i mean come on. it's total mad max. i'm eating a thousand chocolates in the president's office, barbara bush it was all done in one take and if you listen really closely you can see the highlight reel of it online and it is the staff is this typically laughing in the background. they said it's the funniest thing they've seen her do and it's all her. she's the perfect straight man for the job and it's just

crushing it when i saved you like hillary and donald trump she just looks at me like this and knows the comedy is there so she knew it was a good laugh. what you are really seeing in between the pixels is our trust and she knew i would never do anything that would not be in the best respect and that wouldn't be fun for literacy but what i really think you r see is her to not take herself seriously and have a good time. >> host: tha that seen from neay 70 years ago and we still are member today. 7 >> when we were doing the im was the buck there was a moment they said we don't know if we can get the chocolate conveyor belt scene because it doesn't come from the estate i of it comes fm cbs and i was like if you don't have that we don't have the book because that's what people know and we want kids to see it so when our amazing artist was redoing that, we knew kids had to laugh so when we see that in

the book i love that there are kids now across the country for halloween dressed up as lucille ball thanks to our books and they are watching it and writing letters and saying i watched the conveyor belt scene, i love that we brought that back to them. when you watch, lucille ball is such a star. everyone elseki is doing nothing but working around her and it's this incredible power she has and people don't even realize in terms of impact. but that's not why we do the books. lucy was rejected over and over, so poor she would eat out of a restaurant off other people's plates, told in the dance studio she should never make it as a dancer, go home you are never yr going to make it, you're not pretty enough, you're not light on your feet and she was like watch this. there's nothing that inspires me more than someone saying no to me. >> host: and now her hometown

has the comedy hall of fame and museum. >> guest: the love working with them with the book and i love the power that we get it out for the next generation. >> host: sending an e-mail booktv affecten c-span.org. rob says the most impactful book you've ever read and why, what isad that? >> guest: we talked about the murder of agatha christie that changed my life and i'm supposed to say to kill a mockingbird or something like that but i honestly think for me it was justice league of america number 150. the first comic book i ever read and in the. comic book, the justice league is trapped in these prisons and they are like giant keyholes and superman is in his prison but it's coated with kryptonite and green lantern is in his and he can't get out and/can't vibrate out.

i'm 9-years-old and i'm like ohh my god will they be trapped there forever? they could all die. i'm a kid so i don't know. but here's the thing that happens in the book is the way they get out it's like he can stretch his body. he can't get out of his prison, but what they can do, flash can vibrate through but can't leave. so elongated man makes himself into a giant rubber band and the flash together they move him over and he can run in his own person and then they figure out by doing that they can work together is the point of the story. that metaphor has served me well for 40 something years.

that idea even though we are ordinary people and we all have our own things we care about is that for the power of when you dorere it altogether. you see that person struggling with that issue especially in the thrillers. the signing for the escape artist in miami, and i've been doing signings for 20 years, a woman stands up and says i read your books, i've read all of your thrillers and i feel like every book you write is like this young guy who wants to be part of some bigger thing it could be the white house, a private bank, something big by the end of the book he realizes that wasn't what he thought it was and he's struggling to figure out who he is. i didn't know either but i said to her right there you are absolutely right that it's every

single one of my books except for this one and the escape artist was a different one because instead of writing it ae a kid who read justice league and you team up with her friends to figure it out, it was different because i wrote it from the point of view. he was in this hole surrounded by death everyday worried about this girl who comes onto the table who supposedly dead butab actually not. the lovlove he feels for his own daughter and this woman is in danger, that is my love for my kids and for my wife, that's the love for where i am now and i switch that point of view and i think that justice league started to b the affair and some along the way i found my own story. >> host: is a difficult or easy to come up with the names? >> guest: there is an alchemy

of names when you name something you get the power and if you just give it a boring name and say this is going to be ira, even the name after my grandfather who used to put a batman stories when i was little because he knew i loved batman so much you give it power to it and they have a whole list of the best names. >> host: sonora and michael from the first council in 2001. >> guest: it is a code in the name he's named after flash was always running. nora i wanted a name that was a throwback so that was the perfect thing because she was named after new orleans was the dangerous city as far as

breaking rules and then in honor it was the perfect name. >> host: in the book the body parts found in the rose garden. >> guest: i knew i wanted to start the book with a body part. basically what they find is i don't want to ruin the whole scene they find a hand in the rose garden buried in the dirt and the first lady opens, she's a gardener and when i ask this is push about it but have always books, president clinton was kind to me many years ago also gotl to ask what do you miss, what is the thing when you were in the white a house what do you miss and they were like just a moment to your self. everybody is always all over use of the idea of this first ladyy just gardening answering questions all day long

surrounded by scaffolding along but here in the middle of the night she can just plant and have a garden. just have a moment and as she's digging throughy the dirt, the smell of disloyal inspire this r and makes her feel like you know what, i'm back again i'm not in the white house, i'm home, i'm younger and i have a moment to myself and then she finds an arm buried in the rose garden, screams obviously like oh my god how did it get there, what happened, so that's the plot. i got to chapter one. questioquestion is trapped or ti went to the secret service and i said what would you do what you put it on the news and they said the first thing is i would think the white house and they said were you p talking about? well here's the thing if i go and scream to everyone i'm going to tell everyone what i've got

and ruin the whole crime scene, but if i say i want to do home improvement in the white house some rooms neat painting we should get the first family to move across the street they were going to move in blair house for a little bit and now we've got thetl first family away and the press is a way i can do the full investigation and no one will know what i'm up to and no one realizes what's going on. why does that sound like it might have happened. he said think of it this way. bill clinton did home improvements in the music room, george w. bush did improvements, barack obama did improvements you will not believe the investigations that have happened in the name of. home improvement and that's where the net rest of the book came from. >> host: oakland new jersey, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. mr. meltzer, you could through

the grand allusions to the point that your intelligence will take you certain places to find out what was really happening. i'm concerned with your thinking to apply your ten synthetic thinking to the 9/11 scene. do you believe some people say that it was a spy operation and that it was a controlled demolition and also at the pentagon, many of the government thinkersnm and observers visuale that there was a missile turbine in spite of the pentagon and thought jet turbines. >> guest: i appreciate the question and welcome to my life because when you do a show called decoded, when you have a crazy story no one gets crazier e-mails than me if you have a crazy storyas to tell you send t to jesse ventura or to me. the family of abraham lincoln's killer john wilkes booze famously killed abraham lincoln

12 days later shot himself. their lawyer is a friend of mine now. they called me up and said listen i've got the family i represent john wilkes booth family and they have a story to tell they say john wilkes booth did died 12 days later even though every history book says it they say he escaped and they have the evidence would like to speak with them. yes i want to hear that call so i get plenty of people who ask me what happened in the pentagon. .. leave

our country right before, a day before that happened like that is interesting to me. .. and get one million dollars coming to them. they lie for very simple reason.

for money, power, sex, embarrassment, things they want to cover up, things they're ashamed of and the government has hard team keeping a secret, as we know. die think there's more out there that is interesting about what people knew and when? absolutely. die think this is all crazy, kooky -- there's some crazy store us but something that would always love to look at, always love to hear more. >> host: a quick followup. you mentioned saudi arabia. could you come up with a store jamal khashoggi and the prince. >> guest: i was invited to go to a conference right before it happened and then all of this happened. and i ask myself to this moment, why was i invite. >> host: why. >> a book festival. the big crown prince wanted to

meet me. sometimes book still is a book festival. in my imagine -- i made that up saul the reaction and watched an american citizen be killed and now we have a president who doesn't want to do anything about that, there's a reason that for the first time republicans and democrats are aligned ago something. this is the first time where donald j. trump is saying, my gosh, the democrats and republicans agree on one thing, that you have to stand up for your own citizen, your own people. if i bring a story like that to my editor, my editor says, no one will believe it. this is sometimes history -- you don't know it's playing out and you absolutely know. this is playing out. >> host: in 2015 you said if i created a character like donald trump in a thriller my editor would say no one will believe this. >> guest: a reality story who is going to become the president? telling me -- if i said at that time to my editor some she --

she would be, brick it back. you can't fight against arrest can't beat it. always beat you. so, i remember when i was doing the -- the first council. first book about the white house. i hat meetings set up. the first white house book i'm doing and i'm not joke, the week i'm about to goo into the white house this little scandal named monica lewinski broke? and no one would talk to anyone. you have a reporter coming to your office. everything was shut down. and the "washington post" did this huge story that said, basically, only a fool would be write bought the white house right now. what's going on in the white house, in the midst of monica lewinski is so crazy.

nobody would -- only a fool would start a white house thriller. i was like, i'm that fool. i'm the fool. i was obsessed with the white house. still wanted to no what goes on, the secret tunnels. how does the president get out and eventually they let me in because i am the fission writer. i'm the -- fiction writer. i i'm not going to quote you our say you did something bad. it's heyday. you inbound find footage of me going the white house. one i had the head person of the lewinski investigation in the white house, setting and talking to me. every reporter in the whole country wanted to me but was in there because i was like, what's it like when the whole world is staring down and i had the best seat in the house. now two years past. and this -- my book is coming out. the book is coming out in i think a month or two, and this

tiny little tv show debuts for the fir time called "the win e west wing" and everybody at that moment in time is interested in the white house again, and a week or two or a month later, my book comes out, and we -- the biggest book i'd ever done. suddenly the only dumbies who had anything to do with the white house was the west swing and me and the book took off. just because the interest was there it taught me right there, never try to fight reality. do what you love and pray for the best. the escape artist, i started three years ago. if i was writing a book right now but the white house, i would literally -- i want to put a gun my head. i can't compete with the crazy necessary every day going on in white house, the world is so focused on this president who every day, whether you love him or hate him, has more action going on than any president in history. the speed of the scandal, the speed of the reporting, the -- we are on hypertime right now.

remember when you used to fastford and go times 12 and 12 and we are watching 128 every day. that's where our twitter feeds are and if i wrote about the white house right now, i'd be like, can't compete with that. it's too much. i don't know that. the escape artist, i happened to pick over air force base -- dover air force base and our fallen troops because it was interesting. i lad no idea donald j. trump would be elected and we would go to times 28 and i got lucky. >> host: send us your questions. wonder, i would love to listen to other media sources to provide alternatives aside from c-span and pbs there are few alternative sources. your recommendations. >> guest: yeah. no. it's a yeley good question. let's think real quick. firmly believe in picking opposite yourself. so if you are one of those people who watches fox news every day, go to ms. snbc.

follow them on twitter, facebook. if you're on msnbc all the time go to fox news. think more interestingly is pick the -- pick people, pick smart people. even if they're the opposite of your thinking, whether you're picking george will or whether -- there are incredibly smart people and whether it's jake tapper, or chuck todd that you want to physical, just really interesting feeds of i you want to -- whether it's brian kilmeade, check them out. the one thing i know is when you look through someone else's eyes you open your heart, open your mind, and you look for someone else's eyes. not going to agree with them. gorge bush -- when president bush passeddary, the number one thing people wrote i didn't agree with the man ol' his politics but i respected him and that's how the sentence would start, over and over and over. we at least need to get back to

that. may not agree but try to find some semblance of common ground. now, admittedly, when the president of the united states is taking harder crack at things happening here rather than putin, rather than saudi arabia, rather than all these thing that are -- china and things, it makes it hard for people but try to find that semblance of, let me understand where they are coming from. i promise you it will make you. >> host: our next caller, linda. >> caller: hello, big question. my question for you is you're so entertaining in your words are so great. >> guest: thank you. hasn't thelma. i really appreciate it. >> caller: you're welcome. i am a underground, never done it but i have hundreds of stories in my -- and i start out writing all the time but i never finish, and i just want to be a

writer, i have no idea, and i did take a little creative writing class after i graduated from college and the teacher just shot me down. >> guest: oh, no. can't have that. this is a very important question. a big question. i will tell you one thing. you must keep writing. you must keep writing. had 24 people who told me to give it up. 24 rejection letters on my first book, said, brad, you're terrible, you can never do it and i don't look back on that experience and say, i was right and they were wrong and ha-ha on them. that very pighead, but when i look back i realize that we know so often in life, all it takes is one person to change your life. right? think of that person who gave you your first real job, told you were good at something. your job is to find that person. so, go tell your story.

put it down on paper. i knoll you said you started which means you're luke i couldn't finish. finish. finish. there's a -- almost like -- i don't think -- statistically true. but 99% of people who start a book never finish it and 99% of people who finish a book never get it published. those numbers are a little ridiculous but the point is right, which is everybody says they want to be a writer but can't finish the book can then you're not writing. to by a writer is just to write, do it. like i said before, write a page every day. you. >> host: you included criticism of the book of lies, the negative reviews. what was that about? >> guest: it was very important to me. i think it was about 15 year anniversary of me doing this, and i just gotten all these bad reviews. always gotten beautiful reviews, i'm the greatesting of the happen, fresh new breath of legal thrillers, the next coming are that's not right. but it's also just as othersly

not right to say he's the worst thing ever but they hurt. they hurt. remember when i said i wasn't in the good-i could be like everything is great. got -- "usa today" gave me a review, the first council, wrote a headline and said i opened up the paper so excite, great big launch party, and they said you're going to be vie screwed inas "usa today" tomorrow. i was at mcdonald's and i opened up the paper and i was so excited to see what they wrote about my amazing book it and said, make first your last and it was like a public beating. every bad review is like your mother said it to you and i remember calling my mom, mad and upset and so sad, purpose -- punk me in the face and my mom says, don't worry, no one reads that paper. i'm like, mom, it's the most read paper in the country and imfinally realized i can't be

scared of these things. have to embrace them. rather than just ignore them. every single one of them i read and there's some good truth in there. if you read them you below become a better writer. that person had you for a reason. better learn or you won't get better. i read the reviews but can't have them have power over me. collected the reviews and took my kids and the little league team and went to at the old age home where my grandmother worked and i did this. i think the best way to show it. >> host: let's watch a portion of it. >> if you don't think about it too much. >> disappointment. >> biggest book. [inaudible] >> d plus. >> d plus. >> d plus. >> well, it sounds okay. >> d plus? >> no, b plus. >> i no, but i got a d plus.

>> oh. >> that's my grandmother, may she rest in peace and no script. but i got a b plus. he says a b plus isn't bad. i said i got a d plus. he said you have to work harder. if you put in worst -- everyone ahead brad meltzer and you can fine that. for writers-specially our last caller -- i'm talking about famous writer, many who you have hat on here who e-mailed me privately and said thank you for vat video and i realized i wish i was smart enough to know this. when i did that and embraced all the awfulness, it freed me from it, and make no mistake, every bad review still hurts. not like i'm impervious, but made me realize the flaw in every critic is that they're humid. it's why it's an inpeople serve and that's okay, too. but i do believe that all the

reviews that say you're the best doesn't mean you're the best and. journey job is to look for the truth and to the caller, keep writing you story, every day, write a page. you'll have a book in a year. >> james from fort washington, maryland good. ahead, please. >> caller: how are you doing. good afternoon to steve and brad. a friend of mine gave me one of your books. i can remember the name of it but it was in 2009 while i was in the hospital. and the end part was about something in the basement of a -- somewhere in western d.c., and you got some muck and stuff down there. but at any rate, let me say this. i followed you and i see you quite often in different places of he here's what i would like for you to do if you can. can you write up story of --

called, who asked you, and the reason i say that is like all of the k street and the think tanks come on sometimes with good stuff but who asked them to come on? and the good thing about c-span is that it's right next to fox and so they can keep them covered. when i say -- the studio, evidently, is right there -- >> host: you want me to find out who benefits, fright that's the whole thing. listen. the great thing but c-span -- let me tell you the other great thing. no out it next to fox or cnn but the fact if you -- it lets you have access to information and there's nothing more powerful than that. you're asking the right

question. you want to know who benefit us. want to know the why. you answer that question and you'll find more interest interesting. >> host: this an e-mail from a viewer saying would you consider a i am book, the first soldiers in what became the war on terror, the hero passengers and the crew of flight 93. >> guest: i love of course i would. and i love them so much if outcome loot a heroes from the daughter there is an entire page, one of of the heroes is the crew and the passengers on unite flight 93. and let me tell you why i'm particularly interested in that story. my wife on 9/11, we were living near washington, dc. and my wife work at the u.s. capitol. she was nine months pregnant. and our son, truly -- say nine months pregnant. nine months pregnant and was driving to work and the planes

just hit in new york, and hit the towers, and my wife is driving to the capitol, and she says to herself, you know, i wonder if they republic up -- they'll upsecurity at the capitol and city stops on the side of the road and says we have terrible security in the capitol, and pulls over and calls me, and she says, i have a bad feeling about what is going thereon today. i don't think shy go to work. and i said, shouldn't go to work. turn around and come home. and she came home, and of course we know what happened at the pentagon. we know what happened in new york. but that pennsylvania flight, flight 93, that beamer and those amezing people that, plane was head nor capitol. some say it's the white house or the cap you'll about to the plaque is in the u.s. capitol. always been my take the signal was, it was glowing and i believe it was going there and i'm not saying that the plane was coming in right as my wife

pulled into work and they saved her life but i do know that but for those people, my life is profoundly different. they are heroes regardless of my personal stake in that story but 100%. that's why dedicated a page to them. >> right, billings, montana. go ahead, please. >> yes, mr. meltzer, james was talking about the archivist -- >> guest: yeah. talking about the inner circle. >> caller: yes. we have to get him to buy more books? >> but my -- you're research and your life are amazing. my favorite novelist was taylor caldwell, and she plug me into all this. she wrote historical novels and it made you feel like you were there and i felt like i was in the archivist room.

i'm about 80 and i had a little eye problem and i do all of the books on tape. >> guest: yeah. >> caller: wondering if you're going to do all your new things on tape. >> guest: yes. my grandmother, who you just saw in the video, was -- when she reached her nine's, she could no longer -- she was a huge reader. the only real reader in our family. she could no longer read because she went blind, and i remember we just had -- just starting audiotapes back then. cassettes. and doing audio books and i gave her scott brick, has read all our books, the best audio book reader of anybody, and i gave dish didn't like the first guy they gave us and gave us another person it and was like, not a very great match and then scott brick, and i played it for my grandmother, and i said what do you shock, she said, bradly, he

sound handsome and i knew that was our guy. wanted a guy who was handsome, so -- but all kidding aside, it changed my grandmother's life. would make sure she always got an audio book. so to answer your question, absolutely they're on audio book, every single book i every wherein, they're all on odd you book and all read by scott brick and the first conspiracy, the secret plot that killed george washington, he just finished recording a week and a half ago and will be doing the audio. even are you can't see it, grab it on audio. they're all there. >> host: from the book, the zero game, matthew mercer, harris sandler, 2005. >> guest: yeah. so i'm going to do this without the spoiler. so this book came about -- i told you my first job was i was 18 years old and i used to work at the senate judiciary committee, and this was a story i heard back then. there were two staffers who

would make a little bet. make bets like, i bet i can guess how many pencils in your drawer and i can guess what time we'll go to lunch, i bet how many votes on a bill. and then it just started escalating and then the rumor i heard was that one of them said, i bet i can put two words in the senate're speech and he'll never know it. the words dry cleaning. they were tired of picking up the senator's dry cleaning so let's put the word dry cleaning in his speech and one said to the other you can't do and that he said, wanna bet? and i forget what the rumor but the whole story is like blur to me, but i'll never forget it it and said, maybe people think the environment is an issue that is dry, comma, cleaning up should be the first priority and the word dry clean was in the senator's speech. that was the greatest story if

heard, way to show that you who think you're in power are not really in power. there are so many people behind the scenes who are far more power than you time didn't realize why i loved that start of the story. i know now because of my whole core belief system, and i said, why don't we do a book where have staffer who are truly gambling on congress. not just about -- putting word inside congressmen's speech but actually to -- how many votes on this bill. i bet i can get 200, 250. i bet you can't get over 230. wanna bet? and the bet is paid and that's the zero game. members of congress betting on bills. start happening and people started telling me stories that it really happened. that's when you know you're on to a good plot. people say to you, my gosh, yeah, i heard someone was doing that. i remember when i was doing the

book about -- the inner circumstance of george washington, doing seek cell for the book the fifth assassin. went to one of the top guys in the cia and i said my book is about george washington and he said i heard their still around and i said, no, i made that up and he was like, yeah issue head their still around. when the head guys at the cia tell you that,ow feel like you're just -- now you're like, my phone is bugged. but that's when it gets cool. so matthew americaer and harris also had -- they were the main characterness the zero game, and the zero game was -- can't -- has the single best twist i've ever written. and i wanted to see -- >> host: give us a tease. >> guest: i basically was like, can you kill the character that no one thinks you're going to

kill? that's the best way. and i'll just say it. the question was can you kill a first person narrate glory you have a first person narrate you. can you tell that person or is that thank you enbroken rule. once you hear the word, i'm bored today and want to go to work today, you're like he's our narrator, he's safe. i was like why? why are they safe? says who? who wrote the rules? i said ick do that? can i somewhere in the middle of the book take that away and i said i don't know if i can or can't but that's the best reason to try. this first book i ever wrote, a third person narrator, ben was sweeting like pig, someone suppose told be that way. i said to my editor at the time, can you go to, like, first person and third person and do them both at the same time? one person says, ben is sweating

and the next chapter, i was really nervous. no, no, no, they have to be all third person help said that's the rule. the second book i was i'm going to two narrators. and he said, okay. and then he said you can't do third and first. was like, let's try, and the third book i gave if at show. the fourth book -- then i got the zero game and i was like, can you kill a first person narrator and they said no. i says, who is they? so everybody book to me is me trying to figure out in the form and not to get all arty fartsy, when someone says see if it's possible. when you read a book and have been reading them -- like in our onwhere, thrillers or legal thrillers, written ten or 12 of them, you're like, i read that person in the beginning, they were good in the beginning but

now their -- you know what's going to happen, like connect the dots. that happens because the author is bored, too. been writing that character for 20 years and they're bored and when i started writing remember i said, i never want to be that person. never want to be that author who feels like, man, i'm bored. i did so it much i don't want to do it again. every book i've written i try to find the thing i have never done before and i tried. there are that's why i found know lamp can i nolan. when due you due when your character is the most dangerous character in the book. can i pulling that off? let's see. that's what makes me feel like it's going to be interesting, and to me when you're reading a good book and you you feel like it's leave the station like a train thatter is barrel ought of the station, the reader is feeling that because the writer love what they doing. the x-factor is does the write are love what they're doing some to me that's what you have to have. everybody book you do.

if you don't feel like that, don't start the back. >> host: vick, thank you for joining, and bruno, california, you're next. >> caller: yes. thank you, good afternoon. mr. meltzer has been talking about the question why and who benefits. wondered if he has ever thought but taking on a subject that a lot of over people seem to stay away from, and that's the jfk assassination. >> guest: you just -- that's my number one of all the great stories. we actually did tackle it. i became -- i'm so obsessed with it that we put it in our decodessed book, where we counted on the ten top conspiracies. the great thing but the jfk one it has the best stories. also has the crazy jest -- craziest stores and enwhether i first starts doing this, that was the first conspiracy theory i ever heard. i talk but miss sherman, who is life was saved when he helped find her a kidney but the reason she got me turned on to history,

wayns 11th grade and she brought in a big tv and when the rolling cart comes in with the tv, it's the best day because you're going to see the movie. the movie the put on was the jfk conspiracy. it wasn't a cooky movie but one of those one that asked the true, logical questions that deserve to be asked, which is, how does jack ruby get through an entire police station full of cops and no one stops him? what is lee harvey oswald doing in russia for all those years, as someone who served in the military and no one knows anything about system even with the reese of the documents, there's still unanswered questions. those are logical, good, fair questions to be asked. why. >> host: why hey took lee harvey oswald in a public set snag right. there's things that just -- i

think that many of these things are like the supreme court definition of pornography. we know when something just smells wrong. we just do. but what is great about the jfk story is when you really dig, some of the things have completely unanswerable questions and deserve to be asked some and some are based on lies that have been bred into us. oliver stone, when he did the jfk movie, did one of the great disservices to history because at the time -- we didn't have the internet, didn't see interviews with directors back then, but he actually says at the time he was so mad at the warren commission that he wanted his movie to be a response to it so he added characters and facts and details that weren't true. and he average person -- however many millions people took the movie as true, there's an audio tape that has a third shot on it? where did that shot come from or fourth shot? where did that come from?

in the movie is says that no one has been able to recreate the shot that lee harvey oswalt took. i remember when i was a kid watching the movie i thought, oh, then he couldn't have done it because no one has been able to recreate the shot. too hard too far, there's the answer, logic tells you. >> host: have you been do dallas sunny went there it's an easy shot. in fact, what they didn't tell you in jfk is tons of people have recreated that shot. marine -- the marines to be a sharpshooter have to make a shot like that even further away. but we watch the movie and no one has made the shot. it's just not true. >> host: this is from phoenix, an e-mail, this viewer in the 11th grade. as history buffer i care about history. first what can we do to make history, to give it exciting to a new generation secondly how do

we change the education k through 12 with regard to history? >> guest: that's a good question. that's knee 11th grade. that kid from phoenix, mention me on your interview when we are long dead. or we're old -- you and are going to call in that day, i'm calling from boca raton. that joke just killed in boca. crushed in boca. but he asked a really vital question. went to the history department to university of michigan, which is where i majored in history, and i said what's the biggest problem you face? the biggest problem they were facing in he history departments in the country, is when i was a kid and i wanted to be a history major, my parents said, okay you like history, go do it. the number one problem is parents when they're kid says they want to be a history major, the parents says to them, you're going to make no money, don't do it. and all across many of these

liberal art ideas whether it's sociology, history, anything else, you see parents enter saying you're not going to make money. the departments are getting decimatessed because they can't get the funding, can't get kids to sign up. when you less kids, you have lest fund can, less faculty and then we start to lose its. that's a disaster. so we have to change that. you just need to do that. so, i think the first way to start is, like, parents out there stop telling your kids they can't make money in history. that's it. i think i solved the problem. we're done. but all kidding aside, the thing that he asked is the more important question, which is how do you make it interesting? i will say that -- i saw this the national book festival. brian sells nick gave an incredible speech and he -- childrens republic

el straighter, the illustrator on the harry the hard harry pots when they did the rerelease and brian gave an incredible speech and said -- he said never read harry potter, and he read it recently and when he read it he was struck by that idea that harry and ron, they were faced with this horrible kind of dictateyear who was trying to take power and anyone who spoke against him he would a day and can anyone who days challenge him, he would attack, and use the actual system of government in the magical world. he sees power in there got the ministry of magic. grabbed power and put his thumb down and anyone who poke against him he would attack. but these kids realized that the adults weren't going to save them. the adults were never going to save them. that if you want to see change

happen, the kid needed to do it themselves, and he didn't have to mention -- didn't mention gun control or what happened in florida. or anywhere else in vegas or anywhere else. when you look, these kids that are out there today, like this 11th grader who just wrote to us, they have been raised on harry potter. they have been armed with harry potter since they were five years old. they have learned that when you see something like that, someone in power who is abusing it, that you must rise up because the step won't save its. you have to save everybody and he is like, that's how you'll you'll get freedom and power back and that hit home for me. didn't have to say the name donald trump or anyone else. it was rousing and i think that the answer to that 11th grader problem is the 11th grader. when you have a kid in 11th 11th grade saying how do i make history more interesting in he's going to writes the interesting book that will bring

people back, going do write the incredible leak tour that will -- lecture. we'll larry from that kid again. >> host: another question, president orson wallace and the role of st. elizabeth. >> guest: yeah. a good one. or son wallace is the -- i've hidden as someone who loves mystery and loves digging through things to fine that golden nugget, i have hidden more hidingen thing nikolas book than anyone will find. frock book one this, villain who is arrested, you find out what happened to him if you are close reader and you read book two one page, one sentence. it's there. or orson wallace is the president here and in this little universe and he shows up in other places. what doesn't show up is st. elizabeth and that was

fantastic place. when the book opens up as we talk about, with this nascar race with this guy who comes out and shoots at the president. always base the shooting -- spoke to many people on ronald reagan's secret service team and did a lot of research when ronald reagan shot. one assassination where the president lived but what happened to all the people who servedly, there, and as we all know until recently, the shooter of ronald reagan, john hinkly, within to st. elizabeth and st. elizabeth held this person that tried to kill the president. it is so close to where we are in downtown d.c. and i went there and was blown away by what i saw. gave me incredible as sees to it. don't want to ruin the book but the things you see and hear were based on real people that were there, and i just -- when you're building a villain, you must -- as important as your hero is in

any of these thrillers you must build a real villain. ous must build a person that is real and i remember at st. elizabeth and other institutions that would tell me for the calm people down when they angry that we've have a labyrinth outside, and they could walk through and just walking through the maze was a therapeutic endeavor. i was like, that's going in a book and all the things they do with a people who are trying to kill those we love. i became obsessed with that. so the st. elizabeth details in the book came to life. >> host: donald, elk grove village, image. thank youor waiting? >> caller: great privilege to walk to brad meltzer, booktv is a great service because history is the photo -- you should learn from off

mr. systems. are you going do make any movies or documentaries from the books he has written? my family was involved in knight's. the golden circle. >> guest: thanks, donald. a man of historically appreciate. the knights of the golden circle, when the civil war happened, and the south was falling, there was -- the civil war gold, the confederate gold was pun on a train and the train was headed out of town, and the idea was we'll put our -- we lost, we're done, put the money on the train and on this going train we'll send the money south and basically hide the money and the implication when it's ready the south will rise again. the guardians of that were supposedly the knights of the golden circle. actual him came from a group during the civil war that wanted

to have -- so angry with slavery being disrupted that they wanted to form their own golden circle, an area where slavery would be legal. that was the start. what eventually einvolved into, in the kind of story of history, is they were supposedly the guardians of the civil war gold, and the confederate gold. the great part of the story and the great mystery which we dealt with was the gold never got there. i disappeared forever. to this day nobody knows where it is and there's a story breaking right now of some guys who thought they found it and government operatives think took it out from under their hands. i'm looking into that story. but knights of the golden circle was -- had sentinels who guarded the gold and put marks on trees that told you where is what. needless to say, i thought that would be a really good group to deal with in a book and win when

you reads the fifth assassin, and the president's shadow and. if george washington aspiring the ring still exist cozy suspend it make sense the knight of the golden circle still visit. >> host: three tweets roading the ring novel. when we we get another novel. not that i'm patient -- okay, maybe i am. >> guest: i'm slow. i admit. i'm slow when it comes to writing the thrillers. not because of any disinterest but for 20 years i can go two years in time. some people go great every year, put out a book every area. if i did tom, they would good garbage. and god bless the men and women who do it but the research matters so much to me and i like spending six more months on it doing the research. so the next thriller is a nola and zig book. the next book that comes out is the first conspiracy this secret

plot to kill george washington, comes out january 8 in i am billie jean king comes out after. thatle we are working on a film and movie. i spoke win someone who we have been working with he. we have optioned and sold many booked but it's lard to make it happen where super hero is what you see. the last time you saw a john grisham movie or mary higgins clark. those have modern to television as you see with my friend michael connellly. those things noter no movies anymore. if you don't a have special effects and a cape you won't see it. those who love this genre are trying to find great partners. >> host: this tweet from ian says who are your biggest influences when its comes to writing, in particular comic

books? >> the comic books, they are my biggest writing influences. my favorite writer-0 all-tile it alan moore, who wrote watchman and other things but watchman is the pinnacle of what any book can accomplish. the book dish used re-read if every year. just actually fished my re-reading, isn't read nit three. >> and i just finish elfed. the one book i can rereads. i hoover nell gamon, and tom king, what he i doing, jeff johns, i can name them. mark miller, doing wonderful things, jason aaron, who i think are all incredible writers. and even more artists out there i think, my college room may was jed winnik, a great writer -- used to do comic book and now

dodd kids backs, a book about a little row bolt who -- row boat is as heartwarming and moving as anything you can read. love hero stories, i do. i think stan lee passes away ask the reason i love these stories is not that i love clarks would wear their underwear on the outside of their pants. what i love and what i love about stan lee and -- who created superman is the stories gave me a foundation to live by, a moral foundation. it taught me -- they gave me the pillar of my sense of right and wrong. what i loved is those characters were being good because it's good to be good. that's why we should be good. that is an incredibly powerful important lesson we lost sight of. being good for the sake of it. what we learned over the years, learned how to fight. learn that from comics.

fighting and punching. we're great at that. if your just fighting for yourself or politics or because you're a corporation and want more attention or fighting for something like that? you already lost. as far as i'm concerned. we need to get back to that idea of just being good and kind for no other reason than it's right. and what i love about those lessons that comics give us, is that we can still use that lesson every day. i know it's crazy but if you lived your life like superman, like batman, that is a good thing. in batman, what inspires me is everyday he knows he's going to fail. he he bassman because he wants to stop crime mays parents were killed. never going to do it. he's never going to stop all crime. he's never going to do the mission he starts with every day. never accomplish it but tomorrow he's going to try again. he next day try again, too.

and that lesson of persistence is a powerful, beautiful one. supermans lesson of truth, justice the american way, on to the days when i say i'm going run for president and i think them, because we look around today, you're like, mr. gosh, anybody could be it, i think it. know what my moto would be, truth, just and the american way. what we're missing today. truth, and justice, and the american way. and those lessons came to me when i was a kid. like the best things we learned when we are a kid, just as valuable as today. >> host: would you run for offers? >> guest: i stay in my world of fiction but trust me there are moment winter-weather advisory get just as mad as anyone else and say, someone needs to step forward and do better. that's the only way the world changes. >> host: what would you think of the president? >> guest: i do not believe -- i'm going to -- not to just kind of switch the subject but i just don't believe in -- it's easy to

sit here and say why does he do this or that and that's unfire do. other think is look at and go, you know what? you can't take our greatest enemies and be nighter to them than our own people. you can't. those are the things you see right now. the republicans and democrats are finally starting to realize one thing they agree on. you have to treat americans better. and i'll be the first one to say it. you got to. got to. not going them. when you start going those people, you're in the wrong side of history. that is it. we're all of us at some point in time, somewhere in this country, traced back to someone who came from elsewhere. the great hero of all of us, fake superman himself, is truly an immigrant from another planet. that comes down here. becomes a journalist. he is like -- almost the embodiment of what donald trump hates the most, an immigrant and

a journalist, clark kent and superman. but what is amazing to me and -- whether it's anywhere and at any point in history, when you start generalizing about an entire group of people, an entire religion, about an entire culture, you are doing it wrong. >> host: let's go to kit in washington, dc. good afternoon, kit. hello? one more time for kit. okay, go to franklin in yonk kess, new york. >> guest: finally, new york represent. >> caller: hi there. yes, mr. meltzer, before my question i just want to address what you were just saying but the importance of being a hero and such, and i just really think that it is vital for -- especially privileged white males like myself and yourself, we have to be more honest about racism in this country.

for example, everyone's talking about on the news george h.w. bush. in the '60s he was a horrible racist. there's an article called bush and the blacks by jefferson morely in the new york review of books in 1992. bush was against the civil rights act, against blacks having the right to eat in rathers and hotels. there's -- . >> guest: let's talk about that. i was actually reading just about that and the amazing thing is, you're right about that. george bush ran against the act. he when he got into congress he voted the opposite way. to the consternation of everyone in texas who was like, you bastards, you said you were going to do something about and that he did the right thing. and i can't possibly with a straight face sit here and say, my gosh, that takes away everything else that was said and done and everyone is a saint

and everyone does the right thing. a complicated story. a complicated life. as all of ours are. if i judge he you the caller, by your worst moment, i'm not doing you a good service. you sound like a good man, fine person, but if i take that one day where you did that thing you regret and live with that, i wouldn't say that's what you are fretless of your live? i have not painted you fairly. complicated. thing you start with are the thing you are. eyeful a white kid from brooklyn, new york, you're from yonk kess, -- yonkers, and i knw when he write this have the perspective of everybody i writes about in history. so when i'm rosa parks i know where i'm going to be. can't possibly have the depth of that so i win -- when we did i am martin luther king jr., i went to john lewis himself read that book and proofed it because he was there with dr. king.

when we did jane good y'all, i don't know what i it's like to be you and harriet tubman, i went to the scholars in the country and win we died sacajawea i went to smith sewn ya native american museum. it all goes back to what we started to talk about earlier, you want to change the world, easy to say that guy did this and this woman did that. you can find something about everyone. every book i've written, every hero i've written about in the i am series, every one of them has problem. george washington owned slaves and abraham lincoln -- you can signed some political problems, racist things about gandhi. just as that caller did with gorge bush but if you're looking for perfection, you're not looking at human beings. the only thing that is perfect i god. that's it. that's my core belief and if you're look for perfect human beings you'll always be disappointed.

so rather than that guy did this and that, why not, and this is so vital, why not have a little bit more tolerance? that is what the world could use right now. >> you will be at president bush's funeral on thursday. >> guest: i will. >> host: if you were deliver a eulogy, what would you say? >> guest: i wrote a bit about him. what i would write about -- listen, i real tell you what i write that i wish someone would write about me and that is, loved his family, certainly loved sports, but he loved the idea of service. and that's the thing is. it's easy to love your family, even a crazy family, and easy of of love sports or your passion. but he dedicated his life to service. the point life foundation is still going. doesn't need to. doesn't need to do it anymore. look how many past president does nothing. just go and play golf and do

their thing. doesn't need to do that but he was passionate, he believed the changed the world through service. one person doing that changed the world. and that is what i would talk but when i talk about him, is that man who -- when you ask the secret service about dish always ask the secret service but the presidents they they don't love everyone they stroke you get them alone they'll tell you. so many president they'd don't like. all loved -- every single screes screes agent i spoke to loved george h.w. bush. and all said the same thing, asked me about my familily mobies knew me by name and characters is who you are when no one is looking. and that's who we has when no one was looking. that's what i would say about him. always that kind person, and i talk about him and world war ii. when he went -- when that plane was going down, and he said, a kid, the first thing he did is he tried to turn the plane show

to slip stream didn't hit the door so that the side door could open up so john and -- i forget the other employ could get out. two 0 men ask rathern just jumping out he turned the plane so the door would open so she air pressure wasn't on the door so they could get out first before him. and when he landed and he crashed, he's vomiting, bleed, crying, and those men died. he lived and they died. but what they gave him more than anything else was an appreciation of life, and he never forgot that. >> host: marian in by aside, new york. >> caller: wow. thank you. it's a perspective to talk to you and that is like an amazing thing that our i'm going to try to follow up with my question. the healthcare profession which is totally different than what

you talk but -- the health care system in this country is in such terrible shape with 250,000 people a year dying of hospital accidents, according to john hopkins university that was in 2017. and we pay more than any other country on the planet for health care according to the world health organization. we get the worst health care. and personally, every elder relative in my family, close to me, died of some hospital ridiculous thing, and my background is in animal science and agriculture, i see lifestock being treated -- >> we only have a minutes or two left, your question. >> caller: my question is, is it's culturalling? why isn't this addressed in the media? in entertainment? >> guest: let's talk about that. because, again, who benefits? when -- if you ask me what i

think our biggest system -- i'll keep it short. when you have a governmental system that is focused on being run by people with money, when money is the thing that runs it, who benefits tells you the answer right there? why is is so hard? because the healthcare industry is spending bilges to convince your congressmen and your congresswoman to vote in a way that favors them and know why they vote for them? they get a bigger donation than you. so if you want to solve the problem, you got to take money out of the system. if money is in the system, then those with more money are going have more influence. the moment people have more influence or systemming wrong. >> host: nancy, virginia? >> caller: good afternoon. i've been alive today because of george w. george w. bush because he signed the americans if with disables act.

i'm calling to ask him to clarify his remark a how mr. trump, whom i support, should -- couldn't treat other people better than he did americans and then turned around and talked about how anybody could -- the country was founds by immigrants and i disagree with this because the country was founded for ourselves and our posterity, so said our founding document. i wonder why he never said anything but mr. jefferson because george washington was terrific but it was jefferson that gave us the country along with mr. madisoning are worth fighting for i want to point out that it was mr. jefferson's virginia statute of religious freedom which has never been replicated on the planet. that was responsible for mr. joshua leavy buying monticello when it was falling into disrepair. >> guest: thank you, nancy. i agree with you've thomas

jefferson is a favorite. we went to do do an i am thomas jefferson. one of the greatest minds we ever had. someone who -- my gosh, owned slaves. so, again, not perfect, complicated, but incredible. but to answer your question, what i -- just to following up quickly, what i was talking about is when you see our president -- i'll do this like this. i we have lost sight of what we talking about. i was talking about if you look at how much time he has spent with -- we know who our enemies are in the world. we know that vladimir putin tried to enter fire with our election and throw its one way or the other. doesn't matter what your politicked but tried interfere. we know that saudi arabia has done some major harm and most

recently to an american citizen. those are the bad guys. not hard. they'll admit they're the bad guys and when ensee yesterday the head of russia and the head of saudi arabia getting together and laughing, i'm worried. as american citizen. make monday go, we're doing it wrong. when so much time is spent yelling here on twister and other places, about not that, you got to -- why are you not arguing but putin? not arguing but saudi arabia? why are you not going after our enemies? why are you going after americans? that -- again, not to get into why you should vote for one or the other but who benefits? who benefits? who benefits? ask that question. always find your answer. >> our conversation concludes with which has been a 12 month project at c-span2, fiction

authors. we go back to nonfiction next month and that's a segway to talk but your book only george washington warrant to ask you but the beginning of the book and the words franklin fran we must hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately. why in your book. >> guest: a book about loyalty. when you read the first conspiracy, i'm going -- i have to save because we have so much too talk but when the book come outs but it bears repeating here. where we are as a culture. if we do no standing to we most certainly fall apart by ourselves and so i think for those -- listen, a lot of people will figure out their vote and they should judge by merits, always, not by who you like or who mikes you feel better but by the merit. this cubfully a better space? if it is, vote for you guy. if unique we are treating each other in a gay, vote for your

guy. if not, don't. don't go it makes me feel good. judge and say are we better off? for me -- the best way to close -- i'll tell you my ritual. my secret. i started by talking about all the rejection letter is got, and there were 24 people who said i shouldn't do it. i got a phone call from my agent at the time, i thought she would tell me we sold the book. and she told me wait by your phone issue think number 23 and 24 will be positive. so i waited by the phone, pick up the phone and she said to me, sorry, kido and i i-my stomach bottomed out and every day i sit down to write, i replay that moment. i preplay where i was sitting, replay the phone i was on when i pick i up, one of those see-through fine, the desk with the civil lamp on my left, the bed with nothing but a box spring and a mattress no

headboard. i see the -- looking over a terrace, concretes floor, pier station here in d.c., three doors and i say to the word, sorry, kido, and for 20 years when i writes, anything i work on, i says to the words, sorry, kiddo, sorry, kid dough, sorry, kid dough. 20 produce years now because i never want to forget what it's like to have nothing, never want to ever not be thankful for what i'm lucky four to talk to imaginary friend all day and certainly never, ever, ever want to think i made it. if i think i made it, i'm finished. i always want to be as young and humble a hungry as i was when i was 20 something years old. so, i'm the escape artist. i'm the escape artist. and not escaping from some magic trick. we all have the hole we're in. we have to get out.

mean get out by doing something different. trying to be kind to someone. heat how you get out of your hole. you forgive, starting with yourself. that was harry houdini's greatest gift, forgiveness. i want to si thank you to every he person who called in sent a tweet, follow us us on facebook, the invisible army people. get too sit here for 20 years because of your kindness. >> host: on twitter and web, follow you how. >> guest: at brad meltzer on twister, on affection, and go to brad meltzer.com, join in the invisible army. >> thank you for your time. good luck with the next project, come back to c-span often. we appreciate it. ...

[inaudible conversations] >> evening. >> good evening. [applause] - >> this is a very well-supported book and an absolutely wonderful one. my name is barry scheck and i'm cofounder of an organization called the innocence project. >> yay. >> which has been around for 26 years. and has been the business of organizing efforts to exonerates people who didn't commit