>> so as a trance and bisexual boy, i've been having a a loot of trouble with my identity. so like, what would you say about like finding yourself? like, what would you say about that? >> oh, my gosh. i i would say honestly it's the journey that, even at the age of 31 i know i do not not know anything about myself. but you and hopefully everyone around you have given you the opportunity and the freedom to learn, to discover, to unify and we identify and figure it out to challenge your own concepts on the concepts around you of who you should be or who you are. i think that as time goes on you will feel more at yourself. i think you'll find people that see you for you and love you and accept you as just as you are and that is okay to challenge the world around you. the world around you stop

perfect. its ideas are made up by other people. it's okay to challenge ideas. and i love you and appreciate you being here.in [applause]e] >> and that is such a perfect way to end this session to r. k. russell everyone. on behalf of the library of congress thank you for calmative national book festival. we hope to see you through the rest of the day. [applause] >> next more conversation for 2023 library of congress national book festival. >> host: joining usfi now at the national book festival is the cochair of this year's national book festival david rubenstein. how did you get involved with the national book festival and when? >> guest: well, i got involved with the madison council which is a support arm of the library of congress. the liber congress getof most of its money from the federal government but not all of its money. there are support people around

the country is aboard the library of congress. t i been followed for now, check the madison council as it's called an part of the effort is to try to help with the national bookhe festival. cochaired thish the library of congress, first with tim billington and with carla hayden. >> is there money that you give to work this effort? >> i do. i have given. money every year for quite a while and i enjoy it very it is a great free, effort to let people know more about authors and books. we get a couple or maybe 100,000 people or more every year coming here and the importance of it is i want people to learn how to read more and united states are roughly 120 fit in the world in literacy, 125th, that is not great, we have a large number of people in this country who are functionally illiterate and a large number of people who do not read books at all. 46% of adults, they did not read

a single book during the year. why do you want people to read? and makes the brain better and focuses the brain and it helps you with other aspects of life. >> apple this article out of the wall street journal yesterday by brendan cronan who works for the wall street journal. books resist digital domination. one quote from this article is reading is a commitment and far too many easy alternatives today. >> reading is essential part of civilization but reading books is more important than reading tweets or reading other types of things on social media, it has a purpose. when you read a book you have to focus for hours and hours on the subject matter and the focus of your brain is a very important thing. unfortunately, a lot of people cannot read at all, about 21% of our country, this population of adults especially illiterate, it cannot be at the fourth grade

level, if you cannot read past the fourth grade level, we have a good chance of being in a federal prison system. many who are in too loudly when the who are -- two thirds of individuals in the prison system are functionally illiterate. if they cannot read, there is an 80% chance of them being unemployed, in our society or any society if you cannot read, you cannot be productive and you are not going to have a good of a life in my view. >> for an author, philanthropist, successful businessman, prior to the start of this interview you and i were talking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness. have you achieved those three things? >> happiness is hard to achieve and i think it is the most elusive thing in life. there are roughly 6 billion people on the face of the earth and i do not know how many of them are happy. my experience is the wealthiest people are not the happiest people, and the people who are often the most accomplished as

measured by certain standards are not the happiest. my mother was not a high school educated person, she did not have any money but she was a pretty happy person. some of the happiest people are people who are not educated or are not wealthy. all does not buy you happiness -- wealth is not buy you happiness. i'm happy but i want to achieve more, until i do not achieve more, i will not be happy. >> what makes you happy? watching c-span? >> is what i like to do! beyond that, i like engaging with people, i do a lot of interviews on my own shows, i like writing books, to invest, and to mentor younger people. the greatest pleasure is giving scholarship money, need a scholarship to get through college and law school. the bulk of my money probably goes to scholarships and universities were high schools around the country.

i enjoy seeing people who otherwise would not go to the schools go to the schools. >> most of your books your most recent is a masters of the craft, or have you been successful investing and or have you not? >> i started a firm in 1987 which became one of the largest urban equity firms, we have been pretty successful over many years, we have made some mistakes and i made some mistakes when mark zuckerberg was at the harvard and sorting and i said i will never see i get anywhere and i turned that down. when jeff bezos i had a chance to get some stock and i turned it down. i have made a lot of mistakes. i tried to learn by them. >> let us look at your history books, a friend of mine described this period of history that we are in as the great realignment. how would you describe the last 10 years of our lives? >> in the last 10 years you are

seeing an effort by people who have had power, largely white anglo-saxon people, see some of the power shift away as we have been a majority white country for most of our history, that is changing. people who are losing the power are not happy about it, i think that reflects why some of the people who support donald trump or other people like donald trump are supporting them. they see a power shifting away from economic chipping away, people like to have power and wealth on when they see it going away they are not happy. some of the angst in this country is between the people who have been rising up, minorities and women and those who are not rising up and there is attention, the inevitable tension. >> the american story, conversations with master historians, with who did you sit down? >> i thought back up program eight years ago to interview a great historian in front of only members of congress, and once a

month. if people are making our laws, they should know our history, i tried to educate the members of congress by doing an interview and i host a dinner for them once a month. i took people like david mccullough, great american historians and i took the interviews and i edited them a little bit and it gave my view of the interview and i put them together and put an interview of american history as seen by the great authors in american history. >> let us take a couple of calls, let us start with a in new haven, connecticut. you are on book tv with david rubenstein. caller: good afternoon and thank you so much for this. thank you for rk russell, what a great forum! we have several upcoming writers on amazon, will you

have a festival for these authors who are coming over their ideas and instructional booklets, would you do the same type of form for up-and-coming writers? >> i will answer it and have a follow-up. your concept, it is fantastic, and unwieldy. it does not mean we cannot do something, i agree with you, i want to take a step further, the way that we publish books, the way that we educate today is in transition, is traditional college, digital publishing, can we do things in different ways. roswell: the publishing world has changed. -- david: the publishing world

has changed, there are still viable, one of the largest publishers which is sold for 1.6 billion dollars. more and more people are self-publishing or publishing without the use of a major publisher. there is room for both, the most important thing is people like to read. people want to see good books coming out from publishing houses that are well known and people want to see new authors who are self-publishing, there is room for both. >> if your grandchild came to you and that i want to go to harvard and study for four years and do this, all would be your advice to that person? david: he is only three years old, i'm not sure that he knows about harvard, but the most important thing for a child who wants to go to college is go to the college that you want to go to, not the one your parents want you to go to, study something you are interested in, and also me know hope you get a

job, you will do better in college and life studying something you are interested in. nobody has ever won a nobel prize hating what they do, point to me that you love and life, if you go to college, go to the best college and get into, but one that you want to go to, on the ones that your parents when you to go to. >> how did you discover your interest in history? david: i am a lawyer, but i was not a great lawyer, i left law and started investing and i think it worked out well. worked as a young man and when you work in the white house, you live among history. our history is younger than the history of england but for our country, we have a long history in washington dc and i appreciated the history because of the heavy work in the white house and the capitol hill and living among the memorials that we have here. >> philip from florida, good afternoon to you. caller: hello. >> please go ahead, philip.

caller: i have a question, i am a published author and i have a lot of people who call and say in best with us, spent all of this money, being a school bus driver, that is not feasible a lot of times. there are over here, we will take c but they're over here, wee will take care of you, we'll take care of you. how can you tell the difference between somebody that is going to g help you and not charge you $30,000 which you don't have, this type of thing? >> host: backless to the question we had before. we are in a new world, a self self published author could be successful. how did he get out there? >> guest: self published authors hard to get on the bestsellers list usually. to get there you have publisher but some publishers will take new author some time to time, and youou never know what new author is going to be successful. i interviewed earlier today

david grann, a person who wrote a first book. nobody knew would be successful, turned out to be very successful. you just don't know who has the talent. who knew hemingway would be a great author? who knew fitzgerald would be a great author? so don't know who's going to be a great author but the best way is to keep writing and writing and writing. with respect investing, for the average person the most important thing to do is not lose what you have. secondly, the best we do not lose what you have this to go into an index fund of some type. go into a low fee index fund, equity and fixed income and that's probably the safest thing to do. >> host: david rubenstein did you think about buying simon & schuster? >> guest: i look at it but i couldn't c interest my partnersn it, so another from did it. >> host: as always we appreciate your time on booktv. >> guest: thank you very much. my pleasure. >> next more from the 2023 library of congress national book festival. >> my name