as a prince and a bisexual boy, i have been having a little bit of trouble with my identity. what would you say about finding yourself? what would you say about that? r.k.: oh my gosh! it is a journey, even at the age of 301i know i do not know everything about myself. -- at the age of 31, i know i do not know everything about myself. i hope people are helping you to challenge her own concepts and the concerts around you, of you should be or who you are, i think that as time goes on you will feel more yourself, i think you will find people who see you for you and love you and accept you as who you are and that is ok to challenge the world around you. world is not perfect, it is

ideas made up by other people. it is ok to challenge ideas. and i love you, and i appreciate you being here. >> thank you! roswell: that is such a perfect way to end this, rk russell everyone, on behalf of the library of congress, if you are for coming to the national book festival! discussions are coming up, he can find a schedule on my comment joining us now is the cochair of this year's national book festival, david rubenstein, how did you get involved with the national book festival? >> i got involved with the madison council which is a support arm of the library of congress, it gets most of its money from the federal government but it does not get all of its money from the federal government, there are support people around the country who support the library of congress. i have been involved for a while and i share the madison counsel as it is cold and part of the effort is to help with the national book festival.

for the last 10 or 12 years or so i have cochaired this with 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 care of you and we will take care of you, how can you tell the difference between somebody who is actually going to help you and not charge you $30,000 that you do not have, this type of thing? >> that goes to the question we have before, we are in a new, self published author can be successful. david: self published authors are hard to get on the bestseller list, you have a publisher. some publishers will take new authors, you never know what new author is going to be successful. i interviewed david graham, he was a person who wrote a book, it turned out to be very successful. you just do not know who has the talent. who knew the hemingway would be

a great author? the new fitzgerald would be a great author? you do not know who will be a great author. with respect to the average person, the most important thing to do is not lose what you have. secondly, the best way to not lose what you have is to go into uc index fund of some type, going to a low fee index fund or equity or fixed income and that is the safest thing to do. >> did you think about buying simon & schuster? david: i could not interest my partners in it. another from did it. >> we appreciate your time on book tv. david: thank you, my pleasure. >> more live coverage of the national book festival continues now, coming up is kevin: my name is kevin butterfield. it is my great pleasure to introduce you that today'