. >> and now on your screen is eli saslow who is a staff writer with "the washington post." he's written a new book, it's called "ten letters: the stories americans tell their president." what are the ten letters, mr. saslow? >> so the ten letters are ten of the letters that come in to president obama every day, and really they're a reflection of this mail that comes from across the country. republicans and democrats, fourth graders, grandmothers, i mean, it's this really democratic collection every night that comes in to him that he then reads and usually writes back to one or two letters a day. >> so how are the letters delivered to him? are they carefully edited, or is it pretty -- can they be pretty frank with him as well? >> they can be pretty frank with him, but getting the letters to his desk requires an army. mail used to be handled inside the white house before the anthrax square, and then they moved it off site to this secret office building in downtown keyes where with 1500 volunteers take these letters and categorize them. and they make sure the ten the president

. >> and now on your screen it's eli saslow who is a staff writer with the washington post. he's written a new book. it's called "ten letters: the stories americans tell their president." what are the ten letters, mr. saslow? >> so the ten letters are ten of the letters that come into president obama every day. and really they're a reflection of this mail that comes from across the country. republicans and democrats, fourth graders, grandmothers, i mean, it's this really democratic collection every night that comes in to him that he then reads and usually writes back to one or two letters a day. >> host: so how are the letters delivered to him? are they carefully edited? or is it pretty, can they be pretty frank with him as well? >> guest: no, they can be pretty frank with him, but getting the letters to his desk, it really requires an army. mail used to be handled inside the white house before the anthrax scare, and then they moved it off site to this secret office build anything downtown d.c. where 1500 volunteers and 100 full-time staffers work every day to take these let

. >> host: eli saslow's new book, "ten letters: the stories americans tell their president." .. it is fantastic to be here. "ghosts in the wires" took two years. myself and my co-author bill simon bloggers will raise your hand, worked on this. [applause] i couldn't have done it without bill. we had much -- we had different work schedules. i usually slept in until 2:00 p.m. and worked until 5:00 a.m. and bill look of the 6:00 and worked until 6:00. i'd put him on spanish time for two years. ready for the second edition? if you know my background obviously was a computer hacker that ended up in a lot of hot water. for seven years i restricted from writing this book. i was released from custody in 2000. in 2007 after seven years i was permitted tell the story. how i started with computer hacking was really from my love of magic. as a young kid ten years old used to ride my bike to the magic's board just to learn how the tricks worked because i was so fascinated with it. than when i entered high school. you will probably read a lot of this in the book. i met this kid who could do ma

. >> and now onto screen is eli saslow who is a staff writer with the "washington post." he's written a new book. it's called "ten letters: the stories americans tell their president." what are the 10 letters? >> so, the 10 letters are 10 of the letters that come into president obama every day. and really they are reflection of the mail that comes across the country. republicans and democrats, fourth graders, grandmothers. it's this really democratic election every night that comes into him that he then read and usually writes back one or two letters a day. >> how are the letters delivered to him? are they carefully edited? or is it pretty, can they be pretty frank with him as was because they can be frank with him but getting dollars to his death really requires an army. mail used to be handled inside the white house before the anthrax scare and then they moved it outside to the sort of secret office building in downtown d.c. were 1500 volunteers and 100 full-time staffers work every day, sort of take these 20,000 letters and categorizes them by topic, either positive, o

. >> up next, eli saslow reports on the letters that are sent to president obama from the american public, ten of which the president reads every night. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thanks, guys. appreciate it. um, i hope nobody who's here was here browse reading because if you were, this is going to be like a total disappointment. brad sings -- yeah, exactly. brad sings, he takes requests. you guys would all leave immediately if i tried to do that. i appreciate you guys coming. there are a lot of people here who have been supportive of me during the whole process of writing the week, people who edited, people who traveled out to montana to read pages on our couch out there and people who helped with my reporting, so i really appreciate you guys being here and showing your support here again tonight. so the idea of this book actually was, it was sort of borne out of frustration. and the idea crystallized for me the first and only time that i flew on air force one. i'd taken this job for "the washington post" where i'd been working for a while where it was my assignment to write

. >> eli saslow's new book, "ten letters: the stories americans tell their president." .. link is absolutely everything. you start how many words, how many letters. you have to compress the length. there are a couple things you can't do with that land. hard to tell narrative story. takes time to set up. hard to do in-depth reporting which by the time he set a scene you have 600 of your 800 words. a calm compared to that is one idea and you hammer that idea. i tried to use michael's more negatively. try to tell a story. it is really compressed. with a book you can spend a couple years on something. you develop a more in-depth knowledge and can do it in a more narrative form with more natural thinking and you can do a bill better capturing the climate of something with a column that is pretty much who is doing what and very specific. we are influenced by culture more than personality or individuals so you concur try to capture more culture. >> host: we'd want to focus on your columns later but let's begin with your books and whether the vote you have written or read, what ma