right so this is a book about transformation kafka is a big part, visible and invisible in the way that the book is written and imagined. but even at a more simple level than just kafka, it is a book about people's lives being transformed. yeah, i mean jules epstein, who you described, wonderfully he is a man who all his life has been certain, a man of absolute authority in the world, a successful attorney, and in the wake of his parents' deaths because what an extraordinary thing to lose that which made you, to now be in the world without that which made you. in a sense he begins to think that deep question that sometimes comes up in our lives, no matter what age we are, what if i was wrong? what if i was wrong about the certainties on which i stake my life? and so late in life he begins slowly to kind of turn toward the unknown, i suppose you could say he turns toward that realm which he felt he neglected which is the opposite of the material realm, it's the spiritual realm. but there's something remarkable, because everybody goes through the experience of losing people close to them,

you know there's a real need for -- you know economic book on a climate change and wouldn't it be great if x person wrote that book. and so you're writing to people that way being somebody write an op-ed seeing something? public books. writing to those authors and saying hey, wouldn't it be a great idea you worked on this kind of project so whole variety of -- way in which we can get books into the pipeline. >> and sharon, i'm thinking about public books where you're trying to reach beyond the academy a little bit. what are -- i'm curious about what you think now i think both of you probably working on your third book. but, so whether we're when did you think, you know, i want to reach beyond the smaller audience into a bigger audience and how does it play many your miepgd what about kind of publisher you would go to? i suppose, i mean, every writer looks at that list, and afternoon fantasizes about list that fits themes beg. but i think that it is often a process of discovery with editor editor is end as well as peer reviewer and public kition good at identifying audiences you hadn't y

i love the feel of a book. i love to look at the beautiful object of a book. you know when i read on a screen it is too much like work. so i really, when i, when i can just sit there with a book i feel like i can finally take a deep breath and know that i'm going to enter a new world. so, as long as i'm around we'll be selling books. believe it or not on our website you can buy electronic books. but it is not something we have a lot of takers on. still the book is. the book is paramount in our stores. cspan: did ebooks hurt your sales? >> i think originally they did. i think originally ebooks did. now what is happening is be publishers don't b have that sae kind of revenue that they had from ebooks. so it is hurting them as well. very similar to in film when happened with similar in film what happened to the dvd, lack of a dvd the film studio could sell the dvb after the film came out but that doesn't happen as much anymore. cspan: peter in corona, new york. what are youk. reading? >> caller: thanks for taking tha call. at the present i'm reading principles and

what you know is that a book always starts off in your mind easily accomplish a bowl. i'll just type it up, you know. [laughing] but that book sox actually. the book that's in your head that you know every facet of the, eat you just type that went up, it's a disappointment. why is this? i have a little trio of montrose i like to talk about this. one is by the great -- he says in an essay writer is a person who embarking on her task has no idea what to do. the second one which, any kids here? here a little -- are i cleanedp just for you, sir. if you start out to write a poem about two dogs making love -- [laughing] and to write a poem about two dogs making love, then you wrote a poem about two dogs making love. think about it. [laughing] probably not too much. then einstein, always the smarty-pants, did the elevator version. he said the very profound things that apply to science and art. know where the problem is every -- is a resolve on the plane of its original conception. if you have graded get about x and you march into your office and write that book, everyone is bu

great book and it's a great book right now because of the world we're in and the issues that are before us. and i'm trying to understand, even having read the book and having thought about what you must have been thinking about, how did you know that we would be having this conversation? - i love that you're asking that question, because the world has changed so much in the course of - just in that time. - yeah, while i was hanging out with these students. - you started writing this book and researching this book, it's the 2015-16 school year that is the guts of the reporting. - right, so to sort of bring us back to that moment, that summer was the summer that the syrian refugee crisis kind of moved on to the front pages of our newspapers. it had been happening for a while already, and the iraqi refugee crisis had been happening before that, but without a lot of news coverage. and i just knew that we were hitting record numbers of refugees and displaced people in the world. my parents are immigrants to this country, and so i was moved

but in art, there's always a problem at the beginning. with this booki knew it would be a hard sell. my responsibility as a writer is to make it's all of the difficulties are in difficulty. another was just making difficulty because you can, i am not interested in that. the brooks main goal is emotional. so anything that is weird or heard about it, it has to serve the emotion of the book. and i started to you know when you get that first third shape just right. and i spent 70 hours on it. then your reaction might be, and i think a lot of people have this, i don't get this. but i am intrigued. i am going to keep Ãoh! but then now, i don't get it. that was the game. so the idea is that if you do something in the beginning enough it will pay off in the end. so i wrote for the two years and i showed it to my wife which i show everything first. and we have been together 30 years. she knows me, she knows my bs, she knows my virtues. and usually she does not, like i said that mexico book. she was absolutely right. so with this book i started to assure me about

it is a tough challenge for a reader, this book. u even put a puzzle on the frontispiece, which is like an entry test for gchq. something encrypted. you're saying right from the beginning, look, i hope in a good way, but you're going to have to work at this? yeah, absolutely. and it's actually not the only puzzle in the book, it's just the only one that announces itself right on the front page. how do you go about planning a book like this that is full of ambiguities, double meanings, people who come and go in terms of time? it's extraordinary complicated. very difficult to plan in advance, i would have thought. yeah. in fact it was impossible to plan in advance. i didn't really understand what i was getting into when i started it. i had a direction and then i sort of dived in. but what i have to keep doing was write a piece and then write around it and then go back and make sure it all married up. in a sense, it is not so much planned as it is layered or accreted, like a rock formation. and it was difficult, but also incredibly exci

it is a book set in yorkshire but i started writing it in london, so it has a double identity. end up on the man booker short list, alongside the winning book and authors like paul auster, extraordinary. yes, it is. the enormity of it only hit me at the ceremony, because part of me had been trying to shut it down, and just take it one step at a time, but when i got to the ceremony and all those people around me, that is when it dawned on me, that my life had changed. to put it crudely, it must be encouraging, you want to write, you are doing a ph.d. part—time at the university of york. fundamentally you want to write fiction and that is not bad way to start. yes, it is a pretty good way to start, and one other thing is the short listing has done for me is allowed me to be more daring in the future. there is an issue with who gets to write, the sort of fiction that different people get to write and feel entitled to write and this short listing allows me to be brave in the future, i hope. fiona mozley, author of elmet, thank you very much. thank you. sunday turned out half decent

if you donate $15 the texas book festival will each match a donation with a book to rebuild a library affected by harvey. one book equals three. you are funding very many important initiatives. i will be the moderator today. i'm the author of a book called college football in the politic of a race. i am joint appeared enjoyed appear today i'm very excited about this. she isn't invested a reporter. she is experienced in covering several topics. with the des moines register. and the news tribune. in creighton university. to the right. the a regular contributor to espn tv. such as outside the lines. in college up football life. you may have heard of some of those. the atlanta journal-constitution. and numerous other magazines and newspapers. the new york film festival and other organizations for his writing and reporting. thank you guys for being here. we head about 45 minutes for the first 30 to 35 minutes. we will open it up to audience q&a in a minute. for those who are new maybe had only heard little bits and pieces of it. can you tell us about what has unfolded there in the last few

and that's the point it's a book. i feel like i have to do it, it really should be done because this story should be told. but in terms of, like, if you asked me to go to a class of journalism school students and give them a formula for how to write a good story, i wouldn't know how to begin. >> host: when did you decide you were going to be an author? because you were making money on wall street working for solomon brothers. >> guest: yes. my career path, there should be something on the bottom to have the tv screen that says do not try this at home, because i don't think you can graft the model on to a literary career. i was an art history major in college, and what i first wanted to do, i thought, was be an art historian. i kind of stumbled out of college without any particular direction and landed, by accident, on wall street. i got that job that became the first book, liars' poker, really very accidentally without a great deal of intention. by then -- what happened was while i was working on my princeton thesis, w

we wrote a book. could audience. the book is called "soonish" 10 emerging technologies to improve or ruin everything and i'm kelly weinersmith. i study parasites and the other one, this guy, zach weinersmith saturday morning breakfast cereal. when we were writing this book we discovered there was a paper written in 2011 by group of undergrads at hamilton college in the kate-- the paper was called our pendant flowing hot air-- our talking head blowing hot air as if they looked at 26 different pendants and their abilities range from mostly right, but also a lot that was mostly wrong and important thing to us is that they all still had jobs so we were like we should write a book where we predict future tech because it doesn't matter if you get it right or not. we have job security than we decided actually predicting future technology wasn't particularly interesting how long it was going to be before you have a space elevator. what's interesting is what needs to get figured out and wrote a book that tells you a bit of bac

. >> now we want to introduce you to sam who's written a book and inspirational journey from self-doubt to homeschool advocate. arguare you a teacher? >> iem. i started with my children. i started in college because i was a tutor in college and that is how i learned cow killers but when i started homeschooling my kids is when i became a teacher and i would say we could all be teachers at the school system has taught us you can't teach unless you have a degree or some sort of approval of a governing body that approves you as a teacher and that is not the ca case. as people advancing their career they have something to offer and they become teachers but without the approval they've reached a certain level of success and think they have nothing to offer but because of that i think all parents could be teachers of their kids but they are denied the feeling of capability and that's why the subtitle is an inspirational daughte -- doubt. >> the school system failed him just were not educated the way that i thought it should be done and it was a hard transition for someone who's been publicly e

this is a book i hope i don't have to write. my next book, which i have to the into my publisher on first of the year is stone's rules. it is more a book of maxims that i have delineated for a long career in public life and in politics. so, it is a book i hope i don't have to write, but if i did write it it would be titled "the unmaking of the president." there was confusion about that merely -- thatm this could happen. again, and hope it is a book i don't have to write. >> have you been question or contacted by mueller's team? guest: i have not. >> they have not reached out at all? guest: they have not. i have not had any contact with any russians or those renting for the russians. as i understand it, their charge is looking into collusion by the russians in the election. any other questions they may wiki leaks org to any other matter, they can read why extensive under oath statement before the house intelligence committee, which i think i addressed those questions extensively. >> the one issue you didn't that wasas who it was

but it is for a book. i am not their private confessor. a recording or visual representation of what the relationship is. but the credibility came from the first book. knew -- iead it, they knew these folks. not an act of introducing myself. the credibility was established because of the first book. they want people to know what is going on. know, butou don't your first book -- dean -- do you know how many copies there are? >> maybe 150. it did pretty well. it is still selling. it has not been retired. it is still an active book. >> is that what you expected? >> i expected the book to absolutely disappear. i expected it to sell five copies and those would be my five copies, right? these are not the most popular wars. there was something about the first book. it did find its place and it did resonate. it was a word-of-mouth thing. it kept spreading. >> as you know eric shinseki was the army. of now he is the head of the veterans administration. here's a speech. let's get your reaction to this. [video clip] >> of the more than 30,000 suicides

and the book i want to write least is a book about fatness. on i realized it's the book i should write the most. my dad always said do something no one else is doing it if you want to achieve success. a lot of people read about fatness is perspective of figuring out their body and someone who has lost their way. like someone has lost weight and said i did it. and i thought i can't write that book yet and i want to so why don't i tell the story of my body today. without apology, just this is my fat body and this is what it's like to be in this body. >> some of the others have appeared on book tv. wash them website. >> here watching book tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. . . >> >> [inaudible conversations]

it, it's a wonderful book. eciate that. [applause] >> served, and preparations incoming here, i read a little bit about your life after the war ended little bit some reconciliation that you made through your family. i do not know if you would take a moment to share that and i know that is probably a long story but i would hear a little bit about that. >> in 1983 i was a consultant for major banks in california. and they asked me to go to japan to speak to a group. i have been on it with gina. you can replicate the sounds and the santa fe cannot replicate the smell of 28,000 bodies running in the sun. i have no use for the japanese people and i said no, i cannot go to japan i am too busy. i asked for my told my wife and i came home that night, that i turned down the trip to go to japan. she very quietly said, jerry, you never once asked me if i wanted to go to japan. [laughter] being a dutiful husband, in 1983, i found myself in japan. and i was completely overwhelmed by the culture, the education, food, scenery

a treat to hang out with. cspan: chris matthews 'latest book, bobby kennedy, a raging spirit. thank you for your time. >> great honor to be here at the book fair and with you. c-span is great. thanka you. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon. good afternoon. great. i hope everyone is enjoying the fair, yes? [applause] that's great. a few more of our fair-goers are coming in but we're going to get started in the interest of time. i am malou harrison. as many of you know very, very pleased to welcome all of you to miami book fair and to this next session. miami-dade college is very proud to bring this book fair to miami and thehe community that come to this miami book fair each and every year. as you know the fair would not be possible without the collaboration and the support from many, many volunteers, actually hundreds of volunteers, many of whom are students of miami-dade college, and also students from our local high schools, middle schools, as well. so we're tremendously grateful to, our young people for the support that they provide and being so generous with their

this book in some ways is a new book because there's a lots of clang in the last 20 years. >> was it your idea to update it or the publishers, did they come to you? >> the publishers approached me about it but i was thinking about it because i wanted to write a book for young people of the 21st century. >> why are all black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? >> that conversation is really a conversation about identity, identity development which unfolds in adolescent. one of the things we know is that racial group membership is an important part of identity particularly for young people who are targeted by racism in our society. sitting together can be a source of support, it can be a way of finding affirmation of identity, a way of providing a buffer against the racism of the society that's impacting you, but when i talk about this book, i always like to underscore the fact that it has a long title. really the book is about understanding of what racism is on our society, how it impacts all of us not just african american use but children of all backgrounds, people of all backgr

all over the city to find a book so, it has been a very long time.>> as soon as you walk in, qc black brown faces everywhere which is refreshing. i came here today because i wrote a book. i worked my first book -- i wrote my first book and i wanted to see if i could get into some local bookstores. >> young says it is just the beginning of their chapter, one month after opening. >> over the next month or two or three, i think people will be even more amazed about what we are doing. >> reporter: wusa 9 . >> that is awesome. not so awesome, what you could >> yes, it is going to be wet. vandenberg. space x launched falcon 9 with 10 satellites and this is going to help airplane travel. >> is this real speed video? >> this is what it looks like from the launch tonight. it was a planned space x launched. pretty cool stuff. and let's show you what is going on tonight. our forecast is 56 for your high. i did not hit my forecast and i was off by one. we will take that 57. tomorrow, 64 and that is almost 20 degrees above average. we don't do that very often but it is going to be one of those ver

>> is a lot of interest here to sam has written a book called beyond kids and inspirational from self-doubt to advocate. argue a teacher? >> iem. >> how did you become a teacher? >> i started with my children. i started in college because i was a tutor in college, with calculus and that is how i learned to essentially did when i started homeschooling my kids i became a teacher but i would say we could all be teachers. the system has taught us you can teach unless you have a degree or approval of a governing body that approves you as a teacher and that is simply not the case. i think people as they advance in their career, they understand they have something to offer and become teachers without the approval they reach a certain level and feel that they have nothing to offer. but because of that if i relate it back to the parents i think all could be teachers of their kids but they are denied the feeling of capability. and that's why the subtitle is an inspirational journey from self-doubt to homeschool advocate because i doubted myself. >> did you start your kids in public school? >> through

child wants to read a book about gaming? no. to get reading and to like reading. for these children, the message has already got through. if you go on a gadget, you've got to be absolute, you'll be too tempted to, like, play a game. it's peace and quiet and you don't have bright shining at you. this christmas big sales are expected for philip pullman and david walliams, and jeff kinney, author of diary of a wimpy kid. but some christmas stories remain timeless. merry christmas to all and to all a good night. time for a look at the weather. storm caroline continues to dominate. bitterly cold air continues to come down from the arctic, and a wintry theme looks likely over the next few days. before that, let's take a look at the rain in the south—east at the moment. some of that is quite heavy, with decent spells of sunshine behind across wales and northern ireland, a rash of showers continuing through scotland and northern ireland, turning increasingly wintry as we go through the latter stages of the day. temperatures fall away. s

in a way from two earlier books. one i had written a biography of hawthorne, to me, hawthorne was a very elusive 19th century figure because it seemed as though he belonged in the 17th century. a couple of things about him were so out of keeping with our stereotypes of hawthorne. he met abraham lincoln, lincoln had more important things to do then me a delegation from massachusetts who was presenting him with a list, something hawthorne found very amusing. said hawthorne was -- he said lincoln was the home latest man that he is ever seen, and that slippersaring shabby when he met the delegation from massachusetts. he liked him for his wise and kind look. praise to me because you mustn't forget that one of his dearest friends was franklin pierce. you may have forgotten, because franklin pierce is not exactly a name to conjure with these particular days. he was a southern sympathizer, which is all you need to know for the purposes of this talk to think of hawthorne, being friends with franklin pierce. that's what i used

it's a book i hope i don't have to write. but if i did write it, i would title it the unmaking of the president. it is based on my concerns. there was some confusion about that piece. again, i'm merely predicting that this could happen. it's a book i hope i don't have to write. michael: have you been questioned or contacted by mueller's team? stone: i have not. michael: they are not reach out to you at all? stone: they have not. we talked about this. as i understand it, their charge is looking into collusion by the russians in the election. any other questions they may have pertaining to wikileaks or any other matter, they can simply read my extensive under oath statement for the house intelligence committee, which i think i addressed all of those questions. that michael: you did not address in your testimony to the house was who it was that was your intermediary with julian assad when you begin tweeting over the summer that wikileaks was going to be releasing damaging e-mails about john podesta and hillary clinton. that indi

well, who was massey and so we did a lot of research of the book and a lot of-- by rhett edwards, forng and what role did she play. all of that, we wanted to include in the book and we felt it was important to include the storm-- a sort of left out history to put it back into american history and american letters. lastly, i will just to say we had a champion in the canon, professor robin kelly who without him there would be no book, who championed this book from the very beginning, wrote a wonderful introduction and made it possible for the book to be published. >> wow, i was thinking about that i love listening to you talk and it always reminded me of things when you're talking about that mccarthy era and i hope i am saying her name rights , late professor here josephine who was actually one of the nicest people to me when i first came to george mason and she told me about living through the mccarthy period and she said that she was purging it-- was from virginia, white woman and she said they would get in their cars and drive out someplace to talk because they were constantly concer

andy weir, author of "the martian," is back with a new book. and a job interview where you bring your spouse. thoughtspot's ajeet singh will explain why. our reporters, jon swartz now with barron's, and heather somerville of reuters this week on "press:here." ♪ scott: good morning, everyone, i'm scott mcgrew. i appreciate all of you watching, but i really have one person in mind this morning, amy mek. good morning, amy. how are you? amy has a twitter account, there she is. she posts largely anti-islamic messages and she tweets a lot, on average 24 tweets a day. she also indicates she's part of the rair foundation, that's resistance against islamic radicals. now, here's the thing. it is hard to find evidence amy mek exists. if you do exist, amy, please let us know. we have direct-messaged you, we have tried to contact the foundation that doesn't seem to exist either, and we've run your name through all kinds of powerful software that journalists use looking for you. now, general michael flint seems to think you exist. he's copied you in on a numb

so it took me a long time i wrote my first book at 40. >> and a from that amazing beautiful book you have had such a long writing career across so many types of stories, fiction, nonfiction memoir, and i wonder how does that process change for you over time? >> well, my writing has changed but the world has changed also. if i would try to buy house of the spirits today nobody would publish it because that style, that kind of book is no longer what people want to reads and world is not like that anymore. also, i think that my writings are effected by fact that i have lived 30 years in this country in english. so i live in english, but inside everything happens in spanish. so fiction writing is always in spanish. i cook many spanish. i pray when i pray which is not often. i count in spanish. i make love in spanish. i would feel redig tangt pangting in english could you imagine? so -- yeah, so the essential things happen in that -- in that realm which is very chilling unfortunately. snches is there a difference in fiction and mon fiction if so how? >> i have written two very personal mem

buy a book, you're supporting the author, the festival, and a great local indy store and also helping the texas book festival as a nonprofit entity, pure student to mission of support low income schools in texas with author visits, book donations via the reading rock stars program, and to fun grant ford libraries thought the state. the festival is running a benefit of -- book drive benefit this weekend to raise money to help rebuild texas libraries damaged by hurricane harvey. that program works like this. when you go to the cash register to check out and purchase your books, simply tell the cashier you'd like to donate an additional $15 to buy a book for a reading rock star student. the tbr and the talker foundation will match donations to rebuild a library affected by hurricane harvey, and so you can see buy one book, kids in texas and the library system, three books end up going to help people. all of this should make it quite clear exactly how your purchase can make a difference so thank you in advance. the book signing will take place down the street after the investigation. now

host: he ended up writing a book, conscience of a conservative.e was your best man, and your .ife is catholic put that into context for folks today about how do you deal with this, and how do u.s. a catholic do with this? mr. edwards: i think you have to deal with charity, with love, with forgiveness. that bob -- many a night we were at his home where he was at our home listening to records of old jazz and popular music, talking about politics, talking about goldwater, we had no idea that homosexualityhe was a serious drinking problem as well. those two combined. we have a saying in the catholic church, and i am sure it is not just only in our church. hate the sin but not the sinner. accept, we don't believe that homosexuality is a natural thing, but at the same time we are not going to cast out into the darkness the person who may engage a map. that.age in i still admire bob and the things he accomplished. im proud to say he was there at our marriage and still kind of a friend. host: what would be the possibility given the change in environment t

we met a couple times and it was reunion prompted by the book. stanley parker, when somebody would happen to him in vietnam, he would use a c ration box and scribble notes and mail it home. he wondered, this he knew was a story he might have to figure out some day and, when i met him he had had biography and some autobiography and monographs and letters. he had all of his letters. they're actually, some are in the book. this was very rich material. >> he sent those home to whom? to -- >> well, to his parents and to one of his girlfriends. >> was he sort of writing for himself or for history as much as to them? >> he was just writing what happened. >> yeah. >> hey, we're going to win this thing. >> right. >> and then, you know, two months later, you can not believe how bad it is here. so. >> set the stage for tet that is what the set up, the action of the book is. what was going on in vietnam in and out of that recon platoon? >> so the reconnaissance platoon, all of us in this room, we might be almost a platoon and 1/2, our job would be to leave th

sutton also has written a book on the civil war

by a minister called lloyd douglas. the book'ssion" >> it's the story of a small town lake george, new york state, where the richest-- son of the richest 20 or 21-year-old boy was drowning and a beloved doctor, dr. hudson was dying of a heart attack. and the fire department had one resuscitator, they served the young man and the old doctor died and then thousands and thousands of people came to his funeral. and his family discovered a journal that he had kept and had it translated from the code into english. the opening lines of that journal said do something good for someone else every day of your life and tell no one what you did because by talking about it, you might lose the benefit innered to you or to that other person. so i would suggest to everyone find a way to help somebody, find a way to do something for somebody every day, even if it's a smile. the four professions that i admire in america are the three who put uniforms on, and the four teachers in schools would learn a subject and give themselves a way in using that s

why don't you share, the book has a number of examples. arthur's struggles. we think of them, those who knew him and those of read about them, success, and men who enjoyed success after success after success but in your book it's clear that wasn't the case. tell us a a bit about that very human side. >> it's actually, it's one of the things that he outlines in his own memoir that he does tend to smooth over the struggles which he's had. on one level it's also very smooth the like, a surprise when he still in his 20s, harvard professorship, special assistant to the president. another pulitzer prize. he has a record of success that is enviable, but he's in a very nice public school doing very nicely when he's a boy, but his parents are very ambitious and they shift him up two years and he goes from being somebody who plays baseball and sports and is one of a normal kind of boy to suddenly being the kind of a little squirt. he talks about how that's the age were start wearing glasses and is not very sporty. and he struggles school. it goes to his parents put them

this is a really a book that i thoroughly enjoyed this weekend. i was looking up about you and since most conservative writers in general life end up having a wikipedia page that makes him

i p t twenty going to get a book i don't think. tells them to and i make us feel i'm telling the famous potato. this is deja vu news live from berlin a surprise announcement from the leader of germany's social democrats the party that holds the key to breaking the political deadlock after september elections martin chill says he is no longer ruling out a.

i think it might be a very needed book to get some balance. host: last question. n who has lived on this earth since 1932. i don't see any change in you, what is the secret? mr. edwards: i think the secret is genes, being careful what you eat and drink. it might also be getting on the treadmill as often as you can. also being responsive to god's i thinkalso being responsive to god's plan for you. -- i think also being responsive to god's plan for you. i really think god has a plan for all of us. host: the name of the book is "just right: a life in pursuit of liberty." our guest has been lee edwards. thank you very much. mr. edwards: thank you, brian. ♪ ♪ for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. "q&a" programs are also available as podcasts. >> if you enjoyed this week's "q&a," here are other programs you might like. the pulitzer prize winning author about her book "iron curtain." about the final years of ronald reagan. and robert service about leo trotsky. you can search our entire video library at c-span.org. here o

any writer can write a book if you have a body in the trunk. [laughter] everybody gave me some ideas and i collected all of them but i used only a few of them. but then when i started writing i didn't really get the book together until the state of new york and the whole state was almost paralyzed for three days, perfect for a because i had a quote that i knew was going to be like the spread of the book and it was in the midst of winter i finally found within me an invincible summer and i was going through one of those emotional winters at that time. waiting just give it a chance so my book was going to be about that. about people caught in a storm for three days with a body because it's frozen and i would have three days until at the frosts and in those three days i could write a lot. [laughter] i'm glad you mentioned the body. >> it's not a crime novel. i had it on page 20 so the reader was expecting a crime novel and was very disappointing because that isn't what the book is about. thebut they moved it to page 100 center by the time you get

>> well that's a complicated question i cowrote a book. and coed ditted a newspaper called the exile that was designed to be a sendup of the american ex-patriot committee we actually had a goal of being the most defensive publication in history. our idea was there was actually at one point a sterical idea in the book which was that of the americans who were coming over o who were pretending to help, and by day we're offering to bring the american way. by night we're actually taking their huge consulting fee and going to clubs and -- partying and sleeping with russian women and it was a total back so we were -- the idea was to expose all of this. and to talk about the corruption of the community. but we pretty quickly became the very people that we were trying to satirize and got caught up in that community and -- you know the bock that we wrote the exile, details some pretty ugly things and some things that, you know, i would be ashamed for my kids to read. i will be ashamed someday. for them to reads i have three young sons. and there's a

you can watch them on a website, book tv.org. schematic way just a moment let some of our folks get themselves seated. i have some minor chores to attend to, so i will do that while they are getting a seated, which may help us. first of all, as you will mail please turn off your phone's. that's chore number one. number two, went to remind you that no flash photography is permitted during either of the presentations. as is usual, after the presentation there will be a book signing in the lobby and you are invited to bring your books and have them autographs by our distinguished authors and finally, tell your friends and if you want to hear it again you can listen to this and all of the program at the library on the library podcasting you can find that at free library.org. so, having disposed of a couple of chores that me welcome you to the free library and introduce myself. i am at murray live in and in a way i'm kind of a library junkie i live not far from here for many years and spent many long hours and as i look across the audi

you know it's about a guy writing a book. >> hesaid, yeah, yeah, but we've got that covered. normally you might supposed that what you would see a series of scenes of fellow with paper and what a writer goes through when he's struggling with the process of bringing idea into a form that will actually captivate readers and i think that susan has done a terrific job of imagining the actual interesting things that go on inside a writer's head when, what a writer is really doing in most cases in forming a novel is running a little movie inside her head and then if i understand -- finds the words to get that in paper where people can appreciate it and i think what you see in this film is a very accurate -- and very entertaining, i have to say representation of what charles dickins, goes in one ear and out the ear, a genius like dickins, names, incidents and memories and profound experiences of life and finds a way to weave those all together into a narrative, well n case this turns out to be one of the most popular books ever writ

leader, famous ,hicago and -- chicagoan somebody i'm trying to do research on, trying to think about a bookroject on, particularly as it centers black people running for the presidency. , 1972 atesse jackson the democratic convention and then later on in 1984 , there would be no obama. here's a little video. -- jackson split from the leadership. in 1971, 4 operation bush. hiring blackre clerks. said, you're going to have to somehiring african-americans or that is set. >> in 1979, he's got. here to jackson came support. is one of the most courageous leaders in the united states. >> i am somebody. he founded the rainbow coalition to fight for equal rights for everyone. that same year, jackson ran for president. he came in third in the democratic primaries. in 1988, he ran once again. [indiscernible] andhen the returns came in 2008 and obama was on stage -- jackson is a baptist minister and civil rights leader. junior served in the house of representatives. [indiscernible] ♪ clip] deo >> that is a very favorable video clip of jesse jackson. on the projects, they called him messy jesse. but, th

historian if we step back, a very popular book, there are parts of it which are very effective butas a historian, you would have to say it is not effective in the way earlier books like the age of jackson or 1000 days are. >> before we go to question and answers, volume iv of the age of wisdom is like the holy grail of this book. how many times you have arthur saying to somebody this book is the next thing i'm going to do, like a book about kennedy. why do you think -- there was some pop psychology, too much fun at parties. as his biographer, his biographer, this is an intellectual biography and the story of arthur's rivalry with ted. why do you think he didn't finish volume iv? >> you are right that he constantly refers to it and a part of you, just let it go, let it go because when he takes up the white house job, he says i want to get back to the age of roosevelt and constantly talking about it, it is not laziness, because he writes the imperial presidency, he writes many more op-ed type books as well, i think it is too -- two things, we all know when you write a book there is a

>> joining us now is the former senator and offer his book neighbors and arm arms in amerin senator's quest for disarmament in a nuclear subcontinent. first what is the amendment you discuss in your book lacks >> it prohibited aid to the military relations with pakistan nuclearveloped a weapon. it was enforced by president george h. w. bush and pakistan paused but then bill clinton came in and lifted the amendment because there was a series that we worked on as partners and i believed it wouldn'they believee in the continent today. if the united states had been a main proliferator of the weapons and then pakistan schooled them to north korea with approval so we had been a major proliferator of the nuclear weapons before we get into this octopus that you g referred to where did you get into this issue that developed? >> of the senate foreign relations committee i got enmeshed in this issue in the 1970s i was first interested in the u.s u.s. house i served 2 years in congress and so this was a great interest at this time nuclear nonproliferation because brazil was in the process of developing nuclear weapons but

but let me read to you from a part later in the book where there's a lot more interaction going on. what i like about this part of the book and why i want to share it with you is that it has a lot to do with language and as a writer and a lover of words, learning more about something other languagesod theother langn the room was super cool for me and a great joy. i will just read this and you will understand what i am trying to say. with the advent of spring as more and more interactions took place, i find myself able to appreciate an entirely new fashion how all the different languages represented in the room converged in ways i hadn't previously recognized. i glimpsed this one afternoon in the middle of april while sitting. from tajikistan when she showed up, they couldn't find anybody in the building so she was often found lost wandering the halls and a security guard would bring her back to the room. anyway, she is close to the language and arabic are related and they were able to figure that out. one afternoon in the middle of april while sitting with them they were talking abou

i had a couple of other books as well. and now we get to this book. i actually have been writing and noticing for a long time these political murders, and in fact i was thinking today that it's been almost 20 years since galina, the -- i talk about in the second chapter of my book. she was a deputy to the parliament and she was gunned down brutally in st. petersburg, and at the time i wrote a piece for the "washington post," and i said, they will probably never find who killed her, and sadly i was actually right. mr. putin had just then become the head of the fsb, which is the kgb successor, and it looked very much to me, when i did some more research interest it, that at the very least the fsb had given a wink and a nod to go ahead and get rid of her. one thing she did was she advocated -- a real democrat and she advocated that people who had worked for the kgb and the communist party would not be allowed to serve in the yeltsin -- anywhere in the yeltsin government. of course this wasn't very popular. and she also was quite outspoken about all the co

book. i have a copy hereafter. we'll talk about the availability of is in our book store and captain yellin will be available to autograph copies of the book. you you share experiences as a fighter pilot in the pacific during world war ii. i think to start with, and although the book ends with it, but walk us through that last mission. the last fighter pilot. the last mission, august 14, 1945. >> we -- iland on iwo jima on august 6th the day the atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima. the prop was still spinning and they told me we dropped one bomb, wiped out a city. i said what are you drinking? i want some. hard to believe. but it was true. and then on august 9th, 1945. the second bomb was dropped on nagasakiment we thought the war was over and would not fly anymore mission. that point in time i was going with 15 guys who were killed. never thought about them as being dead. they were transferred. we'd see them again some day. were called to a briefing on august 13th, a room this size, 100 plus pilots. and told we're