i can see abigail adams sitting and clutching her scorching hot cup of joe, john adams saying sit down and drink your damn coffee, woman. she really was the brains of the outfit. my mother is overworked, tired, but her still solid body stood hard as a rock. i'm not going to cry, as a tear falls down from her face. don't cry, mom, don't cry. [cheers and applause] >> that was her first time ever. yay! and up next we have indiana telepenova. >> a recipe for water. start with the color magenta, a burning asphalt, of beach ball sighing out its life, a garden grown on accident after accident, add a father painting shelves on the cove, a pinch of guilt, statues of isabella butter flisse -- butterflies, and extinct alpha betts, a teaspoon of autumn leaves, a shepard playing with the winds, some animal begging for snow. mix vigorously like the mountain mixes up its slopes. preheat the bed of a star to -- 240 light-years away. thank you. and next is -- [cheers and applause] >> next is robin black. >> hi, robin! >> oh, ok. i had to know. this is called "eviction notice." the police turned us away

." >> next joseph ellis recounts the 1200 letters that john and abigail adams explain throughout their over 50-year marriage. the letters provide an understanding of the adam's personal relationship as well as an extent the discourse on the politics of their time. joseph ellis discusses his books in washington, d.c. the program is just over 45 minutes. >> i'm not going to read to you. i'm going to read a few passages. i'm going to talk about for like 25 minutes and then have questions. everybody is busy. got complicated lives. and then we'll do signing and get out of here. and this was the most enjoyable book i have ever written to write. i had fun -- it's not the right word. but full illment in trying to write this book in a way that hasn't been true for the other eight before it. eight, that sounds like a lot. i think it's partly because i've never written a love story before. and it is a love story. and it's a love story written across a rather consequential american historical landscape. but here's the way i put it more cogently perhaps. all of us who have fallen in love try to rai

next pulitzer prize-winning historian joseph ellis and recounts the 1200 letters that john and abigail adams exchange to throw out there over 50 year marriage. the letters provide an understanding of the addamses personal relationship as well as an extended discourse on the politics of their time. joseph ellis discusses his book at politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c. the program is just over 45 minutes. >> i'm not going to read to you. and going to read a

. >> abigail adams, abraham lincoln, does she feel like she has something to prove?a little bit. she has such a platform that no one else in politics has right now. to a certain degree, she has to be careful not to overcompensate because her appeal is to the middle class, average american who feels like washington is out of touch, has failed them. i think there's just a lot of anger. not just about ideology or big government, failures of the elite to, you know, take care of the middle class. to create economic prosperity and to run a government that is functional. and she taps into that. >> let me ask you that, i don't want to misinterpret what you're saying. but does she have to keep it at that level or do you buy the argument that a lot of people are making. she has to go pretty quickly if she's going to run and she has to get some sort of platform in there. she has to start talking about politics. >> chris, i think it's amazing that she threw out the bait and you guys, the media, just bit it. >> it's all about us. >> i'm serious. if you look at the line of politic

the equipment that the children and grandchildren are leased by abigail grew up to have to portable lives. the children raised by john adams play of the family members growth to have a great life, john quincy was raised abroad mostly and other grand children away from abigail so i wonder if you could comment on that and what you have to say to that. >> some talk about the child-rearing issues, and as a parent, one of my children is right here, who, you do your best and then who knows how it turns out. what you said is partially true and partially misleading. abigail herself worries that all the children up to a certain stage are raised without a father around a lot. she talks about that. they developed an impression of their father as a result that wouldn't sexist if he was there mainly as some extraordinarily heroic almost beyond human figure. as a bumbling idiot about certain things and then he takes john quincy to paris and the second to paris and amsterdam, he takes charles the second time, to matt. of the four, adams children it is really disorienting when you are writing about them because as you are reading about ab

there's stuff that's written -- there's a book called, well it's a book about the adams tennessee what sort of dumps on who abigail as a mother. i don't think that's fair. i think it is imposing to set a 28 and 21st century standard. wim abigail's children come to live with her and quincy, abigail says, you know, my standards for child rearing are different than yours. they are more austere and severe, but i have to recognize that that's a different kind of thing. and most of the grandchildren in dub equally horrible. i mean, george, the grandson from home john quincy, could suicide. the other kid dies youthful. so it's not a romance. it's not -- it's got all kinds of horrible things in it. i know people want to get out of here and maybe buy a book, and so -- >> if you want to a answer all these questions, you've got to give shorter answers. [laughter] >> absolutely right. you get me going. i mean, there's too many things -- we will take one more question and then we will handle questions as we -- is search. >> i just finished reading founding brothers, and i am struck by the fact it seems to me you do not like th