(anthony caro) you look at the history of english art, and it's pretty miserable after constable and turner and so on, and henry, somehow, was competing with braque and picasso and so on. you know, he was in that same league. and so it made people realize you can be an artist - and you can be english. (narrator) sculpture made him famous, his celebrity enshrined in wax at madame tussaud's. other celebrities bought his works and enjoyed his company. (dorothy kosinski) i actually think that one has to consider quite seriously a very intriguing dilemma, and that is whether an artist's sense of direction and value and worth is that potentially obscured by fame? (narrator) henry moore was born in the mining town of castleford in 1898. his career began in 1921 when he left yorkshire with a scholarship to study at the royal college of art in london, a bastion of academic formalism. but he found his real inspiration on the other side of london at the british museum. he visited twice a week for years, drawing objects from the museum's vast ethnographic collection, and drawing inspiration from

national book award but the other nominee including iron curtain, robert caro's the passage of power, the boy king of texas and anthony shadid 's house of stone. any comment on those? >> i admire the anthony shgadid book, i read it after he died, he was a longtime reporter for the washington post and the new york times and died of apparently related to an asthma attack while covering the war in syria. his book is a memoir, he grew up in oklahoma of all places, an american lebanese family, ended up fascinated by the middle east, became a reporter, his life mission was to try to explain this region to america which is no easy thing to do. he covered more than his share of wars and in the course of that, his first marriage fell apart because he was always overseas covering the war. the ends up buying his family's old ramshackle house somewhere in lebanon and takes a year off to restore the house. sounds like a movie almost which he does with great difficulty. his memoir blends in both lebanese history and its glorious past which was sadly destroyed through civil war as well as starting. shortly before the book came out h

his fourth volume on the lbj legacy, and robert caro appeared on q & a and at the national book festival in september. the late anthony shadid has been nominated. he died in syria while covering syria for the washington post. his wife will be here representing him, and that's nada bachary. katherine boo has been nominated, "behind the beautiful forever," about mumbai, and anne applebaum has a book out and is scheduled on our q & a show in september. so we'll be interviewing those authors as we go. we'll be watching the red carpet here as some of the authors have their picture taken. right now we want to talk to the chairman of the national book foundation, and this is david steinberger. mr. steinbergers is also head of the become group what is the national book airport. >> given to the best american books in four categories, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature, and you look at the people who have won this award, it's the pan of pantheons. saul bell wyoming. >> this began 63 years ago. do you know the history, why it began? >> it was group of people who were interested in making sure that great b

caro, the passage of power, the years of lyndon johnson, volume 4, published by alfred a.k november, and domingo martinez, the boy kings of texas, published by alliance press. and finally, the late anthony house of stone: a memoir of home, family and a lost middle east published by haughton mifflin harcourt. [applause] the winner of the 2012 national book award for nonfiction describes a world that couldn't be any more different from the world that we're enjoying here tonight. and yet it's a world with that our world depends entirely upon. the subject of this book have been patron hissized -- patronized and romanticized and eagerly ignored in previous work. in this book they appear in all of their complexity. the villains and the sometimes villains along with the sometimes heroes. the earth nothing mying behind this book reminds us all that good listening is an ethical act. stylistically, this book pretty much invents a new genre of of nonfiction writing pause the author -- because the author rivals the great novelists in developing characters and plotting the various narratives that intersect and setting up surprises and creating tension. the winner of the 2012 nonfiction national book

(anthony caro) you look at the history of english art, and it's pretty miserable after constable and turner and so on, and henry, somehow, was competing with braque and picasso and so on. you know, he was in that same league. and so it made people realize you can be an artist - and you can be english. (narrator) sculpture made him famous, his celebrity enshrined in wax at madame tussaud's. other celebrities bought his works and enjoyed his company. (dorothy kosinski) i actually think that one has to consider quite seriously a very intriguing dilemma, and that is whether an artist's sense of direction and value and worth is that potentially obscured by fame? (narrator) henry moore was born in the mining town of castleford in 1898. his career began in 1921 when he left yorkshire with a scholarship to study at the royal college of art in london, a bastion of academic formalism. but he found his real inspiration on the other side of london at the british museum. he visited twice a week for years, drawing objects from the museum's vast ethnographic collection, and drawing inspiration from