. >> now joining us on booktv to preview the upcoming new book, best selling author, bill bryson, one summer america, 1927, the name of the book. why "1927"? >> i stumbled into it really. i was always fascinated by the fact that ruth hit 16 home runs and the atlantic in the same summer, the summer of 1927 so i had it in mind that that in itself made it an interesting summer, that two iconic events happened in exact parallel, and maybe it was interesting to do a dual biography of the two guys with the narrative arts meeting in the summer of 1927. that was the starting point. when i looked into what else happened in 1927, i found that those were only just two tiny parts of the much greater hall. there was other stuff happening that summer, the great mississippi flood that year, the biggest natural disaster in america history, and you had al capone, the beginning of the end of al capone, the down fall, and, indeed, of prohibition, and the information that prohibition was coming to an end. they started building mount rushmore, and calvin coolidge announced he didn't want to run for reelec

great crowds who turn out for it. >> bill bryson, on the macro level, calvin coolidge now rending, al capone, was there some pain happening on the macro level as well? >> the economy was very interesting because the economy was booming and it was overheating if any. this is really a matter of herbert hoover in particular who was worried that he was overheating. he was right to be worried about it. the federal reserve, for central bank errors and central bankers scrape the, france and germany all night and had a secret meeting in long island not far from ireland or it had taken off a couple weeks earlier. they decided very, very mistakenly to cut the interest rate everywhere, which is what will they let to the crash the following year and the great depression that followed after that. >> that is just a quick preview of bill bryson's new but coming up october 2013, "one summer: america, 1927" you are watching booktv on c-span 2. >> here's a look at works being published this week: >> for the 2013 roosevelt greeted festival, discusses her book up to. this is about half an hour and start

. >> host: and other historian very popular bill bryson. >> guest: yes. he's going to be coming out with his unique blend of history and personal recollections with one summer america 1927 which looks at that one year the one country and looks at it from a number of different vantage points. ricin is i such a joy to read some no doubt this will be no different. >> host: sub five is there a trend towards taking a year in writing a book about it? one of the jfk books as dallas 1963. there is another new book out 1941. >> guest: i think it's not necessarinecessarily even so much a year but just looking at a very specific time. sometimes it can even be one day. i believe there's a book coming out that the "washington post" feature writer gene weingartner and it won't be a for a while. this will be looking out one day and one year history and i think it's because looking at something that such a micro level allows for greater extrapolation at the macro level. you can look at the larger swath of history by zeroing in and seeing how a smaller amount of time can

spent another historic, bill bryson. >> yes. he's going to be coming out with his own unique blend of history and personal recollections with one summer, american 1927, which looks at that one year, the one country alexander from a number of different vantage point. he's always such a joy to read so no doubt this will be no different. >> sarah weinman, is there a trend towards taking a year and writing a book about it? i know one of the jfk books is a dallas 1963. there's another new book out 1941. >> i think it's not necessarily even so much the year much as looking at a very specific time point but sometimes it can even be one day. i believe there's a book coming out by the "washington post" feature book writer, it will be out for a little while but is will be looking at one day in one year of history. i think it's because looking at something of such a micro level allows for greater extract relation than the macro level. you can look at a larger swath of history by zeroing in and seen how a smaller amount of time can really i