. >> charlie: our friend, the late christopher hitchens, wrote eloquently about his illness.e also wrote about dickens. i think the last thing he wrote. >> one of the extraordinary things that he could be in a hospital room without access to books and just have this retentive memory to summon up dickens but one of the one of the things about dickens is the way he stays with us as a writer. if it's your profession there's an extraordinary shelf of books which as we were saying, you know, you can find endless contemporary references in them. as time has passed the strength of that body of work has made him really i think the english novelist. remember that even shakespeare had the period when people thought he wasn't that good. his plays were burglarizedded by mr. bodler, given happy endings and romeo and juliette not dead at the end. that was a bit of a downer. even shakespeare has a slump before he's established as the national poet and playwright. dickens too. we're at a point where if you're a writer in the english language you must know about dickens. >> charlie: dpik ens

by christopher hitchens, and we have gotten great reviews. a lot of coverage from the media, and actually just been named to several best-of lists, including barnes & noble, amazon, publishers weekly, hudson booksellers and i hope for more. >> what else have you published? >> in october we published a book called "the one room school house" which lays out a radical vision of education in the future of america, and the marriage of traditional classroom and digital technology, employing them in a way that flips our traditional model of education. >> by the way, carn appeared on our afterwards program so if you want to watch that author, type in his name. long history between 12 and christopher hitchens. >> long history. we published christopher, "god is not great" in 2007. a number one "new york times" best seller. after that book we published his first memoir, followed last september by an essay collection called "arguably." also went on to be a best seller, but together under extreme circumstances. he was very ill at the time. we hoped to pub

in "mortality," christopher hitchens presents his thoughts and feelings diagnosed with cancer. the editor of thomson reuters digital profiles an extremely wealthy group of individuals which has unprecedented political and social influence in pluto accurates. in "the social conquest of earth," biologist edward o. wilson argues that group selection is the reason for human evolution. steve cole, president of the new america foundation, investigates the power and global influence of exxonmobil in "private empire: exxonmobil and american power." for an extended list of ligs to 2012 notable book selections, visit booktv's web site, booktv.org or our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. >> booktv continues now with diana furchtgott-roth. she takes a look at president obama's green jobs initiative and argues that it hurts the economy. this is about 40 minutes. >> good afternoon. i'm howard, vice president for policy research at the manhattan institute. thanks so much for joining us. the question of of whether and how government, particularly the federal government, directs tax dollars t