and gave me, i think i understood cus kerr far -- custer far better are from reading tolstoy's writingthe ray. and he talks about a character who is just like custer. i felt like thousand i understand him -- now i understand him. sometimes it's what i need, sometimes it's just for pleasure. when i read nonfiction for fun, it's often a field i never do any work in at all. so i love classical history. i'm never going to write about ancient greece or rome, so it's fun to read about it because i have no idea wheney

and gave me, i think i understood cus kerr far -- custer far better are from reading tolstoy's writing, the ray. and he talks about a character who is just like custer. i felt like thousand i understand him -- now i understand him. sometimes it's what i need, sometimes it's just for pleasure. when i read nonfiction for fun, it's often a field i never do any work in at all. so i love classical history. i'm never going to write about ancient greece or rome, so it's fun to read about it because i have no idea when they're completely wrong. >> it's interesting that you bring up tolstoy, i was talking to the executive editor of "the new york times" the other day, we were talking about afghanistan, and someone had told him and he then read it and agreed that if you want to read one thing to help you understand afghanistan, it was tolstoy writing about chechnya, of all things. i want to go just a little bit deeper into the question of why you choose what to the read to get at sort of a fundamental be question, why we read. i was at my own book club last year, and we were having a heated debat