. >> elaine showalter, professor at princeton university, profiles american female writers from the 19th century through -- 17th century through today. ms. showalter recounts the writing careers of harriet beecher stowe and many others describing the objections that female writers had to face throughout history. this program is a little under an hour. >> back when i was a new ph.d. in 1970, i edited my first anthology. i don't even think barbara knows about it. this is it. this worn-out little red-covered book. it was published by harcourt brace, and i think it was the first textbook for feminist criticism that had ever been published. i got to do it, i was a new ph.d., by was in my first assistant professorship job, and i felt a tremendous sense of responsibility doing this book to my projected readers. when i did it, putting together the list of texts that i wanted was really not very hard especially because in those days i didn't even know of that many. but i got a real shock when i sat down to write to copyright holders for permission to reprint the authors' work. i had wanted to inc

they noted that elaine showalter had been dropped from the book. one of my proudest moments. although, my transcripts students reacted to this as if i had been host from an elite club. they were most distressed and felt that it was a shameful experience for me to be exposed in that way. anyway, the anthology is about the art of the possible, like politics and of the things. nonetheless, i am very happy with the way this book turned out, and i am excited to think that readers will be able to find astonishing work, moving work, finding work by writers who will be new to them but who i feel should be recognized as important figures in literary history. i hope they will also be able to recognize some of the genres and styles that are characteristic of american women's writing. for example, the table or allegory, form used by american female writers from the 18th century to the present including writers as diverse as katherine sedgwick, kate chopin, mary austin, shirley jackson. i could go on and on. i want to conclude by reading one of these fables that is quite short called she

[applause] >> author elaine showalter discussing her book "the vintage book of american women writersat politics and prose bookstore here in washington d.c.. is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? e. melisa booktv at c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. speonk debris 16th of this year, the borders bookstore group declared bankruptcy. joining us now on booktv to discuss the impact of this bankruptcy is sarah weinman, who is the news editor of publishers marketplace. misalignment, how did worters get to the point of declaring bankruptcy? >> guest: well, i think it has been a long time in coming. certainly the last three years in particular as quarter after quarter borders has been losing money. they have also gone through a number of management changes, especially at the top. they have gone through i think something like four ceos in the past four years. but this story can also date back to the beginning of the 21st century i suppose, things like outsourcing their web site to amazon in 2001 and they didn't reclaim it until a 2008. their e

. >> elaine showalter professor emeritus at princeton university. profiles female american writers up to today. describing the obstacles that female writers have had to face throughout history. this program is a little under an hour. >> back when i was a new ph.d. in 1970, i edit my first anthology -- i don't think barbara knows about this. this is it. this worn out little red cover book called women's liberation and literature and it was published by harcourt and brace. i got to do it. i was a new ph.d. i was in my first assistant professorship job. and i felt a tremendous sense of responsibility doing this book to my protected readers. when i did it, putting together the list of text that i wanted was really not very hard especially because in those days i didn't even know of that many. but i got a real shock when i sat down to write to copyright holders for permission to reprint the work. i wanted to include sylvia plath's celebrated poem "daddy." you probably all know that poem and i wanted to include two other poems by plath. i was really going

. >> author elain showalter discussing her book ads and politics & prose bookstore. is there a nonfiction author you would like to see featured on book tv? de moss portrayed us. >> next, at arthur ainsberg presents his book "breakthrough." elizabeth hughes, the discovery of insulin, and the making of a medical miracle at the new york university school of medicine. this is about an hour. [silence] [silence] >> multiple setbacks which fortunately culminated in insulin being purified and made available to diabetics have your the discovery of insulin by frederick banting, at charles best represents one of the greatest medical advances in history. the development took about two years. today in the drug takes 10-15 years to navigate, development, and regulatory the bill. the costs associated with developing the drug is also increasing dramatically. a new drug often exceeds a billion dollars in costs. insulin costs $1,400 to discover. i have all the invoices. $250,000 to develop the product -- process for mass production and clinical review. for me this story is quite perso

[applause] >> author elaine showalter discussing her book "the vintage book of american women writers" at politics and prose bookstore here in washington d.c. is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? e-mail us at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> well, there's a new online enterprise just starting up, and it is called the washington with independent review of books. david stuart is the president of this organization. mr. stuart, what is your organization? >> well, it's a group of writers and editors and similarly-minded people mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the shriveling of book review space in sort of the standard media. a lot of book review sections have been folded, they've shrunk, and it's just harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days. coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the old judy garland/mickey rooney movies where they say, let's put on a show. we decided, well, we would create

. >> elaine showalter profiles american female writers from the 17th century to today. :

[applause] author elaine showalter discussing her book "the vintage book of american women writers" atpolitics and prose bookstore here in washington d.c.. is there a nonfiction author of book you would like to see featured on booktv? e-mail us at booktv at c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. in saudi i break i did take five and half years to write this. my wife or minded me repeatedly. and it was really a labor of love. it is about an organization called the epidemic intelligence service, and a friend of mine went through this and told me about it. first he sent me an e-mail and he said he was to write it. i wrote back and said, thanks sandy, what is the eyes? i don't know what it is. when he told me it was the epidemic intelligence service i thought wow, this is nonfiction. there really is such a thing as this? it is part of the cdc. it began in 1951 in the middle and i will show you the guy who started it. let me see. alexander lang muir was the head epidemiologist at the centers for disease control at the time it was the communicable disease center. it has always been the