fiction. it's historical fiction. there are a lot of real-life events and real life -- it's a little bit of a literary turducken, right? it's fact wrapped in fiction wrapped in fact. it's very hard to actually read this book, having lived those years and know what is fact and what is not. you've succeeded, i suppose, in crafting a story that seems impenetrable with, you know -- >> thomas: i would say that with the kind of fiction i write that when years go by after i've written a book -- >> evan: yeah. >> thomas: somebody will ask me about a detail, was that made up or was that factual? and i have to go back to my notes. >> evan: you, yourself don't actually know. >> thomas: it's a fairly small thing, you know i won't know. i don't write what is called alternate history fiction, which is a kind of genre fiction within historical fiction. those are those books in which, you know, the south wins the civil war. >> evan: right. >> thomas: things like that. >> evan: fan fiction. >> thomas: i stick

he also likes science fiction quite a bit.o one of the books he most fondly remembers reading when he was a young man is the john carter series. so he likes those books. a book called "that printer of udels" which is a terrible book. it's a book he credits with recon fig rating his religious spirits. i haven't been able to prove this yet, but i'm confident he read "starland troopers" and it actually contributes to reagan's speech that introduces sdi. it's likely that he read "the third world war" by sir john hackett, kind of a precursor to clancy in a lot of ways. very similar to "red storm risi rising" a world war ii scenario. it's a best seller, but doesn't have the lasting success as clancy's work. he was also known to like thrillers. air force one being taken over and that kind of stuff. in general, werner, science fibs, and thrillers are what he would go for. >> thank you. can you clarify your dependent and independent voluntaariables? i worked at the joint staff, tom secret clearance. you seem to imply that the independe

deride science fiction as a genre that doesn't have serious ideas, but i love science fiction. i think it does have serious ideas behind it. what do you think the idea behind this movie is? what would you say the idea behind this movie is? >> i know what jeff says -- >> director? >> yeah, jeff nichols, was really about him struggling with letting go of his son. so it was a big metaphor for that. >> stephen: is his son okay? >> yeah, no, no. just the -- >> oh, growing up. >> growing up and and eventually he or not leave the house, i guess. >> stephen: you don't know. >> i think he wanted to pay around to all the exhibition and leave more ambiguity, and i feel like that that's not-- i feel like maybe typically american audiences, to generalize, when it's "a" to "b" to "c," and everything is explained. but i feel there's strength in kind of more interest-- things i'm more interested in are more ambiguous, and there is no right answer to anything. >> stephen: you've become something of a-- well, you're a science fiction icon now. no, you are, you're kilo ren, an iconic character no

think he got his views from reading popular fiction? it seems that reagan was an effective leader in so many ways, but sometimes he comes across as intellectually shallow. mr. griffin: reagan is constantly using fiction to connect with the american people. we see this early in his administration. a good example comes from when he is wearing the -- ordering the medal of honor. he is talking in his speech about a mystery novel, which is also a movie that stars william goldman, a close friend and best friend at the wedding. he quotes the part of the novel at the end where a man is looking at the fighters flying off into the peninsula, and asks himself, where do we get such men? reagan answers this question, talking about our cities, towns and farms, highlighting this quality of american service. throughout his presidency, he is using fiction to show these ideas. he references his works to the american kipling. he prices fiction over nonfiction in a very strange way. as far as how much influences him, i think he uses fiction as a personal w

, it's fiction but it's actually the component parts of things that are out in the world. and you spent a little bit of time noodling around on the internet and thinking about how we can bring the real world. - [margaret] i don't want to want to be accused of having a twisted imagination. - right. - and that it's just me thinking these things up. - how much of this though is commentary as opposed to you stitching together things that you think about or find out in the world? you are often thought of as a political novelist. that you have a political agenda or that the discussions of whether it's the patriarchy that we all live under. - yeah but i don't think i have a political agenda. - you're not trying to make a point. - i just describe what's there. - right. - so if you're making a collage or a montage out of pieces of newspaper-- - [evan] right. - there is some way in which the order and the arrangement are a commentary. - right. - but the material itself is found out there in the actual world. - right but surely it's not a surprise that there are novelists who set out

that is fiction. and then, you have the black market, which probably gets or puts the dollar at a rate of a thousand per dollar and other official rates that the government has. so whatever you place your new value for the u.s. dollar in the u.s. economy, you have to think about the devaluation of five, six, seven, ten or 20 times for the price of economy. the salaries are calculated structured based on that fiction. inflation is high and people can't afford with the current salary what they need to survive. you need more than 7 minimum wages to pay for the basic goods that a family needs and then, if you make the adjustment in the dollar and in the prices that you need to do, 3,000 percent in dollar terms, then what's going to happen with the salaries. you have to some way match wages to that increase in prices and that's going to create a spiral of inflation. people can't afford to pay whatever they could later find if you made the adjustment. venezuelians are in desperate need for a transition and

how could the president using this work of fiction as research for a serious topic? arms control.ith the head of the united states's enemy, the soviet union. but many of the stores contain more than a small amount of truth. "red storm rising" perfectly encapsulated how ronald reagan viewed the cold war strategy and why he believes we would prevail. -- believed we would prevail. it is kind of a personal wargame, and the conclusions he drew from it would impact the upcoming negotiations with gorbachev. it would lead to a greater willingness to reduce nuclear weapons, but not -- and not to give up the freedom defense initiative, star wars. perhaps more than other presidents, he understood that fictional narratives have power in the policy world, and would often explicitly went public actions in policy to popular culture. i am often going to mention west point in the speech, so we will start with this. he had given a speech at graduation, and talked to the widespread respect people were expensing for the united states military. he talked about how they had shortchanged the military. a

a fictional story. has written ahere fictional story, but he uses ,ctual people that existed , the attorneys general. these are actual real people but he is telling a fictional story. we are telling a fictional story using actual people and institutions and actual facts. we are not a documentary. i know that criticism was made by a documentarian. his criticism discusses the photographic truth. emotional truth of that experience. [applause] in the middle here, can we pass the microphone to the man in the blue shirt? >> i want to thank you also. japanese-american buddhist temple and one of the offerings in our library is a and called "rice country," in that book, in the early chapters they talk about the jacl, but they explained it as the japanese-american league and i want to thank you for setting that straight, and in my mind allowing me to understand the playedion that the jacl in trying to protect the japanese-american population in the internment camps. is, i see a lot, the results of japanese-americ

he was doing really edgy, really, a lot would say science fiction crazy stuff. but he also said that everybody in the field was an amateur, and that he was really the only guy that really had the straight dope on this. that to me, that's a telling moment because all of a sudden you realize it's not one big happy family. it was around that time that i ran into andrew schwartz, and andrew schwartz is another one of these top guys. and andrew was at the time working, still is, working on motor. he was working with trying to reproduce fluid dexterous movement and the robotic arm that would mimic an approach, the grace of the human body. he had incredible, i will not say luck results, and andrew, he's one of these guys that doesn't, he's unswayed by social charms. aunties interested in measurable and is interested in results. aunties interested in science. so i really kind of kept quiet around him a lot, but learned a tremendous amount from him here and one of the things he said was everybody in the field doesn't know what they're talking about. and so at this point

even though it's non-fiction. it's such a literary, memoir. you've written books before, or not? - no, this is my first book. - what a debut, then! - thank you, thank you. i'm from new orleans, so the characters of my life and my family and my community, you couldn't even find them in fiction, so - right, not credible as fiction, not believable - not credible as fiction it was, something that was, very special to me, in a shapshot - [evan] intensely personal. - intensely personal. more personal than anything i've ever done before. people say that film lasts forever, but i feel as though to actually put it down on paper in a book is something that's going to be even more lasting. - now, you have an event that is the catalyst for this book, the katrina hurricane, which we all outside of new orleans, and outside of the area that was impacted, think we understand, we think we know what happened, and we think we know what the aftermath was. but one thing that's totally clear to me is, reading this book, we don't know a

the other thing first science fiction, it's actually one of the most common fiction things done, but that's not because it's not because it's new and different. it's because it's not as useful genre that people read. i love science fiction and fantasy, but when it's chosen, it usually because it stretches the students less, not because, not because it stretches them more. >> fiction is very rare. nonfiction is more than 70% of the the books chosen and most of those are memoirs. a lot of the titles are my journey, my struggle, my year and blank in blank. it's very me focused. >> of fairmont seem to get exposed after a year or two. it turned out to be a work of fiction masquerading into a memoir. >> so we've discussed that student engagement is a problem, my question is how do we know the problem is engagement. i think the issue is,. [inaudible] faculty are forced to research and go to areas where none have gone before and they're trying to find something new and different than. [inaudible] resulting in scholarship where students and faculty are engaged in their education. >> how much

some sort of diversity being chosen, the other thing for science fiction, one of the most common fiction things done but not because it is new and different but it is the default genre fiction people read and movies that they see. i love science fiction and fantasy but when it is chosen it is usually because it stretches the student less but not more. >> fiction is very rare. nonfiction is more than 70% of the books chosen and of those nonfiction most are memoirs. a lot of the subtitles are my journey, my struggle, my year in blank. very me focused. >> a fair amount of these are exposed as for odd. three cups of tea worked out to be a piece of fiction masquerading as memoir. >> a problem with student engagement, how do we know about engagement -- the issue is how many times have we heard publish or perish? forced to sneak out areas of research where none have gone before trying to find something new and different, and the scholarship you are encouraged to pursue in modern academia follows trends similar to the themes found in these books, trying to be different, resulting in scholarship

the other thing first science fiction, it's actually one of the most common fiction things done, but that's not because it's not because it's new and different. it's because it's not as useful genre that people read. i love science fiction and fantasy, but when it's chosen, it usually because it stretches the students less, not because, not because it stretches them more. >> fiction is very rare. nonfiction is more than 70% of the the books chosen and most of those are memoirs. a lot of the titles are my journey, my struggle, my year and blank in blank. it's very me focused. >> of fairmont seem to get exposed after a year or two. it turned out to be a work of fiction masquerading into a memoir. >> so we've discussed that student engagement is a problem, my question is how do we know the problem is engagement. i think the issue is,. [inaudible] faculty are forced to research and go to areas where none have gone before and they're trying to find something new and different than. [inaudible] resulting in scholarship where students and faculty are engaged in their education. >> how much

but i would d d this, let's dispel with this fiction that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing. he knows exactly what he's doing. this notion that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not -- >> there it is. >> he knows exactly -- >> there it is. >> that's the reason why -- >> there it is, everybody. >> we are not facing a president that doesn't know what he is doing. he knows what he is doing. [ laughter ] >> seth: that's marco rubio on a loop brought to you by vine. [ laughter and applause ] if he's the nominee, i hope he picks a donald trump gif as his running mate. in fact, i think -- there's what this ticket would look like. >> let's dispel with this fiction that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing. he knows exactly what he's doing. [ laughter ] let's dispel with this fiction that barack obama doesn't know what he's doing. he knows exactly what he's doing. >> seth: but the night -- the night wasn't just all botched entrances and rubio malfunction. it's a republican debate. so you know jeb bush is going to try to take down donald trump. specifically over do

what happens when fact and fiction mix, let's introduce to you oliver medina. a real life lifeguard. and wait 'til you hear his story of real life rescue. right near the self baywatchn monday. it was maybe about a hundred yards way from their set. and it happened towards the end of the afternoon when the rip current was strong and wide and we were table to rescue those two guys. >> reporter: and there's more. there's this cell phone video, the waves crashing and two people caught in rip currents. >> those guys would have been in big trouble because they were fact they were not only able to kick. >> reporter: you can see in the video, the lifeguards with the paddle board going out f the rest cure. we highlighted that for you. >> so how often do you see this? look here. people are wching the fim in action. baywatch being filmed right over there. you can see those lifeguard trucks and just over here right there, the beach and those real life quardz who have to spring into afntle i could see them coming mowft i have sit and hanging out on the beach until they decid

he also likes science fiction quite a bit. the books he most fondly remembers reading when he was a young man is the john carter series. so he likes those books. a book called "that printer of udels" which is a terrible book. it's a book he credits with recon fig rating his religious spirits. i haven't been able to prove this yet, but i'm confident he read "starland troopers" and it actually contributes to reagan's speech that introduces sdi. it's likely that he read "the third world war" by sir john hackett, kind of a precursor to clancy in a lot of ways. very similar to "red storm risi rising" a world war ii scenario. it's a best seller, but doesn't have the lasting success as clancy's work. he was also known to like thrillers. air force one being taken over and that kind of stuff. in general, werner, science fibs, and thrillers are what he would go for. >> thank you. can you clarify your dependent and independent voluntaariables? i worked at the joint staff, tom secret clearance. you seem to imply that the independent varia

award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction. the hummingbird's daughter in the doubles highway or two of them. he did live here for a time in the 1990s and we like to think of him as an honorary local literary hero. welcome back, luis. margaret, let's start with you. in your first book, you tell told a story that haunts me to this day about a 14-year-old choral looking out for her 10-year-old brother went across the border january 2008. she got sick. she was abandoned by the coyote bringing her group across. one of the things we often lose track of when we talk about the building of these beautiful walls on the border, these 50-foot wall of his the humanity of the people crossing. i would like you to talk a little bit about the story. >> okay, yeah.

fact or fiction. coming up next. pet moments are beautiful, unless you have allergies. then your eyes may see it differently. only flonase is approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes and congestion. no other nasal allergy spray can say that. when we breathe in allergens our bodies react by over producing six key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. most allergy pills only control one substance. flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. complete allergy relief or incomplete.

sometimes fiction turns out to be fact. and then there are stories, just a few, in which fact and fiction fuse. that's where we're going tonight. a twilight zone world of illusion and deception and deceit. follow the howling wind across a vast prairie through brief, metropolis canadians call the gateway to the north. the city whose police department stays very busy. this is detective bill clark. the city is edmonton, canada. >> today i got a call from a family. their son was killed in december. but nothing in a long career us so strange as the iose of the man who went missing and bill clark found himself in the nether world between fantasy and ilg lusion. ever seen a case like this before? >> neveroun my life. >> reporter: though when it started out, it seemed perfectly simple. a missing man. some guy just dropped out of sight. the kind of thing that tends to sort itself out once the so-called victim sobers up. >> i'm not thinking much is going to come of this. >> reporter: after clark's 31 years with the city in the highes

. >> i am glad to learn about your new book, the blue eyed doll, historical fiction. >> for young adult readers. >> based on a real thing that happened some time ago. >> based on united states 1927, when a man by the name of sydney missionary all of his life in japan, returned to the united states feeling sad he had failed in world peace. he knew there would be no world peace. so he turned the mission over to the children of the country. and i don't know how they did this without the internet. they managed to raise $27,000 blue eyed friendship dolls to send to the children of japan. they went with passports from our state department, and messages of friendship to show children. >> they recipiicated? >> they did. that was not foreseen. 58 beautiful dolls, these were works of art. real hair. amazing looking dolls. the size of kindergarteners. they are big dolls. country now. the ones that surviveed being stored and abused that way. this is a story about a little girl who wanted to be a part of the program. and the years actually span 20, from 1927 to 1947. >> anchor: what a wonderful way

charlie: your mother was a fiction editor? roger: she was the first fiction editor.rlie: then you begin fiction editor? roger: not right after. charlie: no, but you held the position that your mother held. roger: i ended up in her office. in the back of the closet, when i moved in -- she had not been there for years, and i found around thing of face powder from my mother. i told this to the therapist. said, the greatest single act of sublimation in my experience was living in my mother's office. roger: were you an athlete? charlie: i was a -- charlie: were you an athlete? roger: i was a boy athlete. but not great. i would throw a curveball, but -- charlie: they would hit it. what about golf or tennis? roger: i played a lot of tennis over the years. i played a lot of doubles with people my age and played with the same people for your. after year. you hit the ball and you knew where the next shot was going. charlie: you kept a diary? roger: never. charlie: why not? you are a man of letters. roger: never had daily thoughts. charlie: is that necessary to keep a diary? ro

the other thing for science fiction is it's, actually, one of the most common fiction things done, but that's not because it's -- it's no longer because it is new and different, it's because that's now the default genre fiction that people read. the default movies that they see. i love science fiction and fantasy, but when it's chosen, it's usually because it stretches the students less, not because it stretches them more. >> and fiction is very rare. it's -- nonfiction is more than 70% of the books chose p. and of those nonfiction, most are memoirs. so it's very much a lot of the subtitles are my journey, my struggle, my year in blank. so it's very me focused rather than -- >> there's dangers in this, too, in that a fair amount of these things get exposed after a year or two as fraud. three cups of tea turned out to be a week of fiction masquerading as a memoir. >> so we've spoken a lot about communication, this problem with communication. my question is, is what -- how do we know -- [inaudible] because i think really the root of the issue is how many times have we heard the phrase pu

we are a fictional show. although there are times when, you know, we'll shoot some sequence and i'll get back to the hotel after and i'll think, gosh, did we push it too far? did we cross the rubicon. and then i turn on the news and go actually we probably haven't gone far enough. >> that's what i mean, which is pushing the other. >> i think there's just the that it's a very interesting campaign. >> all right. ask the inevitable question, what would frank underwood make of donald trump? >> i was asked this question recently if donald trump and frank underwood were in a debate, who would win the debate, and i thought about this for quite some time. and then i said as long as we understand that there's a distinction that one of these figures is a fictional character and the other is a fictional character. i think as long as you understand that distinction. >> it's good we have a little audience -- >> like a drum roll just happened. >> you just did it. it's sunday morning. takes people a little while longer. i t

he's fictional but everything else in the book is real. so he's with duke ellington's band and he travels over with django reinhardt, the jazz guitar player. he ends up influencing little richard and singing "tutti fruity" and he backs up elvis and then elvis doesn't show up one night and he takes over for him. and he's, he's at woodstock and he's, meets tony bennett later in his life. there's all these real people who were nice enough, many of them, to let me actually write in their voices in the book. but he's fictional. >> in some ways, did he have your dream life, to be able to meet all of these people? >> yeah, i guess he did. haven't thought of it that way, but yeah, i suppose a lot of my own musical fantasies were sort of played out. he personifies what i would like my musical playing to do, except he's, frankie presto is a much better musician than i was or ever will be. >> but you wanted to be a musician from, from a young age, you wanted to be a musician. >> it's all i wanted to be. i didn't write anything until i was already wel

i started writing fiction, i was, marketing and communications freelance copy writer. and that was great when my kids use it was really flexible. and then they got older and then i started having more time. and i thought i should do the ays wanted to do because i'm gonna be dead soon. >> seth: yeah. [ laughter ] that's a goo upbeat way of looking at it. >> yeah, and then i moved to los for 25 years.5 years worth of friends, so i made some up. >> seth: right. [ laughter ] you know, i actually wanted to ask you about that as well, ew york book. >> yes. >> seth: part of moving to l.a. like being away from new york, was writhing about it a good wayit less? >> yeah, absolutely. i think almost everything i started writing was set in new york.zed that this was a novel and that i was gonna be spending a lot of time in it and that i was gonna be able to spend a lot of time in new york, i got really excited.erry picking places that i wanted to live in, in my mind a little more. >> seth: it's a great places of ell, not just the characters, but the city is very well represented he

"francis butler simkins sat down to write a thinly fictionalized memoir about growing up in edgewood." "it is only preserved today in his personal papers and longwood -- in longwood." "simkins actually grew up in the house across from where strom thurmond grew up." "simkins was five years older than strom thurmond." "he wrote about two characters, and these fictional characters follow so exactly the real life of compliments of will and strom thurmond as to make significance superfluous." "at one point, he refers to them by name." "the manuscript provides intimate perspective on will and strom thurmond and edgefield." "he describes hogg as cold-blooded in his law practice ." "he pronounced him deserving of the honorary degree awarded to him by the university of south carolina." "hogg was a man of moderation who 'refused to speak unkindly of anyone.'" "the distinctive portrait that appears is that of a fixer." "he sues lynch would county with machinations so secret, a quality that had led blease to deride him as a pussyfoot." cole blease attacked strom thurmond's father, calling him "pu