>> guest: there's a huge renaissance and choose one of the architects and fiction of quality fiction in this country. she was franklin who is the author of this biography says she's the heir apparent to too and to hawthorne and she creates this woman's life through her novel. it predates feminine mystique and is a stunning biography. >> host: why have a a lot of us not hurt her for? >> guest: most people have heard of or through the lottery. the lottery is one of the most famous short stories written in 1948. she was forgotten. suddenly america is filled with fiction revival and she is suddenly over. as good as a novel coming out by allen moore. what is this book? >> guest: is one of the hottest novels in the world including in america. it's coming out in september. allen moore is a graphic novel is that this is a tax novel which he worked on for 20 years. he lives a hermit like existence in northhampton angle and and he has written the story of life and the story of one family over 10 or 12 centuries. it's really an epic and it's getting crowds of people. new york, everyone. it coul

>> guest: i tend to review only fiction but we have reviewed a lot of political books, a lot of history, science, biography and we do a lot of arts coverage on sundays books about the history of film and theater and that sort of thing. >> host: why do you stick to fiction mostly? >> guest: because i don't have to know anything. >> host: is at the end of your answer? >> guest: pretty much. if you were to do a nonfiction book you'd have to be an expert in five days on the subject a critique of history as such and such were fiction i can sit back and say whatever i want. >> host: do the publishers want to have their books reviewed? >> guest: they say they do. i think they do. there are fewer book reviews around the country so i think it's one of the important venues >> host: jonathan yarbrough. guest:we lost jonathan, colleague for many many years. every week sometimes twice a week before it got to the post but we still have michael dearden though on every thursday another one of our pulitzer prize-winning book reviewers. >> host: ron charles how did you get into this business? >> guest: i

you don't -- and so it's essentially a fictional story. the family is a fictional family. however, we do use actual facts, organizations and an individual because mike mosako played a critical part. he was a very active actor in the interment story, as was the organization, japanese american citizens league of which he was a general secretary. and you can't tell the story of the civil war without having an actual president of the united states. abraham lincoln. you can have a fictional story. but abraham lincoln really made things happen. and so he is included in a fictional story. mr. roosevelt here has written a fictional story but he uses actual people that existed. justice frankfurter, justice douglas, attorney general biddle. these are actual real people. but he's telling a fictional story. and we are telling a fictional story using actual people and actual institution and actual facts. and you know, we're not a dock men tarn. i know that that criticism was made by a dock men tearian. and his job is to tell the photographic truth. we are van goghs of the theater. we c

suppose they are reading nothing but adult fiction or horror fiction, you call a kid and say, okay, isee you like horror genre stuff. the movie survives because of teenagers, often teenage girls. the teacher would say, that's fine, let me point you towards some books by steven king who is a pretty good writer. some of the early books the shining carrier are actually well written or let me tell you about this guy edgar allan poa, alcoholic genius of 1840 or robert lewis stevenson. the point is allow them their pleasures and passion and try to take those and elevate them and i have a lot of good stories, i think, about it and teachers have to keep it posted outside of the door at the moment so that there's a constant conversation of schools in the schools. what i have been trying to describe is how do you forge those links that create a lifetime reader and many variations on this, but you have to either appeal to what students need emotionally at that point in their life or what gives them a particular kind of pleasure they can't get anywhere else. those are the two things. now, i think

but i mentioned fiction. so let me share with you that regnery, for the first time in about 30 years, is publishing a fiction book this year. we're publishing a book called "liberty's last stand." 9 with steven kuntz. you know him, right? he's had several -- stephen coontz. this is a book you could say could be a foreshadowing of what we have in store if you really take a bleak view of the future. it includes martial law, a suspended presidential election, an assassination attempt and texas seceding from the union. [laughter] so this may at the moment only occur in a regnery fiction book, but it is sort of just up our alley in the regnery side. so we're excited about that too. >> host: marji ross is president and publisher of regnery. thanks for your time. >> guest: thank you so much. good to be with you. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week. author and filmmaker dinesh d'souza asserts that another clinton presidency will fundamentally change the country for the worse in "hillary'

there is a role that science fiction plays. he talks about the first time, part of the speech is written by a collection of science fiction writers from california. so we are seeing a blending of fiction and policy with that when you debuting this program to the world. the fact that kennedy decides to use star wars to label it speaks to trying to tie it to a certain type of saying it is a fantasy. everyone loves star wars. you probably shouldn't label things with popular movies. >> last question. >> my concern is with the -- who won the cold war. the chicken hawks won. the idea of nuclear war, you light the board with a match after the first few games, chapters play out. when i played the game in europe and when i did it at the pentagon, somehow the chicken hawks win the cold war. we have nuclear weapons. the russians are out there with nuclear weapons. we had a chance to disarm. what was the lesson that we should have learned from the reagan period? was it that the clancy idea was correct? or was it that gorbachev, pope, solid

. >> host: what about fiction? what about non-historical fiction and fan fiction? is there relaxation reading for you? >> guest: , well, my favorite piece of fiction is all the kings men. i mean, i reread it last summer and i was just astonished. i had forgotten how good it was. he is a gifted comic gifted writer and he wrote that after world war ii. it's a little racy for that time. he won a pulitzer prize for it. it is so intricately put together in characters and you can still see jack murton and you can know who they are and see the family difficulties in the pictures of life in louisiana. that is such a powerful book. another book, which is not fiction that i have been reading for months as te lawrence's book called the seven pillars of wisdom. that may sound kind of strange. but this was lawrence of arabia. this is a book he wrote about his time in the desert that they are in the world war i time. according to his practice, he didn't take notes and then he lost the first draft or to workout burned up and he still wrote it. if you've read the book, it has all

the story is fictional. there are pieces of it based on my life and experiences, the way in which samantha goes about investigating the case, representing her clients, using media, uses twitter and all the rest of the current society, legally as well as socially i try to make it as realistic as possible. >> host: social media in 1994. what would that trial have been like? >> guest: i cannot even think about it. it scares me. that kind of high profile case with twitter and snapchat and instagram, it is mind-boggling. you would never hear the end of it and even as it was during that trial, fax was relatively new back then. we don't even use them anymore but back then it was new and it was an office machine. no one had a personal fax. and they were blowing up fax machines. we were getting thousands of faxes a day from people commenting. it was crazy. i can't imagine social media but what i can imagine is with our cell phone technology at the very least thinking of scientific advances we have made in the last 20

he also likes science fiction quite a bit. so one of the books he most fondly remembers reading is the john carter series. so he likes those books. that printer of hue dells, which is a terrible book, but it's a book that he credits with kind of reinvigorating his spirit. i haven't been able to prove this yet, but i'm confident he read and high line actually contributes to reagan speech and introducing sdi. it's likely that reagan read the third world war, which is kind of the precursor to clancy. in a lot of ways it's similar to world war 3 scenario, written with a degree of realism. but his best seller but doesn't have the lasting success that clancy's work does. he's also known to like thrillers when he was reading in the white house. i forgot the air force one being taken over and that kind of stuff. so in general western, science fiction and thrillers were what he would go for. >> he was consistent? >> oh, yes, absolutely. >> thank you. can you clarify your dependent and independent variables? i was a foreign aerial offic

since i have been writing fiction less so. people less and less define me that way and some even, the younger ones don't know. and the author. i love that. a lot of people do. a miniseries on fx came out. people have reinvigorated interest in the case. a lot of people associate me with that. more and more coming to associate me also with being an author and writing crime fiction which is great. >> host: did you work on the fx series? >> they didn't consult any of us at all about that series, i had nothing to do with it. >> host: what did you think of it? >> guest: i thought it was great. it was phenomenal. incredible. >> guest: true to life? >> guest: i can't speak for all of them because i didn't know them that well but from what i did know of them, true to life, very well done, certainly sterling brown did a wonderful job and sarah paulson, marco my god, she did amazingly, how she did this i don't know, and feeling on the inside, don't know how she news at. it is incredible what she did. >> host: how has your writing changed

fictional the family is a fictional family. facts,, we do use actual organizations, and individuals, because mike masoka played a critical part. he was a very active actor in the story, as was the citizens league of which he was the secretary. you can't tell the story of the civil war without having an actual president of the united states. you can have a fictional story that abraham lincoln really made , so he is included in a fictional story. here has written a fictional story but he uses actual people that existed, justice frank berger. justice douglas. iddle.ey general b these are real people but he is telling a fictional story. fictional story using actual institutions and actual facts. i know that criticism was made by a documentarian. his job is to tell the photographic truth. goghs of the theater. we capture the essential truth of that experience. [applause] in the middle, can we pass the microphone? >> i want to thank you also. japanese-american buddhist temple and one of the offerings in our library is a book called "

he also likes science fiction quite a bit. so 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. don't find it and read it. it's a book he credits with kind of revig 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. it's very similar to "red storm rising," a world war iii scenario written with a degree of reism. it's a best seller, but doesn't have the lasting success as clancy's work. he was also known to like thrillers. when he was reading in the white house, one about air force one being taken over and that kind of stuff. in general, westerns, science fiction and thrillers are what he would go for. >> thank you. can you clarify your dependent

, and to me "star trek" is real science fiction. wars" takes place in space but seems more science fiction to me. it's space opera. >> it's true. it's been classified as such. but i think science fiction indicates a kind of intellectual pursuit, like an ideological exploration of where we're going as a civilization, as a species. >> stephen: exactly. i think science fiction is an outgrowth of the enlightened idea of a perfectal humanity. >> which sometimes translate tro boring. ( laughter ). >> stephen: not in this case. >> not now. but when i was a kid and that original series would come on, i would be like uck-- don't get mad at me. >> stephen: i'm not mad. i'm baffled. is it the the production-- is it because it's a bubbly green monster, and they go, "look, it's pure energy." >> and they're smashing computers that were clearly made out of cardboard. >> stephen: but in the future we can make computers out of cardboard, don't you understand? >> we can 3d print them out of anything we want. >> stephen: the original, gene roddenberry

let me move from fact to fiction. here's a fiction. george bush created isis.ll right, you're going to begin to see a pattern in my facts and fiction here. fiction, george bush created isis. it is simply false to lay all of this at george bush's feet. yes, there were strategic and military missteps that helped create the problem that we face today. but the problem that we face today predates george bush in some way, by some measures more than a thousand years. george bush is not responsible for the existence of a persistent jihadist universalist, expansionist strain within the islamic faith. that is not george bush's creation. it is not bill clinton's creation. it is no american president's creation. in fact if you looked at, if you watched usama bin laden as he spoke after the fall of the twin towers in 2001, a awful lot of you guys were pretty young that occurred, so i doubt you were like surfing the web for bin laden speeches at that time. let me fill you in on what happened. he gave a speech shortly after, released on videotape, more of an interview, descri

>> it depends on the book with fiction is important i don't think it is the central sometimes politics our review driven i do think we have seen smaller factors in the way that we publish him promote books like social media where people can enter into their homes with the book club with these programs and i know nothing about. [laughter] so the physical traveling of an author from town to town is less important than they used to me. >> what else? >>. >> the history of the caliphate it is particularly important right now that is one that we spent a lot of time talking about with first al qaeda and now isis event kennedy at the university of london in this is his effort to establish the caliphate as it was a and the history of an idea and there is an obvious reason holds such an enormous appeal because it was a time when its long ruled the world when half a million people when london and paris may be headed the thousand, this is at the height of the power to show that was an incredible heterogeneous but there is no one policy to glorify the idea when it was led purely by the worship of g

science-fiction has always been my favorite followed by political thriller genre. >> host: does it help you in your work? >> it helps me unwind. there is a lot of reading to be done here but it is all bills and reports and nonfiction. .. c-span2. booktv, television for serious readers. kareem abdul-jabbar, searching for your book, "writings on the wall: searching for a new equality beyond black and white" you write it is as if we

one is fiction and one is non-fiction. they are still in development so i cannot say much but one is coming out in the fall of 2017. i am doing a book with a woman nam named shara hoot, a pulitzer prize winner play. it is a family memoir that is about bigger ideas and about the drug war and war overseas and class and race. it will be running on opening night for three plays she wrote each were finals with for the u pulitzer prize. she is a genius go that is going to be exciting. it happened because she read seen the world in me and was thinking about thinking about a book in the heist. she and i met and talked for two hours and she went away and wrote up a little proposal for what she really wanted to do based on that conversation and it was brilliant and we are doing the book now. i am doing a book with a guy named marlon who is living in turkey but is from syria, with the artist and journalist molly crabapple. it is a memoir of the syrian war from the arab springs to the refuge crisis and the takeover and what it was lik

the fiction writer creates cartoon figures.ls alongside a greek god figure they call their king. he is the king of nature, the animals, but the personification of blood. he and his captive animals get into a conversation with the fiction writer. yes, he is called dr. research. dr. research it turns out is actually a university of southern california english professor named frank baxter. if you went to school in the 1960's and 1970's, you are guaranteed to have seen one of his films. he had a famous series about shakespeare. he became the personification of the scientists. they interact with the animals through a magic screen, which is an interesting way to describe a screen on which animation is projected. he is the wiseguy, joe q public, voicing the concerns the audience might have, smoked cigarettes, twitchy. halfway through there is a moment where one character gets more confrontational and says, stop. both the humans are taken aback. what do you mean? he says we will not go any further unless you can tell me the two words t

to all the books of fiction and nonfiction and at the end rickey various aspects. of the publishing industry more than 20 years as executive editor at ballantine which is part of random house and then as a finalist for the national book award. currently executive editor for counterpoint press were the largest publishers in the country in one of the few located on the west coast he edits fiction and nonfiction includes work including a finalist for the national book award. [applause] >> recently had a friend call publishing the of boogie -- buggy whip a business is everything we do it degraded? that is where you would be to the of course, when you drive the of buggy so there is the thought that it proceeds at a glacial pace. we are not creating magical apps to put on your phone you can read them is called the new mossy angeles we are far from the television and movie business but we were:stories that existed a lot of places is especially if they're not buying the book because they want to watch the best rounds but that was a book.working on stori >> do they think pe

they have a similar name to a fiction restaurant called five nights of freddy's.asons only kids understand, they are calling from everywhere, the us, canada, puerto rico. , puerto rico. while we were there most of the calls were bogus. >> in my freddy? know i'm hank. >> do me a favor and don't call back unless you want something to eat - where you live did? >> is this the exception of the rule to get a real call. >> we are still getting customers although a lot of them complain that they cannot get through he's added two additional phone lines but nonsense calls just add to his busy day in the kitchen. i know how to deal with kids on the phone. i said leave it to me. he put me on the dishes. >> i am good at washing dishes. >> okay good. can we just move on i don't think anyone wants to answer the phones around here anyway. they were asking for the favorite characters. >> freddy's pizza can i help you? i'm sorry who? >> son this is a real pizza pizzeria. if you don't stop calling i'm going to tell your mom. >> you're in trouble. when you go to sleep tonight, i mean

fiction also played a role of how reagan approached policy making. sometimes he would use stories to describe the type of policy he wanted to enact. one primary national security advisor to reagan recalls that during meetings as they are discussing this cold war strategy reagan referenced gary cooper from "high noon" when he wanted a policy that would do the right thing without seeking credit or adulation. the president wanted the u.s. to be a social "citizen kane." he used fiction in more direct ways as well. this is demonstrated by "red storm rising." the book convinced reagan that the u.s. and soviet union enjoyed conventional parody, there was not necessarily a need for nuclear forces because the u.s. could defeat the soviets in a straight-up tank battle or regular fight between their armed forces without having to escalate to weapons of mass destruction. reagan expressed this connection expl explicitly to british leader margaret thatcher after reykjavik because she's a little surprised by reagan's willingness to get rid of weapons. she's talking

collection and novels to all of the books in fiction and nonfiction by david foster. at the end, dan worked in various aspects of the publishing industry for 20 years. and executive editor at ballantine he published such award-winning books as the ice harvest by scott phyllis, the speed of light by elizabeth ruffner, down to a sound the sea by thomas steinbeck and among the missing, 2001 finalist for the national book award. he is executive editor for counter point press, one of the largest independent publishers in the country and one of the few located on the west coast. he acquires and edits action and nonfiction and his project include works by neil jordan, dana johnson, todd kohlberg and karen tender, 2015 finalist for the national book award. welcome to our panelists. [applause] >> i have a friend who recently called publishing a buggy whip business. do you feel you're making buggy whips? is everything we do antiquated? >> what is that? >> it is a thing you would make to move when driving your buggy. there is a spot that is very old-fashioned business that proce

how can we pass this off as fiction?brown: now this is hemingway before he was hemingway, right? he's 25 years old at the time. >> well, hemingway is a baby when he turns up in paris, but he's an ambitious baby and he has the talent and he's there to stage his breakthrough. so many of the expats that were there at the time were there precisely that. it was an ambition-fueled town. hemingway was looking to make a big splash with a revolutionary new modern style that's stretched out adjectives and really got to the point. there was quite a journalistic element to that style also. he wasn't the only person in town doing it, but he was the one who knew that he could do it in a commercially successful way. >> brown: not only was he the only person in town, but a lot of famous people in town right? fitzgerald and gertrude stein and ezra pound. >> you've just-- all three of those people really helped hemingway significantly, and gertrude stein and ezra pound were stylistic mentors to hemingway. they weren't selling a lot of cop

netflix thing a man in the high castle which is old books, 62 word when a payday used to read science fiction when i was a kid and for some reason i did. that went. guy named philip decker who is now dead. i just finished up a biography of roger sure no's wonderful book on washington which is a fabulous book of boy it's long. >> booktv wants to what you are reading this summer. post zone our facebook page facebook.com/booktv. >> george dickson is the publishing director of blue scary. what is blue saberi? >> blues berry in the u.s. is a division of the will of lounsbury worldwide publisher so the u.s. division founded in 1998. bloomsbury company was founded in 1986 and the first harry potter novel layup opened in the united states and the publisher the adult division here. >> host: a kind of books to publish? >> guest: we publish about 110 books a year largely nonfiction. we do 20% fiction put a lot of history and politics and current events, food related books, popular science, those are the four areas and publishing memoirs as well. >> host: who want to catch up with you at the publishing c

. >> watching the non-fiction authors on booktv is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span they can have a longer conversation and delve into their subjects. >> booktv weekends bring you author after author that spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> i love booktv and i am a c-span fan. >> congressman, jerry connolly, what are you reading? >> just for this richard reaves book on president kennedy, profile and power, excellent book. a delight to read. brilliant prose, little gossipally and rather critical of jkf but the maturation of this man and his brief time in the oval office, nonetheless, pretty admirable. so having lived through those days as a young person it was a delight real to go back and live what through what kennedy did as president. >> host: what made you pick that up? >> guest: i went to a series of autobiographies and the last one they gave me was this and i had read the book before and i thought i might reread it. i am so glad i did. it was a delight to read. i am reading jane mayors book on dark money. that is less of a delight oo to read. not becaus

it's not just science fiction.onversations at my house. whenever we talk about shows like star trek, can you imagine -- because, like, barack obama mentioned being a fan of the eshow, that maybe this is one of the shows that inspired him to believe that he could actually be president of the united states of america. >> stephen: i'm not the first person to say she part vulcan. >> he is part vulcan. >> stephen: a very logical, very cool demeanor. >> take the creator of star trek, he was a cop and very disappointed and just moved by what he was seeing in the world at his time, that he created this concept of something of seen life to be. here we are 50 years later, and it continuously inspires people. so i do believe that art has the ability to inspire and to inflict hope on people. i like taking on that responsibility and being a part of good work. >> stephen: were you a science fiction fan when you were younger? >> yes, but not of star trek. >> stephen: okay. jimmy, let's edit that part out of the interview, please.

at the moment, it only occur in regnery fiction. but it is up ballet's. so we are excited about that, too. >> host: marji ross is president and publisher of regnery. >> guest: thank you very much. good to be with you. >> one of the big changes in the way america operates in the 21st century has contrasted to the founders era is that the founders remembering george washington's farewell speech advises against foreign entanglement and says we are going to look out for ourselves and take advantage of that gifted natural barriers, the ocean. alomar was while comes the log and in the post-world war ii moment, not only is she had a kid named for the u.s. to get involved with the united nations and the whole idea of a global community, that she is also advocating something called the universal declaration of human rights, that the kind of rights that we celebrate, individual protection and individual entitlements, if you will come in that go beyond government are not just american ideas. they are ideas that we promote, advocate, celebrate to the world. when the

a fiction book this year called liberties lasting and -- last states and. a very successful series a very political book if you can really have a bleak view of the future. of the presidential election if it is a fictional book that gives up the alley. >> president end publisher, a thank you for your help. and now. >> clicking now fathering is a way to a character but to state to have different parts some of those cuddy lot of full author marcia clark. discussion her books "without a doubt" and "blood defense." >> i'd like to give a specia >> applied to give a special thanks to all the festival's sponsors. this year's the scene this year is what's your story. you can keep the spiri you king keep the spirit going year round by downloading the application the complete sched with the complete printer's row of books festive is diluted today today's program is broadcast live on booktv if there is time for the q&a session lineup to the right to end use theast th microphone before we begin turnoff your phones are turnoff any flash. >> marcia clark. [applause] >> th

days to read science fiction when i was a kid and for whatever reason i didn't. that one and a guy named philip who is now dead, so those are the things. i just finished up about your faith of roger shindo's book but it's long. >> host: you read mostly nonfiction. >> guest: i do it mostly heavyly biography, history. i used to be a historian so that's what i enjoy but we will have some things like, and if i read fiction it's quite often. this is like i'm going back to being 12, two science fiction books basically but i read quite a bit of historical fiction lima call a's wonderful series on julius caesar first manner from and things like that lets mostly heavy history heavy biography. >> host: you mentioned you have your ph.d.. where did you teach? >> guest: actually taught as a graduate assistant and an adjunct professor at the university of oklahoma, oklahoma baptist university. that was a semester gig, todd and grenell colleges london program. that was a fun one that i got my undergraduate degree from there and then i did a stint teaching a class. i taught with

two science fiction books basically, but i read quite historical fiction and i love kathleen mccullough. mostly heavy biography. >> you mentioned that you've got your ph.d, where did you teach? >> i actually taught as a y graduate assistant and as adjunct professor at the university of oklahoma, oklahoma baptist university. that was just a semester gig, taught in london. that was a fun one. i had my undergraduate degree from there and then teaching a class, with don fowler, before i was in congress a class in national parties and campaigns at jw up here in dc and i taught a campaign course years ago at the university of central oklahoma. >> are there any historians that when they come out with a book or entire series you've read? >> look, i love anything that steven ambrose wrote. he was really -- and a lot of range in his writing. i mean, very good obviously john mccullough is excellent, excellent historian. but, you know, probably in an earlier period it was very heavily focused on british history and, you know, these were not all -- all histories but churchill was always worth readin

not bill but defeated morris, who resorted to instances of fictionalization. he didn't knee what to do with reagan. there are brilliant passages in his book but he is sort of in a way through up his hands. he was at it for many years and the remoteness in reagan, the warmly impersonal qualities of him, or the impersonality of his warmth, was very real. george will woman, i know a little bit in washington, said i think this remoteness stuff is overblown, and he of course knew reagan and mrs. reagan as personal friends. but he said, this sort of genial irishman and what you see is what you got, and he said, his he had one friend and he married her. i thought, well, how normal is that? even nixon had two friends. and mrs. reagan understood the unusual quality of their self-containment, but i think that he had -- there were moments when i thought reagan was pre possess at the obviously sill -- silly and other moments when where he was big and deep, like the character in one of john updike's rabbit books in the '80s who thinked about reagan in this way, about that

stuart, what i love about this is that it proves me wrong about political fiction writing.the movie writers, tv writers, everyone is talking about, you know, political fiction and picture shows. i've been saying you can't pitch anything until the dust settles on this trump thing, it's completely -- it's made fiction writing impossible and then i pick up this. you've done it. you've done it. >> well, thanks. listen, i think the fault lines in our politics have always been, recent politics have been very apparent. in this book i pause ted make it more credible, could emerge. in fact, we didn't need that, apparently, because donald trump has emerged. but trump, you know, just as he was a democrat a few years ago, i think he's just feeling this and speaking to it, how much he believes it, i have no idea. >> and the -- the thing i talked about earlier is the vice presidential selection. in double down, they had passages which i read on this show when it came up, yes, indeed, chris christie was vetted by your campaign, the romney campaign for vp. he did not submit everything you

your nonfiction reads with all the polls of fiction. and so you grew up flying airplanes, and where does all this aviation background come from? >> i am a eastern oregon kid that grew up next to a cropdusting strip in my little bitty hometown in oregon. and airplanes were always overhead and that combined with the fact that my dad had been trained as a naval aviator in world war ii and i was there from infancy, i was blessed and i use that word because i was blessed to be able to help restore vintage airplanes and fly them. i guess overall i have had between five and $600 flying navy airplanes from the world war ii timeframe, that has been a tremendous benefit both in the history an infection. >> i'm sure that that is -- that those who read you know you have an encyclopedic knowledge. i'm going to start talking about d-day and the encyclopedia which is an update and probably, if i work this out right to , commemorate the anniversary of the june 6, 1944 d-day landings. >> that's right, the original book was published for the 60th anniver

reading some time travel science-fiction and a couple classic robert heinlein science-fiction, depends how much time i get to read generally on the airplane. >> host: have you always been a reader? >> i have always been a reader. science-fiction has always been my favorite followed by political thriller genre. >> host: does it help you in your work? >> it helps me unwind. there is a lot of reading to be done here but it is all bills and reports and nonfiction. .. c-span2. booktv, television for serious readers. kareem abdul-jabbar, searching for your book, "writings on the wall: searching for a new equality beyond black and white" you write it is as if we invented the most precise and beautiful watch ever created and snapped it to the tail of a wild jackal. >> i'm talking about the fact that most americans don't appreciate the fact that the book means a lot, and their opinion means a lot. so they have the ability to have their voices heard and acted upon in a great democracy but they don't take advantage of it. so we have this reallydon't incredible democracy that gives the average per

i disciplined myself every third or fourth book to read something fiction. i think it is good for me. naturally you think a politician is reading history and biography, which i love, but i've got to get into it. a few years ago i was talking to someone and they said they have courses online or you can take. it doesn't charge anything. you can take a college course. so i decided i would take a college course. what do you think i took? >> host: writing. >> guest: that would've been my second choice. my first choice is poetry. i thought i've never had a poetry course. i took modern contemporary poetry and there is a professor at the university of pennsylvania who taught the sideline. what is he good. really good. i got to monitor his classes and they would then not testing much. it was a great experience. i could get the poetry online and i learned all of these emily dickinson and walt whitman, all through these different poets. i made the mistake of telling one of the people at the editorial board of the daily herald outside the city of chicago that i did this

for fiction it remains very important. for certain kinds of nonfiction it does as well. i don't think it's essential. a lot of kinds of books i do are review-driven or driven by npr and other radio. i think we've certainly seen tours as sort of smaller and smaller factors in the way that we, in the way that we publish and promote books. i mean, there are all of these other ways of promoting books now too like social media, of course, or people can do, you know, enter into people's homes in book clubs through these programs i know nothing about. [laughter] you know, youtube, etc. so i think the physical traveling of an author from town to town is maybe less important than it used to be. >> host: what else do you have coming up this fall? >> guest: on a very earnest note, i have a book on the history of the caliphate coming up by hugh kennedy which is particularly important right now. i think the word caliphate isn't one that we spend a lot of time talking about probably before 2001. and then suddenly it enters the lexicon for all of us with, first, al-qaeda and now isis t

if you weren't in fiction, everything will be made up. it will be different if you trying to do three books at once. you were in the same universe. >> which book is it today. >> okay. the u.s. marine corps fighter squad world war ii. this is really much more your level of aviation here. one thing we learned in the d-day encyclopedia, that the marines got a huge amount of worry at the battle of bellow woods in world war i. were known as the double dogs. a term i apply to my puppy. anyway, it really created a lot of jealousy and political turmoil with the army right? they weren't too anxious to have the marines involved in the european theater. >> at world war i generation of army officers almost without exception, mcarthur being the notable example. detested the marine corps. i used to know admiral tom moorer who retired chairman of the joint chief of staff. he had given a briefing in the pentagon in early 1944 suggesting that marine fighter bomber squadrons based on escort carriers in the channel in the north sea, with a brand new precisi

no superpowers, just straight-up fiction. he shopped it around, he told people i have comic book about jewish kids. nobody wanted to publish it. he went back to these same publishers and said i have a graphic novel about these jewish kids, and he was able to get a publisher. it was a about separating comic books from the genre that had dominated it for decades in american culture from superheroes. i think it's largely worked, right? the general public now has a category for comic books that deal with war, literary materials. >> host: want to get back to your mission with the library of congress. according to the u.s. department of education, 53% of children ages 3-5 are read to on a daily basis. children under the poverty line, less likely to be read aloud. how do you get parents onboard? >> guest: yeah. it's -- i get that. i'm a parent, i understand at the end of the day you're exhausted, you know? and especially if you're working multiple jobs, if you're having a hard time making ends meet. it's hard. but it doesn't have to

stick to fiction quacks. >> because i don't have to know anything. you have to be an expert in five days on this subject. i can just sit back and say whatever i want. do you want to have them reviewed in the washington post. i think they do. there are fewer outlets than they used to be. it was syndicated across the country. i think it's one of the important things. >> jonathan we lost him he retired. one of my colleagues for many years. every week sometimes twice a week before i got the post but now we still have michael every thursday. another one of our book readers. ron charles, how did you get into this. it is so my favorite job. the paper grading was just wearing me down. i thought if i graded one more paper i would kill someone. the student's mother i just went to a bookstore and bought a book off of a new fiction to. how long were you at the monitor. >> seven years. can a good review or a bad review sell or hurt book sales. there some research that i've read it as a matter of the review was positive or negative. it was just getting the cover a

what would be the possible science fiction question? i can't think of a single thing that could go wrong with that. [laughter] the jurassic park scene and from my spam point your question is a very good one and actually i don't think i'm qualified toha answer it satisfactorily but i u think that work was done by rachel roth who do that with some of the dust work being done on ptsd and that was done after 9/11 and she is just now, we are just now getting a greater sense of what that might mean. cortisol is a very common stress hormone that changes you all depending on your stress level will be elevated. it's difficult to know where that research will lead but it's interesting because her research was acceptable to could she asked important questions to holocaust survivors respond differently to dramatic images board for city and she found that they did. the idea of descendents of trauma having someone of a different response. ha thank you very much. >> back on the topic of science and journalism i was wondering if the journalist did spea

into a fictional story. and one thing i was thinking, and it was a distinctly novelistic setting. and in snow a saint petersburg, she comes back to america, the days of the republic. and i wondered what kind of strategy you used to make this biography feel like a novel and whether that was a conscious decision or not. >> the storytelling, straight storytelling. and the historical context, i kept in mind, sometimes about passionate feelings beyond what she told me. and so much about your feeling, and a lot of people, and their posterity. it was in the same way. i do think she was not the best interpreter but they were there on the page and put them in context. she gave me so much material to work with. at the same time, it was a great story. i always wanted it to unfold as it happened and so much i wanted the ideas -- didn't want this block to be undigested and we will talk about -- we are going to talk about how women were regarded. and the spoil from which the whole thing grows, rooted in that -- not really

. >> guest: not enough but the thing about reading fiction that is really interesting and i know brad thor has a book coming out soon, i think it's called or an agent and reading things, a clancy book or something like that is that you get way over there in letting the mind just go and thinking about the possibilities and every once in a while people will talk about washington and they'll go this stuff coming out there now you, you couldn't make this up and so i think that sometimes reading fiction or reading some of these comedies, these parities, it can be good because it allows your mind to just sink. >> host: speaking of washington, do you read books about washington, about the congress, kind of contemporary narratives? >> guest: not a lot. i just, i don't know. i guess i just don't have the appetite for that. maybe i do so much periodical reading, i spend hours every day reading so maybe i'm too immersed in it to appreciate that. >> host: if you were to recommend a book for your district to read for example, maybe a district book, where would you go? >> guest: i think reading the