baker in houston in 1930 and holbrook 1941 holbrook a democrat, student of foreign policy. their lives had different trajectories but they both ended up in washington. picking up on that, this is a man with great ambition and even before he came to washington. he was expected to do great things. he had a very dominating father who imparted on him the legacy of his family. one thing they were not meant to do his politics. they break away from his father's domination and at age 40 he suffers a great family tragedy. his wife dies of cancer and the tennis court helps pick him up from the george hw bush on a whole different odyssey that put them in the center of world events. >> host: george i'm going to be going back and forth because the stories of the books are so rich we could go so many different directions but i want to try to weave these together. george packard, i use the word complicated and it doesn't begin to do justice. why didn't you want to write about him and talk about his ambition. what drove him and the fact of the first quarter of the book is about vietnam. >>

talking about the biography of richard holbrook talking about the biography of richard holbrook . .

i began my book about holbrook in the voice of a novelist. even though the book has 35 pages of notes and it is as accurate as i could possibly make it, beginning holbrook yes i knew him as if you're about to hear a long yarn by racketeer who knew holbrook. that is the voice that carries the entire book. he gave me a ton of freedom to do things that traditional biographies don't do. but always within the guidelines of the contract with the reader is that all has to be true. so i tried to make it sound like just a great yarn that you would want to sit down and hear through storytelling. >> united talked about this a little bit before. i think it just succeeds marvelously but we were on the show together is great fun to talk about this. just one thing i may come of eisai think in the early pages which i thought about it would be fun to talk about a little bit, i am paraphrasing i did not have a chance to read this before he came on. you say something like only infection can we ever get to know a person, deep inside. i've thought about that beca

hannah holbrook is a first year student at sheffield hallam university. it's lovely to see you.s been like? i am in sheffield hallam halls and i am studying events management and i moved injust nearly a week ago now. this first week has been strange. but also a good strange, if that makes sense. it has been nice having the freedom and independence but also we have all the rules and restrictions it has not been what everyone was hoping it to be like. bit homesick? not yet. not yet, no. how did you react when you read today that maybe you would have to stay there over christmas with a load of people you have onlyjust met? that was not something i was expecting to hear. not something i want, i don't think any of the other students won't either. it is going to bea students won't either. it is going to be a difficult one. the guy has just said, he might, they don't want to say that but they will not rule it out as a possibility, for me, christmasjust would not be christmasjust would not be christmas if i was in this tiny little room behind me christmas to me is about spending it with