c-span: jane holtz kay, when was the last time you owned an automobile? >> guest: 1991, when i began this book and dispensed with the automobile. c-span: you actually got rid of it? >> guest: oh, yes. i actually was at a lecture at george washington university in st. louis, and someone in the audience said to me, 'do you have a car?' and it was kind of--the duck came down. 'oh, i'm only going to get asked this question again and again.' so i sold the car and it was a very positive experience, but i was prepared, if it hadn't been, to have gotten the car back again and written a different book. c-span: where'd you get the title "asphalt nation"? >> guest: it came to me, i think--i used the word 'karma'; there's lots of bad puns in writing a book about automobiles, but kar--my karma was--we had a working title, "car-bound," that nobody, including me, liked. and my editor asked me for a list of cars, kind of a brainstorming thing. i sent it to him. he called back and he said, 'we're going to call it "asphalt nation." ' and i said, 'oh, that's good. where'd--

c-span: here's the cover of the book--the full cover: jane holtz kay, and the name of the book is "asphalt nation." we thank you very much. >> guest: thank you for having me. him .. live tonight with red carpet interviews as well as the ceremony. there are finalists in the nonfiction category. fiction is also a category where they give an award for national book award, along with young on group -- young authors or young people's authors, and poetry. those are the for all boards that are given, plus a literary award is being given to ms. kaplan, the founder of the miami book fair international which is this weekend in miami. book tv will be live from miami as well, but in just a few minutes this room will start to fill up. we will broadcast live from the red carpet here. we will be talking with several of the authors who were nominated about their books, and then we will be bringing you on teefifteen, the entire ceremony live on our website. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] author walter mosley. >> i am going to enter this mix kaplan who is getting an award for, you know,