times" festival of books, jonathan waldman. [applause] my opening question for you and his wife a bigger threat to the united states military? isis or rest.row that [laughter]hi >> there's a guy in the pentagon would like you to throw that question not him. he is their nation's highest -ranked rasta official.. he has been fighting a goodow fight for about 10 years now. he is making friends on the hill with a lot of politicians. and among admirals in the navyvy whose day we can't keep going the way we're going, losing ships to rust. we can't lose them fast enough. he would date clearly i tried to say i did read in the look that rust is greater than all other natural disasters combined. think about it this way. our most abundant element is attacking our most important material all the timeso everywhere. you say there's a ship yard up in northern california full of rusting naval vessels. the mac it was there. i think they're slowly gettinge rid of -- with the name of thate the reserve fleet. >> that's a nice way of putting it. >>

times festival of books jonathan waldman. [applause] >> thanks. >> is finish -- so my opening question for you is what is a bigger threat to the united states military, isis or rust? [laughter] >> there's a guy in the pentagon who would like you to throw that question at him. he's our nation's highest-ranked rust official. [laughter] he's been fighting a very good fight for about ten years now. he's making friends on the hill with a lot of politicians and among admirals in the navy who say we can't keep going the way we're going, losing hips to rust. we -- ships to rust. we can't build them fast enough. he would say it's clearly rust. i try to stay away from proclamations like that, but i did write in the book that rust is greater than all other natural disasters combined. and people this weekend have asked me, i don't get it, a book about rust. i said think about it this way: our most abundant element is attacking our most important material all the time, everywhere. so isis is not bad. [laughter] >> and you say there's a sh

so let's start with jonathan waldman. this is his first book.jonathan waldman -- [applause] [laughter] jonathan studied writing at dartmouth and at boston university's knight center for science journalism. he's written for outside, the washington post, "the new york times," mcsweenys, the utney reader. he has worked as a forklift driver -- i want to get this