mr. brookhiser his successor only later to change his mind. manhattan institute sponsored this event and the harvard club in new york city hosted it. it's 50 minutes. >> this is the first time i've given a book talk where half the people in the room are in the index. laugh layoff [laughter] >> you all looked at the index. yeah, you did. you really did. let me begin at the beginning. i met bill buckley by writing for him. i grew up in new york, a suburb of rochester, a midsize upstate city with my parents and my older brother, bob. in the fall of 1969, i was a freshman in the local public high school. i didn't know anybody who went to private ones. my brother was a junior at yale. every weekend the school year since he had gone away to college i wrote him on a small black metal typewriter that had belonged to mom, a letter rehearsing the events of the week. basketball games, school plays, little triumphs, tiny disasters, bulletins of adolescence dramatized and ironyized. one week the news barged into this home theater. opponents of the vietnam

mr. brookhiser, please forgive our slowness in dealing with your manuscript.t somehow got buried on my desk. this, i would learn, action was standard procedure. priscilla buckley, bill's older sister and managing editor, and i have read it and weçó want to publish it. anyone who submit something for the approval of the world expects in somee1 corner of his mind that he will be approved but when approval actually çóca, it was startling. the world2od public events which included the media that reported on it, was out there, and now someone from out there had signalled back. to contribute to freight expenses. the idea that i might be paid in addition to being published was icing on the cake. about the time the check arrived, i began getting letters from readers. there were 20 in all, which would be a small response in the days of e-mail and texting but in 1969 when each of these communications had to be sealed, stamped and dropped in a mailbox, it was impressive, all the more to someone who had never gotten a letter from anyone he did not know. i know why the ass

mr. brookhiser please forgive our slowness in dealing with your manuscript is somehow got buried on my desk. this i would learn is actually standard procedure in journalism. [laughter] ms. buckley bills older sister, we have read it and are eager to publish it. he added, we do receive manuscripts from people your age but i am sure this will be the first we have never published. anyone who submit something for the approval of the world expects in some corner of his mind that he will be approved. but when approval came it was startling. the world of public events which included the media that reported was out there. now someone from out there had signaled. more surprises followed. my article appeared in the issue dated february 24, 1970, one day after my 15th birthday and it was the cover story. moratorium the day at a high school written by a student. the next surprise a few weeks later was a check for $180. [laughter] a question of money had given me some anxiety. it must cost something to print magazine did distribute them perhaps i would ask be asked to contribute to help defray expenses

mr. brookhiser was the recipient of the national humanities medal in 2008. for more information, visit the author's web site at richard brookhiser.com. >> this summer, book tv is asking, what are you reading? >> congressman cullberson, what are you reading this summer? >> i always have two or three books going at the same time. one person who i always read on a regular basis is thomas jefferson. frankly, a day doesn't go by i don't read something he has written. i will continue to work my way through his letters, in particular, mr. jefferson wrote so much that although i probably spent the last -- my gosh -- 30 years reading through this works i've only made it maybe about halfway through. so i will continue to work on reading thomas jefferson's letters. i always had a particular fascination with history so i will continue to read works by a number of different authors. one i'm working through right now is james mcpherson's book on lincoln's role as commander in chief during the civil war, which i have found particularly relevant to the debate going on today

mr. brookhiser was the recipient of the national humanities medal in 2008. for more information, visit the author's website at richardbrookhiser.com. ♪ >> this summer book tv is asking, what are you reading? >> senator mitch mcconnell, what's on your summer reading list? >> well, i just finished a couple of books i would highly recommend. john mecham's biography of andrew jackson, which is fairly recently out. it's a fabulous, sort of different look at andrew jackson from previous biographies that i've read of him and i've read several. it really focuses mostly on his presidential years and also a good deal about his personal life, how important his family was. his wife died right after his election and so was never in the white house. but he had a collection of relatives who served as advisors and sort of supported him and this really delves deeply into their relationship with him and also the infamous -- what was commonly referred to as the peggy eaton matter, which was the wife of one of his cabinet members who had been maligned similar to the way his wif