mr. john grisham. although i'm just repeating facts all of you know that the market as a person, the shorter the introduction. someone who is originally from arkansas graduated from the university of mississippi law school in 1981 to practice law for nearly a decade, specializing in criminal defense in personal injury litigation. he also served in the mississippi house of representatives from 1883 until 1990. as difficult as all of us lawyers go is to practice law, he somehow wrote every morning before the crack of don and published a time to kill in 1880. his next book, the firm, spent 47 weeks on "the new york times" bestsellers list it was a best-selling novel of 1991. two more of this book immediately claimed the number one spot on the list. the pelican brief and the client. mr. grisham has written about one legal fiction book a year. nine have been turned into movies and is also written about other diverse subjects such as baseball and aging football quarterback and christmas. mr. grisham's nonfic

mr. grisham will do it later on, we have many representatives from random house. signee, gene and gene and the rest of john's publishing team and we want to recognize you with a round of applause as well. [applause] >> and we had outstanding committee that selected this book. we had so many books nominated. we a group in tuscaloosa and elsewhere that narrowed the field down to three books and we had an outstanding selection committee. i'm going to go in alphabetical order. david baldacci who is a best selling author, his first novel was published in 1996 was an immediate bestseller. he has since published more than 20 novels and seven original screenplays with his wife, michelle, is known for their philanthropic work promoting adult literacy. he received his jd from the university of virginia. to my left and my dear friend morris dees, a graduate of university of alabama law school, cofounder and still remains chief trial counsel for the southern poverty law center in montgomery, and probably of anyone else, instead of alabama single-handedly shut down the kkk in