Booktv continues on cspan2, television for serious readers. Booktv recently went to capitol hill to find out what books are on the reading lists of members of congress. What are you reading . It is too big to say. Im in the process of five different books. I pretty much finished one of them. The latest one, grant by ron chernow. You talk about what informs my work in congress. It is vitally important to understand our nations history, to understand both the victories and the challenges we have faced in the past so we could make better informed decisions and i love as a military guy looking back at conflict and what led us into those conflicts and how we came out of this conflict a stronger nation. Grant is one of those books. As i read and learned the role my state of ohio played in the civil war and holding our union together, grant, lincoln had three prominent ohioans that encircled him. Selma chase was his secretary of treasury, 23rd governor of ohio, grant became his fighting general, sherman from a little bit outside columbus, ohio, became one of grants righthand guys and sheridan from outside columbus, general sheridan, another righthand general that played such a prominent role in bringing a decisive conclusion to the civil war and avoiding any more bloodshed than we had so i enjoyed reading that book. I just finished reading 13 days by Robert F Kennedy looking at the cuban missile crisis. I was reminded i was born i dont think any of you were but i was born during that age and i remember the National Tension around the cuban missile crisis and most americans do not have an appreciation for how close we came to a Nuclear Holocaust between the 2 great superpowers at that time, the soviet union and the united states. Had it not been for john f. Kennedys digging deep, looking at alternatives, looking at other options other than the obvious, who knows where we would have been as a nation and i think we owe president kennedy and his Brother Robert a great debt of gratitude for having handled that situation the way they did. Im also reading pioneers, the latest by david mccullough. My Little Community where i live is the first settlement in the Northwest Territory and the entire book is about the move west and how we wound up in ohio so it is a great book, interesting to look at the maps in this book and see the very street that i live on today and what it might have looked like back in those early days. 1787, long time ago when ohio, when marietta was populated. Big big big deal for that. Im reading a couple faithbased books too. A book called peace with god which is Billy Grahams book, he wrote it in the 50s. Had a couple additions to it so i am reading that and the book by pastor tony evans, chaplain for the dallas mavericks, was the chaplain for the dallas cowboys, a big church in dallas, texas called america, turning our nation to god and i let you from washington to lincoln to john f. Kennedy, reagan and i think our current president they all acknowledged the role that faith played in their decisionmaking. There have been times in our nations history when we needed to be on our knees. Lincoln talked about it. I am so often times given to my knees because im overwhelmed by the fact that i have nowhere else to turn. We have some issues in our country today. What the responses of other members of congress by searching what are you reading, booktv. Org. Booktv, television for serious readers all weekend every weekend. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for this hearing of the joint economic committee. The American Economy is thriving. The current economic expansion is the longest in u. S. History