For a little bit of history in the late 1800s this area around the bookstore in Greenwich Village was the epicenter of publishers and book sellers. Charles scribners and son. Divine press, they all had editorial offices, and down below they all had bookstores to display their new books. Along 4th avjust around on that side was known as book row at its height there were 48 used book stores of which strand is the soul survivor. As the owner of the strand with its 18miles of books i am not easily phased by a thousand books, but james literary bucket list tonights featured book has stopped me in my tracks. [applause] his expansive scope is cup ltd with a delightful wit and a perfect eye for surprise detail. Never again would you have to wonder what to read next. 1,000 books to read before youy gift for anybody who likes books. And who doesnt like books. I have to say i could not think of a better person to have written a book like this than James Mustich printten grawt with a degree in literature and a veteran book seller who started his bib liophilic career as a shop affbrier Silicon Valley working for 2. 70 an hour. He has moved on as the cofounder and guiding voice for the acclaimed book catalog the common reader. Up until recently he was the Vice President of Digital Products at barns andnonal. Everybody is wondering about the future of books and book stores at the strand id like to say were going great. [applause] and were thrilled to have our friends at cspan book tv tonight. They are an american treasure whos done an amazing job at promoting incredible books. For the format tonight ill ask james questions and well open up the mic to your questions but first upon being seated i hope everybody got their lifter litey quiz. No, youre not doing it . In 2016, the New York Times challenged their readers to pass the strands literary quiz job application. Tonight, james and i have challenging you to test your book smarts with the new version of this quiz. The 1,000 books to read before you die quiz. The use of any 21st century guys is prohibited in answering these questions so no you cannot phone a friend, use surrey, google or alexa. At the end of the event james will give us the answers to the quiz, and spoiler alert, we have five prizes for this soon to be affirmed bookiest of book worms. Our top prize is a 100 Gift Certificate for the strand and tote bag with overflowing with book items including many books from workman press. And now without further ado, please join me in a big warm welcome to james mustic. James thank you nancy. So james how did this book take place . James about 15 years ago now, the late peter workman approached me about the book. He had published quite successfully a book called 1,000 places to see before you die, and that was very successful, and one evening as i recall we were having cocktails at the workmans home in connecticut, carol ann, the publisher of workman publishing is here with us tonight. And peter said, i think we should do one of those books about thousand things books about books, would you like to write it . And i without hesitation said yes. And then i hefted for 14 years to deliver the manuscript. In addition to being visionary workman has been extraordinarily patient. Peter user friendly to take me out for lunch at least every year if not twice a year and talk about you and talk about the books so i think he died five years ago so part of me i know he was fond of you so part of me thinks he must be very proud of this moment that were all together. James i hope thats the case, im sure it is. I think hed be pleased to see all the people here, and to know that so many people are talking about the book and to see such a beautiful execution of the book by the whole workman team. This was really an extraordinary effort in terms of the design led by janet who is sitting right there. An extraordinary job of design. [applause] it was almost a year ego today i sent in the last bit of manuscript for this book and the book if youve seen it its a thousand pages long. Profusely illustrated, beautifully designed and it went off to the printer in march. So between november and march there is a lot of work done and the production and everything is just gorgeous. I think peter would be disblietd did you read all thousand of these books . Well ive read the vast majority of them but as you know when youve been a book seller long enough there are some books that youve talked about so often that youre become convinced youve read them. So im sure theres a couple dozen like that in here but ive become familiar with them to write about them. You have the koran, and the bible in there, and the 9 11 report. James its a broad range of titles, but those in fact i did read. Yes. 14 years is a long time. Can you describe your process in eliminating all the 130 million books that are in print to whittle it down to a thousand books . James well i think process is dignifying the whole thing with a little more rigor than it had. But what i did at the start was make an enormous list of books. Which was several thousand. And this was books that i had loved myself, or books that i had loved selling and grown to love through the advocacy of other readers. You mentioned the catalog i ran for 20 years called which common reader, and that was a wonderful community. It was a you could call it a book blog, with a social community of readers, except al gore had yet to invent the internet so we just printed these news print cat logs and mailed them out. We had hundreds of thousands of customers around the country and they would write in after they purchased books to say that they had they were delighted to discover a certain book but also to recommend other books they thought belong would the collections that we were making. And my wife marg o, who is here. [applause] and i as she knows we still have eight filing cabinets in our basement fills with these letters thats people would send us prompting us to discover new books to put them in the catalog and bring some of them back into print. Abetted by publishing people like herman graph who is sitting there in the audience, many books we have a recommendation like the worst journey in the world was one by cherry juregard. He said herman, did you know this beak, he said no. So we got together and he did a paperback edition and we sold it in the catalog. So my that kind of reader enthusiasm for books was the critearium. It needed to be a book i wanted to give to someone and say you have to read this or someone had given to me with the same passion. It was still many more books that could be included so what i finally decided to do as a framework was to i was reading a book by edmund wilson, the great literary critic, and at one point he has a passage about the miscellaneous learning of the bookstore unorganized by any larger principle, which seemed to me a perfect rubric for this project. So i said to myself what if i only had a thousand books, and i could only have a thousand books and wanted to have something for anyone who would come in looking for a book. That helped me to narrow it down and get the right kind of range ness. I wanted the book to be fun to explore when people would open it. Not a static reference book. And you can open up a bookstore like this. James we could talk about that. We could go into a partnership. I know you said a thousand books but i look at the end of the Book Description you have try this, and then you have the audio books, and then you have other books written by that author too so you kept going on and on and on. James every book of the thousand has a short essay to give context and to be kind of invitation to the book. And then at the end of each of these essays there are end notes which has bibli graphic information when the barbecue was first published. What the best translation would be, and also recommendations for further reading. Other books by the same author or further further reading on te subject, whether its civil war, or world war ii, or football, and then also other books to try if you like that one. So also, theres about 5500 books referenced in this book. And all indexed in the back. And also i should add because i always forget to say this. Weve built a website 1000booktoread. Com which has one question at the top of it. It has my list what book everybody should read before they die. It has three buttons next to the books ive chosen and a snippet of the book itself. The buttons are agree, the second button is lifes too short, and the third button is add to be read pile. And you can all go add your own book beyond the thousand that ive chosen for this book. And theres no on the site. Its designed as a tool for stores, and for libraries. People can come in on their phones and sort the list by genre or by subject and find interesting things to read. So if you were writing a book the one book you had to read before you die james now that i finished it would be this one. For a long time i wasnt sure i was going to get there. I want to say i love your subheaders and on shelby the civil war you described it as the american ili said, and i love the 84 caring crossroad you said single white bib lio file seeks out of print companion. So you must have had fun with those. And those were sometimes they came easily and sometimes they took longer to come up with than actually writing the essay. Because its hard to write short. As mark twain said in the letter im writing this very long letter because i didnt have enough time to write you a short one. I know going back to the choice of which books did you get pressure from your daughters or wife from workman publishing to include books because everybody has their opinion, and did you feel that . James well i write in the introduction to the book that once people know youre writing a book called 1,000 books to read before you die you can never enjoy a dinner party in quite the same way again. Because everyone has their own words to put in but i didnt feel too much pressure. It was enthusiasm from everybody for books they love. So that was part of the fun of the process and for me, really part of the fun of the whole project is to promote those discussions, among readers, and among book sellers and librarians. We are just traveling around various stores and libraries across the country promoting the book, and that was a lot of fun to talk with audiences like this. And bookstores have would often have displays of the book with books from within the book in it. And i would always say to the book sellers you should have a table with books that should be tip that i left out. Because thats part of the fun. I know you went down to the strand 30eu9 table and you were checking out what the choices were and i think you had everything in the book. Those are our four favorites. Was it hard to sometimes not give the ending of the books in a synapsis of it . In the end of the affair you did not say thank you and rebecca you did not tell us what happened. James i was conscious of not providing any spoilers to the books because that would particularly for certain kinds of books you wouldnt want to give it away. So i had to reign myself in sometimes. And its hard to figure out what part of the research was knowing enough to know what not to say for that reason no, in particul. You went across all genres you have Childrens Books, a lot of travel logs, you have interpretation of dreams so you really were so expansive. James i wanted to have i believe that people read the way they eat. So, they might want a hot dog for lunch one day and the next day theyll go out for a fancy french meal with wine and the whole nine yards. And thats really important to our reading lives and i wanted the back to represent that to be more of a menu that people would find inviting, rather than a prescription that was homework or physical therapy. And so i wanted to have something for every type of reading appetite so you can start this book as a reader, if you have willing parents with Good Night Moon and where the wild things are, and go all the way through to the coming of age, and cs lewiss cradle to grade reading you could call it. Do you want to read your passage . James im going to read a little bit from the introduction and then well open it up for questions. Ill start with a line i already used but it leads into other things. Once people know youre writing a book called 1,000 books to read before you die you can never enjoy a dinner party in quite the way you did before. Now matter how many books youve managed to consider, and how many pages youve written, every conversation with a fellow reader is almost sure to provide new titles to seek out, or more worryingly, to expose an egregious omission from a gap in your knowledge to say nothing in revealing the privileges and prejudices, underlying your points of reference. For years, a thousand books felt like far too many to get my head around. Now it seems too few by several multiples. So let me say what already should be obvious. This book is neither comprehensive nor authoritative even if a good number of the titles assembled here would be on most lists of essential reading. It is meant to be an invitation to a conversation, even a marry argument about the books and authors that are missing as well as the books and authors included. Because the question of what to read next is the best prelude to even more important ones like who to be, and how to live. Such faith in readings power and the learning and imagination it nourishes, is something ive been lucky enough to take for granted as both fact and freedom. Its something i fear may be forgotten in the great amnesia in our in the moment news feeds and al gorhythmically identities which hide from our view the complexities of feelings and ideas that books demand we quietly and determinedly engage. To guest lost in a story or study is inherently to acknowledge the voice of another. To broaden ones perspective beyond the confines of ones own understanding a good good book is the opposite of a selfie. The right book at the right time can expand our lives in the way love does making us more thoughtfully, more generous, more brave, more alert to the worlds wonders and more pain by it inequities. More lives, more kind. [applause] so who had like the ask a question. We ask you stand up and not be so timid. Just go ahead and raise your hand and ill bring you a microphone. Ill ask a question. Tell me the value of any prize, nobel prizes, National Book awards, pulitzer prizes. James i reviewed all the list of Prize Winners to make sure i wasnt overlooking something. But the award itself except by giving the book easy access to the book in the list of prizes didnt mean all that much. Guest i would like to ask you what are you reading now except that youre probably not reading now. If you arent reading now because youre so business whats the last book you read . James twopart answer. The last book i read that i want to recommend to everyone is a book called these truths by jill lupore, which is the history of the United States from the discovery of the north American Continent up until two years ago that is remarkable in being 800 pages long but still readable. It reveals things that we are grappling with as a country now that ive been present from 1776 and before. And so its kind of instructive. So i recommend that to everyone. The book im reading now is by an author who is appearing at another strand event tonight at the China Institute called the three body problem. And im not quite sure how to pronounce his name. Its a marvelous book, Science Fiction book recommended to me, quite passionately by a reader whose taste i trust so im in the middle of that. Well probably have signed copies leftover too. James oh, good. Guest could you speak a little bit about the challenges and the interesting aspects of reading something thats in translation . James thats a great question. I tried to be as international as possible given the fact that i was writing for an American Market and so predominantly works in english. And but theres more than 200 works in translation. I think were having a fire drill. And so with translation theres a couple of issues. One is for the older works because if youre talking about homer or the greek tragedies or any latedden literature there are many translations. How do you pick the best ones which i was careful to try to do to recommend to people because theres nothing worse than someone picking up a great book like the odyssey and having a translation that is dated or stilted, or doesnt really speak to modern reader. So for those books i was pretty familiar with and recommended translations. For classic works its the same thing. Every great book for each new generation has a new translation. In part because the language changes and in part because publishers want to keep it under copy right. But that means theres lots of choices to make. So i was careful there too. What is particularly difficult in terms of works in translation is that any work that we get of contemporary literature that are translated from another culture, are already filtered by an editor or a publisher who is deciding this book would appeal to an american or british market. Thats why its translated. You never know if youre getting a deep picture of what the literature is of another culture. So its problematic. But its fun, too. Guest so i really love your description of cradle to grave reading. I think the interesting followon questions is books change when you read them and what youve read before. So how do you think about your process for when a person might be reading a given book. Im sure your perspective on a Childrens Book differs from when you were a child and when you were reading it to your daughters. Talk to us about that. James thats a great question. I wanted this back to appeal to someone who was 17, and also 37, and not just someone at my age. When you read a book when youre younger, it has a certain meaning to you, and some books get richer if you reread them when youre older. Particularly of middlemarch by George Elliott which is my own favorite novel which i read when i was 19. And i thought was the wisest book i ever read then. So much so i read it every decade since then, and it just seems to have gotten so much wiser. And it was all in there at the beginning but you notice different things. And then there are other books that you read that were really important to you, in my case a book like on the road by jack care wack, which was a marvelous back to read when youre young, its important those books get represented here now. Its a great book but not quite as overwhelming when you read it when youre 20 years old. Then enthere are books that are totally different. I was fortunate enough to meet the author Joseph Heller once as a cocktail party. And at the moment i met him his book catch22 qeats had been listed on a list that the Modern Library put out the hundred best novels of the 20th century, and it was number 6. I went up to him at this party because he lives down the road from my wifes parents. And i said congratulations on you know the book being on the so high on the Modern Library list thank you very much. But i think they picked the wrong book. And he glared at me, he said what do you mean . I said well i always thought your second book, something happened was a much better book. And he just glowed. He said so did i. [laughter] andand so i told him about my experience about the book i read it in the 1970s, it was probably in college and i thought this was the funniest book i had ever read. I memorized whole pages of his description of office life because i found them so amusing. And he said to me, he goes and i told him that and he said well its really a middleage persons book and i said yeah, i know i reread it last year and i found it completely horrifying. All the things that i had found very amusing when i was a 20yearold as a middleaged person i was just saying therebut for the grace of god go i. So the books change and they speak to you in different ways at different times. I was reading patty smith, just kids. Published in 2010, and i first picked it up and she was stealing books from scribners, and i cannot read this book. She told booksellers and i picked it up recently and its so poetic, and brilliant but i needed that time to absorb this. Guest i just wanted to know did you include any books you disliked but felt they were important or to be read whether they made you angry or deserve to be there as a warning or whatever . James yes, atlas shrug. Its a book that assumes so much prominence because its a love by by many readers, is fine but in our culture the philosophy that such as it is that it wasnt enough to make up for the wooden characters and all of that but its been a book of enormous influence and i think its important that i wanted to read it and i something to say about it. Its kind of like that book is if you be read it and maybe you love it but its kind of like watching your Football Team win a game 1037 because its so stilted in one direction. I presented it in context of the thinking and of its importance and then i use some version of that line about the Football Game because thats the way i found it. I have a literary question and a technical question. Literary question is, there are two books youve listed here is that i think are my candidates for the Great American novel. That is a concept. For a hundred years the concept of the Great American novel. What do you think is the Great American novel, did you read it . And the tactical question is screens versus books. Did you read any of these books on screens, or kindles, or did you Read Everything in paper and is there a difference . James i was the Vice President of digital problems for barns andnonal. So i read these on nooks. I did read them on screens. I am promiscuous when it comes to reading. I would read on screens or as susan san day said i would read on milk cart fns it was in front of me. I think ereading is convenient if youre traveling or communicate you can take several books at once. Its great for people who have want to make type bigger and smaller. So i dont have any qualms about that except i dont know if any of you read ebooks but this is a digression but i found this interesting when you started reading them, and still to this day if im in the middle of a novel, and a character appears who appeared earlier and i cant remember who it is, my hands will start to like flip back and because in a physical book you have this kind of sense that it was like 3 flips back and it was on the lefthand side. But on the exbook youre in the middle of the ocean you have no idea where you are or how to get back. The other question the Great American novel what are your two . Guest sister carry and american past torral. James theyre both in here and i love those books and american pastoral, the scenes in which roght depicts the vibrant life of newark and the rapid decline. Those of us who are did she say im from the bronx originally, and i know when i was small what a vibrant city it was. As was brooklyn before brooklyn was you know recast as a sitcom recently. But, the that whole kind of urban decline had never been in my reading so vividly captured. But if i had to pick one it would probably be moany dick. Because it embodies the kind of combination of work ethic, and craft, and labor, and craziness on the other hand and sense of manifest destiny that is all part of the american psyche both of those things. So guest hey jim. Very very exciting to be here, thank you so much. That was a perfect segway moany dick, there are a lot of people that know you for a long time and grateful to you for your inspiration both as someone who is always shown us the beauty of books and what it can do in our lives but just as a dear friend. So if i could get personal for a minute. We talked a lot about books we havent talked about you. Two things. One, a common reader was an incredible accomplishment. This is an incredible accomplishment. You can have passion for books. You can love the arts. You can do all that but you made both those things happen. Both when probably you and i both thought youre nuts. Can you talking a little bit and i think you used some of the words talking about moby dic and what you add mired that both influenced you inspired you and helped you throughout both of the processes. James well thank you. There will be an envelope for you later. [laughter] you know i part of me wants to say and i think this is in large part true that i fell in love with books and the written word very early. I never wanted to do anything else. I tried to find ways that would keep those things primary to what i had to do every day for my job. And i was either determined or unimaginative enough to keep doing the same thing and finding another way to do it. So when one operation like a common reader closed and found some other way to do it, this book came along about that time, and some other books and i didnt really want to do anything else. I wanted to find a way to keep being near the stuff that i loved and that gave me energy. So, more than anything else, it was the sense that i love doing this, i was good at it, and i liked Nothing Better than to be able to express in some way succinctly what a book was about or what it said to me. And as long as i could have that opportunity to write about books in that way, and to share that with others, that was you know what i was going to do. Also you know there is a lot ofism receivization a common reader came about because i was working in a bookstore and i said to myself how can i do this and you know not sell books i dont like, and not have to be here on saturday . So i came up with a catalog. Guest thanks so much for sharing tonight. My question is whether any particular attention was paid to the races gender, national at of the authors represented in your book or if the focus really was on just the literary merit of the substance or those things can be divorced at all . James i dont think they can be divorced as easily as wed like to divorce them. So i was looking for books of quality that spoke to readers, whatever their providence was. I was conscious of the fact that women certainly throughout history have been underrepresented if you start a book with homer, and go all the way up its not until the late 19th century and even the middle 20th century where the outputs become somewhat equal so youre going to have an imbalance there. In terms of ethnicity and race and language it was the same thing. I was conscious of not following any other dictate to what it would be other than it was good reading. So there is i think a fair representation of those different categories, although not as research as i would like it to be. For reasons having to do with my own limited reading but also having to do with the nature of literary history. Guest given that a thousand book list is a moving target can you tell us about the thousand books that made it on to the list and the thousand books that first didnt . James the last book i wrote about was a book called it was also the most recent book in the book. Which is life in code a personal history of technology by ellen oldman. She is a very interesting writer. She began her career as a software developer, in the early days of silken valley, and she was one of the few Women Developers at that time. And about 20 years ago she wrote a book thats become something of a classic among coders called close to the machine which was about how coders think and so on. And then she went on to write two novels, one called by blood, and the other called the bug. And then last year she published this book called life in code which is a series of essays, thats about technology but more about the world that technology has made for us and how we live in it today. And its a marvelous book you learn a lot about technology and coding and even more about life. Shes a marvelous writer. Thats probably the book ive given to the most people myself because i wanted them to read it in the past year. The one that didnt make it was the last one that was there, its a book Childrens Book picture book called burnt toast on davenport street by a man named tim eagan, and it is a marvelousy funny delightful warm book about a family of animals and its a great picture back to read to a toddler but its important to me and because i discovered this book one day in Childrens Bookstore in manhattan where i was with my younger daughter iris was about 3 years old. And she was wandering around while marg o and i and the eldest sister was looking. She saw the book at her eye level. She marched over and took it off the shelf. She brought it over to me and said i want this one. I brought it home and read it to her, and that was the first of probably 792 readings of that book. And it was a great book. So i was so delighted that she had somehow through osmosis gotten the bookselling gene. She knew immediately this was a great book. So that is a great personal attachment to me. That did make the cut. Youre putting your whole family to work. James yes. Host we have time for one final question. Guest my question jim would be are there any authors you thought you might have shortchanged that you wanted to have multiple entries that you liked that author so much but you had to put in one author that had one great book but maybe not as good as the second or third book . James well the whole project has been plagued with that kind of issue. Whether the person was in the book at all, whether you could put more books in it. Theres about 3 dozen authors who have more than one book. And even some of those now looking back im not sure i got right. So virginia wolf has four books because shes a paferls writing and the more i read at this point in my life the more astonished i was. But when i finished the book i went back and reread a novel of hers called the waves, which i believe is better than any of the books i wrote about in it. So its always changing and always new. And there is so many books that could be in here the book is alphabetical by author so in the as alone, you know asops fables, poetry, the novels oficate atkinson, the military histories, i could go on and on with the stuff i left out. So theres a part of me that every day since i finished this book feels like a slacker. Host okay can, its quiz time. Were going to find out who is the best well read person here. Five prizes, so james is going to read out the questions and then the answers and then were going to trust you to evaluate your own work. [laughter] james okay, is everybody ready . Question number one. Who said tis the good reader makes the good book . That was ralph waldo emerson, a wonderful quote. Question number two. In which decade christopher berlins story set . The 1930s. What french gastrowrote tell me what you eat and i should tell you what you are . That was breat savron in the following of pace. This one is pretty amazing. How long did it take for the first english translation of victor youth os 1862 novel Les Miserables to appear. It appeared in 1862, the same year as the books publication in france. It is the mark of youth os popularity that translators working in other tongues matched that achievement. So there were multiple International Additions of a 1500page book in the year of its original publication. Which is pretty amazing. In what novel does the sentence appear . Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing . That was from the picture of dorrian gray by oscar wild. And he also quoted himself in his play lady wind meres fan he used the same line. That was after, though. Fill in the blanks of this line from phillip k dic in his election commentary. It is sometimes an inappropriate response to blank to go blanking. And the answer is b, reality insane. It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane what best selling series of historical novels were written by the english translator of simones the coming ofagy am . One of the most prolific translators was Patrick O Brian who wrote all of ship ferring tales the master in commander being the first one made a movie with russel crow out of that. So thats how he made his living before his novels became popular. Alfred besters pioneering 1957 Science Fiction novel the stars my destination is a retelling of what 19th century french classic . Thats the count of monty chris o. What lateblooming bib lio file is the central figure in Alan Bennetts the common reader . That would be Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. The pen name for the Science Fiction visionary Alice Bradley sheldon was james tiptry junior. What performer starred in both the iconic 1939 film abdicitation of the wizard of oz and the 1956 american premier of Samuel Beckets waiting for godot. Burt lower. Was the cowardly lion and in godot he played estrugone. What book of the bible plays a pivotal role for the protagonist of brad burys fahrenheit 451. Thats the book of eclasses. The make way for duckles is the classic that never goes old which of the name does not belong to the one of the eight little ducks. Jack, tack, spack, or quack. The answer is c, back. What awardwinning 2010 novel devotes several thousand pages of it pagings to a powerpoint chart . Thats thegon squad by jennifer eagan. This is one of my favorites. Which heroine of a Childrens Book has been cited as three Supreme Court justices as a former influence . Nancy drew. Sandra day oconnor, ruth baiter ginsburg and sonia sotomayor, in interviews years apart and independent of each other when they were asked what set you down the path to a life in the law they all said nancy drew. Which book did Dorothy Parker write, this is the greatest review of all time. This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force. Thats interestly enough the novel was by the only forsay by mussolini the book was called the cartinals mistress. What do dan brown, scott tur o, and richard quilledder have in common. Theyre all graduates of amherst . When bob dylan won the nobel prize in literature in 2017 he became the second nobel lawiate to be awarded both that prize and an Academy Award, who is the other . George burnered shaw, won the Academy Award for bestwriting screenplay for the 1938 version of pygmalion, with windy hillered and leslie howard. When this news was brought to him in london he reported said i have never been so insulted in my entire life. Who invented the phrase stream of consciousness . That was william james. What naturalist has more than 300 plants and 1,000 animals named for him and more places on earth and heavens than any other person in history. Alexander van hum bolt. Its a marvelous book by andrea wolf called a biography of nature. Thats where i learned that. And this one is for im sure all of my fellow graduates from a Catholic High School in the bronx who are here tonight will know this immediately. In what autobiography does the phrase give me chastity and selfrestraint but dont do it just yet appear . Thats in the confessions of is it augusten. Which of his own works was dickinsons favorite, thats david copper field. Jane reeses wide sea was a response to which 19 little century novel . That would be jane eyre. What ashed are entered at poets corner in westminster abby had his heart buried in the churchyard. Thats thomas hardy whose biography should have been written by stephen king. What was the working title of Joseph Hellers catch22 for the eight years he spent writing the book . It was catch 17, so Joseph Heller spent eight years working on this book in his own head it was called catch 18. And then a few months before publication of his book a book by leon urus, called mili18 came out and was a great bestseller so his publisher said you have to change the title because people will be confused by the 218 books so they had to come up with another one and they came up with catch22 qeats which sounds funnier than catch18 for some reason. And the last question is far too long. The answer to the last question is far too long. [applause] host so you all go ahead and tally it up, and are you ready . Tell me who has gotten 20 or more questions correct . Its going to be like an auction. Who has 18 or more correct . 15 or more correct . I thought you guys were bookish. 12 or more . Okay. [applause] first prize, 100 gift card and lots of books. Nice job. Okay. So were at 12, right . Okay, 10 . Yay. [applause] and thats a 50 gift card and tons of books. And then lets try for 9 . 11 . Okay. Any more 11s . Who has 9 . Perfect. Those are the fourth and fifth prizes, 25 gift cards and loads of books. Host thank you so much james. Youre a great audience. Thank you cspan. So james is going to stick around and sign copies of his book. Thank you. James thank you everyone