With lawrence right wright and Nicholas Kris staff. Kristof. Want to thank you for being here and supporting us through these everchanging times. Were happy to keep in touch with you and keep wang what we said. Want to welcome Lawrence Wright, staff write are for the knockerrer, and the author of ten books including the looming tower, going clear and god save texas and one previous novel, gods favorite. His books have received many honors including a Pulitzer Prize for looming power. He is and if wore longtime residents of austin, texas. Nicholas kristof has coauthored several books with his wife, including a path of here and half the sky. Together they were awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for the coverage of china. They also received the literary peace prize for the Lifetime Achievement in 2009. Now a column nist for the New York Times bureau chief in beijing, tokyo, won a second pull litter in 2006 and with that id like to welcome Lawrence Wright and Nicholas Kristof. Thank you, kristina. Thank you, kristina, and i should say im a longtime fan of larry and his work, and also a fan of this book, and youre in for a treat when you read it, but larry, let me start off by saying, its strange obviously to begin a book tour as you are with this remote but its incredibly in keeping with this book. How else do we get to pin talking bow but book beaut pandemics except in the middle of a pandemic. Its really weird. People ask me about it and i say its very strange but it is really strange. Its not anything i ever anticipated. I did think that we would be facing a big pandemic one day. I didnt know what day. And the fact it is today is a total coincidence. So when this when did you begin to talk to publisher and say, you know, ive done a Little Research about this situation that were headed for, when did you realize you were going to be publishing in the middle of a pandemic . Well, the chinese made their announcement new years eve if you remember and i was i was alert because i remember sars and howed began in china and they hid the information for some time, and its a miracle of Public Health they were able to stop that contagion within 100 days but here was another one, and i thought, this could be a problem. And as it got close to february, i began to get nervous because i thought we wont be able to contain this, got into europe. It was definitely going to come to america despite what some of our authorities were saying. Viruses just dont respect National Boundaries and i knew it would wine up here and soon. And so over the last months or two, as you have been watching politics and watching stores sell out of toilet paper, watching the took market dip for a while, have you been nodding with familiarity . Obviously enormous echos witness what i haveout wrote about. Sometime it feel like im i pick up the paper im reading the next chapter in my book, and its honestly id like for the coincidences to stop because the book is pretty dark, and i dont want it to go as far as i took it but it is really spooky, the thing that were just lucky guesses but for the most part, the reason that things in real life are playing out as they did very much in the novel is i talked to experts, and they told me what would happen, and not only did i they had done table top exercise every year. Johns hopkins and elsewhere, gaming, what would happen if, the same question that i asked. And so its not just my novel. Its in all of those studies. Its in the briefing books handed off to the administration. All the details that are gleaned from that, that are so resonant with what is happening right now, people knew. People knew. The experts knew. And as you say the novel is indeed pretty dark, and now there are plenty of american politics who say that, well, the light is at the end of the thumb, were almost there, Vice President pence says that by memorial day well be mostly through this, have this mostly behind us. In your book you actually there is this respite. It comes and then theres this period of calm. Are you how do you feel beaut the road ahead . My flu, the one i invented, was built on the 1918 flu. I actually made a calendar on my computer, and it happened to be the year 2020. Just a coincidence. But i decided to take the events that took place in the year 1918 and put them that was a temp plat underneath all evented in novel where thing that actually happened 100 years ago so the question i had for these experts was, what would happen if it happened now . Will we be any better prepared than our ancestors and so this the 1918 flu manifest evidence nit february and march 1918. It was a killer but it wasnt. It wasnt a savage as it became. Part of the reason it was so dangerous, is took root among the soldiers and their camps and on the troop ships going to war and so it was very dangerous and it but over the summer it mutated. Ed died down and when it came back in the fall, october was the deadliest month in american history. Now, im not forecasting that would happen, what the 1918 contagion was an influenza. Influenza is still a great killer but this is coronavirus. Its different. Experts are looking at the influenza thinking that this could easily happen with coronavirus. Or it could just simply linger here until it infected enough people it stops. We dont really know. It could with like the flu it could recure every year. They each have different situations and even the cities are different and you take that up to the next level and then you the federal response which has been extremely weak and confused and i think dangerous follow the sense that many lives have been lost that might not had been had the government taken control early on, and then at the international level, theres also a great deal of confusion. Every state, every country, every state, every city seems to be improvising and we are all trying to come up with a solution, but the absence of leadership at every level is very striking. Well, one of the things that i admire about you and that im jealous of is your versatility and, you know, you do nonfiction, you do fiction, you do books and magazine articles and tv, film, plays, this actually started not as a novel, it started it has unusual origin, can you talk a little bit about that . Yeah, 10 years ago sot, fill maker, he had read the novel the road, a novel about father and son wandering through the ruins of a civilization. And what happened, what force or event caused civilization to crumble and i was interested in that idea and i thought maybe a nuclear war or Something Like that, but honestly i had done some stories about diseases when i was a young reporter living in atlanta and the center for Disease Control was there and i got very intrigued by Public Health. This is long ago but it was i remember being so entrenched and the epidemiologist and there were so many interesting people and it occurred to me there was an opportunity to visit that world and i think up with other thing, and the novelists, its hard to find heros today. We are not living in a particularly heroic era but in the world of Public Health theyre everywhere and i felt no scruples about making a hero. And you could have addressed this issue obviously in nonfiction, you do more nonfiction than fiction, why did you decide to make this a novel . I dont know. I think as a reporter formally what we do is we go out and ask what happened and, but in this case, the question was what could happen and its not that big a leap, nick, using the same techniques going out and talking to experts, during research, reading books and stuff like that is the same process but it allowed me to imagine the world, one very similar to the one we are in, but i did feel some sense of alarm when i talked to the experts about what might happen and they had spent their entire career thinking about what would happen if 1918 came back and so it hadnt yet, but i thought a novel would be a great way to express the the sense of for voting that i found out when i talked to my experts. One of those our audience who we cant see, kim, asks about october, why why october and actually i wondered whether that was a reference in some way to the cuban to the threat from the cuban missile crisis to the world and conjure that to some degree. I guess the highlights has more resonance than i get the credit for. For me the reference to october is october is when it all goes to hell, the second wave arise. There are things that we dont see that happened in october, but we know that october marks the moment when it all comes to a climax. And kim also asks that as you were doing your research did you find yourself getting more germ conscious and washing your hands more often . Honestly, no. I i you know, im not a germaphobe, at the time i was not thinking exactly i was still locked up and this was a world in my imagination, not one outside of my house. I dont want to exact i will go through the plot of the book, but it it begins in indonesia or early crucial scene is indonesia where the epidemic is seen and then it theres a chance to contain it and then one of the characters goes on the hodge to mecca and as it happens theres now a discussion about whether the hodge this year should be canceled to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and i, you know, your book certainly illuminates that. Do you have any thoughts about where this isnt ideal year for the hodge . After 911 when i was working on the looming tower, i lived in saudi arabia. They wouldnt let me in as a reporter but i became a an expat worker and my job was to mentoring which is bin ladens hometown. I couldnt go to mecca myself but i was in constantly in contact with my reporters and one thing i learned that every year there are epidemics, often times very serious diseases and you have two or three Million People gathered in a spotlight and they all get on planes and fly home, i thought, this is this is a disaster in the making and so that thought always lingered in my mind, what if what if one of these diseases took root in mecca or religious pilgrimage or in india, many other instances where you have pilgrims gather and closely pressed together coming from many parts of the world from a Public Health point of view its a pretty dangerous situation. You and i both have spent a fair part of our careers writing about International Security threats in a more conventional sense about terrorism, for example, and i know that over the years my own conception of International Security threats has changed and become broader to include things like drug trafficking, Climate Change and pandemics and i wondered, if indeed, you see a Common Thread from your writing about the threat from alqaeda to the threat from pandemics today . I sure do, nick, thank you for asking me that. The you know, first of all, the effects, the attempt by some terrorist groups to kill as many people as possible, pandemics do a wonderful job of that. There are groups like alqaeda, for instance, the japanese cult, they were definitely seeking weapons of mass destruction and they experimented with biological weapons. There are White Supremacists groups that are doing the same right now, so, yes, terrorism and and warfare have a Common Ground and, you know, as all those things you cited Climate Change, you know, houston from Hurricane Harvey suffered far more damage than an ordinary terrorist could do but those kinds of things, the problem is similar, vast destructions of society and, you know, and the death of a lot of people. Terrorism aspires to that, nature sometimes responds that way to our own behavior and, yeah, theyre all very similar forms of experience and we have to adjust to the fact especially that i think pandemics will be coming our way increasingly, the pace has picked up since the turn of the century weve had sars, mers, zika, west nile, asian flu, just one thing after another, ebola. All these novel viruses and any one of them can be a real killer and we have been in some ways fortunate but there will be more theyll be a bigger challenge in our future i fear. The the hero of of the book is somebody who goes around trying to put out these global these global disease fires and they are, indeed, as you know a lot of such people around in the world, most recently a lot of them have been wrestling with ebola in congo, for example, and i wonder if they are if you do see them as kind of heros in real life. Oh, yeah, i sure do. I admire these people so much. But one thing, you know, theres a big swath of experts that we can talk about, you know, just the people in the labs, you know, that kind of, you know, the ingenuity required to try to understand a virus like this one that we are facing right now thats so complicated and tricky, but i guess im particularly drawn to the epidemiologist who actually go out in the field and face Something Like ebola, brandnew virus that kills people in the most awful ways and to me its totally terrifying, far more terrifying than going to a war, for instance, just the idea that theres some presence around you that, some germs in the air or Something Like that and you have no idea if youre infected until youre sick and healthcare workers are always the first people to get sick and theyre the ones that die the most frequently just in current situation. Yes, my admiration is unbounded for those people. We have a question from john who, hes he listened to the first hour of audio book and says totally engrossing, hes learning tons, he notes that in the beginning to have book the indonesians are trying to cover it up or trying to cover up what happens and notes the you know, the similarity with what china was initially doing in the first 3 weeks of january in wuhan. Can you talk a little bit more about the Global Cooperation that is required to address this kind of challenge . Well, thats a good question. You know, this disease is not something that can be solved at a national level. Its an International Problem because it just literally slides across the borders and you need to have an international response. Unfortunately there are some countries that have in the past withheld cooperation from international authorities. China was particularly guilty of that in the sars for sars outbreak, but indonesia has had a problem with that too and thats why i chose indonesia for the local, origin of this and there was an odd reaction in indonesia during one of the outbreaks which was they felt that scientists were exploiting a virus that belonged to indonesia. In other words, it was like a National Resource and that they should be they should gain part of the patent money and stuff like that. It really led to an interesting argument, but, you know that kind of infighting while scientists are trying to figure out how to stop a killer virus is very damaging. We need i for one would be much more if favor of courting some authority to the world Health Organization. It has no authority at all, when china said you cant go come, they have no way of going without permission. Im totally with you on that point. I thought i did frankly think that they were a little bit too too complementary of china, but the idea of defunding them at this juncture just strikes me as as completely crazy. World Health Organization is not a perfect organization, but its the only one, you know, its what we have and, you know, when the administration complains about it. We had our own eyes on the ground. Cdc had surveillance teams in dozens of countries around the world and the funding cuts to withdraw them. We lost the eyes on the ground that we had in china as well as many other countries. Thats right, yeah. Magnifies Foreign Relations challenge and the conflict for iran and saudi arabia and like wise between russia and the u. S. And the people see through prisms and paranoia and national ism, i wonder if you have concerns about that happening this time. I mean, there are chinau. S. Relations are clearly more strain and now i wonder if you worry about how this may affect International Relations today. I do. I feel like the geopolitical fallout hasnt happened entirely yet but the accusations, the blame thats going around, every great disease carries with it a lot of stigma, blame and shame, but this business of making accusations that the chinese cooked it up in a lab, vice versa, the chinese, russians, north koreans, iranians are saying that it was a vile weapon made by the u. S. These are very dangerous charges because they incite hatred and one hatred gets rolling it develops its own momentum and begins to Shape International responses and yes, im very worried about it. I would like to see the ned lease conflict diminish in the face of a real challenge to humanity. And jerry says asks, how do you think we should handle china . They do have some culpability, but dont we need their help and cooperation to get out of this . Yes, i totally agree on both of the statements. I think what we should do is fund the cdc so that we put our own surveillance teams back there and cooperate with the chinese scientists and we might learn something from them and we at least may have some people on the ground to tell us what is going on and we didnt in this instance. There are some people in this country who whenever you ask them whats on their mind, then they bill gates, for example, for years hes talking about his nightmare about a big pandemic. Is that something that if i had run into you at Cocktail Party a couple of years ago, would you have been event my year of preparedness or was that just one of many things that that you were sort of thinking about . Well, i do worry about other things, but had you caught me at a party and like scott posed the question, what do you think is the biggest threat, pandemics would be high on my list whether it was one or two, im not sure, but i always had a feeling that we are vulnerable and in the budget cuts and things like that have made us far more so. Peter who is a Great International health expert, he was telling me that, you know, we always have the wakeup calls, sars, mers, et cetera, and then we wake up and roll over and go back to sleep and i wonder, you know, what i guess, i wonder if thats going to happen again and, you know, what can we do, what would we like to see to build up surveillance capacity so that the next pandemic this one is the coronavirus, but as your book suggests maybe the thing people worry about most is flu and so what what should we be doing if we actually wake up . Well, nick, i feel like as a society we are at a cross roads and, you know, with this is a profound moment in history. Its not the black dip, but it is it is a severe experience and its going to have terrible financial consequences. Its going to be remembered and when weve had challenges in the past like the Great Depression, we completely reshaped our social fabric in order to save our country. We rose to the task. World war ii, we conquered formidable enemy and created the greatest manufacture and commercial base the world has ever seen so we rose to the task and then 9 11, once again, i remember so strongly the feeling that, oh, we will have to stand for something now. We will have to be the america that our parents gave us but what we did was invade iraq. It was a colossal error and, you know, i look at arab spring, take it out on the context of america, i was so hopeful that, you know, here is the region thats dying to have democracy and needs reform and yet its only become more terranical. Its not only that you have a depression to expose the society that you live in and its clear the society that we live in and what kind of people we are and we have the opportunity to make profound changes, great deal of attention developing vaccines especially universal vaccines or influenza but we will be facing lots of viruses, and we only know about 6 or 7 that are dangerous, many of those are brand new and we will be seeing more and more of them in our future. If we are not prepared for it, we would be in trouble. We could also look back and say we are grateful for covid19, it gave us the opportunity to rebuild our Health System and make our society more secure and compassionate and that would be a great turn events. I deeply share that, you know, just as you responded the Great Depression when Social Security ultimately and bill of rights and build a stronger society, that we may do the same this time as well, but and i wonder what, you know, what elements of that restructuring you would like to see this time around. Well, lets start with the federal government needs to be more accountable and coordinated and the partisanship is really standing in the way of us making any kind of progress. I think that, you know, if theres one thing that is overwriting my disappointment with our country right now is here we are in distress and we are still in this culture war which is totally pointless. This is i think we have to step beyond that and acknowledge this is a country in distress and we need we need to address it seriously. If we can get the partisanship tamed down, im not naive enough to think that it will ever go away but we can get to the point that everyone is thinking to have Common National interest i think we can begin to focus on the structural problems that we need to make. And, i mean, visavis that cultural clash and polarization, susan asks, how do you respond to those people who claim that Constitutional Rights are being infringed on when they are required to wear a mask and the like and maybe just to frame it in a broader sense, you do see in opinion polls that to be a democrat in America Today is to perceive that the coronavirus is threatening, is deadly and in parts of the country at least to be a republican is to feel that the threat is exaggerated, that it is being used to to take down the president and so that our response is to a bit of r a called the virus is actually, you know, happened through this prisms our political ideology and, you know, it always struck me that after the 2009 swine flu that initially democrats and republicans were equally concerned, you know, as would make sense and then because it began to take on political democrats became 50 to get vaccinated and i just i just kind of despair when even even our encounters with the viruses are absorbed through this prism of ideology insufficient. The profound example what happened today when the Vice President walked in mayo clinic to walk with a mask and goes in the ward with patients with masks, everybody has a mask and what does that demonstrate . I mean, there are many things, its a signal but certainly a partisan signal and its also a way of deprecating and i take umbrage of that. I think its offensive and damaging to our national sense of unity and thats the kind of thing we have to put a stop to. Well, if the Vice President is watching, then he will take it from me. [laughter] well, scott asks, he says does your book deal with a vaccine and what more can we do to create a vaccine . Well, you know, one of the great things about this book is i got to interview all of the experts who are now some of them working on vaccines to try to eliminate this covid19, but i i studied the history of vaccination from the very beginning, fascinating history and had a problem, i had my hero and he had to kind of solve the problem and i created this terrible problem for him but i had no idea how to solve it. [laughter] so i i called my expert and i said, here is the problem, you know, here he is and hes got this and hes got this and they loved it. Essentially these are guys who are loved, a mystery and so, you know, i give them the parameters and im talking to the greatest minds in the world on vaccine and and i it was thrilling. They dont have time for me now. Theyre actually, you know, making those vaccines, but i could never have solved the problems that i created for myself with vaccines without the help of these guys. And that it sort of goes back a little bit to Edward Jenner, i guess . I know. The world should remember the names of james. When Edward Jenner who is a country doctor in great britain, in britain, he stumbled on the idea that smallpox might be, you know, eliminated by cow pox and this was a theory, so at the time 400,000 people a year were dying in europe of smallpox and a third of those who survived were blinded. You know, unbelievable devastation year after year after year. So we have to look at what he did in that light, but he got his son, 8yearold boy, james, and he took some puss from a cow pox infection of a milk made and he injected it into this boy and six weeks later he injected him with smallpox and he did it again and the boy did not get sick. Now this is wholly unallowed in modern society but if it werent for that child smallpox would have rampaged on for decades more, but, you know, there are many episodes like that in the history of medicine and epidemiologist that i finally totally captivate. I read somewhere that i think that Edward Jenner and napoleon lived roughly contemporaneously and in their lives jenner saved as many lives as napoleon and napoleon with statutes all over the world and one in england somewhere. Otherwise, maybe the lesson is become a general and dont become an epidemiologist. In this case general napoleon could have done better in the disease front. When he marched on moscow he was besieged and on the way back and took an army of a half a million men and by the time that he got back to fewer there were fewer than 10,000. That was the toll that the disease took on the great army. We have a question from mara about your thoughts on the virus and its effects on middle east and, you know, so in your book you certainly describe issues of civil unrest in various countries and i wonder whether you think that is an issue in some of the countries that seem domestically fragile and also international conflicts, may there be a search for scapegoats that leads to conflict across borders. Lawrence in some countries and then in the automatic stay, there will be people who arent have different positions on freedom and make them feel more resentful against the government that they do already. So it is a stressor in every country especially in the middle east. In one of the things that kind of is amusing but the novel to the degree to which you had real names. And richard who is it catherine terrorism official official in who played a role in the new managed to knock off taylor swift. [laughter]. And several other people. I wondered why you use real names like that. Lawrence first off, i couldnt make up a better character than clark. So use him as a character. He was fine with that. The business of my assassinating certain celebrities in my book, sometimes as markers we look at how serious this is according to the dice. Winning the culture in which the celebrities are those kind of markers. It is been interesting in this particular episode, is only been a handful of notable household names. But in the novel which is a far more serious disease, he would have a harvesting of a very notable people. And also in the novel, the flu is like the 1918 flu. It strikes people in the middle age. The robust people whose own immune systems are what kills them. I hope charlie doesnt come after you. She does hold a grudge. See 500 be going to mention that for fear that i will get a mention. [laughter]. The more questions. John asks about social media which doesnt exactly come up that i can remember but it is certainly very much a part of antagonisms play out today. Is that the social media, does it make it more difficult for scientists to combat a virus. Lawrence the way that i address that is disinformation propaganda. Thats a subject that i deal with in the novel. We see this happening right now. The war on science and so on, it is scandalous but it has an effect. It seems to me that as a country are so compliant and easily moved by such absurd propaganda. But actually employ that in the novel because i think it is very meaningful there is an analog, the computer virus which also plays a role in the novel because thats another thing that we are dealing with, constant assault. Right now it is low level of conflict but it is damaging. Our elections for example is at risk. Those kind of mailings that we have been facing. The plays a role in the book as well. I see it as the kind of virtual analog of the viruses that we deal with in real life worried. Nicholas cyber is something, that i worry about pandemics but also worry about Cyber Attacks. Sunday does you say in your book, has a major cyber attack. And one of the striking things about the Cyber Attacks and bioterrorism is that attribution is not always easy. And that can make them useful or for that terrorist of the nations sake but it also makes it very difficult for a country to defend against and create different incentives. To create insurance. Can you talk about thats a little bit pretty. Lawrence is frustrating. How do you respond to Cyber Attacks were not really sure where they are coming from. I think this is wrecking society in many ways. Its bringing distrust and undermining authority. It is also done something, its harm the internet. Which i feel very personal about this. I think the internet is one of the greatest creations that humanity ever came up with that has instant knowledge instantly at hand. It is just amazing. It is beautiful. And just from the aesthetic point of view, i just like the way that it has been harmed. And made into an agency of lies and propaganda. Nicholas youre an author but you are also a journalist. Your career has spanned a period in which a lot of journalists, especially local journalism is kind of in a crisis. In the pandemic is actually magnified it. It has made it, a lot of the local papers around the country are going under. I wonder, some of those kind of organizations, whether you think this undermines the not exactly the social fabric but the Civil Society of the country. Lawrence absolutely. When i talk about civilization collapsing, what actually happens i think is that it thins out. Like ice. It looks like it is solid but then when you apply pressure to it, it cracks. I think that is where we are now. The weakness of our press now and getting worse and worse is a big factor in the thinning of the ice of civilization. Nicholas what do you mean. Lawrence we dont have truth. Readily at hand we dont have the authority. It is probably less knowable than a local level because local newspapers are really suffering. So the ability to hold people or institutions, or the government accountable, are declined with the emirate reporter. In every newspaper that goes down. There is less and less accountability and therefore, Civil Society diminishes. We cant take too much of that before we really suffer a major loss of standing in our Civil Society. Nicholas antonio asks about your process with writing and how it differs when youre working on fiction versus nonfiction worried. Lawrence the things, well first of all, i write in many forms as you pointed out earlier but i think it is all storytelling. Basically im trying to tell a story. It might be a movie or a play or novel or Nonfiction Book or new yorker article. And in some ways, the process similar predict use notecards. Im kind of a fanatic on that. Note cards help me sort out the facts and keep in mind because honestly, i dont have a very good memory. So i like to write down things. And that i file them. And when i file them, i am organizing them. When i am writing a movie or a play or a novel, i will write out seen ideas. And i will throw them in a pile. And when the pile gets this high, i start or if it is a play, i will laid out in absent to ask and if its a movie then three acts buried in the chapters of the book. But i try to the door and be totally silent and just envision how the flow of the story goes. So in that way, their similar. Nonfiction books are more complex. But once again, i rely on the note cards to be a repository of information. Then the classification of that information in a subliminal way, the outline. And once i found that i am interested in write about, i have booked pretty much in mind read. Nicholas you use these notecards for fiction as well. So this novel like a lot of the scientific tidbits, that are scattered throughout, this started on a new card . Lawrence when i get stuck on something, i often go for a run. And i take note cards with me. Of mac people have seen me stopping on the trail with a pen in my hand writing notes to myself on the note cards. I know it is really primitive. Not all virtual in any modern way but just helps me. I have the information readily and and and i think that the problem is, and nobody does what i suggest with this. I am a sole practitioner because its frontend loaded. Theres a lot of labor in front. Once you have done that, is a lot easier to write. And i think you get moment in they would not have otherwise momentum. But i operate on the principle that it is true that the momentum with which you write carries over into the speed in which the reader is able to go through it. And if you like compulsion so that is why matter what i am doing. Nicholas the good ideas for articles are zero book chapter one about running. I dont have carry a notebook or note card. Lawrence how do you retain those thoughts. Nicholas with great determination, and make sure i remember it until i get home and then i scroll down. And youre in some kind of a book line room. There were the writing actually happens. Lawrence oh yeah, this is my office. It is a knife and hunt bys office. My editor calls underwriter form. I love working in here. My life really has not changed as much as many peoples because i write it home. I live in home. I dont go out that much. So quarantine, is not so different from ordinary life for me. Nicholas were almost out of time you said something that surprised me about the hero, in this pickle and you didnt have a way to get him to solve the problem. I dont want to say quite what it is because i dont want to give it away but do you, when you begin the novel or when you are, do you not have the thought or plotting he quickly worked out all the way through. Lawrence while i have a general idea of what is going. The steps along the way and then i am hoping that i can figure out the science that goes along with it. The problem that i was referencing has to do with vaccinationfax. Facts write it be beginning exhibit and exciting for the reader. So it gives me the opportunity to fill in some of the history of vaccinations. In my characters try to figure out how in the circumstance that he is an which is very straight, what is or have the scientist done in the past on. Nineteen century paris, how did they deal with the diseases of their error when they did not have modern science and they did not have electron a scopes and so forth. What did they do then. It was a great opportunity to kind of rehearse the history of the science inside of the mind of a character is trying to solve a very difficult problem. Nicholas one last thing and then we can turn the back over to john. You have written a wonderful book. Its a great page turner and very informative about the challenges that the world faces right now. But i wonder about the message that you want people to take away when they put it down. Its an engrossing story about a family but you are also making the point and translating a message. When people finish it and put it down, what do you want them to be thinking. Lawrence i guess the message is that we are in danger. We dont take our civilization and society enough to preserve it. It is very precious. We are fortunate as generalist to be able to go out in the world and see other societies in other countries and how they structure their societies. I dont know how it is for you but sometimes when i go to the plane, and of the thin american passport in my hand and i can leave. And so many of the people that i talked to, are trapped. They will never have the features that they might have had if they had the freedom and education that i had been given. It is so precious. And i see it all at risk. So there is despair in the book. It does reflect some of the anxiety that i feel. I do not feel like making inroads the ending because we are living in an increasingly dysfunctional society. I hope that is a warning, the book will serve a purpose and i hope the disease that we are struggling with now, will serve the same purpose. Nicholas thank you. We both studied at the American University in cairo. Lawrence and nick, i want to say that because written a wonderful book with his wife about problems of america, all embodied in the people you grew up with in this little town in oregon. It is amazing how you can create a mirror on American Society just out of that one small society. Anyway i want to congratulate you on that. And have a really wonderful week. Your book is a really wonderful read. Nicholas it was very much from the heart. We choose different platforms to tell a larger story. In this case and epidemics or novel in my case the strains on the u. S. Through, on the Old School Bus in oregon. Lawrence congratulations. Nicholas thank you and congratulations to you. And will invite john to punish and off. Host i just want to say thank you, and congrats to you both in your book. This been such a interesting conversation. In thank you everybody in austin for hosting this event and thank you everyone for the audience. Just as a reminder, the books that you all ordered, are on the way. By the catalogs when features a more, the book people. Com. Thank you everyone. Have a good night and so long. Bye. Here are some of the current best audiobooks according to the polls. Topping the list to memoirs, first becoming my former first Lady Michelle obama. The best selling book of 2019. Followed by contained. After that, retired u. S. Seal, david shares his thoughts on selfdiscipline and can tempt me. Then in talking to strangers, new yorkers staff writer examines how we misread strangers words and actions. In wrapping up our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction audiobooks, according to audible, his former navy seal and republican congressman of texas, dan quezada thoughts about overcoming adversity in his book fortitude. Some of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online, and booktv. Org. The president , from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Present biographies has every president , organized by the ranking by noted historian from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership style rated visitor website, cspan. Org the president. To learn more about each president and historian peter, and ordering a copy today. Wherever books and ebooks are sold. Starting now, it is book tv in prime time. First, the owners of the booksellers in detroit, coronavirus has impacted the bookstores operations. Followed by selling eric larson and Winston Churchills leadership during the london blitz. Also tonight, talks about global politics. And joe reckons offers insights in becoming an entrepreneur and we take a look at other programs pj orourke predefined more information on booktv. Org or on your program guide. And joining us from detroit, Janet Webster jones and Allison Jones turner. The coowners of stars booksellers and janet when did you say your bookstore rated. We actually started with our first incarnation in 1989. So we just celebrated her 30 years oel