Keep your video feed disabled. If you enable it, and able it a second time, we will have to remove it. Appreciate your cooperation. I want to briefly go over our format. We will have a reading by miles harvey to start us off. After miles harvey reads from the king of confidence which was published this past tuesday and donovan hohn reads from the inner post which was published last month in june we will hear an extended conversation between the two for 30 or 45 minutes and a few slides here and there and add some supplemental images. Once we are done questions for miles or donovan send them my way and i will field and screen those. Now i will quickly read some bios and we will get the reading underway. Miles harvey is author of the International Bestseller the land of lost maps. His book stranger in a savage latin was named book of the year. Currently teaches at the university. Interlocutor miles harvey is author of moby duck, the true story of basketball players, New York Times notable book, john Kenneth Gilbert award for nonfiction and the wilson literary science writing award. The second book was published by w morton early next month. Both these men graduated from the nsa Program University of michigan a few blocks away from the bookstore. Otherwise i would appreciate it. If you wouldnt mind putting your virtual zoom reactions together, thank you. Good to see you. Un msa program, poetry, probably why your book is longer than mine and we both teach nonfiction in chicago and detroit. It is really nice, guy wants to be clear that this is miles harveys event, he is sharing the stage with me. I will get ahead of you with your reading, the antihero of the book who you will tell us about tonight is getting crowned king and you write somehow the king managed to convince the 235 lonely souls gathered in the tabernacle that his paper crown was a royal diadem, homes with occult energies with red robe stitched together by ladies of the church, and developed him in righteousness and splendor. In tonights event, we dont have to hundred 35 lonely souls gathered in this tabernacle but you are the king, george adams, the theatrical impresario so why dont you start as i said to you before with nonfiction books we end up being quoted experts on the subject but i really love your pros so i want you to read some. You will go with something that will help us understand the title the king of confidence. I love your pros but we will get to that in a minute. If you could put upside one. I will introduce our audience to the title character of my book. All right. There he is. I will read a little bit about this man james strang and his time. Go which the antebellum era, the decades leading up to the civil war. This is the guy and you wonder how he manages a, you can leave it up, leave side one up, they are you go. So if he doesnt look like the most charismatic guy to you, listen to this was all those James Jesse Strang was not imposing, a few inches over 5 feet and bald with an oddly bulging for head he did poses one distinguishing feature, his dark brown eyes which one acquaintance described as a rather small but bright and piercing given an extremely animated expression to his whole countenance. Another claimed those eyes seemed as though they could bore right through a person. More than any tangible attribute, straying possessed an ineffable confidence. In those days before electrical power confidence was what made the and her beer him and alone era, confidence was black magic, good fortune and hard cash combined, could turn worthless paper into glittering gold, cowtowns into cities, empty lots into bustling businesses, losers into winners, authors into millionaires. Confidence was a charm deployed by bankers and merchants, philosophers and politicians, clergymen and card like. Confidence was the soul of the trade of trade in the words of one leading financial publication. Without it, added herman melville, commerce between man and man as between country and country would, like a watch, run down and stop. In an age before the federal government began printing paper money, and age when people had to trust in privately issued banknotes, glorified ious confidence was the national currency. So that is what this guy possessed and confidence in his ability to wield it was what took him from being an upscale farm boy in new york, a failed lawyer, failed newspaper publisher, failed postmaster to the midwest which we then called the far west where he became a Mormon Prophet and a real threat to Brigham Young and the church and ran a couple utopian colonies which i will talk about, one of them in michigan. But i want to talk about your book. We took a word out of my title, lets take a word out of your title, coast. What is that all about . My book is called the inner coast. I thought about that. Sincere we are virtually speaking in chicago, i am over here on the other side of michigan but part of what i was thinking about, i grew up on the coast of california as the son of mid displaced midwesterners and spent my life by the great lakes and i wanted to make the case for the great lakes. Coasts have always been contact zones between here and elsewhere. At a modest tickly it coasts from latin, in middle english, could still offer you a coast of land meeting a rack of ribs. The fee coast was the rib cage of the land. In its primary sense, coast refused the place where land ends and the sea begins and all coasts are by definition outer and oceanic ones. The maritime geography of the midwest courier is a paradox. Michigan is midwestern. It is also coastal. Peninsular, in fact. Its shoreline, speculative lighthouses as new englanders longer than california, florida and all the other states besides alaska. Standing in the midwestern beach you can watch freighters slide across the horizon. In the article terms to coast is to travel by water by keeping the landing site but you can coast through the heart of north america circumnavigating all of the states east of the mississippi without laying eyes on specifics. These days the word coastal is sociological as it is geographic. Phrases like coastal living or coastal elites the word collapses, the west coast at east into a conjoined seaboard supposedly inhabited by decadent sophisticates as if brooklyn were next to berkeley or boston and commuting distance of seattle. Chicagoans or holiday goers are michigans gold coast might qualify as coastal in this sense but not representatives of gary or dearborn, home to the largest Muslim Community states, paddle down the rouge river from lake erie where i was born, a neighborhood on the northeast side of detroit has become popular with immigrants. I will stop there with a taste of that word coast. Lets go back to confidence because we touch on you brought in melville who wrote the confidence men and talked about this idea of confidence was required economically but was also a secret power for the charismatic, you talk later. Tell us the story of the origin of the word, you quote the newspaper story, introduce it into the lexicon. Fascinated by your book, that among all the materials you are drying into the store you are doing a certain, etymological excavation. You are reminding us whats part of the american vernacular originated in the antebellum period. Some of it is strange, you do the whole thing on the idea of silking. What is the origin of the term . One of the fun things i did with this book was finding words that were not early enough in the Oxford English dictionary is a lot of people know, there is a Gold Standard for etymology, it would be 1890, i dont know if they changed since they were back but confidence men, and what they struggle from is a massive technological revolution. The Communications Revolution the internet superhighway, people are really displaced so this confidence is an important thing. On new york newspaper, on the street, donovan dont you remember me and then be very embarrassed. Miles, i have got you. Im hurt by that. Give me a watch a show of confidence, he would do that as people give him their watches but this spread like wildfire and it is fun to watch it spread through the american mexican and so many walks of life and straying up atomized this. He was able in this period when truth was malleable, facts werent really facts a lot like our own time, they thrive in those times and he was able to invent his own truth, people wanted to be leave in. The historical figure, from the writers point of view, you know, you write about it bit, the index of your book and the acknowledgments that we is amazing. He is like a planetary object whose force of personality exerts Gravitational Force on the antebellum, the upper midwest, the whole nation, the book draws into it marvels and wonders and obscurities from that time. From under a in your index i call these items american revolution, hans christian, angels, what is wondrous about the book, historical figures you end up gathering into your narrative, pt barnum, charlotte bronte, john wilkes booth, henry clay, darwin, this guy shores who invented the keyboard. To gather that up, you talk about this now story a man of the crowd, there is a central figure about a man who had once arrested and absorbed my whole attention. Tell me how you think, i dont know if you want to explain that analogy, how does that work with the rest of the history . There are three good books about him and im not being the least dismissive. Or a michigan, and assassination of a michigan king, i saw him as a lightning rod for all the enthusiasms or social movements or apocalyptic fears. This embodiment of a crazy time. We do the same thing, the New York Times book review, and chris jennings, called myself wonderfully to aggressive which is the biggest consonant i ever had. Getting the big picture from the back, going back to you, the most wonderful nonfiction writers, doing what you praised me for, told this story 1 million times. The second essay on the intercoast, this is before i knew him. In harpers, 15 years ago, just at a time, started reading about this antique tool collector in michigan. I was interested in them but the way you brought American History and american commerce is incredible to me. Do you want to talk about that . That one for me is an important one because i had been writing nonfiction but i came in by way of fiction and poetry which is not that uncommon. Historically where the standards for writing programs but my first earliest essays to a congressional essays, what you had done in this book which i think of it as the art of finding, something the analogy i use comes from entomology, not etymology. You are going to follow it. It is fascinating and your mind starts generating questions. The king of confidence, for that essay, and uncle i have great affection for on the outskirts, had begun collecting by chance, in an armor, pick up two wrenches that were identical. Two specimens of the same plant, wrenches, he kind of maybe obsessive week, to the upper midwest factories, state sales are closed farms, all the artifacts of history, turn a barn on the outskirts of dexter that he has and a few of them but initially started into a kind of museum that is not open to the public. The arrays of artifacts, dinosaurs or bugs, 100 spigot handles that are identical and will make one array of them. A cabinet of wonders but not the national artifacts, that was hugely fascinating and accompanying him narrative into that narrative view create your own essay actually i think, a way in which you are doing something similar here, your charismatic figure you are following and allows you to follow your own curiosity and questions and make them speak to each other so that the inventor of the keyboard is adjacent to the guy who entered the tomato to the midwest as a medicinal plant. The accidental juxtaposition, does that make sense . We may be working from a similar message. Such admiration for you as a writer. I tell my students i dont make many predictions about the future of writing is one of them is i feel in my own work, interesting to hear from you i can talk about an example of this, in the digital age, more and more, is an act of storytelling. Increasingly i find myself, this book had a 250 page single spaced timeline, just list what is happening in the world but the juxtaposition, the narratives making machine. Another quick reading if you dont mind. Number 6. Did we lose bennett . Here it comes. So i thought, two short paragraphs, in between them a little explanation, really important to this and i want to read a little bit about islands. Islands, Edgar Allan Paul wrote, the stormy seas of the psyche, a place of perfect security with freedom from all restraint to be enjoyed, normal conduct, normal systems of logic dont apply, frequent locales for experimental communities including the original utopia which thomas moore said in his famous sixteenth century book. Many things we can say about the community. Really fascinating place and controversial but i wanted to talk about the draw, what was his draw . To understand what apocalyptic times these were. In 1848 when he was starting to start, push it, this was the year of apocalyptic fevers in the United States, i thought i would read about those. Straying spent the summer of 1848 pointing to what he described as ominous signs including a series of revolutions in europe, us war in mexico and rising tensions between north and south. For months he had been urging his fathers to prepare for the end. Let me warn you the time draws near, prophetic events are crowding close upon one another. His newspaper even reported local fishermen spotted a huge feature off the coast of deeper island. During the portentous years of 18471848. From the 21st century perspective it is hard to know what to make of such an outlandish claim, tended to equate this late michigan monster with the beast from the sea whose appearance hailed the apocalypse in the book of revelation. Knowing joseph smith claimed such things symbolized, quote, the degenerate kingdoms of the wicked world, strang may have hoped to underscore fever island as the new zion, the Promised Land where according to teaching latter day saints would help gather to usher in the Second Coming of christ and the advent of his 1000 years. The picture in front of you is not in illustration, was one of the many sea monsters legitimate people thought they saw in 18471848, a royal navy ship. Created a sense of really intense period we are talking about. And strang, it was not his only reason for going to that island. He started a criminal enterprise. He basically had a pirate phenomenon, since his people all over the lake to raid various towns through the midwest to still horses and other items. There has been a lot of controversy about this. Early writers so there is no proof that he pulled this off, these crimes, and that it was all antiwoman bias. There was plenty of antiwoman bias but he pulled it off and one of the things the king of confidence does is move that along a little bit. There is pretty solid undeniable realtime reporting of strangs crimes in this book. There is the chapter on the horse rustlers in ohio and if i cut it right, this is new research. That is all new. It is lots of fun, lots of great 19thcentury journalists and the editor of the ohio newspaper, a wonderful sarcastic writer but this is important because in real time theres a series of stories, one after the other. He steals horses, there is a posse sent after him, one of strangs top lieutenants, one of his enforcers. The paper reports on strang coming to town and predict he will get this guy out of jail, there is a trial, the guys found guilty and it is overturned, a technicality the sheriff didnt sell out. Papers in the area right about how that technicality seemed to be sensitive with corruption that someone got bribed and sure enough strang doesnt go to the state penitentiary and there is a jailbreak, he is gone and so theres a lot more of that. I was wondering, one of the things we are both interested in is the landscapes of the midwest. There is some stuff. The introduction which came out in early june. A couple paragraphs, you are right, all of these essays, a preoccupation with the idea of excavating and for me someone who is an adoptive midwesterner by distance, i grew up, my family was very nice downtick for the illinois prairie i grew up on the mythic midwest, lots of little house on the prairie, not just that but the whole project has been to do certain excavations and your book, this is the midwest like we never imagined it. One thing before i jump into my own stuff one of the things i love about the idea of islands, the tiny cosmos, feels like your book is doing the logic of the microcosm. We can look closely at Beaver Island and strang becomes the representative man of his period in so many ways, didnt mention the rest of his career as state legislator. Amateur meteorologist at the don of meteorology as a scientific discipline. A representative figure but the island becomes a concentrate of america in the middle of Lake Michigan. In my experience, a farm became down to us and our family, i have two paragraphs i will read. It was passed to generations in door county near the edge of Lake Michigan but in 1970 the farm was no longer operational. The family held into it as a heritage site to which the increasingly scattered tribe, sharing meals and boiled walleye and potato salad while communicating with an agrarian past is the just of which survived. The place was a museum of an anachronism. Exhibits included an empty red barn, an outhouse with a splintered door, a hand pump the drew water from a well, helixes of when amber, flypaper that spiraled from the farmhouse rafters and a few chickens including one whose beheading i was made to witnesses initiation into brutal invaluable farm life are to impart, had this, the chickens body ran a flapping lap around the chalking block, comical. At the edge of the farm was a shallow body of water and according to legend, one winter attempted to drive oxen across it and harvested timber which comes up in your book, heavy with harvested timber, the wagon had supposedly broken through dragging the logger and oxen with it, something i thought about while paddling around with my brother in a dented aluminum canoe. You could touch bottom with your paddle. The bottom is silky and soft and would sink into it as far as you could sponge it, never touching hard grounds. Who knew what was down there . I imagined if you fell overboard and tried to stand you would get sucked into the muck, disappearing. One of the prehistoric animals, horses with cloven hooves, sabertooth tigers, the targets for wandering, wandering whole, ground and into it which is how it had gone for that moderate is oxen. The encyclopedia of the prehistoric mammals of north america was among my positions and although i never visited them, the tar pits were a prominent feature of the landscape of my inner life. For me one of the things i need to do is have images that work as motifs see the idea of things being very down there that you cannot see. Especially the collection of essays like a collection of poems has a different unity than you ever because you have music. You have an actual plot here and i want to talk about that. I was thinking a lot and i want to make sure we have time in five minutes to open up for questions. You are not historic narrative history but a credentialed historian where you dont have a phd in history. I am curious because i tried to work on this. Im curious about your method in the book. I know you spend many years visiting archives and all the rest but also wondering if you did the kind of thing some historians do and some writer must have done because you are trying to bring the story to life with the kind of sensory detail and immediacy you might encounter in a novel. There is a wonderful mom and, you have two dramatic climaxes in this novel one of which, the u. S. Navy sent a gunship to Beaver Island which is amazing which proceeded to the true ending and is really good. The tragic story in the end, one little mom and talking about this figure who is sailing, going to Beaver Island, the warship closed in on a small channel between late here on lake here on, to see the forest and shores of michigan were conifers sword high into the air, rivaling it with their fresh red smell. I underline that moment because it is exemplary of what distinguishes the narrative history you are doing here, the literary story from some scholarly history though it reminded me of the historical imagination. Needing to imagine yourself in this moment. When you talk about the methods, how did you go about getting the sense of place and detail. First of all it is tricky to talk about this, not completely but one of the exceptions in the last 40 years, i dont want to get slapped upside the head by some of my colleagues but academic historians have pushed back on the idea of narratives. When you are telling a story you are not telling another story. My own feeling is people crave narrative and i love good narrative history. I have a lot of work to make up for when i write about history because i have to learn it. There is a book called matrix metropolis, a classic book about chicagos role in the rested i remember being fascinated by the michigan pine trees settling the prairie. As you called it, these were really precious commodity use and it is a matter of trying, whenever you can, dont think you make stuff up but you know when someone is standing on a deck of the ship, anyone driven into the upper zones of michigan knows what it is like to get out of the car and smell the pines. I wanted to get that little moment. We started to go, some friends of mine built a log cabin and we would be driving up on a 100 degree day in our airconditioned car and we would get out and the smell hits you and i wanted to get that into the book. I am a defender of narrative storytelling and history and i love doing it but i have a lot of work to do. I am so respectful of the academic historian. Something to Pay Attention to since ive drawn from historical sources, you credit them, more than a courtesy. You quote their books and honor their titles. The book you read the most often with the title i noticed the most often was the one on pantaloons. I was astonished how much about fashion this book is, how people addressing, there was this whole story about Beaver Island, talk about that. Will be about fashion. Everyone knows that. The book was about gender roles which were absolutely fascinating. Women on the island war pantaloons, pajama pants tied at the ankle. 10 years before on neil leah, the womens rights movement, they were ahead of the time. Big skirts are shorter in front and nonsexy pants, but at the time they were really shocking and eventually strang said that all women on the island must wear pantaloons. The outward point of rebellion led to his assassination but my own feeling, masks have become the symbol of royalty or nonroyalty. If you war pantaloons or your wife or pantaloons you were with strang. In the same way that when the president announced masks were okay, not Wearing Masks was a symbol of loyalty to the president and to a certain extent aside from health and safety, trump believes people on the other side were Wearing Masks to show their opposition. Clothes are always political. The great joy of this book was thinking of gender relations. I had thought read the great writer at this time, she is a good writer and when we talk in 1840, no one is completely man or completely woman. One of the interesting aspects of this. As opposed to his household his polyamorous household, traveling safely with the freedoms of a man, go ahead. Lets put up flight number 5. Can you hear slide number 5 . This is strangs first wife of ira, charles j douglas, string for many months, as the word confidence men coming into fashion introducing this young man as his nephew and personal secretary, charles douglas, she was a young woman named of ira fields, we dont have time to tell that story. Of ira is one of the most exciting, colorful character and in many ways a very progressive woman for her time. Thanks for that. I hope that peaked some curiosity. We should throw it open to questions for miles. If we have any. We have two. Thanks for those readings and that conversation. The first question is from eileen polyp who is wondering, i love the book, hoping you could tell us what you learned about an obvious charlatan like strang. Great friend and wonderful writer. I think people like strang thrive in certain times. A lot of change, they dont know what to cling to, it is really porous. String survived in his time, dont mention the current president in the book, dont mention present times in the book. And at the back, i got to say my time working on this book almost exactly with trumps candidacy, i went to sleep every night, got to think trump helped me understand strang, helped me understand trump too, strang was brilliant at manipulating the media, understood newspapers, he understood not only how to get that information superhighway that was happening at the time, whether to control the conversation. Ahead of the times, and in 20s and 30s who implanted gonads in men worried about that and tens of thousands did it. This guys name is brinkley, important earlier radio timing, first, when kicked out of the United States and mexico and among other things helped invent Country Music on the radio. He is a Brilliant Media guy. In 2016, a Little Office building outside moscow can have an impact. One step ahead of us with the technology. Another one from chris blake who is asking a similar question about parallels between strang and what was going on. Our time is right, how much do you feel about now . It is interesting. The last question, i didnt want to write a book about now, didnt want to date my book by mentioning trump or our current times. We all have hopes the book will be read 10 or 20 years in the future, they may be vain hopes but there you go. I have them. It is interesting. Thanks for the question. From the start, early readers i sent for blurbs, critics see it as i dont know, kind of an allegory for our own times even though i dont mention our times. As an english professor which donovan and i both are i am a Firm Believer in the humanities even though humanities are getting cut everywhere, this is like what will save us. The idea of the humanities is by studying the past you understand the present and the future and i hope this book can help do that and donovans will. You must have been cognizant when you wrote these sentences of how they would be shadowed by the presence. You live in an era of sudden transformation, Anonymous One day and same as the next, where fantasies can metamorphose into hardened facts, such a precarious time, nothing felt stable or certain anymore, favored chameleons like a man who was there. May be a little bit. Wasnt all unconscious. It was conscious but in answer to your question, i would have written a different book in a different time. If i feel lucky about writing this book it is only because of the massive bad luck we are all feeling, the country is divided but a lot of us are feeling about having a time when someone who creates its own truth like straying cannot just take over Beaver Island or get elected to the Michigan State legislature, but have much more power than that. Obviously trump influenced this book and a world influenced this book but that is true for writers in any time because it is true. Your mike is on. We have another one from caitlin and we are talking about Beaver Island. Trauma this is the worst possible moment of their lives. For my wife and i it was great. We sent out and laid out on the deck one night and watch this incredible meteor shower and it was just like him you thought somewhat calm down and hit your house. Strand will did not leave much for architecture, after he was assassinated in 1986 ab i was trying not to give away the ending. [laughter] the mormons got wiped off the island and really wiped off the island. So theres maybe one building, maybe two, but we where you really see transtrand, kings highway is the only blacktop road on the island that was the kings highway he ordered his people, you really feel it, more than that you see donovan the book, he said donovan is a go there and experience that kind of writer and the best way possible, i just dont, i wanted to go there, i wanted to see it, it didnt affect the book any profound way but i wanted it to be in that spot. Im sure you had a medium of like when you are putting yourself using your historical imagination into the place to be some subtle ways you have a sense of, the distance between the north end of the island where st. James is on the south end of the island where the fishermen are in revolt live, you have a sense of scale. I think its like what you did with moby duck, the bestseller, highly acclaimed book, which is amazing, its about, i dont know how many ducks rubber ducks that get released into the ocean and where they all line up its about many other things in that way that donovan was talking about i would hope wonderfully digressive. If you dont like it, its like why dont they get to the point. Donovan goes so many places in that book and sees so many things to bear witness and i think bearing witness is such a powerful thing in our culture, something we dont do enough of. I know there may be other questions but i want to quickly, you were going to make a movie of this because it feels cinematic, i know you have ideals about who should play strand. My 18yearold son a i also want to know if you have ideas about who should direct. I was reading it thinking, unlike a lot of narrative history, there is actually kind of a 20 and humor to the storytelling so you almost need like a Charlie Kaufman or spike jones to adapt it if you get to it, you have to get the tone right because its serious, its getting into a lot of serious stuff. You tried to play with the strain of the genre of the tall tale to play with that element. I think voice is important, you are such a wonderful voice writer but for this book i just thought of it in the back of my head as the barnum voice and it wasnt like anything like im gonna read at pt barnum sentence i always thought mike was always filtering the barnum voice that phrase was always there. Who would play strand . Bennett, if you could call up slide 8. I dont know who would play strand. Heres who my 18yearold julie suggested. There we go. And jared lehto. If you look at the nose of these two guys, receive the eyes, its uncanny, obviously jared lehto has a kind of chaotic charisma that i think strand might have had. I feel like there is a genetic tie here that only needs to be traced but are there any other questions . Donovan and i want to get to something before we close tonight. Theres a few more here that have been coming in, im hearing that Paul Giamatti would be good. [laughter] of late period. The Cohen Brothers might be good directors. We are getting a lot of questions on the connections on democracy specifically that time and Work Confidence but theres one question that came up that has yet to come up that i would really like you to talk about, regarding his abolitionist beliefs, i was hoping you could talk maybe about how it shifty in some respects but other things that he held fast to i think thats coming from your wife if i remember correctly. Can we just say about my wife, shes a regular all time she is a wonderful wonderful chicago ashe did the audiobook for this book and it was really fun to work with and mostly give her suggestions she said actually, im a professional and i got this but its great, im listening to a little bit of it and its so much and im so proud to have my name associated with hers in anywhere but the mortgage. What was the question . I would say there is one thing that strand isnt slippery on, his abolitionism from his days as a young lawyer in new york he expresses an interest for this. One of the things i did to push our understanding of this along was i kind of found out what might have influenced him. He took a trip to virginia for a corrupt his fatherinlaw was a very corrupt canal contractor who took the money and run from a canal and virginia and sent strand down there to clean up the mess. Theres a letter from strand back to his fatherinlaw where he is just shocked at what he sees. What he sees as slave labor. You have a northerner going to the south where slaves are working on this canal and strand sees on his fatherinlaw in the canal the most horrific conditions and hes clearly shocked and upset about it, he carry back with him his whole career when he was in the Michigan Legislature he worked hard against his own party because strand was a democrat, working with the new Republican Party to which is brandnew on behalf of africanamericans and he ordained a black elder into his church more than a century before the mainstream. This is one thing really interesting about strand, whats great about him as a writer hes a total contradictory three to threedimensional writer. a if you could go to slide 9, donovan and i would like to talk about some other books you should read. I want to talk to you more about that but if you could go to slide 9, we each have some books we want to recommend because bookstores artfully functioning now and we just dont have the browsing capabilities. These are a collection of essays by joe marano, this got a stark review and kirkus today they were raving about it, i think its the last sexual taboo shes writing about shes writing about on consummated passion, a series of essays on on consummated passion, i find that to be one of the most interesting subjects ive read several of the essays, its wonderful. Avalon is the new poetry collection by a great and prolific poet Richard Jones who watched poetry east and a great colleague and friend of mine at depaul and cargo falls is william ryan checks wonderful novel a bill and i went to the program in ann arbor together and this is his latest novel, he is such a beautiful stylist. This is such a great comingofage story, i wont ruin it but its about a group of boys who finds a gun with live ammunition in the forest so its kind of quiet book with this intense tension at every second, that is mine, donovan, what do you have, could you go to 10 . All ive been thinking about about other writers publishing into a pandemic strange times, i recommend scorpion fish by now weve accomplished. Hes got my copy too. No wonderful novelist her newest novel set in pretty much contemporary grease of recent history during the greek economic crisis think of it as almost Elena Ferrante but by a young writer who also went to Michigan Program teaches with a ai cant recommend it highly enough, ive been doing a lot of book events with other essayists, essay collections, this is the debut by a young essayists name jordan kesner placed essays from in between, i first encountered her in the pages of the believer which is a terrific essay about the strange debutante bold cold ab takes place on the texas border. In the realm of Leslie Jamison and doing really wonderful things that essay and then my last one is avoid the day by a writer named jay kirk. This book is so hard to describe im actually going to read my blurb for it which goes like this, avoid the day the marvel males alien camaro, half mad detective story thats also a fever dream of the men were the book as a hunt for ghosts lost manuscripts and the truths hidden behind our symbols but carries a swirling irresistibly along from a neogothic childhood in monza vermont to the backwaters of transylvania to the icefield of the higher optic as kirks mind and virtuous approach coming out any day now its july 2020 publication. Those are my three. Of i could say one thing before we close, its sort of like the arts are still in trouble because of covid and bookstores are so in trouble. Authors are still in trouble. There are people in worse shape, my wife is an actress and the theaters are shut down in chicago and going out of business. But i want to urge folks listening to this to support literati and also by donovans book and by my book, im the bigot browser, like i wouldnt buy a book from an event like this but we dont have the ability to browse like we used to so if you are thinking about buying both of our books, i suggest you buy both of them, please do it now and please do it through literati. I think we are in a time when we are going to see massive cultural fallout from this and buying my book is not proving that you are fighting that, but i think its important that we support bookstores, support authors, support the arts. I will do an amen to that by emphasizing that literati has been an amazing host throughout this pandemic for many writers and bennett has been the wizard behind the zoom curtain. Thank you in particular to literati. Thank you literati. Donovan, thank you what an honor to share the computer screen with you and bennett, thank you, thank you to the people who shut up tonight. I see so many friends names, its a little intimidating. [laughter] a big thank you to both donovan and miles, thank you for stopping by and joining us. Thank you at home for tuning in. We had 60 people tonight, thats fun. I wouldnt be able to fit you all in my apartment but i can fit you in the zoom meeting so thats exciting to welcome you all. Hopefully we will see you again soon but otherwise have a great night, stay safe and stay well. You are watching booktv. Org, history professor argues that while the soviets were influential in the coronation of the nuremburg trials they were deposited for attempting to hide their own worn crimes. Hello Everyone Welcome and good evening, thank you for joining us virtually tonight. My name is nadia walter, on behalf of Harvard Bookstore and pleased to introduce this virtual back with francine hirsch, in her new book soviet judgement at nuremberg. In conversation with joshua rubenstein. Through Virtual Events like