[inaudible conversations] and welcome to booktvs live coverage of the 64th an usual book awards in new york city. These years awards are being hosted of morning joe. Coming up in a minute youll hear from maya. They sponsor the National Book awards. All evening booktv will be live tweeting and updating with the winners. If you would like to follow along booktv is our twitter handle and facebook. Com booktv is our facebook page. After these two awards are given out, there will be a break for dinner. You will see young peoples literature, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction awards give out. Now live coverage of the National Book awards. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as we begin the medal ceremony. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, [inaudible] good evening. How is everyone tonight . Beautiful im mika, cohost of morning joe. And im deeply honored to be here tonight. Im also very excited to say this to you on uninterrupted welcome to the 64th National Book awards. I got through it its the oscars of the book world, or as frank leeb wits called it, the oscars without money. Well take them. I have a very close connection to this evens awards. Just last month, we had the monitor honor of the the chairman of the National Book town daycare to announce the National Book foundation finalists. As a threetime author myself, i know firsthand what an incredible undertaking it is to write a book and the nightmares scenarios it poses on members of the family. Im so impressed by all of tonights nominees and honorees. On morning joe were proud to give authors the plat tomorrow to discuss their were work and the morning joe book bounce which is fantastic on amazon. Weve started a book club for nonfiction reading, and we hope to have a lot of finalists on the show very soon. As we gather this year, theres a lot of news and speculation in the book world. Random house and penguin merged this year, when they did there was a lot of hope, especially in the alternative rock world that the new company would be called random penguins. [laughter] they decided to call it Penguin Random house. Looking around the room, ive seen a lot of writers stuffed in these tuxedos, and they maybe should have called it random penguins. Just saying. You look handsome. The giants of the digital book industry are here tonight. Barnes noble, amazon, apple, and its been another banner year for digital books with the exception of any e books that had to be downloaded by from health care. Gov. [laughter] low blow. In fact, while im at it. I just heard that president obama was shopping a new book called how to work with congress. And it will be eligible for next years fiction category. [laughter] it hurts so badly. But were here tonight to celebrate writers and readers and every one of you in the industry who bring them together and the excellent work that you all do. As a reader and a writer, i applaud all your hard work, whether its books on paper or pixels or anything else. Books still make the world interesting and exciting and wonderful and where would our world be without them . So, since this is an awards program celebrating the best books of the move. Lets move in to it. I come from the world of morning joe. But morning joe is not here. So were going to be on time tonight. Were not going to be interrupted and not going go long. Were going keep our awards Program Running on time. I have to be up at 3 00 a. M. Im be at the forefront of this. Lets begin. So present the literary award to the Outstanding Service to the literary community. We have tonight tony morrisson. [applause] tony needs no introduction. Ill try this. One of the greatest novellests in american history, winner of the nobel prize in literature, recipient of the president ial medal of freedom, resip yet and host of other honors it gives me great pleasure to welcome tony morrisson. Thank you. Did you see me walk . You dont appreciate it because you havent been in a wheelchair like i have for a long time. Its important to me. And im really delighted. Its great and its a personal pleasure to honored friend and artist and a legend. When i sat down to gather my thoughts about what i could say about maya angelou. The first is in fact of in spite of her truly outrageous talent she doesnt summon that routine jealously and put down that artists as famous as she are accustom to. Instead, maya inspires delight as well as awe. Her reputation sparkles with elegance, jens generosity, humor, strength, clean honesty, compassion, and dare i say wisdom. My son died one christmas, and the very first nonfamily voice i heard on the phone was maya with that unmistakable voice of sheer [inaudible] i cant admit the pleasure of her company. With so much toxicity around in the world. A seb and trust me,my maya can cook. [laughter] i knew her at random house. Where she published her first book. The auto biography was popular, of course. But more than that, it had breadth and meaning. And i dont recall any woman writer more insightful or more courageous describing her life. And equally important is it gave license to a host of other africanamerican writers. It opened the door to our inside, our interior. Minus the white day or sanctions. Interestingly, its provocation in 1969, neither began nor completed mayas work. Just think of this as a curriculum vitae journalist, writing for [inaudible] in 1960,1961. Play wright, careen writer, film director, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1978 66. Activist, coordinator at the request of Martin Martin luther king, 1968, cooperation with malcolm x to build the organization for africanamerican unity in 1964. Yes, arthur of eight or fees, 1969 to this here, 2015. A poet, 10 collections of poetry , 1971, 1995, professor wake forest university, reynolds professor of american studies. I left out much. Childrens stories, essays, recordings and albums. Maybe one or two of these accomplishments could account for the esteem in which maya angelou is held, but all of them . The list is truly humbling. In spite of a childhood of wounds and obstacles that would break or paralyze many of us, suffering energized and strengthened her and along with good counseling, determination and persistence, her creative impulse struck like bolts of lightning. Her example is not one of survival. It truly is one of triumphed. Dr. Maya angelou, you improve our world by drawing from us, forcing from us our better selves. Thank you. [applause] [applause] old folks say it takes one to know one. Thank you my darling. Tony morrison, its a blessing. She is a blessing and its amazing, we have been sister friends all of these years and i am grateful for it. I know that in truth it takes one to know one and i am grateful. I know that tony is all of that and i know that you are, all of you literary folks, amazing. I mean, amazing that you have chosen to give me a gift, to honor me and im so pleased. Its amazing. I know that you are all writers and i am delighted that you have chosen to not only honor me that to ask ms. Toni morrison to honor me and honor you. And that is who you are. There is an old statement, an old statement that says, when it looks like the sun will not shine anymore. God put a rainbow in the clouds. Amazing. Amazing. [applause] the statement was aspired in genesis. It it says that the rain had persisted so unrelenting people thought it would never ease. To put the people at ease, god put a rainbow in the sky. That is in genesis. But in the 20th century im sorry 19th century, some africanamerican poet, maybe a woman, im not sure about that, but she said god didnt just put a rainbow in the sky. God put a rainbow in the clouds. In the clouds. We know that suns and moons and stars in 11 nations are always in the sky and illumination. However, clouds can so persist that people cant see a change in the possibility in the sky, in the clouds and here we are. Here you are. Amazing. You are rainbows in my clouds. See, its a blessing that you have decided to be a rainbow in my cloud. That you have decided, whether i deserved it or not, you have decided to honor me and i am grateful to you. I am grateful to Toni Morrison. I am grateful to bob loomis, my editor. A. [applause] for over 40 years, over 40 years, i imagine it, i have tried to tell the truth as i understand it in prose. Amazingly, i dont know, i know that there is a difficulty in trying to write prose. I know that you know all of that and you are smarter than many of us here. I know that you know all of that however, there is a possibility that when you use a few nouns and pronouns and some incredible poetry, you know what it means. Its very hard. I think you know that easy reading is hard writing. [laughter] but you know all of that because you are literary folks and you know that. I have in trying to tell the truth as far as i understand it. I didnt try to tell everything i know, but i have tried to tell the truth. You have honored me this evening. I am so grateful. I am so appreciative. My sons and daughters, and some of them are black and white and asian and Spanish Speaking in native american and and straight but i have tried to tell the truth. So that you have honored me. I cant say it enough to say thank you and i thank you. I think Toni Morrison and i thank you for realizing how she is. And how important we are to each other. People live in direct relation to the sheroes and the heroes they have and i thank you for honoring me. Thank you. [applause] [applause] well max. [applause] and now to present the medal for distinguished contribution to american letters is victor. Ascii. He is one of the americans journalisms great treasures. Longtime editor and publisher of the nation. He is author of six books including the National Book awardwinning, naming names. He is delacorte professor of magazines at columbia universitys graduate school of journalism director of the george t. Delacorte center and chairman of the columbia journalism review. It gives me great pleasure to introduce that there. Vic derf. [applause] well i am floating on Maya Angelous cloud. I love what i just heard. Let me say when i was asked to introduce my good friend el. Road this evening i was honored to be asked and said yes because i have such admiration for his looks, his plays and his other writings, his short stories but on reflection it has occurred to me that edgar has one more awards than our good for him. Among them the National Book award for saul bellow award for achievement in american fiction, the National Humanities medal bestowed by president clinton in 1988 and the gold medal bestowed by the American Academy of arts and letters. I thought that he should be home instead of spending his time going to evenings like this. He should be home writing his novels and short stories, better than the out accepting yet another award this evening that would divert him from his more important work. That was my Second Thought after the first thought of being honored to introduce him. Then i remembered that nothing diverts him from his work. Once my wife and me and i took a vacation with edgar and helen the love of his life and make calls captained tidy because she keeps cleaning up after him. [laughter] we went to some island in the caribbean. Those were the days before computers came along so at six in the morning we would hear it edgars typewriter clacking away and i knew from the days when he worked as an editor in chief at dial press, where his writers included among others norman mailer, James Baldwin and william kennedy, that one should never call his home in new rochelle before 6 00 a. M. , not because you would wake up actor or helen or one of their three extraordinary children, but because you would disturb him in the middle of his work as he put in two hours a day writing his novel before he got on the commuter train to new york for his day job. And its not merely that as a writer he will always manage to find time to write but rather then put these awards in a fancy display case, when he does take time off from his own writing as often as not he uses his present prestigious celebrity to advance the cause of the artist in society. For example, when you testified before congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the arts, he eloquently told congress why it would be a big mistake to condition new grants are writers behaving themselves politically, which congress was then disposed to do. Here is just some of what he had to say and these are quotes from edgar testifying before congress any legislative condition put on an artists speech no matter how in temperate or moderate, no matter how vague, no matter how vague or specific means to you publish a dictionary with certain words deleted from the language. It means you lay out a palette with certain colors struck from the spectrum. Do you really want to do this . Does congress and its woods of them believe that keeping words and blacking them out and erasing portions of the tape is what is needed to save this republic . Its bad not only for artists but its bad for us all. Now you dont need me to talk to you about his extraordinary books and why they deserve the sadr that he is receiving this evening, the book of daniel, red time, homer and langley each of which is different from the last not to mention the next book which will if you will excuse the expression, blow your mind. But i will mention his First Published fiction. It was called the beetle. Im not sure how old he was when he wrote it. It was inspired not by ringo star and john lennon or Paul Mccartney or but rather by metamorphosis. I mention it only because when he was asked about it many years later he described it to an interviewer with typical modesty and wry wit as an active etymological self defamation. You got it. Although this evening we celebrate edgars fiction and his stories you should know that he went to Kenyan College where he measured majored in philosophy and studied with the poet and new critic. This experience has not been lost on edgar. Dont take my word for it, but do read the essay he wrote for the nation called the citizen reads the constitution in which he considers his countries fundamental document as a critic would a literary texts. In this case, what he calls the sacred text of secular humanism, the constitution being the secular text of constitutional humanism. I dont know what if anything can edgar will have to say this evening but i want to share with you the fact that some years ago when he was asked if he would introduce, when i was asked just as i want to say to you some years ago when he was asked by George Plimpton who interviewed him for one of paris reviews interviews, he was asked about when he told the story about a befuddled woman who was interviewed at the 92nd st. Y. And a befuddled woman got up there in the question period. Her first question were doctorow from the floor was what made you write about the firestorm addressed in . Doctorow politely informed her that she probably had Kurt Vonneguts slaughterhouse five and the dresden firestorm had been done so beautifully there was little reason for anyone else to try. The point here is doctorows attitude. It leaves one only original territory to explore which is what he is done with all of his work. He has been asked if he has a reader in mind when he sits down to write and he has replied no, its just a matter of language, of living in sentences. There is no room for a reader in your mind. You dont think of anything but the language you are in. Well, edgar i have news for you. You may not have us in mind that you are in a roomful of your grateful readers. Edgar. [applause] before coming here this evening, i thought to Say Something about what was lately on my mind and what is on all our minds whether we know it or not. Something that has swept through our lives and taken us up in ways that are useful and even spectacular but also worrisome. And so ubiquitous and looming lee present in everything we do. The way we communicate and take care of ourselves and find things out and looked to be entertained. Well, that would have to be the internet. So again i want to congratulate the shortlisted content providers this evening. [laughter] the World Wide Web was conceived as a somewhat academic thing some years ago but its years of realization in Development Since the 80s had seen to me the work of the moment, coming into being as an astronomical event, a Virtual World is sick companion plan or an orbital swing. Its stuff a substance not mountain and seized and deserts and melting icebergs that information, data, knowledge and every form and every kind transmitted for any purpose, personal governmental educational political. Its a companion mind to create wealth, to educate, to ring news, to spy, to save lives, to make orbit my odd sense of it is something fixed loaded into something having to do with a population putting itself easily into his Arcane Service as immigrants swearing fealty to a new world. Techies, the programmers, the webmasters, the Security Experts , the hackers almost as if it appeared as it appeared it created the people necessary to maintain it. And i wonder what if there was no internet . What would these people have done with their lives . It was as if they were born for virtual, so promptly and efficiently do they bond with it to work out its and reduce its possibilities. In this World Affairs is a world of simulation, clearly evidenced by its language. Nevermind that text is now a verb. [laughter] more erratically a Search Engine is not an engine. A platform is not a platform. A book mark is knotted oakmark because any book is not a book. And a cookie is not a chocolate chip cookie. A cloud is something that maybe somewhere in the sky although not there to produce weather and surfing is an entity with neither a surfboard nor waives to ride. So language has been stolen or more charitably metamorphosis i stood and we in this room especially have to appreciate metaphor. We are the descendents of writers who saw the sun as a chariot riding across the sky. Yet, and yet when was the last time on hearing the word mouse that you thought of a small rodent . Or heard the word web and thought of a spider . Ralph Waldo Emerson said all that can be thought can be written. Man is the faculty reporting and the universe is the possibility of reported. So emerson would appreciate the internet. The universe is the possibility of being reported suggests endless ascription and infinite surprise. And emerson after a drink or two might think of Global Internet at david he is the kind of oversoul. On my part i think less mystically. You will find in the relevant wikipedia entry, yes wikipedia entry, a visualization of routing paths through a portion of the internet. What makes the picture and canny is it might be easily mistaken for a crosssection of the brain of the human brain. So can we expect from the internet megabrained infinite manifestations of cuban human genius and human inadequate see . I think so. For every advantage the internet devices for us there is a disadvantage. The wide web algorithm breakthrough that shows us how to reduce pollution for example there is an algorithm for the quantification of persons into data. We are in everything we do our predilections are relations with others, are physical qualities, are psychic conditions or political beliefs what we buy and what movies we watch, what looks we read if any, anything and everything about us broken down into data the life substance of the companion world in cyberspace, invasive expeditions in the name of commerce or government surveillance rate for the use of corporations and Excited Police departments, you can collect quantification. In the 60s we called it reification. The kind of dehumanizing. So it turns out that the prophetic story through all of this is oddly enough the eviction story from the bronze age, telling of the consequences coming from the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. So like all worlds, the virtual comes with a seven and its hell what does this mean for all of us in this room, the writers and their publishers . We dont want to give up the presumably inconvenient thing we do, something as old as paginated written narrative. We dont want to lose heart as did frank norris the author of naturalistic works of fiction in the late 19th century, the octopus, mcteague. Norris despaired of the Western Union telegram. 10 words and stop. The twitter updates to a. He feared it was the end of literary discourse. If people could expose express themselves completely and 10 words the human mind would eventually be inaccessible to works of 100,000 words. And so the end of literary discourse, that was norris idea but he also believed the typewriter was an enemy of creativity and how much more was imparted to a sentence written by hand rather than by machine. We dont want to be todays norris. A silly fellow he was. As there are those today who think writing on the computer is the death of great fiction. Writers thrive on adversity and have ever since god stopped writing in humans took over the task. But there are intimate dynamics that do challenge us. In fact as concerns of interactivity one of of the web worlds waiving flags the techies dont want to know that reading a book is the essence of interact dignity. Where the readers life through a sieve sentences as through an electric circuit animating those sentences and bringing them to life in the mind so its only when a book is read that it is completed. Nothing else is interactive as that. A book is written in silence and read in silence, another advantage in our noisy world. The integrity of the mind is maintained but the ability to live in an extended discourse. So that isnt the problem nor is the major problem the undercutting of Office Copyright and pirating of text equivalent to what has happened to musicians, although that is a problem. You may have read a few days ago the results of a survey conducted by penn. Not only that american writers worry about being the target of government surveillance but that quote a significant portion of writers earn gauging and selfcensorship by avoiding research on certain controversial topics choosing not to engage in Sensitive Conversations and declining to two particular topics and stories in a pursuit of particular topics and stories when doing so might lead to scrutiny by the u. S. Government. So it has begun. Thats slowly gathering ghostly darkness coming off the other world, technology, kind of chinese like dark this may be. We will call it the first step down the stairs to the internet worlds hell. Hard to believe as we gather here this evening, flourishing, a forcing example of western democracy but the struggle has been begun as to who will rule the web of the world, data under minors or anyone else . We will have to take a deep breath, gather ourselves and reluctantly or not join that struggle. I dont have to remind us that everyone in this room is in the free speech business. Thank you for your kind attention and my congratulations again to the wonderful shortlisted writers here this evening. Thank you. [applause] [applause] that was beautiful. Thank you sir. Im almost frightened to ask this question. How many of you here tweet . Anybody . To distinguish an audience. I got one very. And the others . Is a hashtag. Okay, nb awards and im a professional at selfies if you want to call me over. We now invite you to enjoy dinner and we will return of course for a continuation of the National Book awards ceremony. [applause] [background sounds] the this is live coverage on booktv of the 64th annual National Book awards in new york city. Following the dinner break, the awards will be presented for young peoples literature, poetry, nonfiction and fiction. Now all five of the finalists in the nonfiction category were featured on booktv this past year. Heres a look at one of those authors. What is scientology exactly . Theres a lot to know about it. Its a very eccentric worldview created by a writer whose specialty was Science Fiction and so there are many elements in scientology that sound like Science Fiction because they were written by somebody who had written very similar things in much of his action. In scientology, the idea that is that you are an immortal soul. You have lived before and you will live again. What scientology can help you do is remember those past lifetimes and achieve your salvation. This is good news to a lot of people. In the course of therapy that salant a. G. Has its called auditing. The auditor, between you and your auditor there is a device and its called an e reader. You hold two cans. In the old days they used to be campbells soup cans with the label scraped off. They are wires connecting into a meter and there is a small amount of electricity passing through theres wires. It is one third of an actual lie detector. Measures your galvanic skin responses. It doesnt measure your pulse or your respiration but it does do something. When you are talking to your auditor the needle is constantly registering. In scientology they think that it measures the mass of your thoughts. They think that bots have mass and you can see the movement as it does aggregates. Say an old painful memory might show up on the meter and if you continually go through this thought and drain it of its painful qualities than the needle will slow down and pretty soon it no longer affects you. If you have that happen to you, the next thing might need he would be asked, was there an earlier event in your life it was like that . Say it was an argument with your wife. Was there some other moment in your life that resembles that . They might say yes my mother once said the same thing to me when i was about 10. I will never forget it. That is a vivid memory and lets talk about it and pretty soon it calms down and you go back further and further. One of the things that happened during the period of time that hubbard moved again to washington d. C. In 1957, living right around dupont circle, im sure that many of you have noted in one of the Historic Churches of scientology right in one of the most beautiful buildings in this neighborhood was one of the original churches of scientology. He and his family lived right around the corner. So much of his reality was invented here. If during that period of time people began to have memories in the womb. This was a controversial experiment in the history of scientology. Could you really remember that far back with could you remember arguments that year parents had while they were having or Something Like that . People were producing such memories and then they began to have memories even further back of previous lifetimes. Hubbard himself again to resist that, but eventually he endorses wholeheartedly. Now lets imagine you have had that argument with your spouse. You remember the argument with your mother. Now hes suddenly in your auditory you might have been image and the auditor says stop right there. What is that memory . I dont know, just had a vision of a farmhouse. Look around. What do you see . You might say well i see horses, straw. Open the door and walk outside. What do you see . It looks like what i imagined france would look like in the 17th century. Bear in mind they might he saying this is true. This is real and if you believe that it adds validity to this image that is then amplified into what feels like a real memory. That it comes a past life. For many people this is as real and valid as other real memories that they have had of their current existence but think how important it would be, that knowledge that yes i did live again and therefore i am immortal. Another thing that happens oftentimes in these circumstances is that people have the experience of leaving their body. In scientology its called lowering exterior. The sense that they have floated away. They can go to other planets. Im not trying to denigrate the experiences that people have in scientology or other religions but if you have had such an experience, what other people say about scientology, the criticism that they might launch against the church isnt really going to reach them. They have had a transformative experience. They have information that they find very valuable in their lives and what you say really is going to reach them. Now, there are a couple of questions that people often ask me and im going to treat them kind of quickly but i think they are important. One is, was hubbard crazy . He is often seen that way and he did have concerns that he expressed about his own mental health. He actually wrote to the Veterans Administration for some assistance and for some kind of psychological assistance and he never we dont have any record that he ever got that. Many people have given me their diagnoses. Some professionals have weighed in with terms like malignant narcissism, paranoid schizophrenia. And he certainly, if you look at his behavior and his thinking he does show signs of a lot of these things but i think nobody in history has ever mapped his own mentality quite as carefully as l. Ron hubbard. Meticulously examining every detail. Just as a writer and here we are in it oak store, i have to take my hat off to him. He holds the guinness book of worlds for the number of titles he published, more than 1000. So he continually wrote and mostly what he wrote about in scientology was his own interior journey and that is what scientology really is. When you enter the church of scientology, its like a breadcrumb trail into his mind. The further you go into the church, the deeper into both ron hubbards mind you go. Now our in and your screen is a live picture of chipra yonys in new york city where the 64th annual National Awards are being held. While the guests are eating dinner we want to show you another one of the finalists in the nonfiction category. When im asked where did this book come from and away the answers it came from iraq oddly enough even though this is a book very much focused on america. When i was covering iraq and the war for the new york are, my initial sense of why everything was imploding their was to blame individual leaders and we know who they are and they were to blame. There were gross failures on the part of him is to everyone in the highest positions of responsibility but over time, iraq came to seem more and more like a failure of american institutions. No matter how much money and how much effort and even how much talent and good will we at that country, it all seems to avail nothing. That was partly because it was an impossible job but also because the institutions that were responsible from the highest Government Agencies to the military, from the Intelligence Community to the media, they were all there in one capacity or another. The nonprofit world, the forprofit world. They just didnt have whatever had allowed us to rebuild europe after world war ii. Something had been lost in recent years. I wondered when did that happen, why did that happen . And then i came back from iraq in time to cover the 2008 president ial election and suddenly institutions were collapsing everywhere you looked. Wall street banks, lending institutions across the country, general motors, chrysler. It wasnt epic sense of sort of than a popup apocalyptic sense that the killers had upheld the postwar order in america that had created the most successful middleclass democracy in history. It seemed to be coming undone and that struck me as being a very very big story, a story well worth telling that the question was how do you tell a story like that . There are a lot of books out there, very good ones, about the decline of the middle class, about income inequality, about the collapse of our old media institutions, about Political Polarization in washington, about the rise of big money and Corporate Power on capitol hill. I didnt have anything to add to those looks. I didnt want to write another whats wrong with america and how to fix fix it fix it both. I actually dont know how to fix it so when you ask me afterward i will have to tell you that i dont have the answers. But i thought what i could add to this growing sense that something has come undone is a narrative, a book that gives you a picture of the country the way a big novel would give you a picture of the country, through the stories of individuals which is for me the way i approach the world and the way i understand the world and the way i think about how to describe the world. So i began to go around the country and find those individuals and find those stories to tell this larger story of what i think is the end of the deal that used to exist among americans, the deal but said if you do your part and work hard or as a place for you and they be even at better place for your children, the dream of upward mobility across generations and equal opportunity for all. What we have seen over the past generation, which is the period covered by the unwinding, a period of three decades is the framing of our social contract. Until now i think its hardly said to be existing anymore and its replaced by something else. Again a big ambitious subject. Big subjects are best eliminated by small ways dramas. Im going to read you the prologue to give you a sense of the lay of the land of the book and we will talk a little more about it. No one can say when the unwinding began, when the coil that help americans together in its secure and sometimes stifling grip first gave way. Like any great change the unwinding began countless times in countless ways and at some moment the country, always the same country, crossed the line of history and became irretrievably different. If you were born around 1960 or afterward, he spent your adult life in the vertigo of that unwinding. You watch structures that had been in place before your birth collapse like pillars of salt across the vast visible landscape. The farms of the carolina piedmont, the factors of the valley, florida subdivisions, california schools and other things harder to see footnote less vital in supporting the order of everyday life, changed beyond recognition, ways means in washington caucus rooms, taboos on new york trading desks , matters and morals everywhere. When the norms that make the old institutions useful began to eye and, and the leaders abandoned their posts, the roosevelt republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. The void was filled by the default force in american life, organized money. Now our in your screen live pictures ciprianis in your city the home of the National Book awards. This is live coverage on both tv while the guests are eating dinner we want to show you another one of the authors in the nonfiction category. I started to notice that women were called to testify a lot. They were brought in. They were very instrumental for instance that the nuremberg trials. I started to realize well, these women are coming in to testify against their male bosses or even their spouses. They had a lot of information. They were providing a lot of historical valuable information to prosecutors, information that historians have pulled out of documentations and written history from but not really question why does this woman know so much . How come she is telling me every detail about the procedures that were taken in the proper way that documents were handled and how orders were conveyed to killing units, the mood in the office, what happened in terms of the distribution of property, who had access to the safe, to classified material . Im identifying killers and describing scenes at actual massacres at these killing sites. I started to realize as well that womens testimony had been underappreciated or taken for granted in many ways and that we hadnt asked in looking at the testimony how come they know so much . They must have been there and if they were there, what did they do that they are not revealing in this testimony . We have to go back to the sources and ask new questions. Eventually i was able to determine by this collecting effort that went on for many years, that there were proximately, and this is a rough estimate and future research may in fact change this but i could account for about a half a million german women who circulated in the eastern territories during the war in different capacities. The german red cross train 640,000 women during the nazi air a, 400,000 of the Wartime Service and some 300,000 of them were in eastern territories. The german army trained another halfmillion women in support positions as flight recorders, radio up raiders, where tappers, himmlers train some 30,000 women and certified them and they had to sign an oath to the s. S. In order to maintain secrecy friends and send these were special auxiliaries gestapo headquarters and prisons. 2500, 2005 in the teachers were sent to one region alone in poland to participate in the german and station efforts to set up kindergartens when the german refugees came into kind of teach them all about the nazi ideology and so forth. So these were 200, over 200,000 women that were s. S. Rides off as men and they were encouraged to stay with their a man because the ss organization was an elite racial organization. We find many ss wives in these locations so they could be together and propagate and continue to promote the race and have more children. Here is an image. I think its quite illustrative of this phonon manon. Nurses being sworn in berlin and you can see the magnitude of this. This is during the war. The image on the right is from the cover of a brochure. The east needs you and this is trying to recruit women to be resettlement advisers so when ethnic german refugees were brought in, the german women who were brought in to teach them the language, teach them german songs, german cooking, how to maintain a proper german household ,com,com ma all of these kinds of activities. Now, while i was putting this picture together of what came to be, what i came to realize as a whole generation of german women because if you think about it, who are the individuals who are going to be going off you know in the nursing staff, and the secretarial staff as the wives. These are young women who are fertile who can reproduce and also young women who are single working in the offices and the nursing professions and his teachers. Most of these women were born between 1920 and 1924, thereabouts. So now not only women in the eastern territories but it looked like a generational phenomenon that was emerging so i started to refer to them as these First World War i baby boomers. This fits into the general history of nazi germany with the leadership itself young. Those that committed these crimes were young within the german population. You had people like hitler and in their 40s with enormous amounts of power and similarly women of marriage age in their 20s also wielding considerable power and the implications of that, of young people building this kind of power, ability to make life and death decisions over nongermans. The tvs live coverage of the 64th annual National Book awards will continue after the dinner break. While we wait, here is another one of the nonfiction vinyl is. Finalists. In this new war, the war of 1812 the british wanted to be over with as quickly as possible and they wanted to be left with as few responsibilities from this war as possible. So hence the orders to the naval commanders, only free a few men who could be helpful. But what happens instead is that hundreds of blacks, probably about 600 during the year 1813, men, women and children take it upon themselves to steal canoes and go to the british. Now the prime british purpose for the Chesapeake Bay at the start is not to liberate slaves but to inflict as much damage on the American Economy as possible and to punish virginia which was besieged to be quite correctly to be the political heart of the united states, the home of president at madison secretary of state monroe. And consider to be a hot data support for the war. So the british want to ravage the shores of virginia and they are perfectly willing to include maryland as collateral damage. And then they discover as the six hundreds enslaved people seek freedom by going to the warships that they need the help of these escaped slaves, that they cannot achieve their purpose without them. They do not know the lay of the land. They are very nervous in 1813 about going onshore for fear of ambush and its only once they get experts about the landscape that they become aggressive about going deep into the interior and they have to go deep into the interior once they are receiving hundreds of refugees because they along with the sailors and the marines on the ships have to be fed. Of a british operation. This liberation of what will become at least 3,000 people from virginia and maryland. This is at the very heart of the transformation of that operation in to something far more effective and much more threatening to the united states. In 1814, the second year of the operation. What i want to do now is talk about one particular escape, which i find especially revealing. It occurred on a night in october of 1814, on the virginia shore of the pa towic in king george county. When several young enslaved black men stole a cano and paddlinged across the river to the maryland shore to a place. They have done it in the middle of the night. They have managed to steal it without waking anyone up. They take it back to the virginia shore and load up 17 people. For a dash down the river in search of the british warship as their portal to freedom. And the morning, their masters discovered their live slaves were gone. In the words of one master, quote, had taken many articles out of the dwelling house in the course of the night and all their own articles and effects out of their houses. In the morning, armed white men road a swift boat in pursuit down the river. That were too late because the 17 escaped slaves had become free by reaching a british warship. Now, i want to spend some time on this particular escape, because it is very revealing overall pattern i find in many escapes. First, this showed very careful planning and organization. This is not a spur of the moment emotional decision. They accomplished all of this, the dark of night without waking up their masters or their overseers. And they managed to empty their Masters House of many possessions. And take their own possessions with them. Second, this shows a twostage pattern i find in many of these escapes. Theres a first stage in which a initial few young men venture out and try to obtain the means to return to their home farms and plantations in order to retrieve many more people. And in particular to get women and children out. And so we have these three young minute who initially steal the canoe. They load up 14 more people. Now the mo common pattern is for the initial leaders ill call them the pioneers. To steal a canoe, get away to a british warship, and persuade the british to make a raid on their particular neighborhood in order to get out their family and friends. And this was the pattern at the plantation in april of 1814. In which one of the three early pioneers who escaped to the british on april 18th, and then returned with a british Raiding Party guiding them on april 21st to 22nd. And managed to get out another 66 people to freedom. Actually you add up its 69. One of the woman was so pregnant she gave birth that night on a british warship. She was that determined that her child would be born free. Now on your screen is a live picture in new york city where the 64th annual National Book awards are being held. While the guests are eating dinner. We want to show you another one of the finalist in the nonfiction category. Putting on my bifocal about ben franklin and virginia wolf. Then i looked at them side by side. That is pretty interesting right there. Isnt it . Because you can see they share a posture, a pose, a world view, a notion of selfhood, a notion of a writers life inspect is a vision of how an author works. This is a vision of the author as solitary and alone and isolated in a room of her own with her papers in her desk. The author unincum we ared by anyone elses needs. Thats the story told in both of the portrait. Its a story that franklin tells and why he has to leave his sister out of it. Jane franklin of not unencumberedded. She was hardly ever alone. She never wrote the story of her life. It never would occurred to do that. She stitched a little book of 16 pages inspect is the cover. I made a fax simly. I told you i had props. So i brought in my copy which im not going pass around because its precious to me. Its the size of jane franklins auto biography. Its four pages ripped out and folded and ripped and stitched with a coarse thread. I make it with fake 18th century paper and i put on my goofy glasses. I was trying hard to transform myself. When i went to see this little book that jane made, it existed in archives in boston. It is very small. It is humble, its quite plain. As you can see. On the first page, she wrote three words book of ages. What the hell does that mean . I didnt know. What does it mean . Its not an auto biography. It is a book of ages. It is a list of the births and deaths of her 12 children. It is a lit any of greed and life of living rags to rags. And the hardest thing about reading jane franklins book of ages. Its 16 pages. As i turned them she i discovered she lost most of the pages blank. Had she nothing more to say . I was filled with despair sitting in the archives. My glasses was useless. What i was i thinking i could actually know this woman and write about her. I put my glasses on and thought about bito call and looked one more time. Im holding the sheets stitched together looking at the blank page through jane franklins spectacle. I began to think she had something to say after all. And so very delicately i once more turned the brittle pages of her book of ages. In this i saw an unwritten story. The history of book and papers, the history of reading and writing, a book of ages about ages of books. So i wanted to tell you a little bit about how that story worked. I thought first about the book itself. Her paper was made from rags. Soaked and pulped and strained and dried. Her thread made from flax, combed, spun, twisted, and dyed. She laid down a sheet and smoothed it with the family palm of her hands. She creased it, folded it, and pressed it out. She used a needle to stitch a seam. Its no thicker than a patch of burlap. She dipped a pen in to a pot of oil and wrote book of ages. In a flourishing hand. A hand she would have learned out of a book her brother printed in philadelphia called the american instructor; a young mans best companion. Boys learned how to write through books that ben printed. She wrote jane franklin. Her writing is a little bit difficult to read. Im going give you a transcription of it here. Below she wrote edward married on the 27th of july. 1727. The book of ages. Her age is the first age we learn. Born march 27, 1712. 15 years and four month she was married. She was a child when she married. The legal age was 16. The average age was 24. Which except for jane is the average age which her sisters were married. And also the age which ben franklin was are in rid. Ben was married. It was extremely rare. The man she married was poor. A sad leer, a scot. She never once wrote anything about him expressing the least affection. She hardly wrote anything about him. Their first born wednesday june 4, 1729. Then added one line more and died may 18, 1730. The child of her childhood died three weeks shy of his first birthday. A dead child is a sight no more surprising than a broken picture preached in a sermon. One in four children died before the age of one. Pure at the grave site there would be no service nor ministers warned ought there be any tears. They cited luke chapter 17, verse 13, weep not. What remains of a life like this . Remains means what is the body after death but remains are also unpublished paper and our children are our remains. The boston poet wrote about her children as my little babes. She wrote, a chance shall bring this verse kiss this paper. Jane did not know how to write a poem. She couldnt have afforded a gravestone. She went home and wrote a book of remembrance. Kiss this paper. Good evening. On behalf of the board of directors of the National Book foundation, its my privilege to welcome you to the 64th annual National Book awards. Its been my privilege to do this for the last seven years, but ive never done it with such a large crowd. We have more than 700 people here today. I thank each of you for being here for this special event. [applause] one of the things that makes this evening so special its a night where our literary stars come out. We have incredible writers. Some of our greatest writers here. Im going mention a few of them. Im going ask you to hold your applause until i get through the list. Its hard we have an amazing list. We have with us winners of the National Book award. Edward. [reading names] [reading names] [reading names] the recipient of the president ial medal of freedom maya and Toni Morrison. Please recognize these writers. [applause] [applause] i would like to thank our financial supporters, again, please hold applause here. Let me get through this list. Premiere sponsor. Barnes noble, amazon, ford. [reading names] [reading names] thank you for your support. Couldnt do it without you. Now, i would like to acknowledge in our audience something special. The winners of our fifth annual innovations and reading prize funded by the eleven gear foundation. Our organization is about recognizing great writing and encouraging the reading of great books. These are organizations that help make it happy. Here they are. Read is the way up. A project of City National bank in los angeles provided books to more than 100,000 children. Little free Library Based in wisconsin has established book exchanges in over 7,000 locations around the world. I think we have an example of one in the back over here. You can take a look at. Also, we have over there an example from the unit any project based here in new york. Portal and temporary spaces this to reading rooms. The uprise project. The book project you loved this based in vancouver, washington. Challenges youngunderprivileged teens to read by banned books. Some of the greatest books are banned by author famous authors and world reader based in seattle, washington provides ebooks to poor children in africa. Has already delivered over 480,000 books to 10,000 children who read more and better than ever before. I ask the winners to stand and be recognized. Lets give them some recognition for this great work. [applause] [applause] all right. Now a few years ago people didnt think we were serious when the National Book awards added an after party. As many of you know now its become the first time we did it, it was over subscribed. I couldnt tell anyone where it was. I said if you want to go you have to hunt down and see if you can get them to tell you. We figured out now that we need a lot of space. We do it right here upstairs at the end. Everyone is invited. And i have to thank our after party sponsor. [applause] our after party committee. [cheering and applause] our spirited after party committee. [reading names] shes watching tonights ceremony from her post as poet and residence in an an up north. Thats going on today. Okay. A few more people to thank. I want to thank our host for having me on morning joe to announce the finalist. And helping us a announce the long list. The special thanks to the dinner cochair who transformed the dinner. If you came more than four years ago you know what im talking about. Debra, lynn, and shelly. Thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] and finally, finally need to acknowledge a National Book foundation terrific staff. Our tireless director. My colleagues on the board of directors who have been terrific, and now on behalf of the foundation, good luck to all of our finalists tonight. And on to the awards ceremony. Okay, are we ready . That dessert was yummy. Okay. Now its time for what weve all been waiting for, the actual National Book awards ceremony. The order of the award categories will be this young peoples literature, poetry, nonfiction, and then fiction. So to present the National Book award in young peoples literature is e lock heart. Was the finalist for the 2008 National Book award in young peoples literature for her novel. Which was also a michael award honor book and received the award for best young adult novel. Her most recent book, real live boyfriends. The fourth book in the series, and it gives me great pleasure to introduce e. Lockhart. Everyone in this room, you are here because once upon a time you fell in love with a book. If it happened at 3, perhaps it was the the snowy day. In any case, it was probably a childrens book. [cheering and applause] the young peoples literature category is a category of books that make readers for life. Books that are read over and over. That are clutched to the chest and adored. Im proud to have serve order the ypl committee with library novelist and nba finalist, and writer, editor, and graphic novelist. [cheering and applause] we searched for books that resonated with us intellectually and emotionally long after the first read. We chose books we felt were modern classics. We believe readers will clutch to their chest and adore. Books that will make readers for life. The finalist in the young people eats lit gare category are [reading names] [cheering and applause] we are on the committee, loved these five books. With the crazy passion of teenage love and the sticky open hearts of toddlers. This years National Book award for young peoples literature goes to cynthia kadohata, the thing about luck. Hi, i dont have a speech because im wildly, wildly us is tissues. I thought it would be bad luck. Maybe i did the right thing. I just wanted to thank everyone at simon and shuster at every level and every step of the way. They have incredibly great people. My editor, i dont think there is a better editor in new york. That would be impossible. John anderson, justin for being supportive of their team. Russell gordon who discovered the cover. Jeanne who saved me from embarrassment. My fabulous agent, and i just wanted to say to same and george, if you were here, you inspire every breath i take. Thank you. [applause] [cheering and applause] okay. To present the National Book award for poetry is knicky finney. Finney is the author of four books of poetry. Had often split, which won the national 2011 book award in poetry. The the world is round. And on wings made of gauze. She recently accepted the position of chair in southern letter and literature at the university of south carolina. Its my pleasure to introduce nikky finney. [cheering and applause] good evening, everybody. I stand before you on behalf of the amazing poetry judges that make up this years panel. [reading names] thank you team. The world has no idea of the deep respect and adoration i now have for your curiosity, and your abiding willingness to listen and make decisions in the great and sweet names of poetry. So it is in the spirit of William Carlos williams, robert warren, audrine rich, mary ann moor, lucille clifton, ruth stone, gene valentine. I and tarrence i share with you they began arriving at our door like eggs. 12, sometimes 6. Sometimes two to a carton and a box. Poetry books federal government so friendly. Not resembling competitor but something we could pick up, take out, eat, and as a result live forever. Some arrived in the old, old way as if sent from the great butcher shop on the corner. Wrapped with great crates and butcher paper. The edges carefully taped down. One crossed bow tied with brown twine as if something was inside waiting to spill. Something more than blood and bone. Most were madison avenue full dress. Some came in simple mylar. Fully made up faces would arrive later in the summer. We opened them and soon began finding them all 208 of them stacked by our beds, or in the front room where the reading light was much better, or there in the kitchen within the other food. Some fled to our work bags by mistake. We peeled back their thin shells letting the poetry there cover us. Letting their worlds invite and instruct. We fell back especially in to the eyes and arms of these five books. Metaphysical dog. By frank bidart. Published by farrar, strauss, and g. I. Rouk. Stay, illusion. By Lucie Brockbroido published by alfred a. Knopf. The big smoke. By adrian matejka. Published by penguin. Black ap et ure. By matt rases rasmussen. Incairn dine poems. The winner of the National Book award for poetry is mary szybist for inkarnadine] to echo the words of maya earlier and apply them more appropriately whether i deserve it or not. Sometimes when i find myself in a dark place, i lose all taste for poetry. If it cannot do what i want it to do, if it cannot restore those i have lost. Then why bother with it at all . Theres plenty that poetry cannot do, but the miracle, of course, is how much it can do. How much it does do. So often i think i know myself only to discover in a poem a difference and otherness that resonates where i find myself as well as stephens once put it, more truly and more strange. It is what some describe as full making. I count myself among them. I think often of the words of Paul Connelly who said i believe it is not arguing well, but speaking differently that changes a culture. Poetry is the place where speaking differently is the most prevalent. Speaking differently is what i aspire to. And what i so adamantly admire in the poetry of adrian, frank, lucy. I am amazed to be in your company. Thank you, for publishing my first book. Thank you gray wolf press for publishing this one. And taking such care with it. Im grateful to so many. But i want to especially thank gabriela who inspired so many of the poems. Michelle and my brother for helping me through them. Thank you to my husband, jerry harp, the heart to whom i speak for everything. And final thanks to my family. My family. And especially to my mother, who made me. Okay. To present the National Book award for fiction is charles mcgrath. Mcgrath is former editor of the New York Times book review and before that Deputy Editor of the new yorker. Please welcome charles mcgrath. Standby, charles. I have the wrong card. [laughter] that is seriously cruelty to fiction writers. Im sorry. Okay. The National Book award for nonfiction are we good now . Will be presented by erick sun qis. The author of to wake the nation. Winner of the James Russell prize in the modern Language Association for best book published during the year that christian award for best book in the humanities. And the choice outstanding Academic Book award. Hes chair of the department of english and andrew w. Melon professor of humanities at Johns Hopkins university, a great school. It gives me great pleasure to introduce erick sunqiuist. Good evening. Its great pleasure to be here. On behalf of my fellow panelists, let me thank the National Book foundation for the privilege of judging this years nomination in the category of nonfiction. Perhaps i can speak for all of us and saying that in a lifetime of reading, i have not had a more gratifying, surprising, and educational experience. We had the pleasure of reviewing hundreds of books. 500 plus to be specific. Across an exceptionally wide range of again are genre and topic. Everywhere encountering contemporary american writing at its best. Im sure all of us, at one point or another, looked back with envy to the 20year period from the mid 19 60s to the mid 1980 when multiple awards recognizing as many as eight different categories of nonfiction were presented. For us; however, all of those categories were crowded in to one. And much as we would have loved to present many awards. We had first, to narrow many great works down to a long list of ten then down to these five finalists book of ages the life and opinions of jane franklin. By jill lepore. Published by alfred a. Knopf. [applause] hitlers furries german women in the nazi killing fields by wendy lower. The unwinding an inner history of new america by george packer. Published by farrar, strauss, and g. I. Rou x. The internal enemy slavery and war in virginia, 17721832 by allen taylor. Published by w. W. Norton and company. And going clear scientology, hollywood, and the prison of belief by lawrence wright. Published by alfred a. Knopf. This years National Book award in nonfiction goes to george packer. [cheering and applause] this is an incredible honor. Anyone who was at last nights reading knows that all of the nominees in this category did great work, and i feel very lucky to be given this award. Thank you to my friend, john, alex star, and the rest. You still do it the Old Fashioned way, which is still the best way. [applause] thank you to sara of the wily agency for your crucial intelligence and enthusiasm. Thank you to daniel and david and others at the new yorker for giving me just the right balance of freedom and editorial brilliance. Thank you to my friend, dexter, for being there from the start. To my mother and sister, nancy and ann. Writers both so they understand. My children, charlie and julia, i wont say you knead any easier. You did make it a lot more fun. To laura, my love, thank you for sharing my life and my work and i cant imagine either one without you. And finally, i want to thank dean price, tammy thomas, jeff conton, and other americans who gave me the great gift of trusting me with their stories and allowing me in to their lives so i could try to illuminate some of what has gone wrong in america over the past generation. And in their own lives, some of what has gone right. Thank you very much. And now ill introduce a man who needs no introduction because i already introduced him. Charles mcgrath. [applause] there were 407 nominees for the National Book award this year. Its up about 100 from 2012. Which suggests that the writing of fiction may actually be a growth industry in america. [laughter] these books came from small publishers, from big publishers, university publishers, and selfpublishers. From all masters and firsttimers. They came in the mail in a variety of formats. In hard backs, paper backs, gallies, in loose manuscript, and loose leaf binders. One book, an epic novel of hawaii came in a plastic case accompanied by a packet of macadamia books. Not all of these books were good. [laughter] but many more than not perform that magical trick of prose. The one that never gets tired no matter how many books we read. The trick that takes you out of your self and drops you down in another place and is in another life. A great many of the books we read were not just good but very, very good. National book awards this year, for the first time, did the welcome thing of having a long list of ten book. My fellow judges and i could gazely have doubled that. The task from getting from 10 to 5 to 1, at times, seemed arduous, unfair, and even cruel. A reminder that the whole business of giving literary award, worthy as it is, has the unfortunate effect of leaving out books that are almost equally deserving. Eventually, my fellow judges and i got to one, and i thank them for their diligence, scrupulousness, fairmindedness, intelligence, and hard work. Those judges are charles baxter, gish jen, charles mcgrath, rick sim monoson, renee. The finalist for the National Book award this year are the flame throwers by rachel kushner. The lowland by jhumpa lahiri. [applause] the good lord bird by james mcbride. [applause] bleeding edge. By thomas pynchon. The tenth of december by george saunders. [cheering and applause] published by random house. [cheering and applause] the winner of the National Book award for 2013 the is good lord bird by james mcbride. [applause] [cheering and applause] [cheering and applause] actually, i didnt prepare a speech because i really didnt think i was going to win today. I would like to say that i was reading today a note myself about what happened in may 2004. On long island when el gave the commencement speech, and he spoke out against the war. And the kids there they booed him. And i remember saying to myself, you know, somebody ought to Say Something. Somebody ought to do something about this and think about this has been at 72 years old. Having the sector of his life having lived through the seen, lived through and witnessed at least to some degree, the holocaust in the 50s and 60s and body of work and desired to speak the truth and that truth for us that are wordsmans. And i really didnt do anything. And when i saw him speak tonight, i once again of reminded that we have a lot of work ahead of us. Im so proud to be part of a community that at least thinks like that. Had rachel or jhumpa or thomas or george won tonight. I wouldnt have felt bad. They are fine bring writers. But its sure nice to get it. [laughter] [applause] for the first 15 years i didnt make her a penny. Im glad we had a bad year this year. Because know of you that know our brother passed away. It was a difficult thing for us that knew him. And to my daughter and my children, you know, when i wrote this book, my mother guyed in died in january of 2010. My niece died a couple of weeks later. Then my marriage fell apart. But it was always nice to have somebody whose world i could fall in to and follow him around. That was and the good lord bird talking about a great american. Its our responsibility to pave the way to further widen the trail they have set for us. And im proud to be, as say they, part of that number when the saint go marge marching in. Thank you for this. [applause] [cheering and applause] thank you. This concludes the 64th annual National Book awards. Thank you for coming. Please join us for the after party, which will be right upstairs here. Thanks, good night. Youve been watching booktv live coverage of the 64th annual book awards in new york city. The