industry that features author events, educational panels, and information on soon-to-be published books. next a panel of authors talk about their books. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ♪ ♪ [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [applause] >> well, thank you. i'm a little nervous. to be here this morning with all you people. book expo america. you know, i'm one of those people that believe it or not it is seen on television i'm the kind of guy that when he gets into any area he looks for the bookstore and he hangs around the bookstore. [applause] it's a magnet for me. i like to explore books. it's like dating someone else. your export of all the time. i've been meaning to explore -- i started at chapel hill and i fell completely in love with carla and barbers politics and prose in d.c. i hope somebody here is familiar. it's absolutely the number one watering spot in d.c. for not just -- everybody. we all go there to hang out, drink coffee. it looks like a grad school operation going on all the time. we love that place. up in nantucket i love the bookstore which is the place to go and hang out. it was always a place to check him. the independent bookstore such a cultural phenomenon in this country. it's not just the place to sell books. really have an ongoing intellectual life and it's the one place you love doing it. so congratulations for doing this. i read "the new york times" today. the business isn't living, it's booming, which is a great thing. [applause] it's good to be in the big apple as it was once called and they will be again called the naked city. that depends on who wins the mayors race. [laughter] it's going to get worse. i remember growing up with a tv show called naked city. there are 8 million stories in the naked city. this has been one of them. 8 million people in this city and anthony weiner is one of the top to. [laughter] i've been thinking about how unhealthy of the day in the movie, it's as good as it gets. the movie with jack nicholson and this woman said, why can't i just find a normal boyfriend? is that too hard to do these days? [laughter] everybody seems to be leaving politics these days. the other day this week michele bachmann light actually really do love, michele bachmann announced she is leaving politics and i'm tempted to say, please, michelle, pretty please, i will never ask you for anything. you've got to think it over. the country need you. i need you. [laughter] i used to think congress as a place like advice and consent with sophisticated people like walter pigeon as the senate majority leader and the southern grandes like charles and sophisticated old money people like margaret chase smith running the place. today it's feeding time at the zoo. it's very different. people laugh about the oldest. i think about back to the 1990s when read nice guys like newt gingrich running the place. [laughter] he carried his own china shop. but likely would bill clinton signed to matador. and i never forget how he made him sit in the back of air force one. made him out for a month. that's nothing compared to today. today we of hannibal lecter as the senate republican leader. he wants to eat obama for breakfast at an white house with a guy doing greta garbo wants to be left alone. today, we get nothing but endless fight over taxes and spending and government shut downs and sequestration and the inevitable furloughs dusters. this last week believe it or not there was a debate about whether to debate the filibuster. yes. back in the '70s i worked for the senate budget committee for and must be and back then this is how times have changed, the republicans and the democrats on the senate budget committee agreed on a budget. together, a bipartisan budget. back in the '60s when we fought the vietnam war or fought against having the vietnam war, even the antiwar resolutions were all bipartisan. cooper church, the parties got together to fight the war. we used to have a republican party up here in the northeast that had nelson rockefeller, clifford case, a liberal republican, senator from new jersey and the great bill scranton of pennsylvania. where are they? that's all gone. we ha had a united states sin ia 1964 that pass the civil rights bill. to vote for civil rights which opened a public accommodation and all the stuff that john lewis fought for, all that stuff was done by a vote of 73-27. republican vote was 27-6. what do you think it would be today? dramatic change. i know one thing from this last election. what was the most vibrant picture in the newspapers in the last election? was at the debates? was at the conventions? no. it was a picture of the republican governor of new jersey walking along the beach with a democratic president of the united states. that's what people like. that's what they want. that's what the people in this country are dying for. [applause] and i have, like you're a bookseller, have a lifesaver coming out of this november. "tip and the gipper." it's about the working relationship between a very conservative president, ronald reagan, and a very liberal speaker of the house, tip o'neill. it's not despite all the talking about a cartoon about to old irish guys sipping whiskey together. the last thing we need is another ethnic cartoon. reagan didn't even drink. it a true story of two professionals who do their job and do a job, not to screw the country up with filibusters and the rest of his mickey mouse stuff we have today. i had an inside track at all is because i was -- people want to all work again. the government perform again. don't expect it to be all, although there are some scenes in this book, i'm turned in monday morning at nine. there's some stuff in the wildly. my favorite is these two old irish guys in hospital, george washington hospital, and reagan is barely alive after being shot. the ball was right at his heart. eli lost -- the bull was right at his heart. is tip o'neill kneeling down to see him on the forehead and then they recited the 23rd psalm together. so it's a little different than today. there some other great scenes. parties together, toasting each other. the most important thing is they disagreed and they got things done and it worked. i think this book is exactly well timed for this year because nothing is working right now. anyway, i'm in the company did as you can see of greatness. i want to begin by introducing the great authors here today, helen fielding. by the way, that's a pretty good thing for novelists, isn't it? she start out with a newspaper column of the independent over in london about a preoccupation of a single woman in her 30s, a single woman named helen steel and. it was there she greater bridge jones, a thirtysomething londoner worried hour by hour about her career, her tobacco, alcohol intake, her love life and some other stuff i think i can't talk about. out of that column came the novel bridget jones. and i'm back in the movie and the big question, shoe grande or colin firth? out of the game is $70 million gross and out of that came, benedetti order exactly right, a second bridget jones novel, the edge of reason and another film. let me introduce you the author of mad about the boy, a new bridget jones has said herself i hope people have as much fun reading this book as i am writing. ms. helen fielding. [applause] well, thank you, chris. it's a great honor to be here in such elevated company. and also try to give a scary. it's also a relief to see so many people here because i've never quite got over my first ever event i spoke about the book, where two people turned up. and one of them was someone i used to go out with at school. [laughter] it took me out for lunch and told me that he was gay. [laughter] so this is already better. [laughter] it is. but it's quite a surprise actually to be talking about bridget jones again like this. i've seen in the states of several months with wild hair -- wilder and sweatpants tapping away at my laptop. i never actually saw -- thought i would write another one. when bridget first started as chris said it was an anonymous column in a newspaper. they asked me to write about myself and i said no, no, no. that was hopelessly embarrassing and exposing but i will make up this character, and then, of course, it couldn't be more exposing an embarrassing in a way because everyone continued to think that bridget was me. but the whole thing was a huge surprise i think everybody, that it turned into movies and so on. and i thought after that, lost my voice a bit and i didn't want to just churn out another one and become sort of a parody of myself. and then last year i suddenly found, i've been living back in london for a while, and i had a story, and i do things that i was finding funny. and it was quite organically. i just started to ride and didn't tell anybody that i was doing it, which made me feel unselfconscious, like i did when i first began. and i had a really good time writing it. there's a lot of things that didn't exist when i first wrote brigid, but doing this now, things like texting and twitter and internet dating and motherhood. of course existed but not for me. and i suppose what happens is people tell me stories a lot. it's a bit, in some ways it's a bit like being the pope. people keep coming up to me and saying i am bridget jones, and i feel like saying bless you my child. [laughter] would you like to make your confession? so i get all sorts of stories from people about internet dating. there was a girl at the ut salon i go to who told me, first of all she's always having problems and should gone out on a date with someone and made out with him a little bit and then three days later got a global text from him forever in his saying his wife had just had a little baby girl, six pounds and 12 ounces. she also got into a thing where she bumped into her ex online and ended up making up the character on the internet dating site to make him jealous. then stood in the. got the imaginary girl to stand him up. then the boyfriend puts up a notice on the internet dating site saying he was no longer available. and then she found herself terribly hurt. but only half of the girl she made up her didn't exist anyway. [laughter] so things are quite complicated i think, people digging up. obviously, i have to do a certain amount of research. i did go on twitter on -- made a bridget jones carried on twitter. for me was like a giant popular to contest. you just endlessly worry about how many twitter followers you've got. so while bridget was counting calories before it's now number of twitter followers not. number of twitter followers still not. i actually got blocked from checking my twitter followers 150 times in one hour. it's not really good medium for me really. but i think the thing about bridget, it always seems quite light and funny. but i think, he always comes from a place of truth. and i think with his first bridget there is quite a lot of it, a lot of pain behind it. you have to have some real clashes of things going on to make things be funny but and i never quite understood why, and i used to go all over the place, like go to japan where all the women were really glamorous. and they would say they identified, too. that i think it's about the gap between you feel you're expected to be and how you actually are. and i think there's so much in the modern world which can make you feel you have to be that red carpet girl in us magazine. even i today arrived at the enormous come by because i thought that's what you should do if you're in the public eye. and i think so much airbrushing and all these things that make us very aware of the gap between how a woman should be in the public eye and how we all really are inside. and i think with the new book whereas the first was looking at that very hard on i think the woman in her 30s when the biological clock was ticking and you know, the dating becomes announced a nightmare of the men are locks -- are like foxhunters, into giddy. this is what it's like for older women and how you get branded, i did know, i always imagine that i get to my age i would have sort of a tight perm and gray hair and a shopping bag. and actually the women i know who are what we used to call middle aged are not really like that. flight still is going on and the sex is still going on. and so the book is, one of the themes is about that, it's about sort of rebranding the older woman. and i think the title, "mad about the boy," i don't know how that's going to be translated into other language. i remember in italy the diary of bridget jones became diarrhea of bridget jones. [laughter] i don't know what will happen to "mad about the boy." but i was rather inspired by the washington song, where the boy dies -- dives into this mental trying to shrink his levi's. but obviously the pot will be new, shrouded in history. we're trying to keep termed a secret which frightened me because i'm sure that one day i will leave the mosh in the back of the tax and it will all be over. i think motherhood is another -- i think most women today understand, in fact men as well understand the problems of juggling. there's a story in the tabloids recently about david cameron, our prime minister, jogging along with his kids in the back of the car and the israeli prime minister called up, and he ended up going will you shut up i'm on the phone to the israeli prime minister. [laughter] and that's something that identify with quite often. that sort of thing is basically being in your pajamas with chaos going on all around you and trying to pretend you're in some penthouse office with a view over london and taking calls from important people. juggling the two worlds i think is quite hard to also think people basically got too much to do now. i don't know about you but my life is so these crazy to do lists, which don't really make any sense when you read them. and i'm not able to prioritize between the relative importance of things. so i replied to build-a-bear party invitation, finished novel, responses from the apocalypse invitation. [laughter] blowout bike. sort of randomly spread all over the place. i think it is quite scary bringing out a new bridget, but i think it's very important for me anyway, it's very important to write it privately and write it from the heart. so i did not tell anyone i was writing it for a long time. i'm just sort of absurd was going on around me and what i was doing and what my friends were doing. grammar has never really been my strong point in bridget and i will continue to these days. as my editor knows. i have had lots of fun writing it. i really enjoyed it. and i'm hoping that the launch will be very lighthearted and not taking it too seriously. it isn't just a book. it is just a funny book. i never started out trying to write social commentary, particularly. i was just writing a column about the little things that happen every day. really to make myself laugh and come in, i never that anyone would read it really. so i hope that will all have a lot of fun with the launch. and, you know, just be ourselves and enjoy it. i was going to go on diet and have plastic surgery before the launch so no one will recognize me. i hope you all enjoyed, too. [applause] >> thank you. u.s. congressman john lewis has been a resounding voice -- that's bill clinton talking come ons are. carbon john lewis is an american ear, key figure of the civil rights movement history is taken from an alabama sharecroppers farm to the halls of congress. from a segregated school to the 1963 march on washington. and from receiving beatings from state troopers and others to receiving the medal of freedom, from the first african-american president of mr. lewis' 1998 book "walking with the wind: a memoir of the movement" has been called the definitive account of the civil rights era. his new book is "march." it features something all of us clearly would like, a blurb from bill clinton. or read that gene. congressman john lewis has been a resounding voice and the quest for equality for more than 50 years. and i'm so pleased to be sharing his numbers with the civil rights movement with america's young leaders eric in march, that's the booktalk and he brings a whole new generation with him from across the bridge from a path of clenched fists into the future of outstretched hands. congressman john lewis. [applause] >> good morning. thank you, chris. my friend, my brother, for those kind words of introduction. i'm delighted and very pleased to be here with these three distinguished authors. great writers. now, you heard chris tell you that i'm the son of sharecroppers. i grew up in rural alabama, 50 miles from montgomery. outside of a little place called troy. growing up on the farm it was my responsibly to care for the chickens and i fell in love raising chickens like no one else could raise chickens. i won't be the whole story, it's too long to tell, but from time to time as a little boy we would gather all of our chickens together in the chicken yard like you are gathered here in this hall. and we would have church. the chickens, my brothers and sisters and cousins would make of the audience. and i would start speaking or preaching and when i look back on them some chickens would shake their heads, they never quite said amen. [laughter] but i'm convinced that some of those chickens that i preach to do during the '40s and 50s tended to listen to me much better than some of my colleagues listen to me today in the congress. [laughter] [applause] as a matter of fact, some of those chickens were just a little more productive. [laughter] at least they produce eggs. well, that story is one of the stories told in this book. so some of you may be asking, john lewis, why are you trying to write a comic book? why don't you write a graphic novel? i decide to write a graphic novel because i have hope, hope that someday in the future some gnome girl or boy will pick it up -- some young girl or boy will pick it up, read the words and see the pictures and they will be inspired. it is called "march" for a reason but i believe it is time to do a little more marching. i believe it is time for us to move our feet. dr. king once said there's nothing, no powerful than marching feet of a determined people. it is time for us to make some noise. it's time for us to march again. my mother and my father and my grandparents and great grandparents would tell me why this, why that, why those signs? white only, colored only, white waiting, colored wedding, whitening, colored been. that's the way it is. don't get in the way, don't get in trouble. well, this march led by martin luther king, jr., that march that rosa parks got in when she got on the bus. i got in trouble. i was inspired to get in trouble. good trouble. necessary trouble. i want to inspire through this book, "march," another generation of young men, young women, black, white, latina, asian americans, native americans to march again for what is right, for what is bad, for what is just. some of you may not be old enough to remember, but back in 1957 there was a little book called, well most of you were not even born. how can you remember? we are not even a dream. a little book was published called martin luther king, jr. and the montgomery story. it told the story of the montgomery boycott, the story of rosa parks, the story of more than 50,000 people boycotted buses in 1955 and 56. and that book, that little book was picked up by a young student in greensboro, north carolina. he read the book and started sitting in with three other students, and then reread the book in nashville, tennessee, and we started sitting in. this book had been translated, little book, it cost only 10 cents back in 1957. it's been translated into more than four languages. it inspired people in the middle east, in vietnam, especially in egypt. i want to see young people here in america feel the spirit of the 1960s, and find a way to get in the way. to find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. the book, "march," also tells several other stories. one day we're sitting in in nashville, a group of us as young black and white students, tennessee state, vanderbilt university. and a young waitress came up and said, we don't serve -- you know what i mean? they don't. she said we don't serve makers pick one of the young people said, we don't eat them. [laughter] this book tells the story of how we study the way of gandhi, studied the way of martin luther king, jr., studied the way of thoreau through civil disobedience. before we went on any sit ins on the freedom ride to march from selma to montgomery, to march on washington, we prepared ourselves, and many of us grew to accept the philosophy of nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. this book will come out in three volumes. it will be published august 13. it is my hope that elementary school student, middle school, high school student, college student, parents will pick it up, read it, pass it on. it is time for us to teach all of our people a way of love, the way of peace, the way of nonviolence. to have faith, and never ever give up or lose hope. read it, enjoy it, and walk with the wind and march again. thank you very much. [applause] >> what an honor, thank you. diana gabaldon like helen fielding comes to you today at bookstores come your bookstores with a giant building readership and her facebook page alone has 200,000 fans. this is msha's coming out with "written in my own heart's blood." the "san francisco chronicle," my old newspaper said it is a large canvas she pays to with marvelous and fantastic adventures, perfect escape reading. continued the outlander saiga the author takes her characters this time in two episodes to revolution in philadelphia as a new arm is sweeping through the city amid growing violence and exciting romance. this amicable than. -- ms. diana gabaldon. [applause] >> well thank you so much, chris, and it's a great privilege and honor to follow such talented speakers but i was looking out over the se sea of faces and thinking that this reminds me very much of one of my college classes. i used to be a university professor before i jump the rails and began writing novels. and one of the classes i taught which human anatomy, a big class. everybody took it as a popular elected because they thought it would be easy. including the football team. [laughter] and they would always sit in the front row when i came in. 400 people but you could tell the football team because they're always sound asleep. these large and animate blobs of flash. [laughter] i would walk up to the edge of the podium and say, this morning we're going to discuss the history of contraception and they would all start blinking. in days of old when knights were bold and condoms not invented, they wrapped old socks around the and babies were prevented. [laughter] well, it worked on the football team, too. i will say no one has ever fall asleep in one of my classes. by people always say to me how did you get from being a scientist to being a novelist. i said it's easy, i wrote a book. that's all you have to be. they don't make you get a license or anything. actually i don't for an age of eight or so that is meant to be a novelist. i just don't know how but it's not like being a cpa or a lawyer whether sort of a career path marked out before you but anybody who writes books kind of rolls their own. i had no idea how to do that at the age of eight. i also came from a very conservative family background. my father used to say to me, you're such a poor judge of character, you're bound to marry some bum. so be sure you get a good education so you can support your children. [laughter] so this going on at home i thought perhaps i would not announce i wanted to ride novels. and so i when it decides. i was good at it. i have amongst other things a ph.d in behavioral ecology which is animal behavior with statistics, don't worry about it. as a result of this i wrote a 400 page dissertation entitled -- or as my husband says, why birds build nests where they do, and who cares anyway? [laughter] i tell you that can make the point that affect i'd didn't know how to write for a begin writing a book. i knew one end of the sentence from another. i knew where paragraphs were for. but it never written a novel. i had written a lot of other things. i made a very nice man whom i still have 41 years later, and, but he did quit work through us at our first child was born in order to start his own business. and i do have to say that in terms of financial stability is not that much to choose between an entrepreneur and a bomb. [laughter] i was our sole support for a while since i took to freelance writing, slid sideways and became an expert in scientific competition. it's really easy to be an expert if there's only six people in world who do what you do, and that was my position at the time. so at a time when i decided that i should write a novel, i just turned 35 and what i thought was mozart was dead at 36, maybe you better get a move on here. so i said all right, i began writing a novel. just to find out what it takes to write a novel. up to this point i've written a lot of everything and do whatever shouldn't have to write any of it including walt disney comic books. i just wrote a couple and if they didn't look quite right -- sure if you write one you will recognize it. okay, what sort of novel should i write? and i thought maybe a mr. peck i read lots of ministries and i said mr. simplot. i'm not sure i can do that. [laughter] what's the easiest possible kind of book i could write? this is for practice. i'm not going to tell anyone i'm doing it. and i said well for me perhaps there'll be a historical novel. i was a research professor. i knew my way rental library. it seems easy to look things up than to make them a. if i cannot have no imagination i can steal things from the historical records which worked pretty well as a matter-of-fact. i was looking for a time and place in which to set this novel but i have no background and history speak of, just six hours of western civilization they make you take an undergrad. i was casting around in my mind, i happened to see public television. i see a number of your family with that. those who are laughing it's a really old, really long running uk show that was richard than as a children's fantasy show. it's still running. the doctor is a time ordered who travels through space and time having adventures and along the way he picks up companions. this very old show which has to show which has to be none figures can be picked up a young scotsman from 1745. and 18 or 19 year old young man who appeared in his kilt. i said that's fetching. [laughter] i found myself still think about this the next day in church. [laughter] i said to myself, you to myself, you're credible, it doesn't matter where you said. the important point is pick a point, get started. knowing nothing about scotland or the 18th century, having no plot, no outline and the characters. nothing but the rather vague images conjured up by the notion of a man in a kilt which, of course, is very powerful and compelling image. a few years ago my six book was a very lucky one for me. it won me the international prize for fiction, which is very cool. i got to go to germany to accept that while i was there was a needed by a vote in the german press from a tabloid newspapers update equipment of "vanity fair." after a week of this i was going like this, and i was interviewed by one of their liver journalists and he said i read your entire works on your imagery is to minister to her characters are so 3-d. and i'm thinking yes, yes, go on. [laughter] teapots and he said, i'm just wondering, could you explain to me what is the appea deal of a n a kilt? [laughter] well, he was a german, you know. i was really tired or i might not have said it. looked at them for a minute, try to think what is the appeal and i said i suppose it's the idea that you could be up against the wall with him in a minute. [laughter] well, about three weeks and i'm home again. i get a pile of press clippings, all in german which i do read but slowly to the publisher had put a note on the top one, she said i don't know what you told us that i think he is in love with you. [laughter] sister matthews could no doubt tell you that they do an interview, short and quotable. [laughter] anyway, as i said people do ask how did you get from science into being a novelist, and i wrote a book. but what they really mean is how do you do get from being a scientist, which is this cold logical tidy sterol sort of thing, they think him into being a novelist which is as warm marvelous touchy-feely kind of thing, they think that in actuality they are the same thing. science and art are just two halves of the same coin. what they won't rest on is the ability to drop patterns out of chaos bikini to build a look at a situation or the natural world and say, i think i see something going on here. and then you investigate further. then when you decide to essentially it's the art of asking questions. we call it a hypothesis, just to be formal about it. the hypothesihypothesi s is two birds build nests in the tops of trees rather than the bottom of trees because they are afraid of ground born predators? so that would be a start, then you'd say i think that's what's happening because after all these guys have weasels and sent after them. they would design and expand it to test that hypothesis and see what you got. you do the same thing and a novel. a novel is postulating a question of some sort. you usually draw the question from something that you see around you. in my case i do it from a doctor who show, things happen. things happen in size, too. you may think you're headed in a certain direction suddenly something wonderful happened. and you for so to speak and your study kind of goes this way and you redesign and to add another question, and the essence of good science at his is good art is to ask a question, not only to answer them but because of the people following you and reading you to ask more questions. a really good piece of art like a good piece of science should leave you with more questions than it answered but it should and enough of them that they were going along to make you turn the page. that's been much how it works. this may be why i write 900 page works is because i have lots of questions, ask the people who ended the last woman books which end it with my mesa so a brilliantly executed triple cliffhanger. there's a number of questions to be answered in the new book which is called "written in my own heart's blood," and while this book continues with the samsame characters like ali of e book is completely different. i don't like to do things that i've done before. something that we have a continuing story with continuing and evolving cast of characters, each book is different in tone, structure, approach and not quite voice, so if my boys, one thing and another, but this book will -- every single time a book of my israelis, about 5% of the fans pop up and say i'm so disappointed in this book. because i didn't do what i did in the last book or i didn't do what it did in the first book. they are saying i love atlanta, great, wonderful. there is, go read it again. [laughter] and a lot of them do. so far think the world record is 43 times for some woman in australia. she writes these long detail is everything she thinks i got wrong. [laughter] then she goes back to read the book again in case i changed in the meantime. but anyway, speaking of questions and so forth, the main question, there are two main questions that people ask whenever i talk. one of those is what is your next book coming out, and the answer to that is about two months after i finish writing, which i haven't yet. but it should be out later this year. it will, in fact, be out in december. but, you know, things happen as they say. the second question and will happen to be able to enter and display because so far i haven't, people ask so is there ever going to be a movie or tv show or whatever based on your books? people even tried to make a movie out of outlander for the last 20 years. i've read some script written by people, it's just hard to compress 900 page book into a two are from. people come up and say i want to see of them of your book. i wanted to be just the way it is about. i said which 40 pages you want to see? it always struck me that a tv series would be much better for this, and likely a number of people agreed with me, including stars which is picked up the option, and i last not signed the final contract so there will be at least -- [cheers and applause] thank you. i can answer to more questions following from that one, which is there going to start shooting in september, they say. and if all goes well it will air in the spring of 2014. [applause] but i will leave with one more question. i don't know who's going to be cast as jayme. you will have to figure that one out for yourself. thank you very much. [applause] >> well, what a morning. thank you, helen fielding and congressman john lewis and diana gabaldon. thank you. i promise to put you all on hard bill -- hardball and sell the hell out of your books. when it comes to "tip and the gipper" i'm going to sell every night all the way through christmas. thank you much for having us today. [applause] >> we're done. transformin[inaudible conversat] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> first on my list as a book of our reread a chapter of, it's called eating animals. my daughter read it. she's an environmental studies major and they're interested in the whole food movement and fighting against factory food. i'm interested, i.e. me, i eat chicken, i.e. seafood. i may come away from this book not wanting to eat any of that, or at least be more selective about how i eat. but i know that he is a very compelling writer and am looking for to that one. next on my list is more a tribute to my son. this is the new biography of david foster wallace and it's called every love story is a ghost story. i've heard that it's a very brave well researched. david foster wallace was a professor where my son just graduated and my son is a big fan. wallace was regarded by many to be one of the most interesting and creative writers of his era, tried to kill himself a few years ago, and i'm just interested in sort of what happened with his life. i know he had many struggles, and i love biographies. so that's my biography book for the summer. next is a book by a friend of mine called our commonwealth. jonathan sadly passed away two years ago without having finished this book. so friends came together and pull together his essays, all about the commons, which is basically anything that belongs to humanity, the air, the water, public spaces, the internet your and one of his drives in life was to protect the commons to make sure that everything doesn't get taken over by private enterprise. so that's very much on my list and i have heard it's very interesting. and then last is fiction, the new book called and the mountains at code. i've read his first two books. i've never been to afghanistan, and so this is my little way of going there without getting on a plane. it's a family story, intergenerational family, and i think he's a wonderful writer but i plan to cry. and just enjoy every minute of it. thank you. >> let us know what you reading this summer. tweet us at booktv. posted our facebook page or send us an e-mail at tv at c-span.org. >> it started in 2006. i was a reporter in miami, and at first it seemed initially to me a dire plot. these seven men were here to declare ground were on the united states. were going to bomb the sears tower and miami beach office. the fbi office each of northwind the beach. the question was how did seven guys declare ground were on their states of america? anand a realize there was an informant involved. it was clear the connection was an undercover fbi informant who was posing as an al qaeda operative and that was the only connection to terrorism at all. .. those involving, no repairs on their own. and providing the means. and applying the reporting program and free journalists to pursue a project that could take a year or more. to look at all the terrorism cases in 9/11 and figure out how many of them, no capacity for terrorism on their own, and we only produce us story, to look at the entirely, and we look at 500 types of prosecution, one of every two dep flood damage involved in the flint and provide information but in that case of 150 defendants, the informants face a part in the plot and in the case of 50 or more than 50 played a provocateur and provide the means and opportunity for people who never had that capacity. what is important about that is the underlying part of the findings, dozens of men who never had a capacity on their own for terrorism but the ones who did are very few. and suddenly in times square these put the danger of terrorism but on the one hand the number of people who pose a serious threat, and the liberty 7, important the trial right now involving mohammad mahmoud, they never had the ability to fire a weapon and the fbi provided all the means they needed to become from men on the fringes to the danger of terrorists overnight. >> the stories you tell in the book are quite astonishing. >> it is complicated, one of my favorite cases is a man in illinois, and you don't know exactly why the fbi targeted him, he was an actual terrorist threat. and derrick was recently converted to islam, had been offered by his family for it, and had no place to live. and his car had broken down. and goes into the video games or with conversation with them. and the informant says you could come live with me and i have a car you can't use, and he says this must be the work of god and he will do that. over the course of several months they talk about islam and to get involved to take action for this terrible things the u.s. government is doing to muslims around the world. i want to smoke a judge or to let judge, and the informant says one of we attacked a shopping mall. and that it is in place. didn't have any money. more than just talking and acquire weapons. the informant says to them i know it -- console you grenades. and you have these old stereo speakers and and i am pretty sure i'm going to take their names but goes to the shopping mall and a part-time shopping mall, another cover-up of the fbi agenda, stereo speakers and hand them over and the agents that handover the five grenades and other agents russian and arrest them and charge them with conspiracy to commit conspiracy with the weapon of mass destruction and serving 25 years in prison and what is revelatory about that is he is a danger to himself. and a danger to other people, and he said the informant at one point if it wasn't for you i probably would have ended up stabbing someone with a steak knife. he was capable of a minor crime through this elaborate sting operation, 0 we were able to go to the public and they hear it is. >> you are journalist, not a historian, you were able to talk to actual people and find out what they were thinking. and really made an effort for reasons of why the fbi would be doing this and what the rationale is from the bureau's point of view. >> very few people work in the fbi are critical of this. generally we find them on the fbi agenda, general support of the program. the fbi's deal is al qaeda as it existed on 9/11, and there isn't the capacity for a terrorist organization like al qaeda to come from overseas and find people who will commit a horrific crime. they are concerned about the term loan wolf, people already in the west who are disaffected, disillusioned, and had feelings about united states, they will then watch an al qaeda video and that will inspire them to act. the fbi refers to this as al qaedaism instead of al qaeda. removes his franchise model, sticks them with an idea and they will carry out this attack. the fbi is looking for people on the spectrum the fbi terms 1-sided operation operational and the other side is about visors. we want to find someone on this line and the sympathizer side, to become a terrorist and catch him before the sting operations which are intended to drive them out, find the people on the steering committee, and prosecute them according to law for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. and operate them first. it is easy to be empathetic to the fbi's view. and you have this guy on tape saying i want to bomb that building, the subway system, you probably don't want to say let's ignore him, and he actually does commit an act of terrorism. it is easy to understand why the fbi would do these things but what i've put on the book is there has yet to be an example of someone who on their own is incapable of terrorism, someone who is a loudmouth, doesn't have any weapons, meets an actual al qaeda operative and says here is a bomb. the only people providing the capacity is the fbi, and the sting operations are an evolution of drug standards. in the movies that have been glamorized a guy as an empty briefcase and two people believe there is a cocaine inside and hand over money and the of the briefcase and a person opens it and it is empty and they rush in and arrest the person. that works in a sense because data clearly shows if they are not buying or selling drugs taken by and sell it somewhere else. drugs are not difficult to obtain in the united states but what is difficult to obtain is the weapons people would use in a terrorist operation like a large bomb and it has yet to be that case where we have someone who on his own, crosses over to operator ranch wants to commit an act of terrorism and someone gives him that in two days. >> you can watch this and other programs on line on booktv.org. >> are you interested in being a part of booktv's online book club? in may we feature salt, sugar, fat, all the food giant hooked us, but michael moss. here's what some of you had to say during our live moderated discussion. crisp dempster posted does cost a bit more to eat healthier. research has shown it clearly. government does need to stand out of our lives including what we eat. i can get a bad of chips for $0.99 that can't find kill chips which are healthy alternatives for less than $4. there are so many options available to consumers, people buy what they want. is not the manufacturer's job to mind my health. j. p treated the government should regulate processed foods. we know certain drugs are addictive and the government regulates them. booktv online book club selection for june is lean in:women, work and the will to lead. the ceo of facebook discusses it is still difficult for women to achieve leadership roles in the united states. she also talks about her own career choices and experiences. you can watch her talk about lean in at booktv.org. as you read the book this month post your thoughts on our twitter account with the hash tag btv book club. and facebook.com/booktv. then on june 25th at 9:00 eastern time join our live moderated discussion on both social media sites. have an idea for next month? send your suggestions on which books you think we should include in our online book club on twitter, facebook or e-mail us booktv@c-span.org. >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> let us know what you are reading, tweet as at booktv, post it on our facebook page or send us an e-mail at bonet tv@c-span.org. >> i was interested. >> we always said -- so many years. the right to know. [inaudible conversations] >> i put stephen in of bad because i read over it, not that i have any personal friendship, i didn't do it out of i know don, it is a case i read. i read mr. chairman, i read that book and tried for the life of me to figure out how he went to prison and the rest of the place in the post office scandal. i read it. i read what he did, and the feeling is especially the fact that it refused to give information. >> i don't know why -- >> somebody couldn't tell at that time if it was the legal case. a very disappointing deal. and the money rate. >> $12 million. speaking -- >> think about -- [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> in a lottery in the midst of casino owners. the other thing, the second judge. [inaudible conversations] >> the judge won 44% of the company. [inaudible conversations] >> like i have some friendship and decided to write about. it is very fascinating. the issue of what on earth has happened. the request -- >> when i got out of morgantown federal prison as we lovingly referred to the bush housing program at that time, i did something i swore i wouldn't do which was this into helen ratner telling me i needed a new radio. just need to be quiet and sit around a little bit. she said you have some experiences and knowledge or working history of politics and government so do it. the first show we did was -- i knew tom hartman well, i have a lot of respect for tom hartman. today in washington your to the left or right. doesn't matter how you are classified, he is fair. he knows journalism and is an accomplished author in other fields and i would be interested to see some of his books. i was a little nervous when we did the show and it really went well and continue to do the whole radio gig, did my own show for a little bit. in west regina, a longtime friend, an interesting thing to do but didn't like doing the daily show. cell i continued to do talk-radio which i do this day and ventured over to india. what to do when you recharge your batteries? go to india. i had a chapter in this book i was delighted to write called incredible indian. when i go over there, 5 or 7 minutes walk from the dalai lama's residents to the indians and tibetans, fascinating place. i was able to go over their focus on things and come back, and watching my granddaughter and the cost of recovery program, assistance i do for some people and i was able to write this book and our editor was absolutely amazing and maneuvering here tonight, i never thought i would do a book but my cousin, god rest his soul, france's wallace, i always told the republicans, he coined the frames the gipper. ronald reagan was a successful movie, the one he was known best for. i gave my cousin credit for ronald reagan because of that dipper but my cousin always told me you need to write a book. i was a little kid, 8 years old. never thought i would write this one or write it this way sola put a lot of thought into it. didn't do the book at first, didn't want to do it so i outline that in here, 60 minutes with my former chief of staff, we agreed to do 60 minutes together and the reason we did, we have jackie on 60 minutes and neil and you and we talked and was good to have the two of us. it shows more honesty. if i say this, neil could say no, or vice versa. in my opinion having the two side by side was a better way to do that. i went to india and for a one month trip and saw 60 minutes over there. i saw jack abramoff and i make it clear jack did not do this to me, i did this to myself period. and maybe have a dinner or i made those decisions. so i watched jack abramoff on 60 minutes, i could feel some empathy having been in prison, he was in prison, and the fee for anyone -- but beyond that i wondered where jack was going with his version of history. he owns 100 members, $10 million, the short end of the stick of the money i guess. he raised not too much. so in all seriousness, i want to tell my end of it but i know the headlines, john boehner's book, i wanted to make it more than that. i told the story of a vermont because i at that asked constantly by former constituents, i live in ohio in the district, parts of the old district and i get asked what happened to you? this book tells the very complicated story, not as easy as jack having dinner, here i go. it is a complicated story where i have my part and there are other parts, perfect storm, sort of the way i put together exactly the outside influence that came in to help with the idiocy that i created and the crimes that i committed. also very important to me, it deals with iran, the opportunity we missed as a country to have a deal where iran was recognized, where iran would have disbanded hezbollah. i sent that deal to the white house and they choose to ignore it and things would be a little different. i wanted to dig that part, terrorists among those which they -- important on the international basis, i was part of that. the other part is about morgantown federal prison. i was a lawmaker and a lawbreaker and went into the prison site which is very challenging and fascinating. i sat with webb hubbell who is a high-profile person in the anteroom, in the finance committee, the banking committee in handcuffs, and the chairman, and said we can't do that and they did and he came out and kept supplied on the whole whitewater deal. that is how i met with hubble of the first time. second time was i was headed to fresen, a was a self reporter, like reporting for your own firing squad and you got to meet web hubbell. i want to go in prison. and he walked me through how you survive from day one and that was the best amount of time that i spent and gave me in sight as chief justice of the arkansas supreme court, former attorney general and was very empathetic to the plight of a lot of people in prison and i walked out of prison not a angry and didn't walk out of prison thinking the former congressman, i walked out feeling a bond with a lot of people and i need to tell that in this book and i have because things are going on inside those walls. don't expect anybody to have sympathy for me, but i have the ability to have a network can stand here tonight, to be on television, to have writers here and i can write a book can't tell my story and a lot of people don't have a voice inside those walls and we are where housing human beings, we are not rehabing them we are warehousing them. this government, the current administration too, has statistics you hear about, took the big drug dealers and put them away, i became friends with people who love the white collar criminals, drug offenders. there are a lot of addicts in prison blues they become a statistic that the drug dealers put away, they are not getting treatment for their addiction and need to have it. the other part of this is my personal struggle being in recovery with addiction. i have a message in this book that i say in the beginning that you don't have to be in politics, abused substances to make your life go down. it could happen to anybody. if you are all waiter, what you do in your life's profession, whatever you are, you can in just substances and your body, lose your focus, not pay attention to what you are doing, go down a path that will cause you to have problems, like cost of recovery information which i think is important and funny stories about congress, i give credit to some members of congress on both sides of the aisle, some things that will shock some people in this book, and congressional -- which is pretty nice but they run things, we know that. i came to a conclusion in the book, almost didn't write that conclusion, it was very simple. jack abramoff and i did and our staff, the biggest scandal of its time etc.. what we did has been codify into a legal situation today. if i am a lobbyist, can take any member of congress or staffer at have a fund-raiser. once we have a fund-raiser i can take you hunting, i can take you to vegas. some republicans went to a bondage club. at these they're getting a little bit of personality. they had a fundraiser, i put that in the book. either side of the aisle can do this. citizens united, i saw john mccain on campaign finance reform, his bill still is worthless. just to tell you that, is as worthless as it was back then. he made loopholes and 527s but at the end of the day with citizens united 1/2 and lack of true campaign finance reform you have a situation where a super pac comes along where we convict on karl rove or george soros, whichever side of the aisle you want to secure but the super pacs may go after people so the average member need $3 million which is $10,000 a day that they have to raise. they take their staffer and go across the street and get on telephones. either political party does that. that doesn't mean you have bad numbers, they are victims of this. i promise you many members of congress would like this to change too. many members of congress do not find it delightful to raise this money. some like it, a lot don't. that comes to the conclusion it is still corrupt. jack abramoff and i go away, staff people, didn't change anything. might have made people feel more comfortable but didn't change things. so i put that conclusion there and die end lit with a quote i really like, basically to paraphrase a had an addiction and today there is another addiction and it is to campaign contributions and they need an intervention and the public can do an intervention, a beautiful place and make it even better so i address a lot of issues in the book and i hope it is not just looked at as one issue or one person or something, i am not a better person. i spend time with my granddaughter today, i go to india, i get to do radio, a lot of great people like tom hartman and people to the right or the left or the middle get their voice out and tell people story what is going on in a government, the journalistic side is critical show i am happy. i am not a person who is unhappy or want to get everybody but there are some things i haven't dealt with and could get it out. it will cause some heartburn and as my grandmother always said there are two as you didn't tell me about. i want to thank everybody for coming. >> where you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> it is a big success. what i'm trying to finish now is ten letters, the washington post a year-and-a-half ago and looks back at some of the people who write letters to president obama because he reads about 10 letters every day, everyday americans so i went back and found ten of some. and is a unique look back to some of the interactions people have, not so much about him but people who reach out, almost done with that and when it is then move on to acts of congress, another guy from the washington post looked at how they dealt with national regulatory reform and use it to explain why it is congress is so broken these days. in the 1970s it was a big difference between then and now, completely obvious to most people but find the real dysfunction in two different ways and is a good read. and collision 2012 which is by dan walden looking at the 2012 campaign, a similar book in the 2008 campaign, this is a look at the obama versus romney race and all the guys involved coming out later in the year so the other one is through the perilous fight by steve vogel of the washington post, he rose a two year lease and the knee look back at the six weeks during the war of 1812 when washington was under siege, and when he changed, supposed to be a really good read and get into that later as well. if i get through two or three of those i am proud of myself, and i never read it in high school and i saw the movie and it started right before then and set that up as well. >> let us know what you are reading this summer, tweet us at booktv, post it on our facebook page or send an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org. >> now on booktv ms nbc's morning show co-host's joe scarborough and mika brzezinski talk about obesity. mika brzezinski's book "obsessed" looks at the social, political and economic impact of obesity, the role of processed foods, and reflects what her own body image issues are. this is a little over an hour. [applause] >> i am over here. i like this. it comes every book tour. >> i need to clear up a couple things. i don't play a slob on tv, a ibm a slot. we have this assembly line. we have this assembly line and we are doing