City. Former secretary of state and democratic president ial nominee, Hillary Clinton will discuss her forthcoming book. [applause] hello, book people. Thank you for coming to this very special event. I know what a long day it has been for you all on the floor show and meeting rooms. Im not much more appreciative that youre here with us this evening. I am carolyn reidy, president and chief executive offer. It is my great pleasure and honor to introduce Hillary Rodham clinton. [applause] of course, when you been the first female president ial nominee of a Major Political party the former secretary of state, twice elected senator from new york and first lady of the United States, introduces a relative term but you also know Hillary Clinton as a major bestselling author and being on the front lines of the bookselling had witnessed firsthand her tremendous ability to write books that galvanized readers and create traffic and excitement in your book source. As your publishers we are proud and fortunate to have had a long and happy relationship with Hillary Clinton and we are grateful to published every one of her five previous books beginning with it takes a village in 1996. All three of her memoirs have gone on to become number one best sellers. This fall, together, we get to have another great Hillary Clinton book experience. Not just one but two mac. As you will hear in a few minutes, shes hard at work on her new memoir which will be as surprising, fascinating, opinionated, provocative and deeply reflective as anything she has written before. In fact, we trust you will hear hillary as never before as she gives us her unique take and analysis on recent events. In addition, we have the gorgeous picture but addition of it takes a village with illustrations by the incomparable twotime caldecott winner marla crazy. Tonight hillary will be interviewed by cheryl. [laughter] [applause] cheryl, of course, is familiar to you as a hugely popular and talented number one bestselling author in her own right. Her books including wild, have touched millions of readers around the world and help them to navigate their own personal journeys. Before we bring out hillary and cheryl, i will leave you with this no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, remember the 65 Million People voted for Hillary Clinton last november [cheering] and it just a small fraction of those purchase the book. [laughter] we will still have the biggest book of the year. We had simon choose to welcome your help in a truly achieving that milestone. Now, please join me in welcoming Hillary Rodham clinton and cheryl at the bookexpo america. [applause] [applause] hi hillary. Hi carol. We need a glass of wine or cup of coffee. Which would you prefer, wine or coffee coursework back lets try a chardonnay. One of the things i want to tell you of the benefits of not been the president of the United States but being a writer instead is that you get to drink. [laughter] i want to start, i have some questions from the audience and i have some of my own but i wanted to start with the most moving question i got from someone in the audience and that is do you know how much you mean to us and how much we love you . [applause] i am touched by that and let me thank you, thank you for that really kind of thought and im thrilled that sheryl is here with us. Shes one of my favorite authors and one of the people that ive got to know over the last couple of years. I have to tell you, as a booksellers, i hope you know how much you mean to me. It has been a central part of my life for as long as i can remember, libraries, bookstores are right at the top of my favorite things to do. Link you. You been quite busy. You have two books coming on in september and lets talk about those. It takes a village, this was obviously, hugely influential book published in 2006 and now youve decided to release it Childrens Book addition. Can you talk about that but what inspired you to do that. It was published in 1996 and the reason i was motivated to do it may sound a little deja vu all over again but, if you remember, back to those years there were people in politics, in our congress, who were making incredibly harmful proposals saying hurtful things and when i heard at that point, Newt Gingrich say we should take four children away from their families and put them in orphanages i was just beyond upset and outraged and i had been a childrens advocate, and work for the childrens defense fund, i busy, i was a mom and i thought there has to be a different way of bringing people together around our common responsibilities and what it means to be part of the community. Of course, youre an individual and i say in the beginning of the book it takes a village that the most important people in a childs life are the childs family but the Community Also plays a very big role in providing not just education, healthcare, law enforcement, all kinds of religious instruction, everything that goes into making up a community. I had long then taken by the african proverb, it takes a village, thats why i wrote that book and it became a password, in a way, to talk about what we meant by community and what our obligations were. It became politically controversial, in some circles. It was the topic of a number of speeches from the Republican National convention in 1996 attacking me for, i never know what theyre attacking me for,. [laughter] long line of that. It has stayed with me so thats why i thought it would be time to maybe bring those concepts, community and citizenship and cooperation and support for kids into Childrens Book and how lucky was i that marla was available to do the illustrations. Its a beautiful book and its something im proud of. Remember when our moms would tell us when we were young if a boy is teasing you, it means he likes you but maybe thats what the republicans are doing. [laughter] well, if that is the case. [laughter] i think enough is enough. [laughter] she will go to this dance with you. You also have another bucket coming up on the same day in september and what can you tell us about this book . This book, for me, is really personal deep experience and i also have to say an emotional catharsis for a long time ive collected quotes that were inspirational or in some way meaningful to me to capture a thought or two books me up when i needed it and i shared that with my friends over all those years and i even had a little book that i carried around them in an, you know, you have a tough time or funny time or quiet time and i did flip through them and get reminded of what they meant to meet. After the election i was thinking, as i was going through all those quotations, how it was spurring my thoughts about the life i have led, the ups and downs, the great opportunities, the accomplishments, the disappointments and how during the course of the campaign there were so many people who had shared their own stories with me and it is one of the real treasures of being out in the public eye theres a lot that you see which is very difficult to be clear, you know that but those moments when somebody grabs your hands or when youre backstage and a total stranger comes up and tells you their story or tells you they understand what you are going through or what they want you to know that there with you, like the first question today. That is incredibly meaningful to me. I began to go through all those quotations and i began to really reflect about the country and my life and what happened in this election and to start to put my thoughts down on paper in a way that, i think, is not just about me and about an election but resilience, about getting back up when youre not down because everybody is, where you find the courage to do that, and what helped you along the way, and as i say, its proven to be extraordinary, very personally meaningful but painful experience. It really is painful. Weve seen you get up many times after being knocked down and, i think, thats where the first question comes from. How did you muster the strength to go on after the election . Where did you find solace . I know youve taken a lot of walks in the woods which you know i love. [laughter] we were talking backstage and hillary doesnt yet have a title for this book she just told you about but my suggestion is really wild. [laughter] you got the walking of the woods, the hardship, the resilience, what you think . I think its really wild. Pretty good. It came from cheryl. My question is about those moments when we feel we cant go on. He said that writing this book was cathartic. Tell us about that. I guess i believed that resilience is one of the great attributes and gifts that you can be given through families, through friends, to your faith, to whatever gives you that sense of purpose and courage that it takes to keep going and ive been blessed to know so many people over the course of my life was based such really difficult and painful experiences whether it was the death of a loved one, disease they are fighting, the mist of a portable weather condition like a hurricane, 911, ive seen in my own life, as well as the life of so many ive been able to get to know, the most extraordinary capacity to keep going and if so, i dont compare myself, in any way, to the difficult, terrible times others have gone through. I have a great friend here in the city, two great friends who i made after 911 who were previously injured. Just the most horrific burns, in one case was in an induced coma for two months and the other was struck down by part of the landing gear of one of the planes hitting the towers and i have just been both honored and humbled to see how they have kept going. What has happened to me has happened in public in a very personal way and what im trying to do in the book is to explain what it is like to try to break through barriers knowing how hard it is, knowing that you will make mistakes, knowing that there is all kinds of challenges every step of the way but to explain what ive relied on, what has given me hope and courage and resilience and a lot of it, for me, is rooted in my family, rooted in my friends because ive been really lucky in both but a lot of it is also because i have this determination as someone said about me the other day a stubbornness that you just get up every day and you do the best you can. Literally 1 foot in front of the other and when you are fighting for some thing larger than yourself which is what ive always believed, that keeps you going even when youre down and nearly out personally. This book covers a lot of that and it covers some of the experience that you all watched but from my perspective is how it felt and its sometimes, i will work on it for a couple of hours and i have a little writing area in the attic of our little farmhouse. We live about 15 minutes north of here and ill work on it and i have great colleagues who are doing research and helping me think through how best to present things and its so exhausting that i just get up, go for a walk or go to bed. Those are my two choices. I can relate to that. Im curious, its interesting to me because the art of memoir is subject to be. Its about telling the true story to bu in that moment. Most memoirs dont have that that story was in a public story. Your unique in that regard and that one of the things that the men of good memoir demands is that you be vulnerable, to take risks, you tell the truth. What you are thinking and feeling. As somebody whos had to be such a public person, how do you navigate that how do you find that place of vulnerability in your work . Thats my first brush. My second question is how do you going further in this book then because youre in a different position. Absolutely. Im certainly going a lot further and i think that both the experience and the choices that we face in the future both demanded that i go as far as i can. What you said really resonated with me. This is my truth. People can disagree and guess what, they will. Im sure. This is how i experience being the first woman to break that barrier and get nominated stand on a stage for debate and all deals with all the incredibly odd happenings that were around. Im very clear in that. Im saying, look, you may thank you know what happened and you may be right to a certain extent based on what you perceived and how you process it but i will tell you what i thought and what i felt and what i thought because you cannot make up what happened. [laughter] i think thats part of the reason why its such an incredible experience trying to write it because even i forgot some of the wacky things that were said and done and to pull that all back out and try to be both personal yet dispassionate as possible and to explain. Part of that motivation is to not only its good for my Mental Health but, i think, its really important that we come to grips with what we need to do in the future as a country. Its a wonderful coincidence and im doing the Childrens Book at the same time because the Childrens Book is in many ways rooted in the idea of citizenship. How do we give our children the tools that they need, not only for their own lives, but to be active citizens and how do they then cooperate with people . Thinking about this election and all the lines that were drawn and that partisanship and everything that was flying at us, its important, for me, to say that this is how i experienced it. I think thats im not sure if you had the same expense with wild because people have hyped the Pacific Coast trail but this was your truth, your experience and part of the reason it was so powerful is that you could feel that. Someone else could hike it tomorrow and they wouldnt have the same experience. Someone could run for president tomorrow or in four years, they wont have the same experience, right perspective. Could someone else run for president tomorrow . [laughter] is a long tomorrow. Thats how im trying to convey it. It really is, i think of it as a unvarnished view of what i think happened. Putting myself into these different events and pulling the curtain back so that readers can see what it was like standing on the stage debating your oppone opponent. What was going to your head . And you will find out what was going through my head. [applause] i think i speak for all of us when we can when i say we cannot wait to read it. What im curious about you said that sometimes you have to walk out of your shed and go for a walk or take a nap or have a glass of chardonnay. Talk to me about some. There are so many hard parts. Heres how i would talk about it. One, the really painful experience of honestly understanding, you know, what i didnt do well or what i didnt do well enough or what our shortcomings were, where we missed an opportunity, where we didnt do, in retrospect, what might have worked better. Thats obviously painful but its a kind of pain that is part of being in politics. Ive won races, ive lost races but ive never felt the way i feel about this and that brings me to the second piece of it. Because the more you dig in the more you understand what we were up against, taking me out of the equation so that its not about, okay, what happened to you that its what happened to us. How much more alert we need to be as a nation and obviously, im particularly concerned about the role that russia played in the very serious interference that we know they were responsible for in our most fundamental democratic act. Thats, in some ways, is more painful. When i iran into thousand eight, i write a little bit about this, losing was hard but it was such a hard fought contest and i had so much respect for barack obama. It wasnt fun losing but i didnt worry about my country. I immediately turned around and went to work to help him get elected and surprising, got asked to be secretary of state. So, yes, you loose and it hurt your feelings and you wish you had done better and you would have liked to have one but i didnt worry about my country. I am really worried. I worry, not just because there are partisan differences but because were living in an abnormal times when we look at the way that this white house is behaving about some of the Biggest Challenges we face, the dishonesty, the fabrication and whether you call it big news or live, pick your choice. Its deeply troubling. Its also worrisome that it could cause lasting damage to our institutions. Part of what im writing is, okay, im going to talk about how it felt with what i think was in my control and what we could have done better and wish we had. But i will also talk about what happened that was totally unprecedented in American History and what are we going to do about it, what how do we think about the future and our responsibilities, whatever Political Party or philosophy you have, you cant be all right with the idea that a foreign adversary was trying to influence the outcome of our election. That, to me, is a big challenge that we will face as a country. I talk about that and try to explain what happened and what that means for us, to try to arm citizens, to give people a simple as possible explanation that then they can go out and be active and speak up so that, yeah, lets have our debates about everything that we argue that in politics but that should be among us, that should be between americans, not with someone influencing how people were thinking and the information that they got in the conclusions that they drew and the decisions that they then made. Its that tension between the personal disappointment that comes with the territory i said the other day, im fine as a person but im worried as an american. Thats what im trying to unpack and explain to people, as well. I think its interesting that your writing and your career has always been intricately bound to your experience with the experience of the world. From your very first speech, 1959 speech at wesley, you are speaking about the meaning of your life about what was happening politically, socially, and socially. Where did that come from cosmic what im struck by as you talk about this book and when i think about all of the books youve written, there is no separating you from those political realities. Where did that mark. It really does begin with my parents. I had a very typical suburban 1950s upbringing and my dad was a world war ii vet a small businessman and worked hard and scraped every penny that he made to getting the business started and then trying to make a successful so we can have a nice house and he could give us a good solid middleclass life and my mother had a very sad and difficult life. Abandoned by her parents and literally thrown out of her grandparents home and went to work at the age of 13, working in somebody elses home. They had very different experiences but, together, they just had a deep conviction about how lucky we were to be in this country. Even though my mother canceled out my fathers vote every election, they talked about the news, we talked about it at dinner, my dad would ask if we had opinions and he would grill me so, literally, from the time of childhood being an american was part of my identity. I had Great Public School teachers. It was a very open time because the world seemed like it was out there waiting for us and america was really coming into its own in a way that was tangible even to a child. Every member in the fifth grade, my fifth grade teacher mrs. Krause after sputnik went up marches into her fifthgrade classroom and says, we are supposed to do better in math and science because president eisenhower wants us to. I mean thats the kind of stuff that would happen in our classrooms. So okay we are supposed to do better and then we get to junior high and president kennedy is there and all of a sudden we get tested on our physical fitness because we have to be physically active in order to be good americans. This was part of the whole ambience of how we were raised not just in our families but in our schools and elsewhere and i just always thought it was part of who i was and it became a big part of what i cared about. When you are doing situps for kennedy or are you reading . What books were you reading . What books were influential to you as you became a young woman . I get in trouble during the physical fitness part because we were supposed to jump. The broad jump . And the vertical jump on the side of the wall and they kept coming around to me and they said jump and i said i have jumped. [laughter] are you athletic in any way . I was when i was growing up. I played sports. I played softball. I played tennis. I swam and dove and i havent actually kept up with that. Now is just mostly walking. Are going to hike the Pacific Crest trail of the summer . That would be great that i would love that. If we go with you know, if we go with really wild and we do a whole publicity campaign. Him to go to top of bookstores along the trail. I think thats a great idea. I have always loved reading and i think like a lot of young girls in my time i read every nancy drew book. I like the early ones better than the later ones, i will be honest. The idea that she just seemed like such a gogetter, really smart and brave. What kind of like someone we know. I heard the applause. It was like a model and for my friends. When i look back i read a lot of books growing up but that had a big impact on me. She was dare i say a little bit of a role model and i was felt so bad because her mother had died but she was taking care of the house. She was going to school and solving mysteries, i mean really. Theres a real tradition with young women or girls whose mothers are dead because their main protectors are gone and they poured out in the world. I think teachers are so much of an inspiration to girls for that reason. What about in those postelection months. I turn to total distraction and i have kept a record of every book i have read during my entire adult head. How many have the red . I dont know, havent counted them but i have those books that have something in them so i have been tracking them and i was thinking about it the other day. After the election i read a lot of mysteries. I am a very devoted mystery reader but also i have some favorites. I love jacqueline winds fair and amy dodson. I love donna leon and Brittany Dennis and i love louise penny. I had the great joy a couple of months after the election of meeting louise penny and i really, i just got so into her characters and her locale, just made a big impression on me. So what was really fun talking to somebody who has written this series using the same characters you dont always have a murder but the same characters and i just love that. I read a lot of mysteries and it was very comforting. It was somebody elses problem you know. They had to go out and solve the murder and save the day and i love that. Thats wonderful. When you are writing and i know your editor is in the room but who is your most trusted the reader aside from your editor . My husband. So does he Read Everything you write . He reads a lot of what i write and hes a very tough critic and crossexamines me on why something is an art or why something is out. Really we started dating when we were in law school and i worked my way through law school. I have a small scholarship and i had a lot of jobs and i had a job editing a long paper for an International Law student. It was the first time that he sat down with me and we talked it over and he gave me great vibes. He has always been my closest and most critical reader. Thats what husbands are good for. Mine too. So i wanted to go back to that lovely speech you gave when you were graduating. It was full of i would say a great sense of hope and im curious about what you think right now. As you just mentioned, i do agree with you that Something Different has happened in america that has happened before and some of our varied principles in our democracy are really at risk. Im curious about are you hopeful and if the answer is yes which i really hope it is how do we do it . I think we are really in a pickle and how do we move forward with Less Division and more kindness . I have the experience recently of really thinking hard about all of this because you are right i was the first didnt in 1969 and then i spoke at the wellesley graduation last weekend. I went back and reread the speech from 1969 and i thought hard about what i wanted to say to the graduates but also to the broader world and i think the bottom line is i am hopeful that i really think hope needs to be linked to a strategy for dealing with what we are facing. Some of it is very personal. You mentioned kindness. That is a much overlooked attribute in these days and showing kindness, showing support for one another, im still sickened by what happened in portland with those two young men coming to the rescue of those young women who were being insulted and verbally abused by the white supremacist on the train and when they attempted to reason with this man and to intervene he killed them both and he wounded a third man who tried also to speak up. I am deeply troubled by that and thats not the only incident that we have seen where all of a sudden it appears that their attitudes and feelings that are bursting through the veneer of civilization. We, i think have done a lot in the last centuries to deal with some of the intractable problems, not just a race in sexism and ethnicity and religion but also whats an appropriate way of treating a fellow person . One of the reasons i love living in new york is that its just elbow to elbow with people from everywhere in the dock to figure out how you accommodate that, how you work with that and it really does call out a level of behavior that should be expected of everyone and what i sought in this election was a deliberate effort to blow the top off of that to basically say whatever feeling you have, whatever resentment, however angry you might be get out there and express it and its okay to take it out on other people, verbally or physically as we saw during the campaign. That is incredibly dangerous. That is unleashing a level of vitriol and defensiveness, hatred that i dont think we should tolerate. As secretary of state [applause] i traveled the world on behalf of our country and i did that as a senator. I did that as a first lady and ive been incredibly lucky and i will tell you it doesnt take much to rip off the politeness and the accommodation that really keeps diverse peoples working and living together. We saw where it was deliberately intended to inflame neighbor against neighbor. We saw it in rwanda. Ive seen it in many other places where political leaders for their own purposes, their own power, greed, ideology, religion whatever it might be really light those flames and there is always candling there. There are always people who are nursing a grievance who feel that they were treated right. They think somebodys getting ahead and they see the world as a zerosum game. Those thoughts were very much present in my mind as i went back to wellesley and tried to say to the graduates you are coming out of this grade education you have been given at a time of a lot of turmoil and a lot of questioning. Please find her role and something as simple a as wherever you end up, go register to vote, get involved, to the point where your voice will actually be added to those with whom you agree or even if you dont agree on everything people of reason wanting to get together. I told them i think we are living in a time where theres an elaborate assault on truth and reason. I think the enlightenment was a pretty good deal and it helped to provide the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings of our founders. I still believe that we are the greatest manmade invention in the history of the world and we cant give up on that and we cant get discouraged. We have to figure out ways we are going to keep going. I think ive never been so nostalgic for so many republicans in my life as i am now because i think that is what we are missing out on. As you know last may i introduce to you in San Francisco at an event and one of the things i said about you and pick that got the loudest applause was i said Hillary Clinton made the world ready for Hillary Clinton. What i meant by that was, i mean one of the reasons you inspire me and so many others is you always have phot really hard and blazed a trail, that you really have gone places where no woman has gone before and of course you are standing on the shoulders of so many women who came before you. I think we also mean and the women who came before her got her to a place where she could even blaze that trail. Things didnt turn out the way we hoped but one of the things that has given me a sense of hope in these months since the election is the work you did and everything accomplished of that Campaign Season really will help that next woman who comes along and becomes our first woman president. So i want to thank you for that. A positive i want to thank you for that. [applause] and you know i do have a little side as an advice giver and im not going to give you advice unless you want it. What i would like you to do is to imagine that woman who would become our first female president. What advice do you have for her . What words do you have for her . Read my book. [laughter] because i want her to fully understand what she is getting herself into because it is unlike any experience she has ever had before. She might be a governor. She might be a senator. C a writer. A writer, yes. She might be a business executive. Who knows what she might be but our system in our country is the most difficult political environment in the world of any democracy to elect a leader. Why do i say that . If you look at a lot of the women who become heads of government in the uk, chancellor merkel is germany, although my year endured gandhi. If you look at the names we know well over the course of the last 50 or 60 years they often arise from a parliamentary system and in a parliamentary system you run in a small constituency where people actually know you, where they can the value wait you because maybe they will see what the Grocery Store or they come to whenever events or your children are in school together, whatever it might be. Then you are selected by your peers to be their leader. Again you are colleagues who are in your party and a parliament. They see how cheryl, shes a great worker. She knows how to get things done and you move up on the scale. In our system you start from scratch. It doesnt matter who you are, where you have come from and how qualified you are, it doesnt matter. You can stand up and say im going to run for president. Then you have to go out and talk to the entire country and you have to raise a lot of money and you have to go through the gauntlet that american president ial campaigns are. I think there is some benefit to that because it is the hardest job in the world, or at least it used to be the hardest job in the world. [applause] and you have to be prepared for what it means to be literally brutalized. The things that will be set in the way that you will be treated just goes with the territory and its not to say that men dont get harsh treatment and are put in the spotlight but you are carrying the burden of the double standard and you have to know that. In my book, i take on the issues of sexism and misogyny and talk about it because we need to pull it out and put it into the bright light. It may be uncomfortable for some people to read how i experienced it and what i believe about it but i think that the conversation we need to have. For this future woman candidate, i hope im still around, it will be my great privilege to be able to say okay i will give you my best experience, my best advice but everybody has to find her or his own way. I hope that it will be sooner instead of later. Just because you run doesnt mean you earn the vote. Thats right. Im going to open it up now for questions from the audience. I have a few here. Anna from kansas city says what is your Favorite Book from childhood . Nancy drew but did you have one . Do you have one favorite . Ive said this before and its interesting because i was obviously a young teenager and i read some years ago that it was one of laura bushs Favorite Books. I found that coincidence really fascinating but that was one bit stuck with me and has to this day. Martha from Silver Spring says what is currently on your nightstand at what is on your grandchildrens nightstand . Do they have a nightstand . They have stacks on the floor. They have lots of books but i just finished a terrific book that i was totally captivated by called jersey brothers by sally mott friedman and it was the story of three brothers during world war ii all of whom are in the navy, one of whom becomes a prisoner of war in the philippines. The other is an officer in the fleet working with the admirals who are waging war in the pacific and the third admiral mocked because he stayed in the navy, started off in the white house as one of the naval aides to president roosevelt. The book itself is a great read and author has done this amazing job of recreating dialogue that just seems so authentic. She researched it for 10 years and its somebody in the midst of writing my own book the amount of work that went into that and the imagination that she brought to it that i had a personal connection and that is when i was first lady the map room which is what it was called when roosevelt had all these stats on the wall and churchill would come to stay in the white house and they come down to the residents and roosevelt would be in his wheelchair and churchill would be smoking a cigar and they go into the map room. In addition to this main character of jersey brothers he talks about a young lieutenant named george l. C. George elsie was one of the aides to roosevelt as well. The reason that was important to me was when i became first lady i said this used to be so historic and its kind of like a waiting room now or a small meeting room. Do you think theres anything left from the map room and we looked and searched and what we could find was already in archives. Then george elsie by that time an elderly man came forward and said unit you know i did roll up some maps and he gave us a map. It was a map from the european theater and we put it up above the fireplace there. Im reading this book totally entranced in it and all of a sudden its like this personal connection. That is on top of my nightstand. And this is from lauren from connecticut. She said please visit us again at the bookshop and westerly rhode island. Is she in the house . All right, hi. This is a really important question for me. What is the role of independent bookseller in the current political culture . Its more important than ever. As i said i loved bookstores and i love independent booksellers and the stores that sell many of you alone, ron, work in and it is more important than ever. I hope its true what im reading that independent bookstores are real upward trajectories. Is that true, i hope . [applause] it is really encouraging to me that so many people are going back to bookstores, that they are buying real books that they can hold and touch and turn the corners down and all the things that we do with our books. We cannot have enough discussion one of my really dear friends, she and her husband read an politics and prose in washington. They have not just authors and events and i know you were there once but they have discussions now where people are concerned about health care or the environment and what does it mean to pull out of the paris accord which we apparently are going to do or immigration or what does nato really mean . Using the independent bookstore as a gathering place, a Community Center to discuss some of these issues and bringing in an author whenever possible to be part of that. I think that the role has always been important but i think its even more so now. You had asked me about my grandchildren. We took really seriously the advice to read to your children. We have been reading to charlotte and aden from the very beginning and chelsea has this new wonderful book out name she persisted which is a lookout about american women. [applause] i was over there the other day and just as a mom and as a grandmother to see my daughter reading the book she wrote about american women to my granddaughter and my grandson, doesnt get in the better than that. Childrens books for sure. [applause] the next question is from rene in new york. Chelsea published a new book and rene wants to know if you and chelsea ever thought about writing books together. Maybe a mother daughter book about relationships or how to raise a strong feminist kids, male or female. Have the two of you discussed that at all . No but i will now. C we are going to have a book deal by the end of the night. I think its a great idea. I do too. Another question we touched on specifically during the campaign. Did you have any time to read or were you just reading the news constantly . I didnt really have a lot of time and thats a big loss for me because i read usually every night before i fall asleep. I would be so tired by the end of the long days and having to get up early in the morning. Other than dreams of briefing papers i have this oldfashioned idea that the policies you propose would actually be important and governing your country. We spent a lot of time and i spent many nights going over what we were going to do to increase wages and jobs and all of the real issues that we were concerned about that i didnt have much time for any pleasure reading. Have you read john lewis is march trilogy . Have you read it . I have not read it but i know of that very well. John is a longtime dear friend of mine. Even if you havent read those books certainly his message and paula wants to know how can we continue applying that vision and that message that people like john lewis have and others, spreading that kind of justice and kindness and equality of that struggle. How do we continue that struggle . Thats a great question. John is the first person that i ever heard use the phrase beloved community. It was in one of his early writings. It was in his speeches. It was really motivated by his faith, by his courageous witness as a civil rights leader and activist and as long as i have known him, that has been what has driven him. How do we bring people together . How do we cross the divide and i think its pretty clear, its more important now than it has been for a long time. Part of what i am doing in the book is trying to think through what our practical suggestions that anybody could do, because we are very divided. We are living in separate political worlds and the partisan divide has gotten higher and higher, deeper and deeper and its hard for people to cross over. The great book of a few years ago the big sword. We live with people who believe like we do when we listen to them and we get into her echo chambers and that is exacerbated by what we watch on tv and listen to on the radio and read on line. Listen to each other, learn from each other. Do it with a sense of openness and effort to see what is motivating somebody else. That does not mean you all of the sudden need to forget your values and your beliefs. I really think that some people are espousing horrible points of view and theyre not going to be people that i will have much in common with. But, the vast majority people have legitimate questions and concerns on all sides of the political divide. I think we need to find more opportunities to have those conversations and to set up Community Programs to make that happen. So, you have the book coming out in september. Youll turn 70 in october. What is the next chapter for you . I have no idea. I dont really have any reason to have any idea. I am going to do everything i can to support the resistance,. [applause] i am a congenital organizer, so i have set up a new group called onward together. You can go online and learn about it. I took my left over Campaign Funding and put it into this group. Want to help these young startups that im so impressed with. Young people who woke up after the election is said look, we have to do something about this. We have to get people to register to vote, train them, go to town halls, it has been thrilling to me. It is exactly what should be done. So, im going to do what i can to help grow that and supported. Especially to find to find and learn about and hopefully see when candidates, not just in the big ticket offices but from the ground level of, library boards, school boards, city councils, county commissions. They are critical in this time when we are going to have to both continue to find ways to Work Together and make progress together and defend off whatever damage may be coming from washington. Im not going anywhere. Im going to be as active as i can because as you said thats who i am, that is my dna. [applause] we are out of time. You have left a little surprise at the door, some things. Im not going to say what they are. And i want to say thank you for your service to our country, for being such an inspiration to us. Thank you. [applause] [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] journalist matt to