Theyre more comfortable to perceived to want to help them create great work that has great integrity i feel the best books we have talked about already and over my list the ones that work the best is where the writer is able to express himself and tell their stories with integrity so i feel what the publish and distribute as whole or what the culture can do is set of letting the writer express their ideas and their kraft, tries to make them fit into a category or a box and to appeal to a perceived reader that is the ideal reader for the industry that they have identified as their primary reader who looks like a lot of the people the court directed the Publishing Industry so i do feel that it is to help people get access to that machinery has random house but without sacrificing the integrity. Are you a unique face in publishing . I do think there are a number of people not just to think differently but they bring new ideas and energy into the industry but also there is people of color in publishing it is one of the reasons why i feel i am happy to do what they do a random house in some ways writers of color that they build the company that sold the of book to finance the company but we havent always ben well represented with that Editorial Staff in publishing. There are a number of really great black editors although not nearly enough. Not even close still almost scandalous minority of our people of color in the Publishers Weekly had a poll and 1 of the Editorial Staff were black. That is an outrage in with my imprint i am aware that as being a problem but it be the industry is slowly becoming aware it is a problem in trying to figure out solutions but it is a scandal i know that there are others but we are poorly represented. Host where did you grow up . New york and harlem in the grand housing projects for the first nine years of my life then we move further uptown. Host what was your childhood like . [laughter] it was great though it wasnt great. It was tough. I was raised with father died and i was very young and was raised by the mother and sister isnt taught me to read and it up going to a school outside of my neighborhood so i had this interesting mixed life growing in spent time in harlem and in part of the time with more cosmopolitan intellectually vested school so there is a little bit of of bifurcation id your to the 80s was tarred with the violence we were not well off. But in some ways that is where reading became an important part of my life to find people live in literature was life changing for me as the young person and then expanding now to. Natalie doing work that i recognized that is familiar to me but literally did the work in the harlem which made me rethink maya and experience if your marginalized in the ghetto that was also into place at the center of some other great cultural movements. Host are you write yourself . Not really a to write occasionally. But i would not call myself a writer. I do think it is good to try it reminds you of how hard it is sometimes three take for granted what our authors to looking get a blank page and having to formulate ideas and conjure stories in narratives so to do that occasionally reminds me of how difficult it is and how much i should honor that for my writers. On occasion i will do pieces for a magazine or a web site but now. Host what was the process to acquire the book between the world and we was there competition . No. I mitt when we were younger kid we had a conversation indeed has a fantastic agent long time she said you should read this young person we sat down and we talked and we collect three years is not a good idea for a book but then we came up for an idea called a beautiful struggle which is a memoir of kevin and his father and publish that seven or eight years ago the end over that time the beautiful struggle came down and his profile started to rise then he started to write for the al atlantic been developed an enormous following then he wrote the case for reparations which was a blockbuster piece of journalism and somewhere in there we came up with the idea about the civil war like a collection of essays. He never offered it to anyone else because he had a very close relationship at that point in and came up with the etf to gather. I am not sure how much she even tried to write him we were not sure what we would do pc like he didnt want to write it anymore but that over the last several years with Trayvon Martin and then baltimore in ferguson in charleston one thing after another after another of young black people after being victimized by Police Violence he felt he had to make a response so he had a meeting with the president for a briefing in somewhat had a confrontation with the president but they have said disagreement when he left the meeting in the white house we started to talk and said why dont people write books like that anymore . So we decided we would just planet together he read it and said i want to write a book like this you can read in one sitting in a field immediate is the response to the moment without passion but also that duty key with through several drafts but the other thing that is worthy is it is also written like a letter to his son was released transformative then eventually he got to love books. Host did you know, what you had . Not to tell the last draft. But we struggled. We had issues the first few drops. There was the struggle to get the voice right early even now i couldnt say that is a book about, it is of meditation on a very large subject told through memoirs for a friend of his who was killed but trying to shake that was difficult. Of but then the narrative became the narrative that will explain that pick who every day trip nonissues to turn on the news . But he was clear was a very powerful book i thought that was extraordinary. As they travel wave of fat than that will radiate. But did know it would be a successful addition in with very different backgrounds. But we do have alatas similarity a lot of similarity. Maybe i love that too much. They give it to those who work with me at random house in their response was equally powerful in bad is when i was like a bouquet. Okay. His living there for your then coming back one of his friends never traveled of the country and tell he was a grownup and didnt get a passport until a few years ago he would his sons to have the upper tillich to have the opportunity. He wanted them to have that experience together he had the opportunity to do it so he did it. Like you start in baltimore the world is a constrained place therell always be a wall between you and the real world so he is out of the box and that is where he chose to go. Where did the title come from . The book was originally called trouble for my country this was the title will still serve as the civil war and we kept that as the working title for a long time. But there is a poem from Richard Wright that the title comes from as he stumbles on the scene of a lynching in the distance between the narrator and was blocked so thats where it came from. There was a little bit backandforth about the title as real wages and do were like brothers in good and bad ways we fight like crazy but i thought it was a soft title but he was certain it is right and that certain point if you are that certain that is what we go with and he was right. In some cases you really trust the writer and i have always felt that way. And sometimes youre wrong but they have been living with it as long as they have if they feel that level of conviction and passion then i am happy to differ. He was right. Host is narrative non fiction and a specialty . Yes. Id cry now an interesting moment because there was a moment tenner 15 years ago as the category there was a lot of great journalist doing great work. And those that stood out. And the perfect storm in there were great narratives so right now what is happening is the Ongoing Forum of journalism that where the genres are blurring do that now more than narrative that is a great example there is a recording in that there is a memoir there is criticism dancing his safety is in that he is doing a great job publishing people wear the star books that play with different forms of nonfiction and interesting way from a personal narrative but jamison is another and it is exciting because it has the energy of ideas with sad reading experience of the narrative and not feeling you have to be this john rohr that genre with a point of view you get from journalism that is all brought into one book can be very exciting so i do think it is something i am very interested in but i do think there is so much more room. Host one world is starting up again here are some of the authors that you have acquired . We have to do books one is to shed one is nonfiction and i cannot say much right now because they are still in development and we dont want to give away what is coming up next fall of twelves 2017 i have another one from the playwright a pulitzer prizewinning playwright that is an example of nonfiction it is a memoir and bigger idea is about race and class than the playwright of her theatrical material for three plays that she wrote. Using data structure in she thinks about right team a book for a long time. Was she as a place she is doing so she has a lot going on as a writer. Lahn open the possibilities it doesnt have to be and then more or nsa it could be these different forms and she wrote up volatile proposal based on that conversation were doing the book and she is off to the races when moss and doing another book with an author who was living in turkey from syria with an artist Molly Crabapple his no more from the era of spurring the what that was like Common Ground those into friends to became fighters one was killed the other works with more extremist groups end he was one of the only people that communicated out of that to get on twitter is started to give these reports are was happening on the ground during the war stucco or in then became part of the refugees so talk about the three major moments in that region piece of history the from the perspective on the ground that in his riding grapples with an ethical and moral issues and the choices he makes but also the narrative as it is illustrated by Molly Crabapple in she held to work on the book she is a great illustrator she is doing collaborations for vanity fair already been there will be a book clinton version of that so that is exciting and named three new books about immigrants and refugees in in the european of the story coming to america and those that have their own story of what american identity is bin others. Host final question what is the bookstore in new york where we have been several times . It is a great bookstore and is named after my son in his own and run by his mother. I think it is the best independent bookstore in new york although there are many , there is a picture chaperone the quarter and we are also opening a couple of new stores this has been no bin over 10 years it is funny because we talk about the trends of Book Publishing we first opened the store our big concern was we wanted to make sure we were far enough away from borders or barnes noble all barnes noble are close now witches stunning although they do have a thriving stores in new york but we did flourish and has a cafe but it is a model of what a great bookstore can be our community is built up around that around it but is all about the taste level of the of booksellers in their passions in the ability to connect so it is a beautiful store i recommend people go there also agree even to series. Host Chris Jackson has been our guest one world is the name of the imprint coming out in 2017. Thanks for your time still again mentioned in the poor, a key pay book, i still does they travel back and forth to washington every week or sometimes more than that they keep the book cover they stand at a place in washington before ago to then i tried to get some good reading. Then i have my on the plan book that i read going back and forth. Loss surprisingly the two books i am reading here just finished is essentially the book from jack kemp of bleeding heart conservative i was a very good friend and colleague and we had a very good personal relationship is interesting to go back to read that history. Also the latest book on politics is the book from Mitch Mcconnell the long road . The long game. I figured since he is my boss and gave me a free book i should read it. [laughter] i just read Chapter Seven i did not know this about you but then my book on the plane is a book about churchill written by the former mayor of london landed there churchill fame and i have read every book backing a crescendo that this is say different perspective i really recommend it is a totally different look so i am enjoying that i am in the middle of that now then i always have to be reading best buy book is i of the Intelligence Committee so a book about world war to spy that was airdropped into france to report on the germans so those four recently in now i am stacking up ideas for august to have a little more time for reading. A diplomat who joined the state department shortly after the september 11 attacks