Writers festival. This is 45 minutes. Please welcome tim harford. [applause]. Thank you very much everyone. Host i dont believe in long preambles but i thought i should say a few words. I am well aware the many of you have no idea who i am printed as a thank you for showing up on the spirits of pure curiosity. It speaks very well of you. Even though its a really big name for the festival. I feel very honored to be amongst them. So who am i, few things. Already called the undercover columnist for the Financial Times. It is really good. I recommend it printed thank you sir. [laughter]. The second thing is im with radio. I chauffeur the media world service, fifty inventions that shaped the modern economy. And how we think about numbers and how numbers sometimes lead us astray. They help us understand the world. And i also have a podcast with a gentleman called Michael Lewis and malcolm. Read Cautionary Tales force all about things going wrong and sometimes in amusing ways. And what we can
Her recent book how to raise our leader. She coauthored her colleague. So much of raising children these days seems to be about what we dont want them to do, keeping them away from dangerous both real and virtual, no doubt this is a feature, about our helicopter age but this attitude often fails to promote a sense of independence in kids. Not only do they not know how to walk the street by themselves but they are also pretty much incapable of entertaining themselves at least without a device in hand. So for reasons both selfish, parents need a break in his office, we know its an important life skill for them, i think the Current Situation is untenable, they have trouble with the kind of unstructured activity but reading for pleasure is perhaps the activity that has suffered the most according to a recent analysis of the american timing study, share of americans who read for pleasure has fallen by more than 30 2004. So if theres a way to reverse this trend from i think i will have to st
Jihadists to safety about 6 miles away. The book was a bestseller and josh is someone with a knife or some truly Great Stories and he has done it again with his new book falcon sees which recounts another true and gripping tale of adventure this one about wildlife smuggling. Josh is a journalist by trading and had a pretty adventurous globetrotting run himself working for newsweek over nearly two decades. He joined it newsweek in the late 1980s as a business and media writer but within a few years he was off to cover the rest of the world. And back here in the us in los angeles. For the past decade and a half he has continued to report and travel widely writing for a range of publications. Four years ago he 10 National Magazine award in reporting. That was a prizewinning story that told the story of aor physician who would lead the effort to control the ebola outbreak. In addition to the timbuktu josh wrote three other previous works were on about his younger brother who became a relig
Cspan2. Television for serious readers. Well, its nice to see all of you nice folks here today. I see some familiar faces, a few new faces and were happen to have you here. I dont really need to do much of an introduction because we all know our friend, allan, but ill tell you a secret. He was going to name the book 50 shades of alan but decided against it. He thinks only he can tell jokes. Have give him a jersey welcome. [applause] thank you very much. I spent a lot of time growing pup in jersey, my father hard a mens underwear and work clothes store on the Lower East Side and the customers were in new jersey so i would come with him on springfield avenue, newark, and patterson and passaic and went to all these after the second world war, all the army and navy stores so i got to know new jersey and my first wife was from bayonne, new jersey and her classmate in high school was barney frank who i met hen when he was 15 and knew he would be a politician. Im here to talk but something th
Misread strangers words and actions. Many of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. Book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress about their reading list. So senator marsha blackburn, what is on your reading list . Mall come gladwell, and im just i was so jealous last week. My husband and son attended a breakfast where he was speaking, and of course ive Read Everything that he has written and followed his columns for years. So long with blink blink and outliers and the others ive new downlead on my win del, talking to strangers and just a little bit into it, but totally intrigued. Ive also made certain that i have my 2020 farmers almanac downloaded, and im looking at that. You cant beat good reading when it comes the farmers almanac. Its just i love it. And i keep track of it. Im a gardener, and love being outdoors, and so you got to have the farmers almanac. What kind of information do you get from that . Weather. A lot