Veteran of the publishing world. I worked for harper is a Senior Editor and Vice President for many years and went on to work at Simon Schuster as well. So i have been around the block. Im a bit of a veteran in all fields, but we have learned so many things in this conference so far. It such a delight, such a pleasure to the wonderful keynote speech about the importance of words and the report from the frontlines of so many countries, south africa and russia, marvelous and to learn that the First Encounter between europe and the new world, between the conquistadors and the quinta was over a book and on and on with the heritage of Thomas Jefferson and the wonderful discussions that you just heard. At such a vibrant discussion. And wonderful to know that it will go on on in the sum of as we go forward around the world. Now what we have learned in the whole process is that the book culture is changing, although we all know i think in our hearts that the world of books which we have known
Book of africa, huh did it come about . I was, you know, just why did i write the book . No, because i didnt really write it. I was just putting down a continuing conversation, a continuing discourse in which ive been engaged, i think, most of my life, but if you want examples, if you want some immediate instances of the kind of encounters that led inevitably to putting down notes on the subject matter of the book which, you know, tries to cover quite a bit of range, lets just take the religious side. In the green room just there now, i saw on the wall a poster. Title, just announcing, i think, a lecture, and the title is the greatest shoe op earth. The greatest shoe on earth, and also author of the god illusion. Now, sort of strange to think that in certain parts of the world today daring to put up such a poster, much less admitting to being the author of the god illusion, you could be stoned to death or put to death any other way for blasphemy. Second incident today, i was speaking t
[ theme ] stephanie oh, pardon me. Ive just doodling a picture of george w. Bush naked in the shower. Gak stephanie good morning Jacki Schechner. I love those pictures. Laura, hand me the fleshcolored crayon, would you . Stephanie at least youre not on a Carnival Cruise. I missed that story. [ laughter ] stephanie Carnival Cruise ship is on fire. Ship is currently on fire. And toilets were just up d running thisorning. Oh, that sounds so unpleasant. Stephanie Food Poisoning no toilets and the ships on fire. Other than that. Aint we got fun stephanie all right. Here she is in the current news center our news director, Jacki Schechner. The pope is stepping down. Pope benedict xvi announced this morning he will resign on february 28th. In a statement to the cardinals he cites advancing age and deteriorating health. While the move is not unprecedented, it is not common. The last pope to resign was pope gregory 12 in 1415. Pope benedict xvi has served less than eight years but is 85 years o
Literally the house that copyright built. And with that, let me start by just introducing briefly the distinguished panel that we have. Their bios in depth, of course, are in the program and online. But to my immediate left is tom allen who is a former congressman from maine and is presently the president and the chief executive officer of the association of american publishers. To his left is James Shapiro who is a professor of english and a shakespearean scholar and author and Vice President of the Authors Guild. Hes a professor at columbia university. Thank you for coming down from new york, jim. And did you also come down from new york . This week i was here. This week you were in washington. Youre everywhere. And to james left, we have peter jaszi who is also an author, and i will say although peter does not want me to, was recently given the great honor by his colleagues at the Washington College of law to have a lecture named after him. Congratulations, peter, and thank you for
With a certain trepidation. But what it is, the a memoir, first of all is a memoir, first of all. Its a little bit of a memoir of my travels in russia. Weve gone through 20 years together, so its a memoir of the last 20 years since the soviet union fell apart. Its a history of the oil industry, but its also a history of russia these past 20 years, the initial collapse in the 1990s and then the gradual recovery the decade after. So we end up with the russia that we see today after this long cycle, the Russian Oil Industry has gone through the same cycle. Its a biography, its a multiple biography of o number of a number of people, but in particular of the clan that emerged in the 1990s in the city of st. Peat user berg petersburg and came to moscow in the year 2000, and you could sum up the last 20 years of russian history by saying this is the revenge of st. Petersburg over moscow as the clans from st. Petersburg take over and are very largely without much exaggeration are in command. T