depth. the next three hours shall see many of the authors who appeared on the program. we were also joined by an author, cornell west and the heads of simon & schuster and rectory publishing. >> there is something there is still something that brings tears to my eyes. i hope it won't do it now. on the seventh of december, or the eighth of december 1941, i went to what you would call a problem, an event, you know. i was the equivalent of a freshman at the university. i came home atoc 2:00 o'clock at night, the light was on. excuse me. [inaudible] >> americas and the war. >> yes. and why did that touch you so much? to act because we knew it was going to lose it. would that mean for you and hungry? >> i did not cry then. >> how old were you? eighteen? >> i was 18 yes. >> with that interview with the late author john lucas, in-depth was born 20 years ago. 2000 leading nonfiction fiction authors of our time have appeared on in-depth. freeman, colton walker, bob woodward, george well, just to name a few. so over the next three hours, our goal is to review the last 20 years of in-depth. but also to ask you a couple of questions. here they are. who is your favorite in depth guest? what book are you reading now? and who is your favorite nonfiction author. and that is what we will be talking about. we'll be showing you some video from the past 20 years as well. but here is taken dial-in on this 20th anniversary of in-depth. 202 is the area code 748-8200 for those of you in the mountains, east and central time zones. (202)748-8201 if you live in the mountainous pacific time zone. and, you can text in a what your thoughts are as well. (202)748-8903. again tax number only (202)748-8903. please include your first name and your city if you would. also, on social media @booktv for facebook, twitter an instagram. you can also make a comment on those platforms. so we will begin taking those calls and just a minutes. now john lucas was the first gas that was february 6 of 2000. thathe same year, in 2000, richard rhodes, william f buckley junior, joan didion, milton freedman, steven ambrose and arthur celestine george junior all appeared. corporate all was one of the guests, here is a portion. >> the heart of aristocracy are thehe schools. and this is interesting she is the example of your daughter, and the example of bush at yale. i went to extern, would've gone to harvard had i not chosen the army instead. the schools are what control the opinion of the children of the rich and/or powerful. i had a stepbrother who is to inherit a lot of money. and he was sent to groton. that is was st. mark's and so o on. and then for those who will be rich to make them not into gentlemen and scholars but give them certain values. opinions this is how an opinion is formed in the class. they know what they are going to get their view of the world , i belong to the ruling class, and my stepbrother purred but i'm not going to inherit any money. so i'm sent to ecuador which is for the right boys of the ruling class who will eventually work for the rich boys. and who will become judges, senators, editors of the "new york times", there are many fields open to us, bankers. we are not properly speaking except by birth, a member ofpe the ultimate class. that is has done and that's how they continue it. it's always been a move and england, where as you point out they know about the upper classes. and we are not told, we are the most intelligent upper-class i've ever seen or at least overall they are. no one knows they are there. they on the newspapers, the newspapers are not going to give the game away, who really owns what, who really controls what. to be there and never be named they've done a marvelous work but nothing gets through people at large. so they go on and on, occasionally a maverick appears among them i was one. the closed corporation in corporate el paso in 2012. his books include the united states next three hours we are takingur calls on these topics. what are you reading? who is your favorite in-depth guest? and who is your favorite nonfiction author? to accuse the area code 748-8200 for east and central time zones. 202748282001 and mountain pacific time zones. you can textou in your answer as well include your first name and city. 202748, 8903. well, it was-8 in 2001 that fiction author toni morrison appeared. pulitzer prize winning author of beloved. here's a little bit from toni morrison. >> had you get inside people? >> it is difficult. i use what i think are methods the actors and actresses use. try to make it specific and they realize you want to be in that person's head if you are on stage to wear the clothes, where the shoes, behave the way that person would. so you have to enter or project and no, are they part their hair, what kind of soap they wear, what food they don't like, whether or not it appears in the book you try to imagine all of those things. that works for me. i could not spend, i don't judge my characters that way. whether men have lunch with them or not is something quite different. but you have to love them for the moment of their portrayal. whether they are men, women, old, young, children what have you. stuart are they sprung from your pen fully formed? or are they developed as you write? >> guest: sue and as you sit down to the book comes out yorty know the story are going to tell? >> thinking of the questions of the story posted the answer. i am provoked as i was by robert garner, what must that feel like? or paradise to hear this people walk to three black towns and were turned away by black people but also been slaves like them. they were not welcome b h there. i felt my god what that must feel like part i note the story is about, i sort of know the journey but now i have to find out who is going to work that out for me? robert garner did not want to know too much about her, et cetera. i wanted to inventor. as a d few strokes to start than a sort of put them together. they're never fully realized immediately. they always take currying and coddling ands stroking, personal introductions and anything i can do to speak and trust t me in 2001, toni morrison was on in february. jamesar mcpherson, richard brook kaiser, david halberstam and david mccullough all appeared in 2001. now, just one know when it came to richard brook kaiser, who started the show. but the war in afghanistan started that day, so we started -- cut it short we brought them back at a later date is for the few that is of appeared on the program twice. mark in kansas city, missouri, which of those three questions as you want to answer? favoriteo author? what you reading? or favorite in-depth guest? soon i might favorite author is larry roach. i've got most of her books. >> host: did you watch her and she was on in-depth? >> guest: yes, yes and i've replayed on your website a couple of times. because she's very inentertaining. i like the way that a lot of her books just have the one word title. but i have even e-mailed her and she's e-mailed me back. she is a very good guest. very good author. steven thanks for calling in for the stock to david in louisville, kentucky. david good afternoon. >> good afternoon. thank you for in-depth. i want to answer the question about what am i reading? stuart alright. >> caller: i am reading a book called twilight of the gods by ian w told. it talks about the conclusion of the american effort against the japanese in world war ii. we recently had the 75th anniversary of the j day and i find it to be an excellent book. >> we have covered him up book tv have you seenhe him when he appeared? yes i have it is anxiously awaiting the third volume of his trilogy. >> is it world war ii that attracts you? tsubaki yes. and specifically the pacific theater. >> why? >> because of the notoriety of the pearl harbor attack, the surprise that it garnered. and just the story how it was a difficult task. the japanese had all of the advantages earlydv on. and it took quite an effort for us to become victorious. >> host: thanks for calling in, david in a louisville, kentucky. sometimes we take in-depth on the road. it was in september of 2016 that we went to hillsdale college we authored just before the presidential election at t that point. dennis prager was on the program and in front ofro an audience of students. here's part of his presentation. >> is there any way we can combat this socialism is a utopia that the left is promoting a people of my generation? because you and i both of their systematically disestablishing the america wee lopez. >> the north is establishing its thank you that such nice things there from a millennial. but that is exactly what is happening. that is factual, not opinion. they are undoing but the founders meant to do. there is one simple answer aside fromid all of the other arguments that i gave. socialism bankrupt countries. this country will be bankrupt and the bill will fall on you. and frankly have no pity for yo you. because your generation photogenicen rat. so therefore, since i am a big believer in consequences, that is what children should learn. i have zero pity for millennial's who votee democrat. for when the tab for the debt that they believed in by voting democrat comes to their generation. i will perhapsmo be gone or i will have my find retirement account accounts. it has no effect on me. but it will go bankrupt, just like greece, just like portugal, just like italy, just like spain, just like venezuela. and we willju too. we will be a borderless countryrl. because the left once a borderless countries, just like with the schengen rules of the european union. they do not believe in borders they do not believe in national identity. they'll be a country called the united states between canadabe and mexico that it will not be any different from canada or mexico that is thes last dream. this will all happen to you you will read about a once great country that existed. but that you helped dismantle because you, thanks to the indoctrination you got in high school and in college, voted fo for. that is my message to millennial's. a non- pity message. >> that was dennis prager and september of 2016 on in-depth. way, all of these programs are available to watch inn their entirety talk to carolyn prinz george virginia. carol could afternoon. which of the three questions you want to answer? the one about my favorite interview on an depth. was the year that in-depthnt did the year of fiction. and it was david ignatius. i am a super fan of his. and i thought it was such an engaging, really involved interview. and i just appreciated it so much. >> ma'am, do you still read him in the "washington post"? >> i do. every time i get a little lonely i go on the archives and watch the interview on in-depth again. i've read it think but one of his books. and i follow him wherever i can. think he is such an amazing, careful, precise fellow author whether it is fiction overreporting. civic is that the topic of national security. >> i am particularly interested for intelligent and the work of the cia. i do not have any professional background in it. i am a re- toilet retired lawye lawyer. i've always been fascinatedna by it the job of dispassionately but respectfully relating what the work of the cia and other intelligence agencies are in terms of protecting us nationally. >> thank you. beck and shaping our foreign policy based. >> thank you for calling in. we will look at some of us fiction authors that we did, i believe it was in 2018, we did a full year of fiction authors but will look at some of those o as we go. now if you can't get there on the phone lines when the text in your message or social media at your message, text number (202)748-8903, please include your first name and your city. and just remember, booktv is our handle for facebook, twitter, an instagram. shelby. foote was one of the authors it appeared in 2001. factory visited his home inth memphis. >> on that depth there also use that dip penal we talked about before. shows the hand? >> that is the kind that used to be in post offices. absence nightmare, finding his brothers was a hard thing to do. i don't worry about that. i was lucky, i found a whole bunch-dusty old stationary shop that used to be on 44th stree street, and i bought myself a lifetime's of scripted respect what kind of paper did you write on? >> that is a big problem. i don't type write a paper. and it doesn't take in getting more the way it used too. so i have a big problem with paper. select what is this i have in my hand? that is a manuscript of shiloh. and at the end ofre each day, i do the final corrected draft. and put it on the stack and then type it up for the printer. so when is that an original or copy? >> guest: thousand final days copy print out in the day by making that final copy. see what you got up on the shelf there, how many other of your original? >> last season, shiloh, county is not a bit, that september is my sixth novel. it's been in 80 how valuable those are? 's speemac no. sue had what do a with them? >> guest: leave them for my son. >> host: what are some the things you have there on the back of your desk? >> guest: they are favorites of mine. [inaudible] that's it old confederates outcome birthday party when i was about 11 years old with all of my friends robert e lee, u.s. grants, i read similar work labor and was your favorite berries what. >> guest: absolutely he was in arkansas immigrant who became a lawyer and i was interested in the military because he had done a hitch in the british army as a corporal. could we get a good close up on that board there so folks can see it you mentioned earlier. >> host: he was born four years into this century. but he is as modern today as he was when he was writing. checkup had a tremendous influence on the adding of the short story. all short story writers they influence for the good. >> checkup had a talent you cannot explain it. lisa try to figure it how he does these things. we could never figure how he did it. he was so good. >> he passed away four years after that interview in 2005. gail texts in from dubuque, iowa. i'm currently reading cast the origins of our discontent by isabel wilkerson. i highly recommend that she writes. isabel wilkerson hasasom now appeared on sunday night and on book tv as well. all available @booktv.org. just type your name in the search function at the top of the page. q, ashland, virginia. good afternoon hugh, welcome to bookk tv. >> caller: good afternoon, thank you so much for taking my call perez prompted to call in by the call from the woman who is looking at the government agencies like the cia. i have had quite a bizarre life. i would love to share my name if i can because i am a vietnam era veteran changing the world for my dining room table. a self-proclaimed heartbeat of america. i'm also a whistleblower. as a front page wall street journal article that can be seen on the internet that i was written up and it triggered an investigation that eventually led to the resignation of jim wright from speaker of the house. i also had some interaction with a high level cia operative, who authored a book the kgb, the eyes of russia. very rosinski comment had some interesting synchronicity's that i had discovered with him and a lot of other things. i even share common background with the president, and will support any president in office that unite the people of the country properly. but i'm not going on the ego trip the president is on. and will still reach out until his last day to unite the people of this country properly. the secret government agencies have to be more transparent and empower the people with the freedoms that we have. sue bechtel was the name of that book again that you wanted to recommend? fiftieth titled the kgb, the eyes of russia. authored by harry rosinski, c1 thank you sir. john and hutchinson, kansas. good afternoon. >> i've got a question maybe you or somebody can answer. on tv i watch and in the newspapers everywhere they talk about russia interfering in our elections. china interfering with our elections. and this goes on and on and on. but nobody says a word. they all say foreigna governments should not interfere with our election in any way, shape, or form. i go to channel eight which is our local. see what john for an interrupt you here were taught about books today in the 20th anniversary of in depth. anything in the work world you in a comment on? >> caller: no, no i listened to television read the newspaper. it went okay thank you so we appreciate your y call. brent and new york, good afternoon for it when he reading? who's your favorite author? and you have a favorite in-depth program of the past 20 years? i've been. >> caller: i've been reading this book, cannot the authors name, it's dooey beats truman. it's a really good book. >> set the new a.j. boehm? that be the author? >> he's got a new and out on dooey beats truman, yes. >> the interesting book. german did not have a good second term until after he what i guess. question about the favorite author have to be nonfiction? >> if you've got a favorite fiction author you want to bring up, go ahead. >> that would be thomas berger. he's not real well known, but he wrote one novel is written 18 or 20 novels. he died when he is 8090 died in 2014. anyway h, he's only known for really one book, little big man. some people say is not so well-known because he's work different genre. it's all fiction. but he said with detective numbers and contemporary stuff. also he wrote a take off on king arthur legend, and these known for his grasp of the english language. nobody writes like the guy. soon where do you get your books, brent. online? library? bookstore? >> caller: online and the library. but thomas berger, somebody said his staff is, proves fiction is stranger than truth. there is just nobody like the guy that writes like that. i got on the site went on this you like this author you o will like, i said thomas berger. i entered his name tom delay overcame bye-bye think is his name. so i got a book by tom i don't if i'm pronouncing the name right it's white noise, he wrote white noise. a couple of other books. see what is in a specific genre? is it intelligence? national security? suspense? >> caller: i don't even know pretty started to read it and it is like unreadable. the point is, nobody writes like this guy like thomas berger. alright thanks for calling in. in 2002, our guests included cornell west, tom clancy, peggy noonan, robert carol, bell hook hooks, edmund morris, george will, and bob woodward. our first guest of 2003 was phyllis/lee. and here is a portion of her talk. >> guest: unocal was assassinated late november of 63. and i was at that time the president of the illinois federation of republican women. and i have a whole series of republican speeches agile. beginning in december. and it just seemed inappropriate to give the standard anti- democratic party speech. so i worked up a new speech called how political conventions are stolen. started the first week in december. of 1963. and then i gave that speech of january and february. and it told a story how the rockefeller establishment given the domination to lead tours like thomasik dooey. i could put a book and implodes the convention for it year.whirlwind the goto publishers can take them twoou years to get their act together we needed and 64. that is the little publisher i set up to produce this book. and so i sent it off to the printer in march. and 25000 copies arrived in my garage on april the 30th. and i typed out a one page letter that said dear friends, please read this book today. and then buy enough copies to send to your delegates to the 1964 republican national convention. and i typed it on my typewriter. i typed the stencil in those days pretty head at mimeograph machine the basement. i went down the basement and put the stencil on the round thing and ground out 10000 letters. at 100 letters i only advertising i ever did. one of those letters was read by a friend in california who called up and said ile read it, i'm going to a convention this weekend that is united republicans of california, air freight be out 5000 copies rates by load50 them up in my station man, to come down to airport, sent them out there. and that weekend we had statewide distribution in california. and the california primary was the first week in june. and we sold over a half million copies between the stfirst of may and the first of june in california. we would did the tile come from? >> >> guest: barry goldwater use the title. in the minute i heard it i knew that wast it. sue and ann goss is calling in from chicago, good afternoon gus. what he reading? who is your favorite author? your favorite in-depth program of the past 20as years? >> untimed your first time caller. currently i'm technically reading two books. and reading illustrated guide to the mueller report from idw publishing, shannon wheeler and steve do and are the authors. and illustrators. i'm reading also a fiction novel at a snails pace f called raptor from gary jennings. it is basically the life and times of an orphan during the sort of early hiking in mid-march air he and. , it's pretty good. my favorite author regarding nonfiction is max blumenthal. i met him personally is a nice gentleman. his books have a narrative that is similar to fiction if you ever read anything not exactly sensational but that nice pace that's not boring. he is probably one of the best authors regarding criticism of government insiders and the middle east. d : a close secondes tom hartman, both great men with a lot of college no spin. >> what do you do in chicago? >> i work an an he ickes judge. i work in campaigns. long story short i was studying engineering before trump got elected and when that happened i decided to do everything in power to make trump a one-term poetus. so i have -- potus. >> i worked on campaigns, a tax assessor for the county who a remember of refuse passion of chicago, member of mom's demand action, moms rising. i'm not a parent. and i'm also a member of a couple of indivisible chapter and i walk my dog 50-miles a day. >> that's gus in chicago. thank you for your time. it was in 2002 that one of pour fiction authors appeared and this is tom clancy. >> how often does an author come out with the first book and have a best seller. >> guest: i really don't know. i'm not the only person this happened to. i suppose it's reason my rare. i'll be the first person tool got extremely luck. you want to hear the whole story? in the book came out red october came out in october of 1984. and in november of that year, a gal -- well, aey store of "washington times --" at the post, not the times -- was retired marine colonel. since deceased unfortunately. and he wanted to get a copy of the book force friend in argued. too cheap to buy one. and frank ortiz. a certain lady was heading to argentina, nancy clark reynolds, public affairs person who knows agency. i asked if nancy would tike the book with him. she said, sure, it's a long provide buenos aires and she shared the book on the flight, and she liked it. so any, christmas season. she comes home and she buys a whole case of books, 28 copies, to give to her front christmas. one her friends was president reagan. he was a big reader, read two or the books a week when he was president. and he leaked the book and start to talking from the white house. and a reporter with "time" magazine heart -- heard the talk and decided to do a book about me and the book and the president and shazam, i made the bestseller list. and it make's pleased i vote for president reagan. >> that's tom chance ya who passed away in 2013. in three the guests on "in depth." phyllis schlafly. martin fill bert. susan sontag. bernard lewis, harold bloom, noam chomsky, jeff shia r, stanley crouch, john keegan and doug brinkley. mike is in lakeside, california, mike, you're on booktv. >> caller: how are you doing? >> host: how are you. >> pretty good. i was calling to rem for fellow citizens a coup of book biz gore vidal who you had on a couple of times. and the first one, they're both short books to two for one. the first one is imperial america and the second one is dreaming war. now -- >> what is -- go ahead. sorry. >> caller: i like the awe here and his writing style. it's -- he comes from sort of aristocratic political family so has this old stowickism, and he telephones things and it's a nice way relay that information. >> rb from new york city. >> caller: churchill aandruw roberts and my favorite nonfiction book and this leads into two author us the wise men by evan thomas and walter isaacson. the two authors. both -- i know each of them a little bit. has written a eclectic and interesting books over the years since they wrote the wise men. the wise men i talk about all the time with people because the six subjects of the back had a huge influence on american foreign policy and only one of them was ever elected to office, that was averill hairman. >> host: how do you know walter ice sang 6:and evan thomas, professionally, personally. >> caller: personal because because my sayre is smith. >> host: she has written put queen elizabeth. >> caller: yep. and i belong to athletic club do their nonfiction book events, sally has been there as has event thomas. >> host: sally bedell smith has written several books on the english monarchy and other topics and well-moan to the booktv audience as well. rb, thank you for calling in. vince bugliosi was the prosecutor in the 1969 manson murder cases. and his very famous book, crime book, was helter skelter. well, he appeared on our program in 2007 and here is a little bit from mr. bugliosi. >> guest: who done it? lee harvey oswald. >> host: period. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: you listty end of the book all the conspiracy people who think it's a conspiracy. you list all the groups that could possibly be involved, basically saying that the whole world had to conspire to kill president kennedy. >> guest: yeah. i of you listen to conspiracy their u.s.es every presidential administration has been trying to cover up. cannot believe this -- oliver stone, for instance, stone's movie was one continuous lie. i have to qualify that. he had the correct date, november 22, 1963. correct victim, the president. correct city, dallas. other than that it was one continuous lie. he -- his thinking capped turned tightly to opposition and came up with ten groups that he thought was involve, had a motive and had them all involved. even the kgb and cia, bitter enemies but got together on this one. you ask me who did it? let me tries to summarize luke i did for "time magazine." they gave me a page. on oswald's fill. if you're i can summarize why they're no conspiracy. the individual conspiracy theories and ask me about the kgb and i answer you, then someone will say what bat castro, anti-cass destroy -- the right wing? i'll try to summarize it for you. i learned as a prosecutor -- you don't have to be prosecutor. common sense -- that if you are in a scene of -- innocent of a crime chances are there want be any evidence at all pointing towards your guilt. why? because you're innocent. but because of the nature of life, the unaccountability of certain things, now and then a piece of evidence will point towards your guilt. even though you're independent and am extremely unusual, rare situation, maybe even two, three pieces of evidence, strong evidence, point towards your guilt even though you're independent but in this case here, peter, because you asked me "who dun it," everything. everything points towards lee harvey oswald's fill. in the become i set forth 53 separate pieces of evidence pointing towards oswald's fill and under the circumstances would not be humanly possible for oswald to be innocent, at least not in the world in which we live. i'm talking to now. you can hear me, taupe tomorrow. not in that world. only in a fantasy world can you have 53 piece of evidence points toward yours guilt and still be innocent. >> host: that was vince bugliosi from 2002. the passed away in 2015. in 24 our guests tom mag fleming, victor davis hansen, marge forget mcmillan, neal figureson, harold holier, simon winchester and on september 5-inch we went to strand book store and dade profile. angela davis was our guest in october, david hack it fisher in november and then the late tom wolfe in december. 40% of those authors that somewhere just showed you are still active and writing. mike in maryland. he said may favorite author is -- best wishes for another 20 years of "in depth." mike in gaithersburg we appreciate that. in 2007 it was newt gingrich who was our author. a prolific author, hat written several books. this program, this section we'll show you here from 2007 is a little different. we'll complaint afterwards. >> he feel there's a continuum. start with the sound bite and then a become of the dvd. and the income he continuum we are in one of those fast nateing period odd dramatic change where we could potentially have an enormous dialogue in the country and i think you have something from second life that we do -- give you an example of how i see this stuff as all going to evolve over at the next five or ten years. >> for some of you the whole concept of an avatar will be a new one. let watch. >> let me just say, these are some of the teething pains of learning a new technology. but i regard second voice and second life as the beginning of a very different kind of system but that's exactly what you see in front of us, people from all over the world can come together and be together and share ideas, and i think it's very important to look at how this technology will evolve. second life in many wases the first successful manifestation, of an idea as a meta-verse, virtual world inhabited by real people was pioneered in science fiction novels, will you beginningson's 1984, and neil stevenson's 1992 snow crash. the first intellectual treatment of the meta verse came in the form of the book, mirror worlds. as a teacher by trade, i'm tee lighted to teach a workshop here in second life but not the first to do so. harvard law school prefer charles neston caught a class inside second life but law and the court of public opinion and you'll find more people engaged in study groups and in work groups in this kind of second life and other kind of meta-verse environments because they're so effective. >> and that was 13 years ago, kind of an early version of an avatar. you can see how far technology has come in the last 13 years. sarah mccool, mississippi, hi, sarah. >> caller: hi. i'm calling from vicksburg, mississippi. >> host: yes, ma'am. >> peter i look forward to watching c-span2 every weekend. and especially the first sunday of the month to see who the latest author will be. well, i'll tell you, right now i'm reading -- >> sarah, can you hit the mute on your tv? we are getting feedback. >> i'm sorry. turn the volume dow. >> host: yes, ma'am. >> caller: okay. my favorite book of nonfiction is coming of age in mississippi by ann moody. i think she wrote her memoir in 1968. and it's the only book that i've read twice. my favorite become of fiction is song of solomon by toni morrison. i know you have had tone on several times but don't recall you ever having ann moody on. do you recall. >> host: no and if her book came out in 1968 you say? >> caller: yes. >> host: booktv started in 1998, and perhaps she had passed by that point, or was not active as a writer. >> caller: yes. i think she passed paper two years ago. >> host: oh, okay. >> caller: i thought maybe you had her on one of your shows. >> host: the producer is looking it up but i dent think -- ann moody does not ring a bell. we have limited over the years -- we stayed with nonfiction. that would have been a very appropriate book given the title to have on. >> caller: it's required wait until mississippi for junior high school students. a great book. >> host: are you a teacher? >> caller: no, sir. i'm just a book person. i love books. >> host: what is sitting on your table right now? >> caller: okay. i have a lot of books on my table. but i just finished reading claudia ranchin's book, just us. >> host: rankin. >> caller: yes, sir, and presently read aring her other book, citizen, an american lyric and also reading right now, want at thing in strange lands, a daughter of the great migration reclaims her roots,ber morgan jerkins. i have seen her on your program. >> host: right, and claudia rankin has been on as well recently. >> caller: i think she was on last week or week before use did you pick up the book prior to seeing them on booktv or because of booktv. >> caller: well, i'm back -- i was book seller years ago, but i still get the new york review of books, and also i -- when i see new authors on your program and it sounds interesting i will order. i believe in patronizing independent book stores, and the one i usually order my becomes from is square books in oxford, mississippi. >> host: i've been there. >> caller: i know you have, okay. but that's it for now. >> host: okay. a lot of history in vicksburg, mississippi. every read any books historical books about the civil war, especially the attack on vicksburg and the battles that happened there? >> caller: right. right now i'm trying to think of the author's name. can't he did a book on version -- vicksburg, is is how thorp? wrote mississippi in africa. >> host: there's another guy who just passed away, also wrote forrest for forest gump and did a book on vicksburg. just passed away. thank you for your time this afternoon. we really appreciate it and thank you for watching. >> host: janet, ba, delaware. hi, janet. >> caller: hi. >> host: janet, we need -- >> i'm here. >> host: hit the volume on your tv. turn it off. >> caller: okay. i've turned it down, the volume, yes. >> host: thank you. all right. what are you reading? who is you fair rid author? who have you enjoyed walking on "in depth"? >> caller: actually the book i'm presently reading is not the book i'm calling about. i'm presently reading isabelle will -- welkerson's castey but she doesn't address the sum i'm reading about and that's the ghetto, and i wanted to mention my favorite books. i'm african-american, and i was born -- i'm 80 years old, born and lived never ghetto until i was able to escape it because you have to escape the ghetto. but the book -- the first book i read that really was like a bible to me in explaining to me the construction and persistence of the ghetto and was a book written in 1993 by massey and denton, american apartheid, segregation and the making of the underclass. one sentence -- one statement they made in the book and it was that it was about when black people moved into predominantly white communities, they said that when that happens, white people must have somewhere they can go where blacks cannot follow. now, after that happened, and i experienced it, the powers that be then will make a community that you moved into -- they will make that then a getow, but the other -- ghetto, but the other two becomes, the second one was written good n2009 by ryl wrote other book called family properties and what struck me is the idea when the fda do whoosh the fha wouldn't give blacks mortgages we had to buy houses on contract, and the contract was held by a realtor or the opener of the house, and the stipulations of the contract were such that you never could pay off the contract and you lost the house, and then it -- they sold identity another black under the same kinds of circumstances. and then the third book is one written in 2016, ghetto, the invention of a place the history of an idea. another princeton professor, michael doneer, i'm particularly interested in the subject of the ghetto because i see it as a pillar of race in america. a pillar of race in empolicemenattic of the -- emblem matic of the idea that the ghetto is where blacks belong and they can only get out of the ghetto if we manage somehow to escape it through education or opportunities that we might be able to access. so, those are the books. >> host: what -- if you're reading caste now what's your comparison win warm of other suns and caste? >> caller: in the warmth of other suns, isabelle wilkerson talked about the ghetto, a lot. and in caste -- i just started reading it and i don't believe she talked about the ghetto so much in this book. it's the word ghetto is not in the index but she talked about the ghetto, the people who made that great migration like my parents, when they left the sharecropping farms, the former plantations of the south and came north, even though initially blacks did not live in what is called the ghetto, certainly by the 1940s, they did. >> host: where did your parents begin their life and end up? wheror you raised. >> caller: excuse me. >> host: where where did you parents live their life and where were you raised . >> was born in chester, pennsylvania, and i lived in the lamochan village projects which were torn down 20 yours ago but the ghetto is where i lived until i was 16 years old, when my parents managed to buy a house mitch mother and father -- my father and mother came from north carolina in virginia, fourth and eighth grade education. and the ghetto was the place where it was designated that we should live and even to this day, that pillar of race persists. >> host: janet in "d," we appreciate your time, bryan in as oscoda, michigan. hi, brian. >> caller: good morning -- or good afternoon, time change. i was reading woodward's book and i have to be honest, haven't been through it but he is using -- the being about bod woodward, hes to the same that that is going on a lot over the past decade or two. all these so-called sources, and they really don't have sources. so i wonder how we allow this to happen continually. >> host: have you head any of been woodward's 20 or so other books? >> caller: no. this is the first one. i've seen him around for decades and of course we all know the history of him going all the way back, but the thing is getting back to this,s is how to be keep allowing this to go on and guys like woodward and many others benefit when they don't have sources or, like, this anonymous, he certainly wasn't a high level source. but yet we allow that to go on and they profit from him. and you even see it in the news all the time. so, i'm just wondering when are we going to get back to real journalism instead of calling people journalist. shouldn't they have training in journal glimpse shouldn't they understand the theory of journalism? >> host: brian, what made you pick up this book? rage. >> caller: i kept seeing it so much and him profiting off of it. had to go ahead and take a look at it. it's the same thing that goes on, and i did -- i don't want this to be about me but i worked in naval intelligence when i see stuff lying thick so plate -- blatantly going on i feel like i'm in our where they head blatant propaganda, propaganda has entered into america. that's why we're fighting. we're not make these writers, whether it's woodward or many others, without having sources that they can verify and prove to you they have the verified them, they should be not -- should not be able to cite these people. they should -- it's hurting our country. >> host: report, brian, we'll live it there. in 2005, "in depth" was in its fifth year, here with the authors, historian gary wills, charles murray, helen cal decot, rapider kaplan, thomas freedman, father richard john newhouse, hw brands, william moon, harvey mansfield, from harvard. sherwin nuland. doris carnes goodwin and john updike. it was in 2013 and a caller references this author earlier -- that mary roach who often is very humorous in her writing, appeared on the program. here's a portion of that. >> guest: i tried to find -- my -- i didn't really care if something had done it in space. i just wondered had anybody done it in zero gravity and i thought there's commercial flights, zero great nights, and i called them and the guy said, nasa is a contractor of ours. if that got out -- we'd stand to lose a lot of money so, no. he said no. but of course he's going to say no. so i'm guessing maybe one of the staff at the zero gravity corps might have done that. after hours. flights that is just one of the early flights and working out the kinks. seems to me. but nobody is owning up to it. >> host: but your research included locating a porn star. >> yes, sylvia saint, i believe. there was supposedly this -- a trilogy called the uranus experiments and what i heard is that there was a scene shot in zero gravity, not in space but on a zero gravity simulator, plane thats to the pair bolick flights, 20 second odd zero gravity so conceively you could. and i tracked down the producer of the uranius and he said we did those -- that shot in zero g and he said i'll send you a ling to the movie and went on and on and we said he have time share on a corporate jet and we got the pilot to do that flight. said really you got a file do a cierre gravity right? that's extreme him said, oh, yeah, had to check at theland thoroughly afterwards and i thought, okay. and then i downlead the uranus experiments and i fast -- the only person who fast-forded through the porn to get to the scene. i got the scene in zero gravity, and right away if you know anything about zero gravity, you can tell that this is fake because her pony tail is hanging down. her pony tail is not -- it would normally be floating -- in zero gravity it would be like this and it's hanging down and other parts of her anatomy are similarly not buoyed by zero gravity. there should be no hanging down. and there was in the uranus experiment, their legs were hidden and they're standing behind a sofa going, up and down and -- trying to looking like they -- that's where one shot the money shot they just filmed sideways to it looked like it was -- they're knosting itself was fake. >> that was mary roach in 2013. tom in palm harbor, florida. hi, tom. >> caller: hi. >> host: what are you reading your favorite author and favorite "in depth" guest. >> my favorite how authorize is howard zen and i've read all of this books people's history of the united states, disobedience and democracy, the student nonviolent coordinating committee. his first book was his pht thesis on governor la guardia in new york. certain lay runner up for great history books your recent guest, gel la port, i've rate -- jill la pore. i think these truths is a fantastic book and right now i'm reading a book and i don't know if he has been on, his name is larry tye. it's called demagogue. he has written many books. i've read another of his books about a. phillip randolph this. book about senator joe mccarthy, fantastic book. >> host: i think it just came out in the last month or two, didn't it? >> caller: yes. >> host: i believe we either covered it or he is going to be on shortly but that's -- i think we have covered that. >> caller: also been on -- interviewed on pbs news by judy woodward. >> host: but if you go to booktv.org and you can type at the top of the page there's a search function. >> caller: i do that all the time. >> host: if you type in tye book, it should appear. >> caller: i did check. >> host: thank you for watching and thank you for calling in, curtis, vancouver, washington. >> caller: hello. i wanted to remind you the name youyear overlooking was forest gump's authors, winston grove. he -- >> caller: i had a chance to meet him once at the social festival of books in nashville, very delightful person to meet. so that was a lot of fun. >> caller: i enjoyed your little clips clips of tom clancy. have you have david hansen on. >> host: yes. >> caller: one of my favorites. >> what's about dr. hansen that attracts you. >> his insight, his classical education and the history from the greek and roman era. one of his books had what the impact was long-term of a particular battles like the battle of delium were socrates survived or the battle okinawa or the boost shiloh where -- the battle of shiloh where the author of ben-hur backtracked. wasn't part of the first day and made up for it by writing the book ben-hur. >> host: he is still very active author and:um list, a weekly column, and his -- >> caller: look ford to seeing him on tv, too. >> host: he was on our "after words" program, golly, couple of months ago, and his book in support of president trump that he wrote so i don't know what that do your opinion. >> caller: i concur. >> host: okay. >> caller: a couple of books to recommend i'm curly reading. -- currently reading. a biography of samuel fuller, a nice insight into this original career as a copy boy at the newspaper in new york, and then on to his career as a documentary and filmmaker, very good at film interior and another book is twilight of the gods, theirs into in ian toll's trilogy about the war in the pacific. >> host: you're the second caller to recommend that. >> caller: superb trilogy. >> host: this morning or afternoon, and we covered that on booktv. >> caller: in is james hornfisher on his pack war books and rick atkinson and this trilogy on the european war were really good. favorite author going up was isaac asimov. tle my favorite bus passes own a long time ago. and for books to recommend, i get some books from reading nero wolf, murder mysteries by rex stout and the way nero kept his place in the book, i if he used a special bookmark that's a book i looked up and read and that cores treasure of our tongue but the english language by lincoln barnett and african genesis about the development of humanity from primitive precultural -- precivilization by robert ardry who retired from writing scripts for movies he wrote the script for khartoum and then decided to research an throw polling. >> host: you seem to spend a lot of time with books. a lot of free time or your hobby? >> caller: well, it's just what i enjoy doing more than anything else is reading books. i had one whole room that was a library and i had to tear it out because my daughter moved in for a while show books are can god in in the garage. 8,000 books boxed in the garage. >> host: that's a lot of books. >> caller: always have a few on hand, like the third face and twilight of the gods and wanted to recommend for the civil war buffs the trilogy about u.s. grant, starting with captain sam grant by lloyd lewis who passed away after taking all the notes and write that book and passed them all on to his subsequent biographer, who everybody in civil war knows him, and there was one great anecdote when grant came back from vancouver, he had a time at the post here where he was not very happy because his family was away and he came back to galena, im, and one day he came into the store in the middle of a rainstorm and one of the guys sitting around the pot belly stove was very prominent local lawyer and said you look like hell and grant says i sure feel like it. the give at the stove says what's it like? and grant says, well, same as here. lawyers close toast the fire. -- closest to the fire. >> host: curtis, are you a lawyer. >> caller: no, no. i'm an aerospace engineer who transition i would with the peace dividend into education. right now i'm a substitute school teacher, semi retired a lot of time other read book. >> host: we appreciate your time on booktv today. carolyn in f iowa is reading the book, couple 90piece ease past spark the irregulars, in the british spy circumstance until washington, has appeared on booktv several times. and you can watch her online. glenda in humble, texas. hi, glenda. >> caller: hi. i want to call attention to the book grant by ron chernow, and as well as his book on alexander hamilton. a lot of people today don't like books that are that long, but i find his books just hard to put down once you start. they're so well done. so well documented. i really appreciate that and the current climate of people playing fast and loose with information. the other writer i really enjoy and would recommend to anybody is richard brookhiser. his most recent book, give me liberty, i is an excellent thing for people to read right now. goes back to a time period that has been under attack and follows the real origins of the founders' early beliefs, and it's just a -- it's not a long book. it's -- but so worth your time. >> host: thank you for calling in glenda in humble, texas and mr. brook highsers -- brookhiser as been on here work we did a interview with richard brookhiser and his wife who is ha therapist and she wrote a book how to get along with your friends and neighbors politically if you don't agree on poll to ticks and we interviewed them in their apartment in new york and you county watch that online. it was in 2002 on one of his many appearses on booktv and c-span2 that this gentleman appeared on "in depth." here's a portion. >> as i matured it was really anton chekov and john coltrane. >> host: seem to be here and here. how to do they intersect? >> caller: when you listen to john coltrane's love supreme, that brings together the spirituality and genuine doubting, a -- spiritual to allity of genuine give something serves. that sewcratic questioning, and that profound love, compassion, loving kindness you doubt out of the rich judaic tradition and he takes it to a high level. with kole tran -- with chekov you simply do not have a poet in prose of some profound compassion, wrestling with death, disappointment, wrestling with the steady ink of misery. the constant hart break of daily life and try to convince to us keep on. in blue, how do you keep keeping on. been down so long, down to don't worry me no more that's why i keep keeping on. a wonderful poem. innovate all there late at night, and still i'm losing but still i'm steady and unaccusing. pushing no matter what. that's profoundly chekovian. you have to go with ton y more sin to get the sweetness of mind and toughness of temper in one figure. >> host: when did you find chekov . >> i first read chekov when i was 17. blew my mind. >> 18 years later joiningsing now is dr. cornel west. -- temperatures west, anything you want to add. >> i want to congratulate you brother, what force for good you have been, for 20. >> cnn has been in the midst of a very, very grim and so many ways bleak time. you have been a light so kind to me in so many other voices as well, my dear brother. hope your loved ones are strong, hope they're safe. i'm just blessed to be breathing, each breath is a breakthrough. each day is a blessing, my brother, almost 2 years late are but aisle still tied to chekov and still tried to coltrane and revolutionary christian, tied to jesus. >> host: how many becomes are you up to you've written snow i don't even count. guess maybe 20, 21, something like that. but it's not as you know a matter of the quantity, it's a matter of the quality of the words on the page and you hope those words can help somebody unsettle and minds and try to heal some hearts in the best way that we can. and the action we do and try to -- fallible and finite lives we live, my brother. >> host: are you working on a become now? >> guest: i've got these different lectures in scotland comping, and it's on catastrophe. catastrophe in public intellectuals, beginning with irrasmus, his parents died in the bubonic plague and made his way through the various monsters with the brother and sistering of common life and became the first great public intellectual in modern europe, tied prohibit press and goes from irrasmus to toni morrison, my brother. a lot of towering figures in between, david humes and matthew arnold and erred war sigh owe and susan sontag and rushed brookhiser. and it's in the making, two years to work on these lectures and that's the next big book but i mean at the moment just trying to get through the election and see if we have any democracy going to be left. i've been raiding hopkins, great book, american empire, a global history, professor at the university of cambridge. magisterial treatment of american empire in decline, military overreach, corruption of elite. the republicans and elites across the board and then the feeling among everyday people they don't have the kind of power required to turn this thing around. we hope we're not on the titanic or melville's ship and the confidence of man, all of those ships going under because we lost access to at the best of our past, unable to mobilize the kind of resources and sources, spiritual, moral, as well as political, and civic, that can keep a very fragile experiment in democracy eye live. that's where are now but thank fault the life of the mind is still at work, c-span, love on the mind. it's always insufficient because we have to have courageous citizens and loving human beings but it's indispensable. , he we have a certain lens we look at the world, comes from poets and thickers and writers and musicians. shellis right. the poets their imaged slurred legislators of the world. shelly died at 29 years old and appropriating dante in the triumph of life but he understood we have to be kicked with our past through our ideas and notions and stories and visions and narratives, my brother, to enter veep on the present and -- enter screen on -- intervene on the present and we have to intervene for the poor, all colors, all genders, all sexual orientations, and for me it begins with the general genius of he brow scripture, they loving kind nose, the or fan and widow and fatherless and motherless and persecutessed, those who have been rendered invisible, that is the covenant that god makes with israel. with jews. and it set the standard for everybody, including israel, including jews. what are you doing for at the lowest of these, to your poor, do to those who are dominated and occupied. a moral and spiritual standard that is greater than all of us and no one of us ever possessed that kind of truth that we can be in quest of that kind of truth, and ill know you'll know what i'm talk us about, brother peter, but it relates to your own formation, you're only family, your own community, that intellectual humility we sunny socrates and the narks a weeping jeremiah or weeping jesus or a deeply concerned mohammad trying to bring together different peoples in medina who were at each other's throats and he's trying to create some kind of peace, righter a mercy that goes beyond justice. absolutely. it's hard to believe, though, man, 18 years later. my soul looks back and wonders. i'm still be a live, man. >> host: now three years ago, you were on "in depth" again. >> guest: brother robby. >> host: that's right. you and robby -- >> guest: robe george, absolutely. the truth. we had great time. we didn't have a book, though i think we -- >> host: huh huh. >> guest: we had joint live written reflections on truth-seeking at that time that we put out. another one on the need for honesty courage and just recently. but we had a magnificent time on your show. we trying to hold up to the best our identity the bloodstained panner of integrity, decency, generosity to others, so anytime you talk it your identity, racial identity, gender identity, whatever identity you have, it got to be rooted in integrity, rooted in solidarity with those across the various nations and colors. so the moral and the spiritual standards that we all fall short of put the moral and spiritual standard must always be highlighted. are you going tend to up with massive spirit to all disease and i positive more decrepitude and that is what we are dealing with now. >> host: just to tell our audience, robert george is a professor at princeton and an author, and one of cornell's best friends and haps to fall on the conservative side of the political spectrum. >> guest: he is my dear conservative brother. we wrestle and engage each other and a variety of different ways because love not reducible to politic. a very deep and profound friendship and brotherhood that is not rulessed to agreement on public policy but an acknowledgment how we can revel in each other's humanity when we have deep political disagreements and that's also an understanding of the difference between deep love and narrow justice. any justice that's only justice soon degenerates into something less than justice if it's not grounded in something more profound than justice. you can love somebody and also have very deep political disagreements but if it's only about justice and you end up with a ne-yo self-reichness and live in your own silo and unable to make the humane and human contact with folk that you have disagreement it with. we already understand this in terms 0 our own families. thanksgiving dinner sit around the table and you love folk like i don't not what we you'vetive grandma width aunts and uncles and moms and dads and brothers and sisters it still take a bullet for them. that's the love that undergirds any serious talk about justice. and that doesn't mean don't have political foes. we have political foes. there's no doubt. donald trump for me is a political foe but i don't want to lose sight of his humanity and i don't want to lose sight he made in the image of god the same me. if don't want to lose sight of the fact he he did not consent to his gangster like activity and changed his life and acted with integrity he has that capacity. he could do it if he really wanted to put he chooses not to. as long also that image of god and the -- to be better don't want to lose sight of that when you're engaging human beings. and i learned that's in shiloh baptist church. you hate the sin but still try to stay in contact with the human chilly of the sinner. -- humanity of the sinner and i also learned in shiloh baptist church the kingdom of god its with you and wherever you good you ought to leave a little heaven behind and the question becomes what kind of heaven behind are we really leaving in terms of our relations with others, our concerns with poor people, and working people, our concerns with indigenous people and black people and for white people, our concern with those in libya somalia, ethiopia, nigeria. thailand, japan, these be flow, international. that's part of the greatness of the prophetic legacy of jerusalem, that every flag for chinese ought to be under a cross. every flag for jews ought to be under the unnamable yawai, the god that god of justice. that's justice, justice how to shall duthou shall pursue for all of those who suffer. these their great moral truths of the species and if we lose sight of that, we end up losing the planet, we end up losing american democracy, we end up losing the best of our selveses. eugene o'neill wrote the greatest play about american, the ice man cometh. was does i profit a nation to gain the whole world and lose its soul? that's eugene o'neill. that's on the irish side of town. that's vanilla. blues man. his literary genius. >> host: doctors west it's a pleasure to see you virtually. look forward to seeing you again in person. thank you for your time here loan "in depth" today, and take care. >> guest: congratulations, brother, stay strong. >> host: goodbye. and this text message from less he in pittsburgh, favorite guests, was colson whitehead, on our year in fiction in 2018. we did a 12-fiction authors and colson whitehead was our guest, well, it was in 2006 that our guests were ron powers, taylor brant, francis fukuyama, shell by steele, robert rem any, mark bawden, joyce appleby, tammy bruce. john hope franklin, race and president jimmy carter. well it was in march that francis fukuyama was on in 2006. here's a portion. >> you're also interested in photography. >> that's actually been a much longer standing hobby of mine i started when i was a kid and i gave it up for about maybe 15-20 years but then the digital age hit and i i've been doing it now i think for ten. i travel a lot. so i always take at the a camera wherever i go but i got interested in being able to control lighting and doing more studio type work and so i've now gotten set up. i have this annual ritual with my kids. do oportrait of them. every new years so we have a clear record of what they look like at year intervals and one of themself days would like to take pictures of all of my friends-because i know some pretty interesting people, and get them to pose in front of my camera but unfortunately i've been a little too busy to do that. >> is this where you do your portrait work right here. >> yeah. just the basement but i can set it up with all of my lights to do portraits. >> what kind of camera is this? >> i love this camera. it's a memya, a medium format that produces a big six by seven centimeter negative. bigger hag a hassle glad and produce the most beautiful high resolution picture which i then scan into the computer. it produces a 5 machine mega paste scan when you're done, and i've taken this all the way to australia. it's not an easy camera to use but it's incredibly flexible and produces really beautiful pictures. >> how long have you been using this camera. >> four years no and i have another medium format mamiya that i use for travel photography i have a collection of nikons and other things. i'm afraid the digital revolution is going to make these cameras obsolete because the resolution you can get now on a pro digital slr is getting up to this level, but i'll be very sad because the films they make for medium for my cameras are just beautiful, just at the moment that they've perfect immigrant it, all of that will end. >> how does the processing work? ju get a negative and then manipulate the digital -- >> yeah. scan it. if have medium format scanner and i scan a slide or negative some my computer and then it's photo shop from there i used to have a web dart from when i was a kid and did black and white. even did color darkroom work for a while but the computer manges that so much easier you feel bad all the skills people developed to darkroom stilled like ansel adamsing one present he printed repeatedly and took him 25 years to finally get the print he felt happy with and unfortunately it's easier all of that effort and that craftsmanship is -- you lose when you move to computer and digital. >> one of francis fukuyama's best known books this end of history and the last man. he is still in the virginia area, still writing. and that was a visit that we took to his home. he did that for many years for booktv, travel to the authors homes. we'll show you a couple more of those of today. tariq in tucson, thank you for hold, you're an booktv. favorite book, nonfiction author, what are you raving and have you had a favorite "in depth" guest? >> caller: well, my favorite book of all-time i this autobiography of malcom x. eve and raved that when i was a kid, nip or ten years old, my first library become that inspired me to continue to read. but listening to c-span and just a wonderful authorsow had cross the board. i have a very diverse background of reading by my career has been education, i've been in education, my 40th year, i've been assistant principal for 22 years, and it really moved me when you talked to ladi' delaware because i'm from wilmington, delaware and went to high school, and grad it and made college football for never university of ohio and end up in tucson. one book children ways talking but the getow, i'm also reading a book called the color of law. by richard rothstein and that's a very interesting book. i had the pleasure of meeting dr. carnel west in the early 9s when i was working for my school district, in african-american studies department. i was one that was selected to ask him a question. and i ways reading a book at the time, democracy matters. one of my favorite books. ... i have to cross-section things, one of the things i like about wcornell west is how he talks about some of the news today as a form of entertainment. that they present. you have to read between the lines. all the people you had on today i admire everyone you had on that are deep readers and i think one thing about c-span i'm so glad you have this program because it gives us the chance to broaden our horizon intellectually. one of the people you have gone before was a book by michelle sullivan. i'm reading a new book "finding latina, and search of the voices redefining latino identity. i'm reading her book. i kinda just go back and forth, i think one of my favorite people you had on was doctor mike tyson, i have several of his books so i enjoy that kind of reading too. >> with cornell west it's "what you see is what you get with him. he's always been consistent over the years. i will tell you, we sure missed going down to tucson for the wonderful book festival put on by at the university of arizona this year have you been to that in the past? >> oh yes, i go every year and pick up a couple books. >> we've covered it for the past 10 years or so, unfortunately this year it didn't happen but we look forward to going back down, march is a nice time to be in tucson after a long winter. >> it's a beautiful place. thanks for your time, we sure appreciate it. to: he mentioned a couple of other historians, another historian that appeared he still working today, from 2001 this is best-selling author and pulitzer prize winner david mccullough.>> we've got some video of your home and your writing shed, where is it? >> first of all, it's not a shed, it's the world headquarters. [laughter]. that's our home on music street in the west hills barry massachusetts, a village in the center of the island of martha's vineyard. the house as part of its 18th century, part of its 19th century, part of its 20th century, that's the back porch looking out over the acre that we own where we have gardens and a nice reach back to the bordering on to a neighboring farm which has been in the same family since the island was cefirst settled. this is in effect my walk to work that's where i work right there. that measures 12 by eight feet as windows and all four sides i absolutely love it. it's got 800 books in there and my faithful typewriter, upon which i have work to now since about 1965 every every book i've ever written on that old oriole typewriter and there's nothing wrong with it. it's an example of a beautiful made american machine.s is probably got 750,000 miles on it. it runs perfectly. >> have you written every word that's and john adams in this room? >> everything. part of it was written in charlottesville when we were living there for a year, the better part of a year when i was doing research at the library at the university of virginia. but essentially all of it was written here in that room. >> ã >> i work every day all day. i'm not writing all day, i'm reading or correcting what i wrote the day before, going over notes, there is no telephone there. >> is there music? >> no. there's a nice view but i have my back to the view so i won't be tempted by it. it's far enough from the house, ãbthere you see general washington and some of his soldiers marching along, i hope they show the end of it because there's a guy at the end i identify with, he's the one that's always a little slow catching up. i look at him, he's my example. there there he is. that's the one. he's always a little behind. >> david mccullough is published by simon and schuster and the president and ceo of simon and schuster is on your screen now. jonathan kart, what has david mccauley meant to ã >> david mccauley is the franchise. hearing his voice, just fills me with such admiration. if david is watching, david, we revere you, we love you and we will be reading you forever. he's been with s&s for over 50 years. he's one of the great writers at work today. every time i've had the privilege of reading one of his managers the thing that struck me the most is it's just not a wasted word. he is such a careful writer and also the way he is able to find the inspiration in american history is instinctive. i don't think there's anybody quite like david. >> is he writing a new book now? >> i sure hope so. have to ask his editor bob bender. i sure hope so.>> have you been to his shed? >> i have not been to his shed. in fact, he has anhard-to-reach on the telephone because as they said in the interview, he doesn't answer the phone. >> 20 years in-depth has been on the air simon and schuster authors who have appeared on the program, how has the world of publishing in the last 20 years changed? you only have two minutes to answer the question. >> first of all, a lot of those authors are still around and still writing bestsellers. and writing books that have a lot of influence. the short answer is that i think there's obviously more books being sold online. i think the case of publishing just like the news cycle has accelerated and i guess the third thing i would say is that i think maybe the nonfiction culture, at least in recent years, has perhaps taken a little bit of attention away from ffiction. so those are the big points i would say. >> when you plan bob woodward's most recent book rage and you talked about the timing, what went into that decision to release it in early september? >> we thought that was when the tension would be most focused and the questions and how the trump administration has behaved and conducted itself. a lot of it depends upon bob reporting uand his own timing and his own schedule although we hope the book would be published in september we weren't really sure. bob kept saying it could be rearlier could be later. the reporting was what determined the schedule. although we hoped it would be september, nothing was certain until bob was done, one bath was done, we moved. >> what's been the effect of the pandemic on the publishing industry specifically simon and schuster? >> it's been unusual because for several months we actually didn't publish that many books. when the pandemic began in march we postpone several titles that were coming out in april, may, june, then we started to publish more, really going into july. ultimately book sales were up. the industry book sales have been up about 6% industrywide. people were home and had time to read. it's turned out to be, through all the hardship and all the suffering for readers it's been all right. >> jonathan karp, two well known in the public publishing industry figures at simon and schuster has passed. >> it's been really a tragic year for people in the book publishing industry. they're not the only ones who died and just the other day, it seems as if there are a lot of major people who passed away this year. carolyn was our ceo, worked for simon and schuster for decades, was a great leader. alice was one of the greatest editors of our time and really one of the leading editors of nonfiction and was bob woodward's editor and ãbshe was working right up to her final days. she called me about a week before she died, she wanted to sign up two more books. her work with her life and she loved her authors and she made an immense contribution to publishing. as did carolyn. >> did alice mayhew leave a manuscript behind? ask the book everybody would like to read. >> alice was a deeply private person but ãbprivate person but we did publish a book about alice. we asked a bunch of her authors to contribute memories of her and we publish that it's actually i think it's available free to the public. it's a wonderful book of memories and it was reviewed quite favorably by the washington post. >> mr. karp, what books are coming out by simon and schuster this christmas season we should be alerted to? >> since you asked. i have one that's out right now i don't know if you can see this "the luckiest man" by mark salter. an account of his years working with john mccain and i was in tears by the end of the book. it is a story you wouldn't be able to get any other way. mark was senator mccain's chief of staff for many years. worked with him on his presidential alcampaigns, with his chief speechwriter, co-authored seven books with them. so you are seeing mccain from the most intimate perspective that any politician or any leader could be seen from. it's a story even if you don't agree with mccain's politics this was an honorable man and a man who cared deeply about the country. i think it's a story that regardless of your political ideology you can eoappreciate. other books we have for the holidays, jonathan alter's biography of jimmy carter, his very best " which is a terrific carter's f president life took jonathan about six years to write. . we have a book by evan also knows that just came out on joe biden. he won the national book award for the first book on china using the new yorker staff writer and he's gotten to he's been covering biden for many years. we think this will be the book everybody turns to to understand joe biden. >> jonathan karp, president and ceo of simon and schuster.ea a couple years ago booktv went into the headquarters building in new york city and simon and schuster and did a tour, if you'd like to watch that you can type in jonathan karp in the search function at the top of booktv.org. thanks for spending a few minutes with us. >> thank you. >> in 2007 on booktv "in .depth program these authors appeared ãb dan in pittsfield massachusetts, good afternoon. who are you reading, who is your favorite "in depth"? >> i'd be glad to tell you. i first want to compliment you on the wonderful job booktv, i've only been following the last couple years and i find it very interesting and educational. i've been promoting it to other people. i have a couple buddies of mine, one fellow was a librarian at the boston public library i told him, these authors couldn't have achieved the books from some of you librarians, and other fellows from rutgers i was explaining to him the situation. i will not take too much to your time. i have a number of your authors and listen to with intensity. i will lead off by telling you i enjoy the replay you have of william f buckley. that was a phenomenal interview and just books you wrote so many books i think 41 he wrote, how can you beat that? i enjoyed listening to doctor love it, he wrote the fractured republic and the great debate. i thought that twas interesting. more people think of the great debate, they were thinking about lincoln and douglas but you can't forget thomas paine and ended berg. also want to mention doctor ross who was on a few minutes ago, i really wanted to talk to him i think he is a very well educated man and i really enjoyed his presentation of some of his thoughts that he wanted to convey to us. i also like tom wolfe. charlotte simmons. i thought that book was fascinating. tom is an interesting guy am sure you would agree with me. i think you would enjoy him as your gas. you brought up interesting subjects. he went off to college campuses to observe the behavior of students. and what's going on with college campuses today. i would go away to alliance college and back in the 70s and things have changed. it was really interesting hearing review of tom m wolfe. i think is very fascinating and a wonderful writer. >> what you do in pittsfield massachusetts? >> what i do here? after college i ended up at getting a degree in sociology and i worked for the commonwealth of massachusetts, i've been employment counselor for years and also got involved my family has a small business. i did retail work with them. i lectured at college campus, i've lectured to a clergy, i've lectured at different the house of correction, been involved in some community service and that's why some of your information eogives me great background when i talk to other people. the one question i want to ask you, peter, if you don't mind trying to answer this. i hope your listeners will probably get something out of this. i'd like to hear, did you find a central theme that comes through these various authors you had? to me it was a variety would like like to say that the number of your authors seem to emphasis the point that there's been a decline in our morality in this country and i think that's part of the cause for this, going back to your fractured republic that doctor love and said, i think part of the problem is that if our country would improve its morality may be more people would get into this secular life it would cause less pluralism going on in our society today which i think most of you some your authors refer to as really a problem we may have to face in the future. >> that's dan in pittsfield massachusetts. bob from detroit texts in that in-depth should go back to three hours. that's why it's called in-depth. it's now this last year i think we put it down to two hours. mike, you are on booktv, please go ahead. >> good afternoon. i would like to mention probably the ongreatest nonfiction book ever written, i think the author is long gone, most important fiction book i've ever written was 1984. you can read that book and see what's going on today. the most important book i ever read. you had paul johnson n on this very influential with me and thomas saul, i don't know if you ever had in mind but he's fantastic and written like 40 books or something like that. here is a portion of what temple brandon had to say. >> what you mean when you say you think in pictures? >> all my thoughts come up as pictures. sort of like goodwill for images. instead of asking me an abstract question like thinking in pictures and i see the cover of my book. why don't you pretend on google's images and give me a keyword. don't give me house or car because most people can visualize that. don't give me something i can see in the tv studio. like control room or some thing like that. just give me a noun and i will tell you how my mind searches the database. >> c-span. >> i'm seeing my hotel room, i have the tv on this morning i was watching c-span. but the tv were to turn off and i had other work i had to do some i'm seeing the remote control and pushing all the buttons and that's how i got from c-span to tv remote control and i had to call the desk to get the remote control the work.nine until like hotel castle file. >> corral. >> i'm starting to see many of the facilities i've designed. they start coming up like slides. i'm seeing ranch facilities, you asked me ãbif you say meet plant i start to see facilities are designed at the meat plant. that's something that's my business i'm going to tend to see my own stuff. asked me something that would en not be my business. >> a book. >> i'm seeing them, they are in the room. you not being very creative. the only way i can explain to you how i think is i've got to show you how to associative thinking.gets off the subject the same way search does on the internet when you do a verbal search, word basics search, read the first two pages of hits on the subject then gets off the subject but it's the association. >> how many people in the u.s. think like that? >> there are people that are visual thinkers that aren't necessarily autistic. a lot of dyslexic people, a lot of good graphic design are people. but one thing where more extreme is one nice design a piece of equipment and drawing contest run it in my head like a virtual reality computer system. i thought every other designer could do that but i thought figured out they couldn't. i interviewed people about how they think and i was shocked to find out most other people didn't think the way i do, likem if i say think about a church steeple i see specific ones i can name where they are located, they come up like specific slides up with them in the church steeple file the people are getting this vague generalized image, i don't have vague generalized image i only have specific ones. >> that was temple grandon 2009 in with tv. this is lisa and tom's river new jersey, i just finished reading the parable of the sower by octavia butler, the book was recommended in the facebook college alumni group, it's very well written and i recommend it. next call is benjamin in huntsville alabama, benjamin, good afternoon, what's on your reading list? who is your favorite in-depth author? >> my favorite in-depth author is ãbi don't know whether you heard of him. >> what has he written? >> my favorite book of his is called "the first and the last freedom". he's been written about by huxley and huxley statement about his writing is that the reader will find a clear contemporary statement of the fundamental human problem, together with an invitation to solve it and the only way in which it can be solved. by and for himself. he looks at the fundamental problems as basically greed, fear, and the search for security. >> spell his last name for us please?>> 's last name. >> i read a book not long ago as a result of watching c-span, i don't think it was booktv, i think it was a q&a with brian lamb. was called "clandestine relationships: a black man's odyssey and the ku klux klan". it was very illuminating book written i think in 1998 so i'm not so sure you may have interviewed him on booktv. it's a very interesting book ãb there are two kinds of men, those who are ignorant and those who are stupid. he goes on to relate that people who are ignorant tend to do stupid things. it was a very illuminating book and i enjoyed it and it was amazing how a black man was able to become very close friends with members of the ku klux klan, to the point where they not only trusted each other but they became very very close friends at which point at the end of the book they realize his best friend in the ku klux klan has a daughter and he wants darrell davis to become his daughter's godfather. >> thank you, andy in ames iowa, andy, go ahead please. >> to answer your questions on my favorite authors, probably be david mccullough and goodwin. the reason i like mccullough is because he was one of the first to put you there, i'm in my 60s so i remember walter cronkite, tv show called "you are there" i remember mccullough talking about what it's like to be a revolutionary war soldier and trying to get home after the war like if you got wounded, how kind of care would you get? or how did you put on your shoes? did you even have matching shoes? he was one of the first to introduce me to that line of thought and i've used that so far to tailor my reading, my reading list i pretty much i'm reading rick atkinson deliberation trilogy and i just finished victor david hansen's i heard somebody else talk about the peloponnesian war. hansen was the first one i ever saw that could make that interesting. i read "a war like no ever" i first heard that on a replay like 2000 booktv thing. you guys have really, i wouldn't call myself like c-span group b, i don't sit up at 3:30 a.m. to so watch c-span but all my friends are probably tired of me telling them they ought to flip over to c-span every now and again. i downloaded all your mp3s, communicators, q&a, afterwards. >> host: i'm gonna go on a limb and say you are a group b. [laughter] >> guest: i will say this, you made me feel better about this year's election. basically from the contenders you just played or the presidents and first ladies and landmark cases. consider myself study in history even though i'm work engineer working under the defense department. but basically there was always some big issue for every year, every election al smith back in 1920s and do we and every year, there is always some big deal and if you were to only listen to the propaganda out there today on other channels, you wouldn't get that picture and so kind of thinking even though this is a big election, trump and biotin, whoever wins or loses, i believe as long as the machinery of our system stays in place, we will be okay. and i have c-span to thank for that. >> andy, thank you for calling in and watching. over the years from a publisher regnery, several authors have appeared including and coulter ãbincluding this gentleman in our first year. here does. >> old and musty. this is what? 49 years old? >> came out in e1951. rather amusing and opposed that i had calculated for it to come out on the 250th anniversary of the founding, that was coincidental. the picture on the back, you remember those days? >> no. [laughter] not conceivably. >> what's in the book? >> the book was an examination of life at yale for the undergraduate, with special attention given to the impulses having to do with an enthusiasm for greater government or an enthusiasm for ãband also in respect to religion. what was encouraged and those courses in which religion touched. faith or skepticism. i concluded that yale teaching in those days was collective impulses and agnostic. in respect to the other. >> as recently as four years ago, someone who is not ãb reminded me that i have volunteered to read out loud the section that bore on christianity to the white hold, dwight called is the paternity of christian minded young men. i regret to tell you that everything you said is proven correct. by which he meant the gradual appearance of a strong christian faith was accurately predicted ã >> william f buckley was published by rectory and thomas spence as the new president ãb how long have you been on the job? >>. >> i have been the publisher since january of this year. i guess i just completed 10 months. >> what were you doing prior to that? >> i was an editor at greg murray from 2012 until this year. have two levels of editors, basically publishing senior editors, lead editors who take the raw manuscript, work on developing a book and do the big picture editing. and we have copy or copy editors who take it from there. i was one of the senior editors. >> there during a visit to riker publishing i picked up a copy of god and man at yellowed by william f buckley. >> good for you. what is he meant to the company? >> buckley? >> yes. >> a lot. they started the company in 1947 and as we just heard in the interview clip, that book was published in 1951, god and man at yale and another important book in the conservative intellectual tradition the henry wegner published the conservative mind by russell kirk appeared at roughly the same time, early in the likes of the company. those two books put him on the map and established the tradition we try to carry on to this day. >> who are some of the authors that have been published this year? what kind of authors do you publish? >> it's quite a variety. we usually have some big named conservative figures, we mentioned ãbwe have politicians so our current songbook is called one vote away by senator ted cruz, about the supreme court. that came out at the same time as another book on the supreme court from ãbcalled "supreme disorder". a legal scholar at the cato t institute. [inaudible] we have another book by another academic comedian called ãbhis book is called "the parasitic mind". he is a youtube and podcast celebrity and we have books by quieter writers, one that just came out a couple weeks ago called the price of panic, about the pandemic, the response, the government's response to the pandemic. economist/ephesus, statistician and biologist. we cover the spectrum. >> from your perspective at greg murray, is it better to have a republican administration or a democratic administration when it comes to book sales? >> that's a good question. the joke at ãas always what's bad for america is good for regnery we save the conservative point of view, the clinton years were very good for regnery, when a conservative is in the white house are people in our market are a little less worked up about things. so generally being in the opposition has been good for ã the trump years everything about donald trump has break the mold. we've done pretty well in the trump years just because he stirs the pot. there is plenty for people to read about and talk about. in general the opposition years are good for our business. >> of thomas spence, the new ceo and publisher of greg murray. thanks for spending a few minutes with us today on "in depth". >> congratulations on 20 years. >> we have about 50 minutes left in the program and thomas in encinitas hocalifornia, you' on the air, go ahead and tell us who your favorite author is, favorite program, or what you are reading? >> thanks, i'm a big fan of booktv, might be my favorite program. i like to answer favorite nonfiction author and favorite booktv guest. first on the nonfiction author, thanks to the caller a few minutes ago, i'm also a fan of jay krishnamurthy, i wanted to mention another important author who is still living but i don't think he's been on booktv yet. i would like to see him. ken wielder. >> what did you write about? >> he writes about the spectrum of consciousness, consciousness development, integral theory, integrative paradigms, developmental paradigms. he's been called america's greatest living philosopher, he's been talked about by the likes of bill clinton, as far as his importance. ken wilber.>> thank you for going in. it was in 2004 and a couple viewers have brought up tom wolf, that he was on the program. here is a portion. >> if i decide to do the white suit and the hats and all that for purposes of what happens when the publicity ãbit happened by aaccident i realiz pretty soon i was on to a good thing. i finally got my job in new york as a reporter, i've been on two previous papers, finally got this job june 1962, summer was coming on in those days as a reporter i had to wear a jacket and a tie. i had only two jackets to my name so i went into a store and bought a white suit for summer, which in richmond virginia where i grew up was not an odd thing but it was made of some heavy material, silk tweed and i couldn't wear it in the summer so i started wearing it about this time of year. it was conventionally cut but it was white. this annoy people to know and. why i enjoyed that, i don't know. and made getting dressed in the morning a lot more fun than it had been. then finally when i wrote a book, i published a collection, the candy colored tangerine magazine pieces, i discovered i was not used to being interviewed, i was always interviewing somebody else and i was kind of speechless and the people asked me these questions and i didn't say much but all the articles said what an interesting man, he wears what suits. took the place of a personality for r many years. >> how many of them do you have? >> i used to have a lot of them. i've got about 22 now. >> how long can you wear them without having them clean? >> six hours. to go on a trip and make people think you have one. you have to have three. all made of the same material. you can't really tell the difference. it simply has not hurt to have ãbmr. wolf passed away in 2018, in 2008 here are the guests on in-depth, nerve pain or, john mcwhorter, michael eric dyson, alice walker, george weikel, ralph peters, john wilson and jonathan karp talking about the election that year. steven pinker and kevin phillips. it was in may that booktv went to alice walker's home in the berkeley hills and did the program from there. >> about bob marley, i've never met bob marley while he was alive and i feel though that i met his spirit every year since i discovered him, he has meant a great deal to me. i think he has given us ãb artists give energy, that's part of what we do. it's free, it's not like it's even a commercial thing ever. it may become commercial at some point but part of what we do is we just give this energy. when you are from a part of the culture that is oppressed it's a big gift because it means people can keep going. i feel pthat bob has kept millions of us going and when you see him dancing when he's singing he does he's a shaman so he does the shamanic dance when he's dsinging but you see the purity, the purity of his giving and i think that millions of people around the world have connected with that, all people that is why he was so beloved he was completely free and giving the transmission of deep caring about each other and the planet. >> that was alice walker at her house in the berkeley hills. deborah and snellville georgia, please go ahead and make your comment. >> thank you so much for taking my call. this is a really difficult question on who is my favorite guest on in-depth, i've had so many, harold bloom, john mcwhorter, you just mentioned him. initial list ãbi adored nicholas backãblynn cheney i wi always remember, i will never forget, i order the program, i got all the books, it was lovely. >> you know she has a new one out. >> i know! >> we appreciate you watching. >> great program like usual. my favorite authors would be christopher hitchens and victor davis hanson. >> the cliff notes. >> that's right.>> here's a text along with what the gentleman just said, my favorite "in depth" author, christopher hitchens, although ironically have not read any of his books. my favorite writer currently other than orwell is christopher hedges and he is finishing his book now "america: the farewell tour". next call is gordon in laramie wyoming. sorry about that, hi. >> caller: thank you for your service with c-span, thanks for c-span. ã >> host: i think sebastian, possibly has been on. who were the others? >> caller: jon meacham and james enwebb. >> host: jon meacham, not yet, somebody we been trying for. but sebastian, we did adjust a couple years ago from our new york studio. he owns the bar up there. we went up to new york and visited with him there. >> caller: what's the name of the bar? [laughter] >> host: that was a couple years ago. >> caller: his book "war", just excellent, what a great writer. and then james webb's "failed to fire" the authoritative literature on vietnam i believe. >> host: i don't think he has been, i apologize i'm not as familiar with that. >> caller: that's all right. [laughter] you've got a lot on your plate dear pete. >> host: we just interviewed jon meacham during the national book festival in september. >> caller: great sense of humor. >> host: yes. >> caller: the gal that, she said it's you really you, she went and got a bucket and went back for him to sign it and it was a john grisham novel. >> host: we've also interviewed john grisham a couple times here on booktv which was always entertaining. >> caller: we like our local author cj box on the joe pickett series. good novels. i prefer nonfiction. thanks pete. >> host: thanks for calling and. hud secretary doctor ben carson, prior to being hud secretary, he is an author of several sbooks and he appeared on this program in 2013. >> i was an extraordinarily selfish young person. as an adolescent's. the more rights you think you have the more likely you think someone is to infringe upon the rights. once i tried to stab another youngster with the knife. the scene is well depicted in the movie gifted hands with cuba gooding jr. plays my part. after that incident i lost myself in the bathroom and i started contemplating my life and i realized, trying to kill somebody over nothing that i was seriously deranged. i prayed and i picked up the bible in the bathroom and it had all these verses in it about fools and i said, wow, does that sound like me.it also had a lot of verses about anger, proverbs 19:19, there is no point of getting an angry man out of trouble, he's just gonna get right back into it. proverbs 16:32 ãbverse after verse chapter after chapter they seem to they were written for me. while i remained in that bathroom for three hours i came understanding that it was not a sign of strength to punch somebody or kick down a door, it was a sign of weakness. it meant you could be controlled by other people and by the environment. i didn't want to be controlled but i also came to understand that it was my selfishness because somebody was in my space, somebody was taking my thing, somebody was doing something to me, it was always about me and my and i. i said if you can step outside the center of the circle and let it be about somebody else, maybe that will change things. i started trying that that day. i never had another angry outburst since that time. >> hud secretary ben carson prior to being hud secretary, 2009 bill gertz, frank williams and ãbron so cocky, robert higgs, christopher buckley, bill ayres, john furling, jonathan causal, hugh hewitt, temple brandon and joy hickam were our guests that year. several callers have brought up mr. hitchens and it was in 2007 that christopher hitchens was on in-depth. >> with someone like say billy graham, i think one can see the ãbsomeone who doesn't believe any of this at all obut is a fairly reasonably good businessman. i have a reason to think ãb there was a canadian billy graham, contemporary of his he went to billy graham and said, can you really go on sinning this stuff? it's too late to stop now. lots of people expected from me.we are in business and that's what i think is the case with a surprisingly large amount. but i don't want to sound vulgar about it. i'm not a lot of people means everything for a very great deal. who don't try to profit from it and still stand to profit from it either. i did reduce everything to racket but i think the racketeering is and always has been an important ãbsome religions certainly are our ãb nothing more than the record of the cause of a successful con job. the spiritual life can't be entirely treduced to that and, here's the problem, do people really believe that? they don't know any more than you do whether there was a virgin birth or resurrection. if they say i believe it, they are still believing in something that they have to know very properly didn't take place. what are they asking us to believe? they are asking us to believe their propensity to faith. to sit take something on faith without argument or evidence. if somebody wants me to believe that, that they will do that, then i will but i feel that they are only against themselves. probably doing themselves an injustice. >> do think billy graham is an evil man? >> yes, disgustingly evil man. the reason i say that, choosing one arm of the number of possible answers. i think jewish prejudice is unfairly sick. there some kind of prejudice i don't particularly like to ãb but the only thing that convicts me of anything really and sanitary i would be a better person if i liked. [indiscernable] it's a horrible pseudo-intellectual mean-spirited eventually lethal piece of bigotry. you read this stuff that graham has been found to say on richard nixon on tape, you can go to the nixon library now, once you get over the revelation of what a bigot president nixon was, i knew that, you find that he's outmatched by the way billy graham talks. he goes out and rakes in the cash of preaching brotherhood and compassion. it's enough to make you sick. >> mr. ketchum passed away four years after that interview in 2011. in 2010 our guest michelle malkin, paul johnson, tr reid, john dean, pat buchanan, martha nussbaum, bill bennett, ralph nader, gordon ward, scientist ã jonah goldberg and salman rushdie were all on, mention that paul johnson was one of our guests, the british historian. here's a little bit from his appearance. >> we are living in an age where material advances are really very comforting and very considerable. we must be grateful for that. of course where your email correspondent is near of a truth is over the moral condition of the world. there hasn't been much improvement there. we've expanded enormously in a material sense but our morality appears to be in no better than ever in the past. am afraid that is true and if we go back to history and look at the time of george washington or go further back and look at the time of queen elizabeth and the alma mater or the middle ages and the crusades, or back further stills of the age of julius caesar, we have to admit the public morals on the whole have not substantially improved. there are still a large number of dreadful things that occur. anyone who has lived through the middle decades of the 20th century as i did must take a certain pessimistic view about the ability of the world to improve his moral standards. nevertheless, i'm not without hope that this can be done. i still take the view that on the whole the world is a good place and it's getting to be a better place but we must all do, work our hardest to improve the moral standards because that is what is required. >> leslie is in south padre island texas, i leslie, favorite author, favorite in-depth guest and what are you reading? ie>> leslie? >> did you ever have oliver sacks on? >> i don't believe so. >> he's british but he was made famous in the movie awakenings but a lot of other things. as for what i'm reading right now, i read newspapers, magazines, what's left of magazines. i so enjoy your program and i feel like books are so overlooked nowadays. it's rare to see someone reading a book. i love to see that when people are waiting to vote, some have a book in hand but i feel like the country is at a loss, especially the young people, by not being exposed to the great literature and all the other things. that's my comment, i love booktv. >> what book is on your table right now? >> i've got a table full of stuff but i've got something i haven't oteven, i'm staying at vacation condo here in south padre island and sometimes there are books laying around, there's a man named, i guess maybe he was the author of the bourne identity, i don't know, deeric van les berger, it's called last note. >> are you staying down there on vacation or for the pandemic? >> that's a long story but i will try to make it short. my parents retired here in the 80s, my dad was some from south texas, i came back and forth for years. mom and dad are gone we still have the house but lit's being worked on so i'm lucky enough to stay on the beach for a while. >> i still have my sister here and i am her legal guardian but it's a beautiful place and it's really the best best beach in texas. it's not as crowded as anyone would have been imagined. they left the beach open they have social distancing as far as you can have an umbrella up but only two people 15 feet apart. i don't mean to go on and on but it's kind of the last stop my dad used to call if you look on a map you're almost in mexico, the tip of texas basically. you got a gorgeous day today. >> thank you so much. i learned so much and feel like i'm part of the community watching booktv because you just don't find people that read books much anymore. they read the internet, that's all. thanks again. >> booktv is pretty active on social media as well. our facebook page twitter page and instagram page, just remember @booktv is the best handle. you can go online at booktv.org, everything we been talking about today all the "in depth" programs are listed there, there is a tab at the top of the page that says "in depth" and you can click on one of those tabs and you can watch any of the programs we are talking about. in 2018 booktv made over the years we've had a few fiction authors but in 2019 we made a concerted effort to have only fiction authors. certain types of fiction authors who wrote about issues, that type of thing. there was the list that we had on, david ignatius, colton whitehead, jeff shirer, walter mosley, david gil adachi, brad thor, cory doctorow, jacqueline woodson, geraldine brooks, cody pico, brad meltzer, those are the 12 we had on and jodi pico, the best-selling author, here she goes from her booktv program in 2018. >> i do love the concept of the novel as a way to educate about social justice because i think that, for example, when i wrote this book i sat down and read countless guttmacher institute studies about reproductive rights and about abortion statistics and things like that stop most dpeople don't sit dow and do that on a daily basis but they might pick up a novel. you think you are picking up a book to be entertained, you think you are picking up a book that's gonna whisk you away for a few hours but if i had done my job right, by the end of the book you wind up thinking hard about a topic you might otherwise not have approached. in that way i think fiction is so wonderfully sneaky wbecause it really gets people's minds to crack wide open. >> calliope in wallingford pennsylvania, high calliope. >> how are you? >> good. >> i wanted to say that my favorite nonfiction author was christopher hitchens. by far and away, i also love sebastian younger and michelle malkin. >> that's quite a range of people you've chosen. >> i have a very eclectic taste. >> was there connecting fiber to those for? >>. >> just at different topics they covered. >> what are isyou doing in wellington pa? >> i'm on disability now for injury but i was in radio. >> host: thanks for calling in, we appreciate it. eleanor and katie south carolina. ...... ? suet hi how are you. >> caller: i am doing great. >> host: you have called switch like to say? smoothie i i am intrigued by the whole concept of this. i'm pretty sure it's before you wait into the fiction only year years, but robert caro has been on c-span i think many different over the years has certainly been my favorite you probably have, he is just a wonderful interviewee for many different respects because he know is his subject of course so intimately, lyndon johnson, and ear all on tender hooks waiting for him to complete the final installment of the lby balk. >> host: maybe over a year ago that connan o'brien, a big pan, get him tout 0 california to interview him and we cover that on booktv as well. that was an interesting hour. >> i think there's a lot of us out there we're not as high celebrity level as connan o'bryan but many of us are very interested in robert carrow. >> a lot of of us are waiting for him to finish that -- >> caller: do we have any hints? i know he -- brian lamb is together to keep asking him when he will finish it. do we have any hints. >> host: i don't have any hints. maybe we should e-mail him. think its finishes when it finishes. >> caller: absolutely and worth the wait jo all right. well, along with history and politics we also talk with science and tech writers, and it was in 2006 that futurist and inventor ray was on the program. >> singhly man and machine will genetic one in the future? >> guest: let me describe how that will happen. we'll send blood cell size device in our broadstream in a brains and into the brain thouz than larrys to keep us healthier, to reverse a are throw sclerosis, remove pathoens, remove debris, correct dna errors. we're doing the first generation of that already in animals. one scientist cured type one diabetes with a blood cell size twice that lets in -- scientist at m.i.t. has a cell size dedigs that destroys cancer cells. and this is today. take this mag magnification of the quarter century of the capability of information technology and computers and apply it it to what welcome do and 25 years we'll have these blood cell size guys that will be very sophies sophisticated, and keep us -- and expanding human intelligence. >> our mall or nano boots. >> guest: nano refers to billionth or a meter and that menned the key feet features mentioned in a mod next number of nano meteres. doesn't mean the nano body is one nano meter. it means the features are measured in a mod test number, five, ten, 20 nap know meter is the -- nano meters. the it's the size of a blood cell and a blood cell is basically a nano robot and can be quite sophisticated. that's one -- a couple of deficiencies. one significant deficiency of our white blood cells. i i have watched my own blighted blood chells they're very slow. biology actually quite sluggish. took miswhite blood cell an hour 1/2 to destroy a -- these nano robes can do that in seconds and won't be subject to out at the immune disorders, download software from the internet. if that sounds future critic, there arlet of devices we're put a until the body and brian up no today that download soft war prom outside the body. so i think devices get smaller, we are shrinking technology at an exponential rate, and so in 25 years these devices will be 100,000 times smaller in terms of key features and they'll be a bill times more capable and they're already pretty impressive. >> 202 is the area code to make a comment in the last 20 multiples of "in depth." 748-8200 in eastern and central time zones. 748-8201, and 702-748-8903 if you want to send a text, include your first name and stiff as well. ellen in maryland here in the baltimore washington year. ellen, go ahead. >> caller: hi, peter. so wonderful to talk to you. where to begin. it's just -- as i've been watching you just in the last little while, i was think can but the last interview i think brian lamb did with christopher hitchenses while he was getting chemotherapy, and it was so powerful and so moving. just reaired a few weeks ago. anyway, hitchens, christopher buckley, pj o'rourke, heather mcdonald, and i'm just reading now intellectuals by paul johnson, and imagine include when i just turn on -- magically when i just turn on the show there was a clip from paul johnson, and i do wonder why you stopped going to visit authors in their work spaces. i thought maybe it got too expensive or something, but i enjoy that feature when you were doing it. >> host: it was a good feature -- >> i want to thank you. >> host: you're one of the many people who have chastised that decision that we cut back a little bit on those. it was time consuming, it was -- they were important, you're right, ellen, and probably something to reconsider. i appreciate that. jay in walk. -- in washington, dc, . >> caller: an excellent afternoon. muched of indicating, a big booktv fan, have a book here black you finished reading a couple of years ago by paul porter, and i get it from you. i booktv and fascinating book, right in the stomping ground of your area there of c-span, would be in george george hoe tele, et cetera, and real good read. >> host: i think we covered that on booktv. >> caller: oh, okay. and so many books here i haven't actually read, but your program. is so rich, i like to make one comment, though, on one of your guests. jet jody pecoult. fascinating author, so rearview mirror in her dialogue and perspectives that they're so educational. thank you so much, peter. >> host: thank you for calling in and thank you for watching, 2011 that feminist phyllis benis was on along with conservative political activist r emmett tyler. pauline, issue ma reed, eric posner, linda hogan, ann coulter, ellis coast, michael moore, and david bronx were all on. it and was in august that an coulter joined us. >> of journalists who are allowed to interview ann coulter again for a second time. why too, i. >> guest: short lift. >> host: seven names and i'll fine it. why -- here it is. you have on that list, john cloud of "time" magazine, jonathan friedland a of 0 the guardian, jamie of front page magazine, taylor hill of jam bands.com. jonathanpits, the baltimore sun, charlotte allen of belief net.com and fish bowl tb. why are those chosen few. >> guest: originally only three, and i chose them specifically because they bring a tape recorder when i talked and then apparently played the tape recorder back before typing what i said and i promise you that is shockingly rare. >> host: do you get misquoted a lot? >> guest: well, somehow i say we need to rules the capital gains rate and comes outs i support hitler and all his works. no, it's insane the misquotes, and often the mall has in hi statement is there -- malice in my statement there is put the victim and vigor of the quote is completely vac tombed out. the joke bomb squad is gone and so originally simply the -- by the way , i they were all liberals who do not agree with my politics and yet they quoted me accurately. so i don't dare what they say in the body of the piece. what they say about me. just quote me accurately. and three of them did and then a few got add who did quote me accurately, but then it became a special request and people wanted to be on that list and is a good ensign testify -- incentive. >> that that nine years other, know call from rose app na camarillo, california. who are reading, favorite author, fair rift "in depth" program. >> caller: i'm a first time call and my 80s and if on been watching this programming since it far started. one thing i want to stay. when there's an author -- my booksle awe political the ones like some support i pay full price. the ones don't like i buy the books at the lee library so i can support the library. >> host: all right. >> so -- no ahead. >> host: who are your authorses you like? >> caller: oh, i like all the political ones, tom friedman and i do have to say my husband is of one political bent and i'm the other. we have been happily married for 57 years, so he pays the regular price and on the books he wants and i pay the regular price on the books i want and then we have extra copied of his because after all a wife has so serve her husband once in a while. that's all. >> host: that's roseanne in california, appreciate you calling in. jeany safer's book, speaking of politic, love you've but i hate your politic ises the name of her book, probably good for this season. sarah, south carolina. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. how are you. >> host: how are are you. >> want to thank you for your education and happy 20th 20th anniversary. >> host: thank you, ma'am . >> was going through a divorce and a buy-out of my husband on mar martha's vineyard and i didn't understand what was going on with me money market and he recommended i read the colassal failure of common sense by lawrence mc mcdonald and this a inside store of the collapse of lehman brothers, and it was fascinating to me. >> host: is that -- did we that on booktv? i know we covered one bang on the collapse of lehman. i'm not sure -- >> caller: i didn't -- well, so informative and i've been a real estate broker for so long and i was in massachusetts. i wish there was more then -- well issue did just come across a great book and i found out it by your television show. i was on c-span2 and it's the captain pay, won't pay -- can't pay, won't pay, the coalition where the change would be the sum of the parts to leverage bad loans and the changing of how mortgaging, lending, school loans, helping the tenant -- landlords who took advantage of the collapse and bought things and how when you buy property, it goes. >> host: that was a pretty recent book. >> caller: yeah. it's free online. that's where i stayed up all night, i think i read for six hours. >> host: thank you for calling in. it was in 2006 that award winning historian from duke university, john hope franklin was our getz. in his 90s at the time he was here. but this is one where we had gone down to visit him at his home in durham ahead of the program. >> host: we're in professor john hope franklin's backyard, and he has a greenhouse back here. could you tell us what you do back here. >> guest: i've been growing orchid for almost 50 years. i got hooked on orchids when i was teaching one summer in 1959 at the university of hawaii. and i came back, in brooklyn, living in brooklyn, teaching there, and i came back, brought a few orchids, i didn't know what to do with them. then i built the winter greenhouse in brooklyn and i got started there then. these are just various -- those are just beginning to open up there. >> host: is it a difficult task or a specialized task to keep this orchids healthy? >> guest: yes. it's a -- it takes some doing. you have to keep the greenhouse fairly clean, clean of fungus and various things that would be dehe deconcern to their growth. this is a vanilla plant that has gotten out of control, vanilla is an orchid. the mose important or orchid that there is. >> host: dr. fran fan died three years after that interview. in 2012, chris hedges was on the program along with mark stein, harvard's randle kennedy, brookhiser. tom brokaw. michael beschloss, steven johnson, kenneth davis and former senator the late tom coburn, 2013, bartlett and steele, our january guests. they've written a couple of best-selling political books and expo -- expos says. aim in good moan, melfully phillips, rick atkinson who is working on a trilogy of the early days of the u.s. mary roach, pen carson, ben shapiro, john lewis, debtee kelly and kristina hoff sumperses and in 2009 a few callers brought him up and we talk but his father, christopher buckley was on the program. he writes mostly satirical fiction. here's a little bit of his program. >> i got the idea for -- thank you for smoking one day. i was making supper watching the mcneill lehrer news hour then called -- i still think of it as the mcneill lehrer -- and still make he chuckle. they had sun one who was there to present the latest evidence that smoking is, hello, bad for you, and he had at least two ph.ds after his name, at the bottom of the screen. and to balance it out they had on someone from the tobacco institute which was the tobacco's industry's lobby here and he was this gorgeous, attractive woman name brennan dawson, and every time the scientist from the national institutes of, you'll know, not smoking, whatever, said something, presented the evidence, which had to at least seven worlds in it that were incomprehend incomprehensible. she would -- oh, please. sort or squirt lemon juice on this guy and make it up so as this he was just being the most preposterous phony in the world. i thought that's got to be an interesting job. get up in the morning, brush your teeth, say goodbye to the kids and sell death for a living. so i called her up and said i have to hang out with you. if was a little oblique what i was up to and i got to hang out with her, and at one point after could couple consecutive days i said, you'll in the, there's something i really dying to ask you but i feel a little awkward. she said -- she was smoking and she -- beautiful smoker in her office and she is like lauren backal and she said i know what a nice girl leak meek doing in a place like this and i said yes, that's exactly it. she said i'm just paying the mortgage. and i thought, in the book this becomes the yuppy nuremberg defense. only paying the mortgage. >> that was cliff buckley in 2009. this text from mary jo in dearborn, michigan, my favorite interview is geraldine brooks. i look people of the book and year of wonders. and her next nonfiction book, hopefully, is cast by isabelle wilkerson. robert carrow has been referenced. he hi writing a multivolume set on lyndon johnson and the johnson years. here he is talking about one of those volumes. >> i am going to go to live in the southern city for as long as it takes for me to find out exactly what differences it pa made in the love of black people in the south of lyndon johnson got the voting rights. >> host: do you nowhere you'll live yet in. >> guest: , tames tike. >> host: when will you do that. >> guest: i'm going to go on a book tour now, then -- we always spend two months in france, and then i'm going to start. >> host: what beaut the idea -- i know you mentioned in the past going to vietnam. >> guest: yes. you remember everything. that's the two things i want to do because if i can just say, i try to write about political power and feel you don't write about it fully enough unless you write about the man who uses but its effect on the people on whom it's idea for good or ill. for good, lyndon johnson threw this great civil rights act of his presidency and voting rights act, transformed the political power of black people in america. i want to go to a southern city and see what did that's man? do you have sures now, sidewalks paved? how do you feel but the sheriff now that you can vote for a sheriff. are your schools better? exactly what difference do you have more hope thannure father did that your children's life will be better than yours because of lyndon johnson? however, the other side ofline don johnson's presidency is vietnam. and one thing i independ to dos to try to show what it means when a modern industrialized nation makes war on certainly not a primitive nation but a rural peasant nation. i want to go to vietnam and see how that works and probably live in a vietnamese villages that were b-52's. the horrible thing is the b-502's flew so high that not only were they invisible from the ground but you can't here them so the villages didn't know they were being bombedden in in the bombs actually hit. >> host: in 2014, mar levin, born any morris, big west, lewis rodriguez, ron paul, mary francis berry, joan, michael cord ya and arthur brooks all appeared. neil degraph tieson was with us in 2017. here's a portion. >> i was asked by "the new york times," some impasse, self impasses ago in congress and they thought they would have fun and ask people who are definitely not politicians what solutions do they have for getting things through congress and fixing things and i think the way they asked it was if your were president what would you do? so i wrote back, if i were president, i wouldn't be president. it's on my website. if i were president. you going that and my name -- mike take you "new york times" times part but i dupe mix indicated in my website because they cut out a paragraph because there was not enough space. so the full response to that question is there. it comes down the expectation that if you run for office, you somehow can change everything. and i'm not convinced of that. i'm at contrarian here. my views of the literal opposite of what a lobbyist does. lobbyist goes straight to to politician to influence the politician in ways that serve the interests of the lobbyist and who they represent. for me, any elected official represents people who put them into office. so as an educator, what matters is not so much who the official is, what matters is what the state of enlight 'ment of who is doing the voting because if people, for example, all new recognized and valued, what sciences and how and why it works, they would never even dream of voting for someone who doesn't know that. because that person would then not represent their full interests. so, i would rather educate an electorate so they can put people in office who can make scientific informed decisions about everything they do, rather than just install myself into office and lead people who don't yet have this knowledge or insight. that's not what -- and 88 -- i did the math -- 88% of congress stanford re-election every two years, so you can convince one congressman or another but then you have to start all over again. you educate the electorate, we're good. i go to the bahamas, elect people who will take this country into the future rather than back into the cave. >> and unfortunately we ran out of time. we had some other video to show you from michelle malkin, noam chomsky, studs turkle and jimmy carter and unfortunately we are unable to get to that video. but all of those programs are available on our website booktv.org. to watch in their entirety. thank you for being with us this past 20 years. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. c-span2, created by america's cable television companies as public service. and brought to you today by your television provider. on word "after words" desouza offered thoughts on what the call the in face of socialism. >> i identify and try to diagnosis if you will this new type of social jim, which is a marriage of classic socialism and identity politics. so think of classic social jim as a strategy of marxian division between the rich and poor, class divide. foe modern american socialist lift the divide in society is that and also a race divide, black against white, it's a gender divide, male against female. a sexual orientation divide, straight against gay and straps jennifer and an immigration divide, legal against illegal. so one may say while marx was trying to carve up society into two groups left is trying to slice american society interest many -- contracts men different lines why? because they think that if we divide society in these eight different ways, we can assemble a majority coalition of aggrieved victim groups that can come together and then sort of take on everybody else. they're trying to get the 51% in the firm belief that democracy itself will then legitimize them looting and oppressing the other 49%. this is what they call democratic socialism. to me it's a form of gangsterism. >> the book is the united states of socialism. visit or website, booktv.org and click on the "after words" tab to view this and other episodes of "after words." ... -

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