nonfiction books f >> featured on c-span's book tv. and will, to the podcast and program, having a bit later we will be talking with a washington post the book a critic carlos lozada, getting his take on some of the notable books of thef past year but first, here's the publishing news. this week former white house chief of staff, mark meadows, b the chief chiefs was published, lots of news came out of it, udincluding the president trump has tested positive for covid-19, prior to the first presidential t debate in the former president was in the white house bunker following the murder of george floyd and that the then president front into bomb and afghan village of his taliban leader did not cooperate with him and president trump did write a book for the chiefs chief, and since denounce some of the revelations as fake news andnd all seasons press is the publisher and also this week, the children's publishers, military party under potter series and morend than estimated $1.2 billion is facing a potential challenge it toti the companies recentom leadership succession in the publisher's former ceo, robinson who died earlier this year, lost majority the companies stocks longtime employee in this surprised if mr. robinson's family, he was founded by mr. robinson's father in 1920, i was considered a family business printed and according to news reports, mr. robinson's two sons, have requested document h and document take and they are considering a legal challenge, after further reading on this issue, the wall street journal has reported extensivelyl" on i. nono news, announced that they will be publishing it national book award winner historian at, and then expo, it is a biography about. jacobs and entitled. here's a look at the relationship between the two abolitionists. miles one this year's national book award for nonfiction, for her bucket, althoughct she carrd and also the news, nicole pearl, an award winner, her new book is called this is how they tell me the world and this and when the financial times business book of the year, an annual award given to the most compelling into the businesses and it comes the 40000-dollar monetary price and finally getting to the book scanning book sales, rep almost 10 percent for the weekend and ending november 20th as we into the holiday book. it had a adult nonfiction the sales wereul down 1 percent and still up 6 percent for the year and a side note, nearly one quarter of all books are sold during the holiday time and carlos lozada washington post nonfiction book a critic, he is author himself and is a pulitzer prize winner as well, and he joins us on about books and carlos lozada, this is a look at back in 2021, when is your year been likened would've he been doing it. >> i have been reading a lot of books, i have been enjoying having my kids back in real school which is estimated it easier to read a lot of books that they been reading a lot of books in particular about 911, because the 20 anniversary, i wanted to look back at that as well. >> and what did you find that we read of some of those books. >> hosiery it say they were all really great books, that i missed along the way and one thing that i concluded from reading about the 20 books, about 21 books, various aspects of 911, is that it was an attack that our leaders said was an attack on the values. yet in our response to the attack, we often undermined the failures we claimed that we were upholding that was one of the tragedies of the era and it was all something that was entirely novel to my own thinking but i just had not had on that and so i just went back and read a lot of these books. >> in one of the books you read ms. lawrence writes the looming tower and it doesn't hold up after all these years. >> absolutely, the tower is one of the truly extraordinary works on the run up to 911 come on how we got to that moment i would also highlight that they call these ghost wars, in the mix. and it wasas interesting that oe of the reasons that i was thinking a lot about the tower this year, was not just because of the 911 anniversary, but also because i read that once was the plague year and in many ways i was reading a different version it of the looming tower because it was all about warnings of this great threat coming in mixed signals and different officials and i probably would not have connected itro goes tof not for the sort of coincidence the 911 anniversary and our experience with covid-19. >> will before we move on to some of the paper books, some of the notables you found, i wanted to ask you, how long did it take to write that essay on 911, that was published in the washington post. >> yeah, i have to think my editors at the post for this because it took a lot of my year. probably in late 2020, was when i kind of had the idea that the anniversary is coming next year, look back on the literature of 911 and my editor had an outlook in the post, just said go for it and this is reagan's first i just started to put together a spreadsheet of relevant books when they got to a few hundred come i realize was no way that i could do this in a comprehensive manner so i have to be ruthless and how i can select the books. so i ended up making 21 books and i was reading them on and off and i would say from about march of 2021, of this year until the end of july. i was reviewing the books long way but is really trying to focus as much attention as a good on thed 911, books and then i spent a good chunk of august writing it and then republished in september name never devoted that much time to a single essay. thess devoted that much time to the book that i wrote and published in 2020, but never something that of his writing at the post, and i am grateful that i had that opportunity pretty. >> and a nonfiction bookk critic at the post, how much freedom do you have in your day and restructure your day. >> there are days that are all about reading there are days that are all about writing. and they split sort of evenly throughout the week so i am usually up fairly early doing some reading, and now that we are working from home,m for the most part, and returning to the washington post early next year. my day can wrap up when my children get home from school and then you with the kids, there is dinner, bed time in my read for sometime in the late evening as well. my writing days are completely different, just kind of homeless about in my home office in writing spurts and salon writing and rewriting when the weather is nice, and it is a reading data might just lay out in my hammock and try to persuade my children that really daddy is working it when he is laying out in the hammock reading about. >> when you return to the office, this output of this schedule present going to be something about his more natural fit for you to write and read the office. >> i like writing in the newsroom, it just feels natural, incumbent i'm comfortable there knows news editor ate the post years before becoming a look critic and so, even though these organizations, the critics are sort of nevercs around because they are doing what they do on their own time and in their own homes are the locations i like being in the room and so if i can end up with a schedule where my reading happens a lot at home and some of it is in the newsroom and my writing happens in the newsroom, that would be great but we will see how it all shakes out as we get back into the swing of being in the physical newsroom. >> carlos lozada, you're a critic in the book author, what were we thinking it, that is the name of year 2020, booking that was the topic. >> it was a book that makes my role as a critic because it was a look at the voracious expansive literature that emerged on the truck presidency, the subtitle of the book, really thinking, was a brief intellectual history of the truck presidency and satellite export about 150 books, the adult in some way with that. and divided it up into some of the big debates of the trump presidency and over truth and identity and white working-class number russia and i tried it to see what those books were saying collectively about america during thisme time and also fore to try to get on paper how i thought about it at the time. and the nice thing is that there are plenty more to come, the project does not and, there have been a ton of books already that have come out sort of post trump presidency many more that are on the way. >> we are at a level of hysteria in some of the trump books that you read as opposed to the presidents. >> i never done as intensively dive it into all of the books surrounding presidency. presidency, my big get started right around the time that he started his presidential campaign and theree certainly was an overwhelming output of works on trump the trump presidency and i would write a that there were about 40400 or 500 in some ways dealt with f the first term of the oba presidency and if the equipment braided the trump presidency, there is more like hundred and 7 tellsne you, i would call it mae not hysteria but maybe an endless supply a lot of those books would have a recurring line in the prologue or the acknowledgment where they say said's book onen election night in 2018, a lot of people maybe would not have written books, about aches presidency, felt compelled to write about this presidency. these are especially at the beginning, when you were given by the kind of emotional pimples early on michael to get down on paper how is making me feel. >> we asked you in advance carlos lozada, your favorite books in 2021, and you mentioned that plague year by lawrence wright but another one, that you mentioned was the post trump book, adam schiff's, midnight in washington, why did that attract you. >> a lot of the what i would call the first generation of the trump books he cannot bring the trump presidency, were the kind of books and molded on theory that were almost felt like they were competing for who could unearth the most outlandish and goat. can you believe that he said this work evenly that he asked from the blood, whatever ideas that donald trump was doing on any given day or week. this are useful books for the historical record, very sensual but i think that some of the book that you are seeing now, to be a little bit more retrospective, and doing something more, or developing a broader argument and should smoke is as adam schiff makes the case that is donald trump was violating and upending these norms of accepted presidential behaviors, he was republicans in congress and the and ministration they didn't have the courage reclamation to s std up and that was the argument that he developed in the course of obviously being in a single person in the impeachment process and adam schiff smoke is kind of a how-to manual for condemning to leaders the guilt when errors feels liken it has been weekend and so in that sense i think it is a book that will continue to be useful in the road a lot of the trump books are very much in the moment and they feel dated almost on publication and this is not one of those. >> now mark meadows, the former white house chief of staff just published a cheap chief, is that one that you think will be of valuable resource and one that you will review. >> you know, haven't read it yet. i do intend to, there's money of these trump books and memoirs become out there reviewing them one at a time, is not always the most useful approach consumers away for a critical mass of books and then i try to tackle them to go to see what we are learning collectively from them i only reviewed a handful of the latest generation of trump books, join the hills memoir, questions memoir, there's been a lot of journalistic books that have come out in recent months and coming at you, i will probably wait to tackle a lot of those together. and as you and i morning and i think thats also the leaders appreciate that because there's so many different books out there and they want to know, how to be. suzanne: each other and how they compare to one another. >> and another one of the books that you sent us in advance was lehman on, the free world and why did that appeal to you. >> it was a very different kind of book. please best known for, what he is a a terrific new york writer and he wrote the physical club, he won the pulitzer prize sometime in the 2000. for his look at the pragmatist and their impact on american intellectual life and john dewey was one of the homes in this book is a delightful read, it is a look at the cultural life of the early cold war, mainly in the united states and partially as well and your. in a moment when american policy foreign policy national security policy was all about containment, the american cultural world just kind of exploded and totally uncontainable and he explores composers and novelists and artists and painters and dancers and the sexiest ice chapter, is very likable, 800 pages or so and lease chapter feels like almost like a mini book in itself. i'm looking at whether it is the beatles or any number of sort of art forms that were prevalent during thisre time and this or just didn't wanted to hit and i want to do to keep going and i feel that in some ways, is spoke to his prior book, i run my review that i think that he has a chronicle of the american mind in moments it the mind is having second thoughts and when the country is going through big cultural and intellectual shifts and he's able to come to zero in on those moments. there was a book that are very much enjoyed reading. >> one of the book that i wanted to bring up before we close out this session, the 1619 project in the importance of that book. >> i think that 16th 19 project was able to bring to the floor, massive conversation a seismic national conversation ae legacy of slavery and i reviewed it a book recently is one that i think i reviewed most recently. it is interesting because the project is all sorts of things, it is the regional magazine essays that came out a few years ago and some wonderful podcast series and it is a children's book and it's his new book and when i attempted to do in my review is to see how the project over time and one of the things i found most interesting is that it is moved from being primarily for trade and executed as a historical corrective, and look back at american history and see the importance of 1619 which was the first americans came to the british colonies and and in moments, the importance and its proper place for american history. and as he pulled into a political project in a policy agenda for its authors especially his primary author: hannah jones argues and flows from that new history. and so to me, that is an interesting evolution and maybe even an interesting tension coming from a music organization at the new york times as part of what i tried to explore as i was reviewing it and certainly one of those books that is impossible to ignore and avoid. and if that was the way that i came at it pretty. >> final question, little bit out of this but the book sales, nonfiction book sales are up about 10 percent this year and is there pretty see anything in that number and when it comes to the hardcover sales as opposed to the e-book sales hardcovers are still the dominant force in a list of the e-books have pretty much plateaued. >> this is going to sound silly but i don't necessarily follow the trends in the publishing marketplace. i am delighted that fulfills our strong it depends on what month you are looking at in some books come out will like barack obama's memoir and accounts for stuff like inordinate number of the books sold in a particular. and i'm not surprised as you put it, that the cover cells are doing well and i think especially in a pandemic, people are not going out as much, and it may be that the folks like to you know cozy up with an old-fashioned hardcover book and that's all i read and i hate reading digitally, and i feel like it's a completely different experience. and so for me, it is habit and just comforting and all of the books behind me, they are books that i have written about in the washington post or elsewhere and i just kind of like the physical presence of these books. i can imagine it being a sort of a digital reader or the type of person i suppose we will all end up that way. >> the nonfiction book critics of the washington post and poulter prizewinners is an author himself and his book is called what were we thinking brief intellectual history of the trump era and he has been a guest on the podcast and thank you carlos lozada. >> thank you peter. >> nowam before we move on to se other topics, let's think of some of the other washington post notable books that carlos lozada did not mention it in the best-selling author, isaacson, looks at the work of jennifer - who invented a dna entity technology, and examining the cost of racism for all americans in some of us, and it cspan.com nancy reagan, washington post, was the former first lady political life, and in other books at the washington post, as notable, and reporting on how the psychedelic drugs are being used for medicinal purposes in his book is called the mine on planet and tangled up in blue, torsion university law professor former reserve police officer risk of brooks versus dittrich suggestions on police reform and she discussed her book and her author interview program afterwords if humans ago. >> the police cannot change the laws by themselves, they cannot change the context and i think that also the police get the blame for enforcing laws they do not create context it they can change in a way i think that is really where we blame but their estimation of the mirror and say will the cops are resting people, that's trivial offenses and harming the community well, we better make sure the lawmakers who wrote the loss, but do that and we need to look at longer prison sentences and massive p rs and incarceration a lot of that is prosecutors and judges, lawmakers and so that is i think that something cops can't change who we as a society we need to change the massive over privilege that we have seen in the last couple of decades in the extensive - and other social services that might make some of us things that we don't have to do anymore and that said, do you think there's a lot of things the police department need to be doing that as you know again, is it difficult, we don't have a national police force, we have almost 18000 different law enforcement agencies, they always talk too each other. and very hard. >> it is tough to get everybody to pay attention. >> former law enforcement officer, talking about her book, tangled up in blue and you can watch all book tv programs online, at booktv.org in our afterwards program, you just saw with rosa brooks, is also available as a podcast and available it cspan . now or wherever you get your product and podcast and this is the about books podcast and programming, is boutique the latest publishing news and nonfiction books pretty well recently authored historian victor davis hanson choice but to be for monthly call in program which is called - and he came on to talk about american political history and his many books, in case you missed it, here's a bitf of that program. >> this idea that today, you cancel somebody up because you do not agree with them or you tear down statutes without consensual go to the city council and consistency and its where we are washing away people names or ideas that we don't like and were not doing it the light of day, necessarily always on the majority of the vote on the constitutional means or berating a people and we are sustained he entered suspending two processes on campuses and so this isn't the democratic party that a lot of this new. >> was author and historian victor davis hanson on indent program and i'm reminded that jeff is live personally and we invite one prominent author on to talk about his or her body of work, it is take your phone calls in january, another historian will be our guest, and he will talk about the earliest intellectual history of the united states civil war, three construction area, abraham lincoln, robert e. lee, etc. and he'll be taking your calls as well and in february, torsion university, will be our guest cheryl and finally here on about, here's a look at the best-selling nonfiction books, according to the los angeles times. topping the list isrt pulitzer prize winning reporter and creator of the 16th 19 project, i look at american and slavery and his legacy and followed by these precious days question of essays a novelist and after that, musician memoir, the storyteller and wrapping up our look at the los angeles times best-selling nonfiction books, two more memoirs, carnies, and stanley - my life with who and look at this week's publishing news and nonfiction books, thank you for joining us on about books, is available as a podcast wherever you get your podcast, and on c-span, cspan now. >> book tv continues now, television for serious readers. >> welcome to the free library in philadelphia online and i am pleased to be here to introduce tonight's t guest rebecca donne, the author of the novel sunset referred to by the baltimore sons as the remarkable story of aom

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