thank you for having me and this is a great venue. i suspect the first time book tv has ever done one from an airplane hangar. this is my 10th book tv. it s one that is closest to my heart for a variety of reasons. let me start with background and many of you know, on july 17th, 1996, at 1819 p.m., twa flight 800 left jfk airport in new york bound for paris. 12 minutes later, 8:31 p.m. off the coast of long island, popular shore of long island, it was blown out of the sky. 230 people were killed, 53 of them were twa employees. many of you in this room knew at least some of those people. there is a memorial in their honor here at the twa museum and if i were coming here just to spread some conspiracy theory, i would be dishonoring their memory and i would be insulting you. instead, i m here to tell you what happened on the night of july 17th, 1996, in the nights and days and months and years thereafter. there are people in this room who know a whole lot more about aviation t
dies: vietnam and the memory of war. [inaudible conversations] tonight s wisconsin book festival. i m here as a member of the board of the wisconsin humanities council, and it s really a tremendous pleasure to be able to introduce the next speaker and to thank, first of all, the madison public library the library foundation, humanities council, all the other sponsors. this is probably a good time to remind you to check and make sure that your cell phone is silent. everybody reaches for the cell phone immediately. and the book festival is asking people to talk about their experiences using the hashtag wibookit s wi book fest. all one word. books are for sale afterwards out in the, just on the other side of this wall. viet is really a remarkable author. you get people who are accomplished as literary authors and people who are accomplished as nonfiction authors, and hera has actually pulled off major accomplish bements in both accomplishments in both rell are ms in basica