painting, the way that artists think of themselves, it's not the way power expresses itself. they think of multiple images and impressions, optics, so one of the tasks in the book was to put our interlanguage with that. how do we talk about the one impression versus the image that makes thousands of impressions? >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> mitchell kaplan, where are we? >> we are in beautiful coral gables. we welcome you to our store. no, they don't. what we did was this building was built in the 20's and for coral gables is very old.

as you can see, there are plenty of people come and partake of im and we have wine and beer and music on the weekends but we just think that goes beautifully with books. >> how many book events you do d on a weekly basis? >> on a years basis we do 600 events. often they could be kids events, adult events, other kind of things but we are a very active store. >> when did you open the store? >> i opened books&books about 30 years ago. >> why? >> i didn't want to give up the dream of being part of a literary culture and so one quick way of doing that was to get into the book business, bookstores and i always loved bookstores. i hung out in bookstores.

it seemed like natural to me. >> why coral gables? >> i'm originally from miami beach, when i moved back from where i was going to school, coral gables was a community that i didn't know very well and i explored and right for independent book shop at the time. >> seems to be a booming town, sounded by miami? >> what you think of miami is really 26 little cities, miami beach, miami, miami itself. coral gables is one of the cities. it was built in the mediterranean style, in the 20's, published on his life by the university. it's a gorgeous little city that

has become a cultural gem between the community as well. >> who is your audience? >> everybody, actually because of the uniqueness from the store. we get people coming from all over but the local audience is audience just a couple of blocks away is residential area. we are in a business district. but we like to think that we draw from everywhere actually. >> you're involved in miami book fair. >> i was one of the founders. i was a young kid and had no idea of what the future would bring and eduardo and myself and a couple of book sellers said let's put on a book fair and we said, great.mi it was in the early 08's.

miami paradise loss with a big question mark. what eduardo wanted to do is rights and we put together, a i whole community came together. diverse community and still is and we decided to cater to the diversity of miami. >> what's it like today? >> today, you know, it's become a very vibrant interesting city with so many different communities that are soco different from one another, yet, tied together by its diversity. and what is now happening which i'm love to go see is that the cultural community is becoming really very, much more sophisticated. we have incredible writers that live here. you will meet a couple in a minute. movie moonlight was a

miami original more or less. and so there's a lot happening here that wasn't happening when i was a kid growing up in miami beach back in the 60's and early 70's. >> what about the festival? >> it's growing remarkably, we started two days almost 34 years ago and now it's a full week and we have now probably close to 600 authors that come over the week period of the book fair and it really has become something that miami is proud of because it's a big tent. so it's been something that i take a lot of pride and so does miami-dade college. >> why has miami has developed such a writers village? >> we can spend probably three to four programs in just that. as you know miami started probably throughout -- they

would have told you the mystery writers that came, people likee charles who wrote miami blues, and then -- [inaudible] >> all those guys. that all happened because miami was so strange. w all of the strange murderers that took place here. the cocaine cowboys, you couldn't make up something that didn't appear in the news a few days or a few months later, but since that early, early thrust of miami, you then begin to find miami as a community becoming more rich allowing poets to live here, john, wonderful fiction writer living here. you have incredible diverse latin american community people writing in spanish, portugués.

the diversity makes it interesting. >> a couple of the authors we are going to talk about me menendez. welcome to miami, for the next two hours we are going to have a discussion about books and writing, what you're reading,, what some of our guests are reading as well. mitchell kaplan, founder and p owner of books&books bookstore, they have this location in coral gables. they have a location at home airport as well. where else? >> in south beach. we are in the shop and we are also in the performing art center, the adrienne art center for performing arts. we have a store there as well. and then we have opened up a new store that's going to pop up books&books and bikes.

>> where is that location? >> wynwood. our version of brooklyn. >> good, well, we are going to be having the discussion and interactive discussion as always on c-span live programs, your chance to participate, we will put the phone numbers a little bit later. after we meet our other guests. why don't we meet inside and join our other guests as well. we will let tom go in firstt because he has the camera. so mitchell kaplan can independent bookstore thrive and survive today? >> i think most definitely. independent bookstores are coming into their own once again. i think last year there was something like 60 to 70 new book shops that have opened and there's something to be said for real spaces as opposed to what people do and find on the internet. there are certainly internet shopping that goes on but there's also something about a

sense of community that's created with the real space like a book shop. >> is this a community space? go ahead and sit down. >> thank you. it most definitely is. i think that we are really about faces. >> when you see the folks that have joined us r they familiarar faces in some ways?na >> yes, they. >> regular customers? we also want to introduce you to les stanford, author and ana menendez. you wrote a book called in cuba i was a german shepherd. how you come up with a title like that and what does that mean?that mea [laughter] >> it's a punch line to a joke that i heard when i was in a reporter. i used to cover little havana my first time at the harold and it was a joke that tony lopez, really wonderful sculptor told

me. i didn't know how to do it. it stayed with me and when i left and began to write fiction, i said i'm going to write a whole story, you know, revolving around this joke. >> what is the master of fine arts and how do you get into your program at fiu? >> a master of fine arts is one of those degrees that i would hesitate to tell parents to send their daughters and sons to come to because the parents want them to learn how to sell bonds, do things that they can assure themselves will make their children a lot of money. you don't become a writer too become rich and famous, what we do is offer the opportunity for those people who can't do anything else to take that talent. >> thank you.

>> take that talent and bring it to the max, to shape it into a way that we will find that audience that the person is looking for and it's like all the arts, many, many are called and very few are chosen but the reason we are there, i think, is to give those applicants and students that are admitted professional tools so when they go out into the cold cruel world they really know what's required. that's not a guaranty of succese . as we know, the arts are competitive. our is a program that's not theoretical at all. let's talk about how you can take that talent that's already there and i often liken it to --

a bunch of young men who have shown up, drafted by the nfl and show up at summer training camp and the coach says you'retalent tremendously talented, let's talk about what it takes to operate at the professional level. >> day one, all those fresh faces looking at you, what do you tell them? >> that you've got a lot of talent or you wouldn't be here. now let's talk about how to shape that talent in a way that makes a connection. you know, everybody who comes in is very good at expression, i say babies are too. nobody wants to hear what they have to say. you're very good at expressing yourself, what we are going to talk about is making the connection with the audience, how does that happen, what doest it take. >> ana me nend easy -- menendez when you sit down and write a book, what's the most difficult thing for you?

>> let me just say you wouldn't know it but useful usage but he was my professor at fiu many, many years ago. [laughter] >> he's not to blame for anything. it was the only class i took and it was undergraduate and encompassed everything. i'm very grateful for him for o that and i have a book that i still carry which is a book that les combruised and, i think, still uses. anyway, what's the hard itself thing when i sit down to write, well, right now is sitting down to write. i have a small child and time has gotten away from me, unfortunately. were her showing this book, what is it about this book that works for you? >> well, they are important

throughout my life. early moon which my uncle joni martínez which is a poet gave me as a child, i was 6 or 7 when he gave me the first one. i was 9 and it was a very beautiful book. so many of us are afraid of poetry and made it, you know, part of my language and theny there was this book that last introduced to me almost 30 years ago, i suppose it is now. [laughter] >> i'm dating all of us here, and another book was one that i

picked up here at books and books when i was a columnist in miami harold and having a rough ride of it, i used to hang out here a lot specially among the poetry books for some reason. i picked up -- i think i have it. you will see it annotated heavily. these are trancations -- translations. he's a comfort and, you know, why do you worry the infinite question and things that are comforting to read and that's one of the reasons i read it.dn >> the obvious question that i have for you knowing your love of poetry but you're not a poet,

how do you incorporate poetry into your writing? >> i'm not sure it has although some people will say that my writing is lyrical but i think it's just the love of the wordrd and sentence and a sense of the rhythm of the sentence and also what poetry strides for which is a sort of capturing of the inevitable in a for few words and i think it's such a wonderful calling for the writer. >> you have written nonfiction and fiction books, but you're not a poet either, why do you teach poetry and why do you bring poetry in a class? >> the fact is that when i was in ffa program myself, we were

forced even if we thought ourselves at fiction writers to take a class in the writing of poetry and i remember walking across the campus with henry taylor thinking this is up, after this class i'm out of here because my idea of poetry was by the shores of -- i had no idea what modern poetry was.an i went in there and i discovered a whole new world and the fact is that for the first three to four years after i graduated, the only things that i could publish were poems. i was for many years a practicing poet and enjoyed it and came to understand, i think, that poets are after the same central moment that fiction writers are at the end of the story of a novel.

we writers want to have the reader put down the piece regardless of how long it is and say, yes, that's exactly right, that's what i was looking for. we want that moment and what i envied poets is that popular song writers, they can get that in a page, they can get that in such a short period of time and i'm working for 300 pages to get that hopefully at the end of a book. but we are all in it together and the other thing i learned is that the word are so important to me that the language of every sentence even if it's nonfiction or fiction is just as important to me as was a line of poetry. >> ce rent nonfiction last train to paradise. who was henry flagler and what's his role in florida? >> i was going to call the book

the man who invented florida. that's who he is. [laughter] there were a couple of thousand people in tampa and if you drew a line from jacksonville up at the top of the state west, southwest to tampa about the middle of the state, that was as far as you could go, there was no palm beach, there was no boca raton, there was no miami. there was a key west. the most important naval installation you could only get there by vote. for a long time even after flagler came, it remained that way. but he did an amazing thing after extending his railroad

down the eastern sea board of florida creating palm beach, creating miami. fort dallas and then someone came in with the notion of extending the railroad of 350 miles of open water to key west and at the time he was 72 year's old and had all the monet and he said, i'm going to do it, he prove that had the impossible could be done and doing so he stitched together the -- to the continent the last -- that little island, the last part of the main really closed the american frontier in 1912. >> so he's responsible for that traffic jam on 95? [laughter] >> and no matter how many lanes they build to key west there will never be enough because people are fascinating to go to the end of the american road as he was. >> mitchell kaplan, what's on

your bedside, what are you reading today? >> well, interesting i've been reading a book that many people know, there are two books that i have been reading. one is a book called being immortal and a book that you haven't read, you ought to read. it's really kind of amazing. i'm dealing with some sick innocence my own family and this has been very helpful in terms of understanding how one deals with an elderly parent and the kinds of things to look out for and the kind of conversations to have and that sort of thing. and then bill is always so remarkable in selections and essays about different books and he wrote a book called books for living and it's a series of books that have inspired him over the years and so i've been reading this to get a little bit

of the challenging times. >> ana menendez, same question.. >> well, i just finished -- i rarely recommend books just because i feel it's so personal and i don't want to impose my taste on people, but it's a really beautiful book and i love everything about it and i -- it's, chorus of voices about the end of the soviet union, it covers the gulac and she talks to ordinary people about their struggles with the end of the soviet union and i love it so io much because, well, the voices she collects are astonishing,

what the stories they tell her are astonishing and the facte that they are ordinary people is something that we aspire to as fiction writers. this is what we aspire to is to illuminate the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and how they rise to those occasions and this the election of, you know, maybe hundreds of these voices, i really loved this book, i'm reading right now, i'm notw finished wit. in fact, i'm only at number 9 -- >> small book. >> it's more like a long essay on tyranny, 20 lessons from the 20th century by timothy snyder, just came out. you were talking about the things you can get at bookstore that is you can't get on the internet, number 9 which is where i ended today is be kind to our language. avoid pronouncing the phrases everybody else does, think of your own way of speaking and then hon and on, make an effort to separate yourself from the

internet, read books. [laughter] i thought that i will end it there and i just finished reading, it's kind of a obscure for most american writer who is a writer and i finished reading a book about what books give you and it's a corky book. it's not anything that would be published here today -- >> why not? >> there's not real plot, a short book, a man who collects waste paper and when he see it is books that he wants, he takes them home. so there's no real plot pullingt you through.h.pu it's just this love of books and it's a beautiful little book and i just finished reading that.

>> once again the author's name' >> bohomio hrabel. >> what's on your reading list? >> you know, let me preface my answer here with a couple of things. i want to second the idea of browsing in the bookstore, there's no such thing while the internet is wonderful and gets books out there and allows people to reach things that they might not have oars on and on, there's no such thing of pile of books on the table on theile ofb internet. you see the covers and pick them up and maybe you can learn on the internet but i have neverwe

have. the second thing i want to say about what you're reading, reading my students manuscripts. thousands of pages. they multiply like a mud slide in california in a rainy season. i also read many of the books of the people that i have come to know in this business and sort of like following on up on what ana said, i come to the point where i just can't bring in myself public to say you should read this one because what if - some of my other friend is listening, they, thinking, why didn't you boost my book.m -- >> you have to recommend thingsr we haven't even read.

>> i'm sneaking up on my answer. [laughter] >> my long friend who many knowy i wouldn't dream of missing a james w. hall novel and i hope some of you feel the same, but a couple of books thattive -- that i've been reading this. i do not know these people. one a novel that's going to come out here in a couple of weeks called unreliable by a guy name lee irvy and he wrote a couple of almost unknown historical mysteries in the early part of the century and this book is real tour about a fellow who on the first page says, you can't trust a thing i say but i may have just killed my my ex-wife

and i'm not so sure, perhaps my lover too. that's how the novel begins. for me it was a dare that i couldn't pass up. he carries along, you do finally find out who had done it by thed end -- by that time you are laughing so hard you don't really care. i really enjoyed that book. a very different kind of book, nonfiction, a piece of nonfiction which, i think, is absolutely remarkable. i can't imagine anyone not reading this and not being swept away by it, it's called rise by cara brookings and it's the story of a woman whose family she was abused, her family -- her children abused and she walks out and gets it in her mind this the way that she will save this family and put it back together is to build a house

from land up and she manges to do it and the record of it is absolutely astonishing. i can't recommend it highly enough.ca >> well, before we go any further, i want to get our television audience involved, we are going to put the phone numbers up on the screen, we are talking about books, we are talking about reading, we are talking about what you're reading, so if you dial the number in please let us know what you're reading right now or what kind of books, you read -- we have three people very involved in the world of literature and books and here is your chance to ask them some questions as well. 202 is the area code 748-8200 for those in east and central time zones. 202-748-8201 if you live in mountain and pacific time zones, you can contact us from socialco media as well at book tv twitter handle and make comment on facebook page, it should be right there at the top.

facebook.com/booktv and finally you can send an e-mail to book tv at c-span.org. also, we have an audience here at books&books, one of the 600 events happening at books&books. if you have any questions for our panel as well, please ask them. .. the top selling at books and books right now as far as nonfiction goes -- hill billy by jd vance, have any of you read this this has made a lot of list, a lot of best seller lists, et cetera. given our world today has anyone picked this up? when you see a best seller list do you go to those books? [laughter] >> well, you know the way -- probably pretty much like last -- a lot of times i'm reading books far in advance before books have

actually come out so i cially don't necessarily pick up a book because it is a best seller. but i've certainly heard mr. vance you know i think on c-span and all over the place talk about this book. so i understand why it's such a big seller trying to explain this selection more or less. and he does an interesting way. >> not usually pick it up but i rely on the staff books and books or friends this on tyranny was recommended by my friend the novelist christina garcia. and i bought it immediately and it wasn't -- this point at all but also tries to explain last selection or rather next one trying to save us. [laughter] excuse me and i also get recommendations from other books i mean books aren't like good friends they lead you to good

books, in fact, they have a really great blurb for this book on tyranny and it is really coif a tree of association that is how i find my bock and book reviews things like that. >> jennifer. >> very rarely you know, i'm an outliar. writers are for the most part live on the edge on outside looking in, and i'm always looking for that book that no one has had told me about. i don't have to worry about one that everybody has heard about. i know it will well taken care of and read by readers and i'm always looking for the other one. >> also i should say one of the things that we've done as an industry, independent book seller in the industry we have indy next an indy next list and comes in brochure is like this and you can find it. what it does is it has book seller recommendations each

month i believe it is about 20 different books, and they're actually blurbs from book sellers all over the country a diverse list. very interesting list and book that was chosen as the number -- book for this month of march was exit west. by moshi hamid and book you might not sleard of before. i think the dirty little secret in books is there's so many books being published that -- all of us book sellers, authors, peel in the media, any time we can shine a light on something that is not tcially well known it does that author and book a great service. because none of us have the kind of money that it take to have to advertise wide like you would if you were selling razor blades or something else. so all of us have a duty to be able to let people know about those books that are really,

really good and really important to each of us. >> well this reminds mitchell too of alan schutte his daughter is here used to say he didn't really like to give bad reviews if he didn't like a book he wouldn't you know do that review. because there were so many wonderful books that were being published and deserve to be praised given a wider audience and that was philosophical stand and i've never forgotten that. >> before we get any further in, there seems to be a really strong cuban american writers community. especially maybe because we're in south florida. but fair statement? >> i went with a group of them to cuba and we just cam back a couple of weeks ago where i picked up this horrible cold, and otherwise great trip, and there is. and we -- we know each other.

we try to support each other and we just did an event last saturday here. with the cuban at fiu. yeah. >> while here. >> i want to show this book as well by anna. this is -- loving what is this about? >> that's my second book, my first novel, and it's about a woman who goes back to cuba to find out what happened to her mother. her mother abandoned her to the states with her grandfather and stayed in cuba. and developed a love affair with -- [inaudible conversations] may or may not have been in her mind. and it ruins her life and ruins her daughter's life, and yeah. to voice. >> this is an autograph copy that we pick here at books and books. [laughter] hard to get back. [laughter] >> that's the end of her david

the historian has a new book coming out in april is that a u must read? in -- i think you know what i mean. >> now, that's one of those when i said rarely well that's one of the instance where is, obviously, i'm going to go look at the chief -- in my area, and see what he's up to. see what he's doing and a eric larson and simon and those guys are going to be on the best seller list with whatever it has think bring out because they're good and i want to see what they're doing because -- aspire that's the bar you aspire to the very best, and you don't turn away from it. you i think you -- try your best to do what the best are doing. >> mitchell kaplan david's new book how do you -- how do you stock your shelves with that? do you order five copies? >> enter this room david all through here. no, he's --

he is one of the great -- best selling authors who sells across every single retailout let. as i was telling you earlier there's sol best selling authors who we won't really very much of because they're found in costco or other places an they're not necessarily -- books that speak to our customer base but customer does as does eric larson and others mentioned but red lights nice thing about having a book shop is being able to have met school of the authors over the course of time and david was coming down to miami very early on when he wrote the john adams biography because his daughter -- very few people know this, about his -- i can't remember son or his daughter was married to senator bob graham's child as well and they were living in miami. so david would come down and browse in my old shop and there

was nothing better than a day in which david came in and to be able to tack to him about books and all of that sort of thing. >> he's a wonderful guy. i don't to put you on the spot but relatively famous customers who come in. i don't know if you want to say their names or not. you've told me. >> name is being top florida so diverse. you never know who you will meet in the store. you can have -- you could have you know one of the most conservative -- senators sitting in the -- in the courtyard and then browsing shelves to be one of the most liberal congress people here. so we have people of all kinds that come in and out of the book shop and that's what we think of as a bookstore is a very safe space with all kinds of plel views are welcome. that's not the case necessarily on my own facebook page but certainly is the case in the bookstore is where we welcome

voices of all kinds. smg we will recently up at politics and book stores in washington where they're doing -- you know we talked to it in musk teen co-owners about to teach him what they're doing. is that something a that a lot of independence are doing? >> one of the phase you know in the incredible -- upheaval is that they're talking about what can we do to act as true community centers and i think that best thing that we can do is try to bring rationality and fact based discussion back into, into our dialogue into our civic dialogue. and we're going to start a series called shine on, and you know shine on immigration, and shine on other issues. it comes from a poem that autumn wrote 1939 i believe in which we talks about darkness descending

before world war ii and way that we keep darkness from descending completely is to shine lights at each other that allow darkness to be fought off. and i think the role of a book seller is something like that as well. >> i want to say that miami is a remarkable literary center when i came mere in 1981 that was i looked around i saw a lot of guys with shirts up to navals riding fast boat but i wasn't there were a lot of people reading books in miami and there was no books and books yet -- and chase -- we -- in past 35 years what's happened to this place in ternals of a couple of universities developing mfa program and books spreading all over, a -- a community well most exciting thing is an educator having students like other people who have gone to become important

spokespersons cuba pan american community see that actually developing before your very eyes in your bard and be able to give people from part -- [inaudible conversations] that place is amazing. we're very, very fortunate. >> when you think about it you have a rise of a book fair with year round programming miami dave college with fiu florida university of him. i recall earlier -- on when the wonderful writer and you mentioned before was here in miami for grant to james had given university of miami when he wrote the book caribbean and he left some money and remind me to encourage caribbean writer. and i remember as a young girl coming into the book shop with reading of a book not published yet. so you know you see this -- this growth and it has been really wonderful to see how a

literary community can have such an impact on the growth of the city as well. >> of course there were in the 80s and before there were wonderful spanish language bookstores which no longer -- [inaudible conversations] >> downtown bookstore and those are no longer -- no longer -- they're closed. >> and part of the reason is that -- the major book shops as well started to sell books in spanish that's why there aren't as many book shops around as well and in fact some of our best sellers are books? in spanish german girl i won't try to -- speak spanish when i'm not goig to pretend that i'm the fliewngt when i'm not. [inaudible conversations] i speak english. it was ceased at cuban book fair. they wouldn't let -- actually they gave it an award and ceased it at the book fair and nonpolitical book. [laughter] although apparently draws

parallels between the germany and the, you know -- castro. >> could be fair. >> decent spanish language and we have a spanish language program. programming that happens in spanish and rereally try as much as we can to cater to the broad cross section of spanish writers here. who often don't get a voice. it is hard to publish in spanish actually. the other thing that has happened i should say interest about miami is that we're also developing a publishing community here where we never did have one before. there's a marvelous just blocks away called mango media and they publish lots and lots of different books they have a deal with the -- ap who say publish some books by the ap. they publish books by the miami harold and then they publish a lot of original works as well and that's just beginning to develop.

which is so nice to see as well. >> autumn menendez are your books available in cuba? >> i don't know. i didn't go looking for them. this time that i was there or any time i've been there. i did bring copies of my books for some literary we met with some authors and some literary critics so i brought them. but unfortunately the only book that has translated to spanish f mine is loving chi. i was hoping they bought the rights looming in spain with a german shepherd and waiting for it because i wanted my grandmother to read it and my grandmother died in 2010, and book has not been translated into spanish unfortunately. and now and then i hear people saying i'd like to translate the book and please do and nothing happens. which is a pity. but i brought the english copies. >> ever thought about translating it yourself? >> no.

i write now and then in spanish. but english is really my strongest language now even though i spoke spanish exclusively until five or six. but i went to school in english written in english so strongest language and you should only translate into your strongest language. >> we have callers on the line and you're very patient let's hear from michael in galesburg, illinois you're on c are span 2 from miami. >> how's it going? >> i wonder if anybody on the panel heard of richard rodgan watermelon and i'll take my answer off air. thanks, bye. >> thank you, sir. >> i see you nodding your head. >> he was talking about richard an interesting writer, and

richard brotgan and which i was in high school but richard is a very interesting writer his own write. >> in new york -- [inaudible conversations] do you know what we're going to have to put mary on hold for just a second. sign the line mary. reminder that you if you get on you'll hear everything through your trch let's move on to brian right here in miami brian go ahead. >> i was asking about to ask this panel you know individuals or -- [inaudible conversations] development of the future. >> i couldn't hear -- >> can you reare repeat it more slowly having trouble hearing you.

>> yeah. my question was the panel and i wanted to ask what can individuals do to support bookstores local aand help them develop to the future? >> thank you, sir, and we're not going to ask mitchell kaplan that story. [laughter] we know what he's gopg going to say but we'll go to -- [inaudible conversations] >> you know. >> one of the most natural things instead of an idea of what to buy is to come into is an evening program. listen to people talk or read, then browse and you probably come out of here with an armloads of books. you don't have to think too much about how to support this story if you just come in and feel it. >> love the question because that is something we can't take them for granted like we can't take our newspaper for granted or institutions for granted and something that timothy snyder

talked about so i love the question an love empus of it and what he said just come in all the time. i'll meet people -- for lunch and pill say well let's go to books and books because i get time to browse and we're surrounded by this -- great collection and yeah. >> what a great concept to have a cafe, a coffee shop and bookstore when i was growing up two things never crossed paths what a marvelous notion. >> did predate borders in barnes & noble doing is this? >> what happened was as i told you earlier i was dropout of law school from the loot -- and i went to law school in washington, d.c. in your neck of the woods and i happen to live right down the street from kramer books and afterwards which was one of the first bookstore cafes i've ever seen and those days more bookstore than cafe now i think it has become more cafe than bookstore.

but it is -- and what politics and pros is doing with busboys and poets as well. so i always felt that it was unnatural coming together of that sense of community revolutions could be hatched over a cup of coffee and that sort of thing but felt it was a natural, natural fit and while we were able to find this phase with a courtyard it all, you know, light bull l about went off and all made perfect sense. >> so important also to reconnect after this -- crisis to reconnect with the analog world and book stores are -- the place and it is a place to connect with friends face-to-face three or four of them instead and on facebook, and that -- has helped me. >> funny you said that buzz i love the analog world i saw one of the books to recommend was

moon globe my michael on one his earlier books about a record store is and from the loss of record stores, and i heard of him give a lecture once about the notion of old technologies. and how just because technologies are all marijuana on their way out doesn't mean therm bad. and that made me immediately boy a turntable and i started collecting older analog records, and that led me to start selling older analog records in the different stores that we have and there's a lot of people out there looking to do that. and it made me think if i were to do another story nobody stealing this idea an call it analog sell type writers and you know records and turntables and -- [laughter] all of that so i think as you know -- >> trombone. a book coming out in which it is a selection of stories and he's a collector of typewriters and each story has a typewriter a different typewriter that is central element in the story. that will be on september.

and then another person paul who -- is marvelous called four, three, two, one, paul writes all of his books on a typewriter and 900 page, and so i think he probably wore out two or three -- >> you had an event here. >> so paul in knew magician and did a celebration, a birthday celebration of paul's 70th birthday as well. >> our libraries analogs? >> if they're selling books they are, libraries to me are those things that we need to support until -- as in greater numbers and louder voices because libraries are the places of young readers and it is almost a place of entry for people who want to read. and also very democratic. you know, less where a book

about karen carnegie and he know why is started a library and foundation to get people who aren't able to purchase things to go in and -- get a book for free. >> so another -- why did you call your book i'll see you in hell? [laughter] well that's -- at the center of the bosks the bit of this bitter partnership the richest man in the world at the time and somebody wasn't to far was clay, and he had a terrible falling out. spent 20 years without speaking towards the end when therm both sick carnegie sent his -- butler down the street brick mentioned now that brick museum in new york, and with a note that said -- that out of time getting up there in years perhaps about to

meet their makers shouldn't they get together and try to pass things up before they died and his response was to the guy who brought them to note carnegie wants to meet me does he? you can tell him we'll meet in hell and that's title of the story but i went to a number of those -- libraries that carnegie founded around the world a thousand of them and several hundred still in operation and all of the ones in pitts bring particularly full. absolutely full of kids, elementary school kids many of them who were going to computers there they didn't have access to it at home but just as many with a pile of books around them doing books for school and gave me help that libraries found a way to connect and stay relevant and to the 21st century.

those place were jam-packed i'll tell ya. >> we've got a microphone in the audience and raise your hands and get to you after we hear from everett in sedona, arizona. go ahead. >> hey, i have a question i don't want to keep you too long. but -- it's pretty isolated out here living in sedona there isn't even a bookstore here, and i -- i had a professional life in advertising and i've made a move into writing, and my one question is, is there any value to self publishing is there, is that like spitting in the wind or is there something to that? to go that direction? >> everett do you have a library in sedona and do you frequent it? >> yes, we do there's the sedona library and i'm there a lot. >> sir, thank you for calling in let's go right down the panel and let's hear. self-publishing.

>> we know the example of "fifty shades of grey" that worked out -- [laughter] in that instance the shack sell published coming out it can happen but look being struck by lightning. >> but the odds -- you might learn something about by self-publishing you might discover whether or not there's an audience that you didn't suspect. it's the long shot way to go because the difficulty in self it is democratic allows you to get out there and publish your book but real question becomes how do you draw attention to your book once it is on the internet and -- boy, i don't know u enough about those marketing efforts to say. but that fills me with dismay. the prospect of how do you -- well once you put it up how do you get people to find it? >> i agree wasn't bridges in madison county as well self-published at first. the version -- what was that, maybe i'm wrong.

>> a long time ago. but i don't remember. >> yeah. there are as he said you can become a multimillionaire like -- you know. "fifty shades of grey." but i think a better -- rout something they can't interest an agent is to go the contest rout where many small -- that have contest or manuscript poetry or short fiction and you know to go that rout perhaps first because i think what you're up against is what he said. is there's so many books being published and so many books published by established publishers that still don't get seen and don't get marketed in people don't learn about that you're really -- setting yourself up for obscurity perhaps. >> before we hear from

mr. kaplan have either of yoif as authors thought about self-publishing? >> no, i haven't. no. that's a -- a tough game but i've always accepted the fact that i've -- if i can't break in, then i -- work doesn't merit it. >> let's go -- i agree with everything what they said. but i would add to that is as a writer you have to ask what your purpose is. if your purpose is just to get something out, maybe so that you can document an experience that you had then maybe it's very those in your family or those people who are you know in your broader community then self-publishing might be the way to go. if it is to make money maybe it's not. and only other thing i would say is left out something important he wrote a book about a guy who did self-publish that became a

gigantic self-publisher man who nchted christmas about charles dickens writing of a christmas carol. christmas carol was the great self-publish book that is almost sold more copies than just about any other book, and only difference was there that he had five booings that had proceeded at some of which had published more -- sold more copies than any book ever had previously. and he had basis on which to build. >> but we have to create excitement about this. but there's more to this story. >> we did a movie based on that book so you can't really -- too much. that was a very big, major to do if >> i'm trying to be a self-help in se done know. but yeah wait until november comes then. you see this movie. did --

... a time when charles dickens who had published by books couldn't get a christmas carol published. spin think of it. >> is charles dickens important to read today? >> i think so. i remember reading a christmas carol. i must've been eight years old or something before christmas, so i thought before christmas i will be. i also read 1984 in 1984.

i need to pick it up again. >> they renamed it 2017. [laughter] >> spin i think so. we have these discussions about both the canon and the dead white males and should we still be reading them. i don't see this as an either or reading as an either or. i see reading as an aunt.ng as you read dickens and you read swing time. and so i don't, yes, i mean, there's a lot that he can teach you as a writer, i think. as can so many. i don't believe in saying these people don't speak to us anymore.ple don' and maybe that don't speak to everybody, but you may find

yourself spoken to i somebody that seems irrelevant now. >> do we have a question in the audience, anybody? we will go then -- if you could tell us your first name. >> if you can tell is your first name. >> mary. >> hi mary. >> a question, how do you find and decide on a particular topic to write about? >> thank you. that is a great question and it is always, i am always drawn i think as paul harvey was. you remember the old program where he would say the rest of the story? he always pick someone famous. george washington and then you don't know where he is going and then assist you understand that this is about george

washington? you did not know that, did you? well i will be back in a couple of minutes to take the rest of that story.he loved to revitalize, his whole point was to get people interested in george washington as a person again. by going after something that had not been made much of. but was still in harvey's mind important. well, that is what i look for. what big story out there does, do people not know everything about? that is a tall order and it takes time. but i keep looking and i keep looking and i keep looking and sometimes the charles dickens story came from one of those blast emails. it came on the anniversary of a publication of a christmas carol. i realize that charles dickens had to self publish a christmas carol and several of the questions. did i know that charles dickinson was broken buddy to quit at the time? the answer was no. so i do not remember who sent

me that email. i'm sure i'm going to hear from them now.[laughter] but, i immediately audit has been taken from somebody's book as they often are. and i went looking for the book and the book was not there. and i said well, i have an idea. and away i went. you know i was there doing mansions on fifth avenue. everybody kind of knew about that carnegie was the richest guy in the world but did they know that he and this kind actually come to fists in their office over a business deal? and that led to that book. but finding out that there is material they are about an important or a larger-than-life figure and a larger-than-life set of actions that people have not heard about before. [inaudible]

>> can you repeat that? >> how did you begin your search? >> the dickens story found me. as i'm finishing up work on another book, i'm saying to myself well what is next? and i am working on now, in book about the struggle for the power to control the circus industry. another gilded age story. barnum versus bailey versus ringling. which came to me because my wife showed me a plaque on a hotel grounds over in a ritz-carlton in naples florida this is did you know john ringling once on this farmland? and is the will of course not. who would have ever thought that john ringling owned this land.

turns out you know forget the service that was just a seed money for a fortune i never knew about. it is like that. and while we are getting the mic over to the next person here in the audience, let's hear from michael in pasadena california. michael, please go ahead you are on booktv. >> caller: i read. [inaudible] but then i read white trash which is a history of discrimination and the class structure in this country. some colonial times although it up to the present and that is an extraordinary book if you want to know why, the south with respect to the north. and the discrimination which has taken place. not just against the black people. but also against white people and how that is today.

the other book i have been reading and it is a very important book as well, is washington's farewell address. essentially in that book you see how washington saves the united states three times. once in the revolutionary war and twice as he became president. at times in this country could have easily have fallen apart. and the interesting thing that i take away from all of these books essentially is essentially how people who the supreme court justice who believed in originality knew very well that there is no such thing as originality. what they are really doing is they're worried about going outside the bounds of the constitution. and so they've invented this thing about what was in the

minds of the founders and pretending that is not there today. so there is my take away from those three books. all of them have being on booktv. so thank you. >> host: yes they have. thank you so much for that. any comments for that collar? >> i just know that white trash has been wildly successful. >> host: nancy eisenberg i believe. >> yes. >> host: did you notice an uptick in sales after november 8? >> absolutely. we noticed an uptick particularly in sales with books dealing with some of the issues that the campaign brought out. it reminded me of a book that i wanted to point out. i just seen this motion picture and a kind of, it is a film, a documentary that roel peck did.

it is called i am not your negro. and it is really taken from all of the text of james baldwin. so this film and this book really does bring back, take you back to the time when baldwin was such an intrinsic part of the national discussioi the 60s and early 70s . and it tells you how relevant he is to today as well. these are the kinds of books that have been selling after the election as well. >> what about art of the deal? have any of you read that and do have it for sale here? >> we do have it for sally believe it is in the fiction section. [laughter] i am kidding, i am kidding. but, art of the deal. i have not seen a big uptake to be frank with you. certainly tony schwartz did all he could do to promote it in one way or another.

but, you know it is probably a book that we all should be together to get an insight into our president today. but i did not see a very big uptake although it did sell quite a bit. more. >> ana menendez? >> have a radically now. i met tony schwartz's piece on his regrets and in the new yorker. but mitchell is right. it is something that we should read. i just do not know if it really gives insight to him work tony schwartz is, if it is make-believe mythmaking. which i guess is also important to know. >> i remember looking at it. at the time. but again, i really did not know enough about the subject matter to be able to discern for myself whether it was based on fact or based on donald trump's opinion.

and since i am not a businessman i just said this book is not for me. but i remember looking at it because it was the biggest deal of the time. >> when the book came out it was a big big seller. i think my kids were in preschool at the time and if -- certainly no one knew donald trump as the figure. the thought of him really as what the book said it was. which was, in fact i think that book probably started more than many books that i can think of, there are a few books you know jane fonda's workup book started the whole workout book craze. and then health diet book craze. and in the art of the deal it really to start the business book craze to a large extent. because of how well it sold. >> we have another question in the audience. what is your first name?

>> my name is sonja. >> hi sonia. >> i thought i would ask a question. the question from the caller about self-publishing made me think of this question which i am wondering about. of course the other panelists can wait and. for people in towns and cities that have lost their bookstores, i'm just wondering obviously there is a behemoth that we all know about where you can go online and order books and there delivered the next day and that feels so quick and easy but i am just wondering mitchell specifically if you would talk about a little bit, go back to people in the country that might be watching us right now how there are ways for them to support local bookstores, independent bookstores throughout the country and maybe offer some insight about ways to kind of be involved or we mentioned in the next. that is one thing but i'm just

curious about your discussion about bookstores becoming community oriented places for people that aren't, that do not have access to this. how can they reap the benefits? >> is a great question i think i would broaden it just a little bit since you brought that up. and that is that i firmly believe that independent bookstores, we are all small businesses. and it goes to a larger issue of how we ought to support our small businesses. in the communities that we live. because so often, small businesses are the ones that are affected by online retail more than anything else. and small business really is, there have been studies to show that every dollar spent in a small business locally is expending for five dollars on the internet. and the money stays in the community. people get jobs in the community.

he will have small businesses usually buy their supplies from other members of the community. so really, what i say about independent bookstores applies to small business as well. it is the notion of the third-place. after home, after work where'd you go? you go to the local bar, the local restaurant. the local beauty parlor or barbershop. the local bookstore. that notion to the third-place is really really important to create a sense of community. and it goes to what we were talking about before. which also goes to specific engagements. the more you communicate with your neighbors the more cynically engaged you are. one way or another it and then it goes back to hillbilly or white trash is notion of how diverse we are as a society. the more we get to know one another, the more were able to really talk to one another about issues that matter. and not in our own little silos as well. and i think that's what it bookstore does.

probably better than most other kinds of places. if you're in a place that does not have a bookstore, what can you do? well, it is hard. but one of the things you can do is think about starting a bookstore. think about starting your own bookstore. >> can you start one today? >> it is amazing on -- i go to industry meetings. there were kids that were my age and they are 2526 starting bookstores. like in athens, georgia, small towns of missouri and small towns in indiana. and these are independent bookstores starting. places that you would not think, you think would be over bookstores like brooklyn. they now have a million new bookstore starting.new jersey and other places. so yeah, i think it is a very viable kind of thing for

younger people to think of as an institution. and one way of doing that would be to get involved with the american booksellers association. there are ways that you can learn how to do it. and you know, i am always asking for advice. and a piece of advice i was give to a bookseller in miami is misread by the building that you open your store. something i never learned. [laughter] someone asked me what have you learned as a bookseller in miami? and i say i learned i should have been a realtor. [laughter] and but anyway, there are ways in which you can make it today. >> let's hear from our authors about this question. about the online presence of booksellers. you want your books to sell on amazon, don't you? >> yes, of course. you want your book to sell. you know when i was living overseas, living in istanbul

and living in cairo and then i spent five years in the netherlands. i was always afraid to tell this but i really lived for my candle because it was the only way for me to get the new releases and primarily, i said this at a panel somewhere that i am primarily a reader before i am a writer. we have panelists that are real writers that were kind of shocked but i really am at my happiest as a reader. and not having access to that was really difficult. i wanted to keep up my reading so i do want to state that. i'm grateful that there is another option. >> in the future we will go wherever you go. wherever you are. [laughter] >> thank you, follow me around. that said, you know echo everything that mitchell said about the need for civic

engagement in this idea of rejoining the world that so many of us abandoned. part of this is to come back. and you make these happy finds of about the indignity wanted. and you run into people who can give you recommendations and challenge you. and that is really important for all of us to do. and book bookstores are the place that really make that happen. it brings us the news. >> i want to say, the kind of thing, kind of mission that we are on is to do things like this. it is a wonderful book called hearts of men. this is a book most people would not know about. but we're going to have an event with him. thank you, we are going to have an event with him in about three weeks here at the bookshop.

it is a marvelous book. you know beautifully rendered, beautifully written. it is a coming-of-age narrative and nobody would know about this book but for the fact that we are going to do an event here at the store. that we will be featuring it and this is the job that we have is booksellers which was to introduce new authors to people. and to make a selection so that customers coming into the store can bump into these. i didn't mean to take your time on this discussion. >> while mitchell brought over stacks of books and he'll get through them one way or another.[laughter] >> i feel for the caller from sedona who says we have no bookstores here. i'm glad you found out that they could access the library. at least that, because i think back over the last 35 years about how, with great gratitude about how important, how much a

part of mileage books and books is. how much time i spend here, how much of my connection to a cultural world comes through this place. i am very fortunate, amazingly fortunate in that regard. i have a book, a new book out from which this has always, this is always a place to launch. and the people that come, to be able to make that one-on-one connection and the theater, that doesn't happen on the internet. there is no way to re-create that. so thank you mitchell.thank you very much. >> i would also have to say that although we are independent booksellers we do believe in the ecology of all bookselling. and the internet does have a place for that. as you the chain bookstores. like i said libraries, there is this - but i believe that you

know, one should not overtake another. in other words, there is a role. a really and portal for independent booksellers you have. i also believe these others need to exist in order to service people who are in places where there are not bookstores. >> so if your books and bookstores curated different at the airport -- >> yes they all are. we have all of these different stores in miami and some even we have a store in the cayman islands as well and they are all very different. we treat them all that they are in their own communities. the managers have the ability to bring whatever they want. we have staff selections and you can really feel like you are in different stores by going into the different books and books stores as well. they are not cookie-cutter at all. >> by a show of hands of any of the people here attended a book taught by an author you had never heard of and he just

wanted to see what it was about? has anyone here, has anyone here been to books and books before to attend events regularly? there we go. there we go. and we will come back to the audience for another question after we hear from lauren in sellwood florida. hi lauren, please go ahead. >> hi. i have been doing the show very much and i wanted to ask anna menendez a question about her book and about the joke that she referenced. since i have been on hold, i have been saddened. i have been saddened because the conversation has turned political. and you know, i am a conservative and i love books. and i live bookstores. and i don't understand why you would want to make people feel unwelcome in a bookstore or in your bookstore. i'm sorry if i have put a

damper on that but i cannot help it. it really bothers me. >> lauren, thank you for calling in. ana menendez, first of all - she wanted the joke but then, if you would all adjust the issue that she raised. that she felt unwelcome. >> i think mitchell made the point that this is a safe space for everybody. and i think that is certainly true. and i have a lot of conservative friends and conservative family who love the bookstore and i see them here. and they feel welcomed here. so i do not think that is an issue. outside of the facebook page. >> it turned political only because we've been talking personally.but in terms of the bookstore, we present authors of all different types at this bookstore. and -- we even have some very conservative people working in the bookstore. we honor everyone who comes in.

we were just talking personally and if we offended you, i am terribly sorry about that. >> so is sellwood close to miami? so if lauren comes down to the store - >> i would love to have a cup of coffee with her. >> call me up we will have coffee. the joke, to go back to politics briefly, a lot of my deduction i was a registered republican. not a lot of people know this. i was first registered as a republican and my first vote was for george bush junior. obviously a lot has changed but a lot of my misgivings about the new administration goes back to things that i heard my parents say in things that i've learned about. about a hemorrhaging takes over and how freedom of expression begins to be curtailed. and so i misgivings are

actually rooted in my own history and in my parents history. so i will say that we do not have to agree on that but that is my, that is where i'm coming to my politics. but now a joke. it is a very old joke and i told it once to a group of. this was when i was in india. i told her to a group of people in india and they laughed uproariously. and then they said that they had the same joke. this is a little dog, and little mutt comes up the boat from cuba. he is walking around the streets of miami and enjoying the view and a french poodle walks by and because he is a cuban dog, he has to start complementing and say, oh you are so beautiful and are you from around here?

i love the way you want. and she looks down her snout at him and says do you have any idea who you are talking to quake you are a mutt and i am a french poodle. i am a breed of distinction. and so the little mutt sort of is temporarily speechless. and then he says oh well, here i may be a mutt but in cuba i was a german shepherd. [laughter] >> les standiford what have you heard from this discussion? >> as a writer i think you have two, when think what is said most eloquently you have to be capable of holding two diametrically opposed concepts in your mind at the same time

and then when you sit down to write you have to be able to write characters who might be opposed in the same way diametrically. no matter what you believe in order to write compelling fiction or a worthwhile story for that matter. i would not have enjoyed spending very much time. i think with either andrew carnegie or henry clay. but if i were able to inhabit each characters persona at the time i was writing about their part of the book, nobody would have been able to, i think read that book or have founded anything but propaganda. and no matter what, all of this, i have tried and done my best to become that person to get in the head of the person that i can barely fathom as

they are delivering the state of the union address that say. it would behoove me as an artist to try. i am an artist. i'm not a politician and i'm not a businessman. and that's what i have to do in order to write good fiction. obviously when i write the fiction or vibrate nonfiction narrative, my politics are going to come through. my empathy's are going to come through. but i'm always trying to do e >> i would just like to say that i think one of the issues addressed was about this program tonight. and i have to say that i'm a veteran watch of booktv and watch what to do.i and i think you have been, and booktv, is exceedingly fair in terms of presenting all different sides of what's being published. and i think publishing itself

publishes from every different point of view. there isn't a point of view i i think that is left out in publishing. and i think that the service that you provide through booktv is something that is existential for our own industry to survive, and i want to thank you for it. and i hope that we haven't brought it down a notch in the listeners or watchers are at all. [laughter] i just want to say that. >> we have a young lady with a question in the back. just a sec. the microphone. >> thank you for being here, all of you. i think c-span is just fantastic. unfiltered politics, unfiltered everything. the only thing that you need is scotus. we need scouters televise, that's the supreme court of the united states. the father wanted to say. let them know what we can do to

help. >> i will say, we don't offer many opinions on c-span but we agree with you 100%. [laughter] mitchell, you've got a whole bunch, i asked you this earlier and hope you answer this question. in this room at books & books is this what your living room looks like at home? [laughter] >> a little bit. to my wife's chagrin. actually i was telling you earlier that over the 3 35 yeari don't think of myself as a collector but i'm a book accumulator, and i'm accumulating lots of books. being a bookstore owner, it's a terrible tease because they're so many wonderful books that come out every single year. there's no possibility i can read everything that i want toto read so i feel like i'm that

lucy arnaz thing where there's that thing that goes by, the chocolate factory and you start grabbing everything. that's kind of what i do is i grabbed everything i might want to read. and it is stacked up in mywhat d house. last night i was just sort of e browsing around what i had and i picked up come under basketball fan and a pick up this book that came out a few years ago on the dunbar high school basketball team, which very few people know was probably the greatest highba school basketball team ever. .. basketball team. was people probably don't know is the greatest high school basketball team ever. it had five players that went on to the nba.including muzzy and others. and i just happened to pick it up and read it and it was fantastic. so that is kind of the way that this scattered approach to accumulating books is what goes on with me. >> for your parents readers?

>> i grew up in my room. i will not forget, you made member the old quickbooks series. my they had everyone to agree works and they busted in my room as ay middle-school kid.l and i remember picking upme robinson caruso and all these other and fitness related come from them i believe. >> host: ana menendez committee corporate name? >> i did. we would go to the mall, the first place would be be dealtt and come or choose to be there in the mall and i grew up in libraries and later grew up in mitchell's old place there. but that said, i read everything and i read all the time in the trees, in my room, in the living room. one of the books that have a lasting impression on a list

robber for mirrors i am the chief. he's best known for the chocolate war. the book that really affected me was i.e. and achieve. it is a strange book. chapters alternate with the psychological questionnaire and it's this kid whose parents have suffered some horrible events. anyways, when i finished readint the book, i was a basket case. i guess i was about seven years old or eight years old. i just cried for hours and days and was really in bad shape.s my mother who was a reader but before that a very practical daughter of merchants, she said if you keep this up, if this is going to be a reaction of books, we're going to have to stop all this reading. luckily it didn't come to that. books always did have that very strong effect on me. >> host: les standiford.

>> guest: i taught myself to read before i got to kindergarten because my mother read to me. i loved being read to and i finally figured out and would get her to repeat sentences and no-space that what that word means? i do great advantage by the i got to ken urquhart i could read the titles of the boat and wind would come to reading hour, id could paint. do i get the one about i get to pick sneakily because of that. my grandmother will have another gone to high school was a great reader herself.er she had all these books on ourd shelves.ks on beautiful joe, tom swift series. i can still see the covers of these things beautifully

illustrated cloth covers. and i would read a until 2:00 at night reading these things with flashlights long after i was l supposed it. reading to me was like going to the magic show. it was like a kid who wanted to be a magician and wanted to do the same that he loved so much. that's why i'm sitting right here, right now in my grandmother's parlor with the old chronicling the pier at >> host: mitchell kaplan, have you ever written a book? have you thought about it? >> guest: you know, you obviously can't be in thisn. business without thinking about it and i immediately make that thought go as fast as it possibly can. i think in college i thought maybe i would write and then i realized i didn't have either

the patients are probably the r talent to do it. i respect writers so much that i would have writers block immediately if i sat down to try to read anything. but there are lots of interesting stories to tell ove the 35 years. i feel like the luckiest guy in the world been a bookseller that i've been able to meet the heroes that i grew up finding. the people i found this heroes growing up. one story would tell that doesn't happen anymore, but when i was a kid in elementary school coming of the safety patrol, my elementary school has something called a library patrol. we've got little buttons and we would go to the library and we would help the librarian out and we would talk about books that we read. it was one of the first book groups i think i've ever been a part of. in fact, and not library i discovered john f. kennedy got shot. the library came in and told us

that it has been. i had always had the connection that way. it is something more and more schools like to do early on toms make that connection between relevance, reading and the book and some particular way. >> host: professor standiford, will one piece of advice for the writer who doesn't know where to get started. >> guest: and you've got to read and copy the book that you love the most. good morrow's, great writers steal. no one will notice if you are copying shakespeare.e. trust me. they won't pick up on it. chances are pretty good. so how do you think writers figured it out before there were creative writing classes? they read other writers and that i'm going to emulate them and try to do what he or she did

only a little bit different. that i think is in sedona and there's no bookstore in creative writing classes, take the book that you love and essentially tell your version of it. >> host: ana menendez. >> guest: thinking of a very great cuban poet which we just got to see in havana, she was telling me that the poet when people would come to her and say what do i need to do to be a writer, to a poetry, she would say read more and write less. basically what less insane. i set up this creative writing program which is a wonderful, wonderful university and i miss them all tremendously. one of the first things i did is the first. they just read.

not even really writing.ally wri they are sort of taking notes and doing things on their own day but i'm not reading their creative output. just have them read. i think that is the best adviceh that's how a lot of us came to writing as suggested for reading i just wanted to do it. >> host: land and delmar come to california. you've been so patient. go ahead with your question or comment for a panel. >> guest: thank you. i think c-span is just the most wonderful thing, book weekend, i love it. i called and was just an innocent question about david mccullough, but i didn't hear you guys say what his topic was going to be. but since then, i would like you to answer that. two more things that i'd like to comment on. one is i do agree with lauren. i think that we need to give this new president a chance.s n

what he is now as he is just the of the joke. you know, this is sort of like l substitute teacher and he goes into the classroom and on the children are going that's not the way the other teacher does that. so you now, we need to give them a chance that the contrary is in a lot of big problems.e, i think it's really -- >> i do know -- i can relate to what conservatives feel like where they are afraid to say out loud what they think in this country now. you do feel intimidated. >> host: land outcome of thank

you for your point. i see mitchell kaplan. >> i'm wondering because i'm curious as to what linda is reading. >> host: if she's still on the line, would like to hear that. what books have you bought recently? >> caller: i wanted to give mitchell a compliment.ha i'm looking at the tv screen and seeing these beautiful books. i don't think you guys are -- hello? >> host: we are listening. >> caller: i wanted to give mitchell a compliment. i am sitting looking at this background and it looks like the most beautiful bookstore. this tall, wonderful at -- there is nothing better than tall shelves with books than men. it just looks like the most beautiful.helves i'm in california so i don't go to florida. mitcmy gosh comic is gorgeous,

mitchell. >> host: there's a lot of people on the line. we won't find out what she's reading. david mccullough spoke in april is called the american spirit. right there is some information for you. bill o'reilly, and ann coulter,, justin kirby said --and conservative authors on the bestsellers list. do they sell in florida? guess who we do. we had to book signing with ann coulter. she came in and sign books. we had a bit like going out the door. bill o'reilly i think is one of the biggest selling authors around these authors around these days with all of his series. know, it goes -- you know, it's a big country. there's a lot of books being published. there is a lot of interest different people have and there is no reason why it can't be big enough for everyone to be able

to read something they like. megyn kelly is another book recently published. she didn't come down to miami. it is interesting.he i would like to see more conservative authors coming to miami. they don't come as much because they don't see miami as conservative, and maybe a little further off the stage.be over the years, we have had just about every conservative thinker you can imagine come through. >> host: new books coming out by politicians. i want to know if these are important books that you will read. elizabeth warren has a book coming out.ow george w. bush came out the booi on veterans day chelsea clinton books came out and global health care. senator sheldon whitehouse on the environment. al franken is writing a book as well. governor john kasich.

are those important books? will you pick those up or do they sell? >> well, you know, this is about every book. to be honest, it is ultimately about the writing. it is ultimately about the book. it is really not about, you know, the genre or about is a someone's position paper. it is how the story is told that makes the book sell or not sell. that is different than whether or not this is not a correct going on. certainly if someone comes and is not a graph, they want to meet the person more or less. whether or not someone will pick up john kasich book which is a position paper of some sort. i don't know. barack obama spoke sold because they were while the. they were interesting accounts and they were memoirs of a person life.

george bush's first book that he wrote. >> host: turning points? >> guest: decision points. it sold really well because it was the account of how he viewed his presidency. those are the important books people will buy. too often people get caught up in this notion of genre. they ask me all the time, what trends, what are people buying? it isn't that simple. it's really about the book. it's a good book.ut it doesn't matter what genre. >> host: do have another question in the audience? we will take this call from jerry in iowa yet, florida and south florida. you are on booktv. go ahead. >> good evening. i would think to ask a question to each of your panel members, kind of make a hypothetical. if you're each given a manuscript or above and you areu not familiar in any way with th

material and you are not told who the author was, could you tell if the book was written by a male or female? >> host: what you asked that question, jerry? je guest: i wonder if there's such a thing as a male or female style if there was at one time or still is now. >> host: les standiford >> guest: no way. statistically speaking you might say i used to be a mysteryy, writer. people used to say there were no feminine mystery writers. i only like to read the hard oil staff women do.only lik i don't think that's true anymore particularly since as the word has gotten out and the world has gotten smaller to say i don't think there's any such thing. those books you listed a moment

to go, do think they'reto see important? yeah, but i'm a storyteller. the nonfiction i read pass at a story in it, beginning, middle and end. it's not about subject matter. is there a story you haven't heard before. all those books, my someone said this is a great narrative of how he came to hold these opinions and started off by liberal and became conservative.e. i might read that book. how does that happen to you? i just want to read stories.d s politics. >> host: ana menendez.ez? just go to answer a question, no.. you can make assumptions and in some cases you might be right and in some cases you would bege wrong. thinking of an unnecessary woman. i'm trying to think of the author. i forget the author's name.

it's from the point of view of a woman so you might get the manuscript at that obviously a woman wrote this and you'd be wrong. there's many, many books. that's the first that jumps out because it's the most recent i read. many books you could make assumptions about. >> host: we have 30 seconds. go ahead and tell us your name. >> one of the things you can do to support your bookstores like me when you travel to go visit, this is my second and it's wonderful. i want to hear for voices who feel excluded or trying to find their voice as a writer, how did each of you find the confidence to say i want to take this chance and write and try to get my story out there. postcard urgently you each have 10 seconds. [laughter] >> guest: i give it to mrs. john smith fourth grade teacher and she said good going.

you keep at it. [laughter] >> guest: i wasn't planning to publish. i was just writing or the pleasure of it in of it and it found its place. coast guard so sorry we did not get to your whole stack of books over there. come to books and books and you'll see the book sack over there. thank you for being our host this evening. we appreciate it. ana menendez, les standiford commit thank you both. thank you, all.

>> yes, it really was an industrial powerhouse in the days did something i had allied to you of when i moved there. it had a multitude of sugar refineries, and dozens of breweries and invaded a notch but nor is it the night teen and early 20th century. brooklyn invented chick lit, the teddy bear. benjamin and more, domino sugar, just a few. in 1849, you'll like this one.

i cap named charles pfizer, one of the many german immigrants to iran during that period opening what would become one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. you probably know and revere the company for inventing such essential projects as zoloft, lipitor and let us not forget. over the years, companies like pfizer's import millions of immigrant and brooklyn neighborhoods and businesses grew to accommodate them. but history is speckled and brooklyn's fortunes shifted in the second half of the 20th century. the factories that have sustained so many american started to leave not for china and mexico as is the case today, but for far less crowded and more truck friendly american suburbs. in 1957, walter o'malley broke

the heart of every red-blooded brooklynite at taking the beloved baseball team as they were referred to by locals to los angeles. in retrospect, it seemed to foretell a state by the 1960s, the waterfront was becoming a sad and c. and shell of its former self. in 1966 command the navy yard during world war ii had been the largest was decommissioned. by the time i moved to park south, about a mile away from the navy yard, it was home to a few operating winter houses, but mostly acres of empty buildings, feral dogs and the occasional bodies that had been reportedly dumped by one of brooklyn's legendary wiseguys. they were still pending of holdovers at the time that we moved in from the earlier waves

of immigrants. our next-door neighbor or an elderly irish couple who had once taken in borders has so many dead in a brownstone areas of rockland during the depression in decades following. they were now being paid to the city of new york, elderly, and many of them sick and out of third musical accompaniment of my children's early years. hopefully they can't remember it. in fact, actually the same populations. years later, the writer who grew up in a working-class park slope would say about this time. you heard it over and over in those days. we've got a get out of her clan. you know what, a lot of people did. so, the question that i had in my mind as i approached this book with how to deal her clan

become the new brooklyn? the place that gq magazine called, and i still can't read this without laughing. the coolest city on the planet. how was it when i moved to park slope, liquor stores have bulletproof cages to protect their cashiers and they now have picture windows and free tasting of their expansive and expensive pinot noir collections. how could we have gotten to a point in history as we did in the fall of 2015 for the fabled parisian department store spent a month celebrating brooklyn mania with an exhibit called brooklyn reef gauche. how could the only chic parisians be so winters did in nine products is animated and brooklyn for seeming as though they could be worn heartbeat by a brooklynite or at least a parisians idea of a brooklynite. one final question.

why should anyone care what happened to brooklyn? the place isn't even a a city. if the borough. it has 2,600,000 people in a city of 8 million. with 330 million, what's the big deal? i try to show what about the reason we should be interested as brooklyn is a microcosm for the vast economic and social changes that have been wielding our politics than it should be mentioned the politics of western europe. over the past 30 or 40 years, and its economies like that of the united states have been shifting away from manufacturing or to put it very crudely, and making staff towards knowledge, information or again to be crude, thinking about stuff. new york city was already becoming the u.s. capitol as the economy by the 1960s as corporations centralized and

moved headquarters to downtown and midtown. by the end of the 60s, 59% of the new york city labor force was in white-collar occupations. this gave new york a real competitive advantage over other fading industrial cities. most of the people who are white-collar or predominantly men who were working downtown to the 515 train just like rob peachtree played by dick van dyke come in the fictional has been played by mary tyler moore who i did want to mention today. but a few of those white-collar workers, especially the more creative types and media started moving into larger working-class brownstone brooklyn's. they were gentrifying to use a word that only became popular many decades later.

rocklin heights, cobble hill, park slope, perhaps you can trace that a little bit on your map. israel lovely 19th century browns to a neighborhood that had gone into disrepair. over the next decades, the number of white-collar workers increased as did the number and variety of white-collar jobs in new york. government was expanding and sewer colleges and universities and jobs for lawyers, and us traitors and professors. by the two patents, technology was opening up new occupations for the educated and creative young including occupations to blood never heard of before. the kiln operators at the sugar refinery may be gone, but the new book has many thousands of web designers, app developers and social media can attend. next-door to me that i referred to earlier is a perfect illustration of the shaft and

the older to the new knowledge economy. it's really gentrification in a single brownstone. i heard it mentioned that there was an elderly irish couple living there. the house band with immigrants have been here long enough have a civil service job for a postal worker, while his wife had been in charge of the borders as i mentioned before. fast forward 15 years. the house was sold, renovated and subdivided into condominiums marble bathrooms, granite counters, recessed lighting, the whole deal. the first people to move in with people you would have never met in the old rockland. an architect and his wife, a furniture designer, an editor at wilson will enter has been, also an editor at a music magazine. a wall street trader moved in

soon after with his wife a freelance writer and their three children. same block, same house, old brooklyn, new brooklyn. >> here's what the doctors recently featured on booktv is afterwards.

>> america is a great country, but we have little bacon is now by who we are and what we want. that is what we are wrestling with. this unity peace we have to break down because the problem is solved in the last election is that the country feels one way and another half of the country feels another. the people in rural america, working-class blue-collar people who've been hit hard over the last couple decades but poverty, jobs overseas, that is largely white america of a certain class. and then you have urban america which has a whole different areas of unemployment and crime and donald trump has talked about the murder rates. but the first thing we get to is we live different experiences and that is key because we now talk about that.

the unity comes in that we love our country. not that we agree with each other. >> it out, the good fortune ill fortune to be part of greater silicon valley. originally without the silicon valley were spread in every direction. >> the tech industry is the latest room. right now the tech industry is not only the juggernaut of the state, the juggernaut of the country.