Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV In Provo UT 20160702

For me and my own research is unmistakable that mormonnism has again more than its fair share this weekend were in prove, utah, with the help of comcast. Next we visit moons rare books. Ive been collecting rare books for 30 years. I decided to relocate to provo after selling my book shop in dallas, which also sold new books. The past years those with new books have suffered with the advent of ebooks and everything going digital. What i found is the interest in rare books has increased. In my shop right now there are about a thousand books, but in my inventory there are 5,000 books. I rotate books through here, and i specialize in four different areas. I specialize in rare bibles, older bibles, bibles from the past 500 years. Inning utah i specialize in early mormon books. Classics and literature, and early american history. One of the item is enjoy collecting are bibles or religious texts that belong ted wellknown historical figures, and being from utah one of the more popular items is Brigham Youngs copy of the book of mormon. Housed a protective clam shell but this is according to family tradition, this is the copy of the book of mormon that was on Brigham Youngs night stand when he died in 1977. And on the title page you can see his signature. Another one of my i enjoy early american history, and this is really one of the most important books printed in america pre1800 and its an original copy of Thomas Paynes common sense, which was printed in philadelphia. This printer was robert bell on third street in philadelphia, and if you go there today youll see a black box saying here is where common sense was presented, january 9, 1776. It is sewn together. Quite rare, and it was printed the times, in january of 1776, and has an interesting story because thomas payne went to robert bell, wanted to have this printed, and he wanted the proceeds to buy the soldiers mittens. Well, after it went through three printings they had a falling out, and so thomas payne allowed anybody to print it. He lowered the price and said anybody. Can print and it thats one reason the book is so wellknown and has the designation of having the highest saturation of any book ever printed in america. My favorite find in the past year is a bible that belonged to the man who wrote lord of the rings. J. R. R. Tolkeins copy of the bible. And i have protective case made for it but it was very simple bible. Printed in 1947 in the middle of writing lord of the rings, write it from 1937 to 1954, and you can see its beautiful. Wellknown recognizable signature in the front. But what most interests me about this book is the fact he annotated the book and made comments in the margin, and on the last page of john he is making comments in greek. Comparing it to seven different versions of the bible. He is making thing saying this is a better translation of this greek of the original greek, and so j. R. R. Tolkeins bible, one he had while he was writing lord of the rings. Just a thous books in here are worth over ten million, and there are actually even a few books worth over a million apiece. Although i have books as low as 100, but thats kind of the starting level for the books i have. What i enjoy so much about the rare books, its the hunt. A treasure hunt. Its find can them, and then also realizing in these older books theyre different. They have a different feel, different look, and often a different story, often depending on who owned the books, an added story within a story. This is a the Perfect Place to keep these books because its fireproof, humidity controlled, and theres no uv light. This little book has a big story but if youre looking at it youll see its in latin and could be overlooked unless you understand what this symbol is, this little book has a great story but you have to know history. You have to understand the history of this time period to understand who owned the book. So you almost have to do detective work. Now, to determine who owned this book you look at this, when you see this you see a crown. That makes you think royalty. You go, okay. Well, now you see the fleur de leis so you think thats french royalty but why do you see the two side inside well, this is because this person was married. So, this would be a queens copy. The king at the time was louis xvi. This is the seal of marie antoinette, and this is in latin but if you know what her seal looked like you could identify this. Very few of her books have survived in private hands because when she was executed her libraries were absorbed into the French National library this would have been also book she carried with her and would have had more than one. Something each year they were given new coaches so she would have had a few and could have given this copy away. Thats why it is not in the French National library. And finally another fun book is a shakespeare book. He died in 1616 and in 1623 his complete works were first printed, and then again in 1632 and 1664 and 1685. Only about 250 of each of these copies have survived. But theres maybe a thousand copies in the world, and of those thousands, the vast majority, over 90 , are institutionally owned, but i have a portfolio, 1685. Even before you open the book, you know that book has a story to tell. Its just a stunning binding with working clasps. Its the complete works of shakespeare done in 1685. And i have it open to romeo and juliet. I will continue to collect books the rest of my life. I have had people ask me exwhen are you going resneer what are you going to do . Im already doing it. I cant think of anything i would rather do than travel around, tracking down rare books. I enjoy these books. People ask, do you read them . Absolutely. I will go through. You never know if one of the earlier owners has made an inscription that could substantially increase the value of the book or add added interest to the story behind the book. And so i will always do this. I never get tired of it. I love sharing stories with old and young, and i look forward to every day. This book shop has been closing in record numbers, National Chains are closing down. 15 years ago, i knew owners of about 300 book stores. 250 of those have closed. Just in the past 15 years. So, its important for these stores to continue to survive. They add character to the local community. Its a place, a Meeting Place for people, and it keeps history alive. By these book shops continuing to be in existence. During booktvs visit to provo, utah, we spoke with easterly fry about his vision for the country and his book revital yuiing governance, restoring prosperity and reconstructing foreign affairs. Generally twothirds say the country is moving in the wrong direction. Almost half of parents say the think their children will not do as well as the parents have done in adulthood. Theres some discouragement out there about the future of the United States. In part, because a fair number of households have not done too well financially. Not much in the way of raises, not much in the way of increased fringe benefits, but at the same time, their healthcare costers going up, costs of education, particularly at the college level, are going up so the feeling is theres a lot more money going out but not as much coming in, and so theyre wondering, are we being serviced well by our political leaders in washington, dc . What do we need to change in order that my own individual circumstances will improve significantly . Coming out of world war ii, and then moving particularly through the early 70s we did very well, and keep in mind it was amazing at the end of world war ii. He had had over 14 Million People in uniform. We had to bring most of them home. And what were they going to do . We were able to basically get young men and women into colleges and universities, get them enough jobs, moving from a wartime economy to civilian economy, and we did very well, and you could come out a school with a High School Education and generally gate get a good job, particularly in the manufacturing sector, as we move to 1945 where the United States alone kented for almost half of everything that was being produced in the world. And when you combine that with the fact that we had the strongest military, a monopoly on atomic weapons. I argue in the book that the United States may well have been the most powerful super power ever in terms of its global reach. And then it made sense that the devastation of europe, parts of asia would go away. Those people would get back on their seat and our share of global gross dome product and other things would go down, and they health but were still a very still significant economy in the world. Although when measured in what the economists call purchasing power aparty, factoring out the differential in currency, our share of global gdp is probably the lowest its been in a century or so. And most americans think that our influence globally has been going down rather significantly, and that we have to adjust to changing circumstances. Were still a super power, but not as dominant as we once were, and with the world changing, becoming more complex, that we have to adjust to that, and do the best we can, both internationally and at home to preserve the security of our people and also their prosperity. How did this change happen . Basically in part, other nations have grown more rapidly than we have during the past several years. We also went into a period of slower economic growth, and of course we look at the economic miracle, if we can call it in china, where literally since the end of the 1970s, hundreds of millions of chinese have been brought out of poverty, and the chinese economy growing more rapidly than our own through much of this period and that has happened in many of what we call the emerging markets. Other developing countries as well. So, we our share of things has gone down, whether its a share of world exports, world gdp, world Foreign Direct Investment and stuff like that. But probably were reaching a balance somewhere and theres no reason why this cant be a winwin situation in terms of they can do well, the country around us and we can do well, too, and we will just expand the economic pie and hopefully take into account environmental conditions and not degrade our environment and that well have a good standard of living, good quality of life, and so will more and more people around to the world. Whats what we hope for but no doubt the u. S. Influence is not as great as it once was. We he to cooperate more ive other faces north be as unilateral at times as we have in the past, and were getting used to that, and were not quite sure what the best way to do it is, and so the American People are looking at the u. S. Role in the world saying, well, were not as influential as we once we are. Were a plurality of americans think the 21st center may be the asian century instead of the american century. The 20th century was the american century. Americans are somewhat upset by this relative lack of our our drop in our influence, and our position in the world. And beyond that i think its what i call the triple combination in the book. Expanding globalization, unprecedented technology change, and also the creative destruction. What i mean by creative destruction, comes from a famous austrian american economist, basically we simultaneously create and destroy businesses and jobs, and let me give you an illustration of that. In the year 2014, we had a pretty good year. We create three million net new jobs in the United States. What really happened was we created 29. 1 million new jobs but we lost 26. 1 million. So, yaw, three million net new jobs, very good, but what if youre among the 26. 1 million where the job ended. What if youre a 55yearold steel worker and all of a sudden youre out of a job . Where bow going to duplicate that wage and fringe bin get outside have received. So with this triple combination of change and its occurring so rapidly, americans are worried. About their own futures, worried about the kids futures, will we be able to keep up as a nation . We bee qualified for jobs . How about the competition we other countries . How well will we do . Were living in an age almost like no other age in our history in firms of the rapidity of change, and naturally people are thinking, well, im not sure i like this. And but we have to adapt to it, which means almost lifelong learning, lifelong retraining for our jobs, because were probably doubling our database every year or two now, unlike any other time in human history. And so will we be able to keep pace . Anso with that i think the average american says, oh, yeah, we rowley have to be concerned about this. One of the great tragedies, i think, that we now face in the United States, we have 20 of our young people dropping out thereof school before graduating from high school. And theyre the ones that are really going to struggle as time goes on. Theyll have jobs which may not pay nearly as much as the average job pays, and doing labor that a lot of poo people will not have to do, and that obviously shows we have to put much greater emphasis on k through 12 education. We sort of do were in the middle compared to otherddle cor advanced Industrial Society inside turned of science and mathematics and reading comprehension. So we need to put more of an emphasis on what we are doing in the schools. Were losing 20 of the new School Teachers within three years, losing 50 within five years in major urban areas. In contrast, for example in finland, where i had the opportunity to teach for a year, all the students who wanted to become teachers have to have a graduate degree in a certain discipline, and to get into the university of helsinki in terms of bag teacher, thats being prepared for teaching k through 12, its more difficult to get into the university of helsinki if you want be to a teacher than to go to law school or medical school. Theres that put that much emphasis on the importance of teaching young people, and we probably have to do that as well. Pay our teachers better, better compensation, better working conditions, and understand we are raising new generation of leadership. The rapidity of change like we have never faced. So we have to do more in this area, even though were rich in Natural Resources the 21st 21st century, the most important Natural Resource is the human resource, and its brain power. So we have to make chute that our young people are given the training they need so they can compete very effectively in a world that is undergoing significant change. During booktvs recent visit to provo, utah, we toured the Crandall Historical Printing Museum, and discussed to the advances made in the printing process. Were here at the Crandall Historical Printing Museum in provo, utah. This museum has been here for around 18 to 20 years. Here at the museum we tell the history of printing from the beginning. We do it by telling the history of the printing of the scriptures, which is appropriate since the first book printed using moveable metal type was the bible. So thats where we start. Louis crandall is the founder and the owner of this museum. He is an old printer. He began printing when he was 14 years old, down in mesa, arizona, and has been printing his whole life and when he moved to provo he brought all of his old printing material, his old Printing Presses and the type and everything, and started showing the people and just sort of expanded from that, from the reasonable press is what we have here today. First thing they experience is learning about the printing using moveable metal type, beginning with the Gutenberg Printing press. This is the rep mix cal of the Gutenberg Printing press, the first thing printed using moveable type. What this is, its a converted press. Guttenberg, when he had to figure out a way to he saw the old olive press, the wine press and said, ill use that. You have a screw down the middle there and throw that handle or that flat board. And then he built this. This is a place to put the type. This is called the bed of the press. And this is where you put the type. You have the type made, you put the type in here. Now, every letter in here is an individual piece of pipe, put in one letter at a time. Next thing we need in order to print is ink. Now, youd think it would be no problem with ink because describes have been using ink for generations, but theres a problem with their ink. Very thin, waterbased ink. It didnt work here because it was all over. He needs a thick, sticky, black ink that sticks the surface of the type. He used linseed oil which is clear. To make it black he took lamp black or soot, to make a thick, sticky black ink. Quality has never been exceeded in the world, i dont know about that, but he used thats what he used. This is modern printers ink. Still use linseed oil for the base for printers ink and use different pigments. They dont use copper oxide for health reasons. They used different pigments. Now, they smear some ink on the stone, and i take get them covered with ink. Now, i have to work these for just a couple of minutes because i want to get that ink nice and smooth and even over the full face of the ball. Dont want any lumps or any bear spots. In order to make these ink bowls he took a wooden bowl, put a wooden handel on it. He covered it with goose skin. Why use goose skin . We dont know but its interesting he tide because gutenberg birth name was not gutenberg. It was genesfleisch, which is german for goose meat. He depend like it didnt like so it he changed his name. Why did he pick the name he did . In those days you hat a nice home, line them up in row and number them so they would name their homes. And he named his Home Mountain holme. He took this for his family anybody. So we call him gutenberg lollipop, smooth and even. You dont drag it across you dont roll it. You come straight down. Theres a real art to doing this. And remember the crew that does this particular job, for some strange reason, is called a beater. There. Now, the next thing we need is something to print on. Gutenberg did not have to invent paper. Papermaking had been invented in communicate the knowledge was brought to europe by exploreres. But theres a problem with their paper. Its handmade and has a hard, slick finish, which is fine for the describes with their oilbased ink but did not take a good impression with gutenbergs oilbased ink. He had to soften the paper. Slightly moist ended. This is the brisket and this holds the paper and place, and i lay it down and lift it up so it doesnt smear or tear. Fold this over, pull it under, and i pull the handle. Now, notice that plaque. Its just this wide ample sheet of paper is that wide. We only principled one page only principled one badge. The larger the plat, the more pressure it takes and we cant put enough pressure on with this wooden press so we crank it out and pull the handle again. And there, two nine. Got gutenberg type. This metal is heated to 600 degrees and runs just like water. Runs just like water at 600 degrees. Now, im going to take a labelful of it and put it in my type caster here. This is a typecaster. You take a ladle full of metal, and the typecaster. And turn it over, in and theres the metal i just poured in there. This cold steel is absorbed a lot of that heat, already cooled it off enough that i can handle it. There it is. My mold still on top. Break the mold off. And there i have on the end of it a letter b. I just cast a letter b. After you have all of this type cast, it takes hundreds and thousands of pieces of type. Then you want to just have a big didnt want to have a big bile sew he built boxes, a box for a, b, c, d, and capital letters up here, capital, a, b, c, d, and the small letters down here. And put the capital letters in upper part of the case and the smaller letters, so even today we call capital letters, upper case alerts and small letters, lower case letters. This is the press that printed the desertet news, the first paper in the intermountain west. The first edition, june 15, 1850. Now, 1850, thats just 400 years after gutenberg invented this printing process, and this is stateoftheart. What i want you to know is after 400 years, everything is still the same as what gutenberg invented. The press is iron, and other than that everything is still the same. The type of is still handcast and set in place one letter at a time. Put the paper on the tip and brisket. After 400 years. Now, instead of using the ink balls to ink the type, now we use ink rollers. 400 years. This is the leino linotype. The first advance independent printing after gutenberg. Linotype was invented in 1886. The way this works, up here in this magazine, is the matrix of all the modern alpha alphabet. This a matrix is a mold. Thats a linotype matrix, and theyre up near this magazine. You press a button, a key, some that piece of type comes down here, lines up here, in a row here. Just by typing it in. Once you have it all lined up, you can put this is called a space band that goes in between words and that automatically justifies your left and right. Then when youre done you pull the handel and it moves over here. The pot moves up, presses into the matrix and out drops a full line of type. That is the linotype. 1886. This machine was used by all the printers, all newspaper and all the print shops in the world, until the 1970s. Then the computer took over. Without a museum like this, this whole process would be totally lost. In fact it is being lost right enough. This printing process that we use, with moveable metal type, is being lost today. Going into the digital stage, and this is so important because this is where the modern technology came from. The printer on your computer began, started from a press like this. This is why its important to know about printing, about writing, about keeping records. Now on booktv. A literary tour of provo utah consecutive the help of comcast. Next we speak with susan rugh, whose book are we there yet talking about the ride of Family Vacations after world war ii. A vacation is an american invention, the way we do it near america is to take a road trip. While many families, especially well to do families, got in their cars in the 1920s and 1930s, and many people took railroad vacations in the 19 income century, its not until after world war ii that the american road trip or the American Family vacation as we know it is invented. The Family Vacation was brought about by an unusual confluence of circumstances. A lot of things happened as a result of having fought world war ii. After world war ii, the vets came home and they wanted to take their families to see america. So many of them made the pilgrim age to washington, dc or the white house or parks. That was one impetus for the parks, seeing democracy on the road. Another impetus toward the family road trip was coming home and there was very young marriage age and it started with what we know as the babyboom. And so the babyboom, families were larger, families were being termed at a rapid rate, and the cheapest way to go on a vacation is to put everybody in the car. So, that sets off from a social aspect the idea of the Family Vacation. The government had a part in the Family Vacation by making roads for families to travel on, and in 1956, the interstate federal highway act was signed, which provided for highways to be built across america. It was really a Civil Defense measure but it did benefit people in the fact there were all those Funds Available to the state to build roads, and not just any road. This is the kind of road where you dont have to stop. So these were roads that could go across states without turnpikes. So people could travel pretty far in a day because of these interstate highways. I think thats one the vets want to come home and see the america theyre fought for in the war, their buddies lost their lives for. This big massive effort of world war ii ended, and people came home, and they wanted to see what was america. If you lived in the east you might want to go west. You wanted to see what kind of a place this was that you had fought for. Initially after the war, with difficulty to get cars. Production of cars had been slowed down during the war because all the materials went to defense. But after the war, by 1946, they are producing new models of cars, and detroit gap producing new models of cars every year. So, the production of cars is a vital part of the American Family vacation, and increating this consumer economy, where you had to have a car, before the days of two cars in the garage. Had to have a car. Car ownership grew dramatically, allowing people to vacation in their cars. [inaudible conversations] National Parks were overwhelmed with all of the visitors, poo enemy yellow stone would drive to the park and not find a place to stay. The parks became extremely crowded and they came up with a program in 1956 they expanded all the parks, and began to mission 66 to be completed in 66 so they try to accommodate more people. But i argue that by taking their children to the parks, many children who grew up in cities, parentstrying to instill in them some kind of an appreciation for nature because the National Parks were wild and they were wild and they were dangerous places for children. Many children were hurt at National Parks. Children were bitten by bears, and fell into rivers, and some children died. So the National Parks were a way to take the children back to raw nature, and i think a lot of those children were the ones who in the 1970s began these environmental movements and it took back the parks. If you think of yosemite, these were a way for people to learn about the country but also to learn about their idea of nature. Now, think it also for many children and families created digoing to washington, dc and these american places, it created a sense of citizenship that, im a citizen of this great country. And at the same time people who did not have the full right of citizenship, this created in them a frustration, and a desire to change. And i argue that the strength of the Civil Rights Movement, the roots, come from many of these families who africanamerican families, many of whom migrated to the north, detroit, chicago, got back on the road and wanted to see theirll testifies and were turned away from restaurants. They were directed to substandard restrooms and gas stations. They couldnt eat at restaurants, even a place like Howard Johnson so for these people it was a way for. The to see that things needed to change. They had given their time to serve in this country, but they couldnt be served in a cafeteria . Something was wrong here. So were entrepreneurs in the black community, in the africanamerican communities all over the country, but especially in the south where segregation was legal, who would create businesses, and they would create roadside homes, places to stay, motels as motels were invented, and a very enterprising man named victor green in new york city, mail carrier, he contact eat mail care jersey come wild a listing of places where africanamerican families could stay and where they would know they would be welcomed. And this led to various other guides. This guide was called the green book, published in 1936 until the 1960s, and these guides would help direct africanamerican businessmen and africanamerican families to places where they would not be humiliated in front of their children, because it was humiliate experience for them. I found this story in the civil rights hearings, and i also found a version of this story in the trade journal for motels and basically the trade journal was saying, the Civil Rights Movement is something you need to take notice of. You need to deal with it with your customers, because for years, for instance, if a rich family, white family, was on the road with servants they would have to stay in other accommodations and would not put them up. This is true until the early 1960s in las vegas. This is a man named ralph simms, and the owned an aappliance store and his business was worth half Million Dollar and he and his family traveled to st. Petersberg, florida in the early 60s, and when simms asked the price of the room the motel owner quoted the outrageous price of 50,000, ralph simms said he would pay double the rate that the proprietor charged others because he said i have two kids out there, they havent had a good meal all day. Were all exhausted and we cant find anyplace to sleep. Motel manager refused. That night the sims family, who were negroes, the word at the time, curled up inside their parked car, counting the minutes until sunrise when they would begin hunting a colored restaurant for business. So, you can see in the story that they wanted they were wealthy enough and wanted to eat where they wanted to eat. Didnt want to just eat at a restaurant for colored people. Until they had enough money to go anywhere. But they werent being allowed to exercise their rights of citizen show, and this story of ralph simms and his family was read into the congressional record by senator javits in the civil rights bill, and roy wilson, secretary of the naacp got up and said, imagine yourself, he said, right now, getting in the Station Wagon packed and going on vacation with your family and imagine being turned away. Imagine not being able to get a place to eat or a place to stay. And the used that image of the family, of ralph simms, to convince the committee that something had to change. That public accommodations had to be open to all citizens. As i was thinking about Family Vacations and Getting Started on this book, i wanted to tell the story of the real family victories. The history of the Family Vacation. Not the Family Vacation on television shows. Ozzie and harriet or leave it to beaver because those on real depictions of reality, and i had spent 15 years living on the south side of chicago. I raised my children in a racially integrated community on the south side and i knew of the civil rights struggle, until i was aware of this, but once i read the history, almost all the history talked about buses, the trains, and something had not been done on the individual family experiences, and i wanted to tell the family story. What was it like for a family getting in a car . What would their experience be . I think the Family Vacation had its heyday in the 50s and 60s. Disneyland opened in 1965. People rushed to disneyland. By the team those children grow up and become teenagers and the in the late 60s 7s so enthusiasm for Family Vacations wayneed and part of it is because the children were growing up, babyboomers were growing up, but part of it is society is changing, and it was not cool to get in the car with your family there was a lot more sexual freedom. There was a lot of protests. The vietnam war. Want wouldnt to overestimate that but there was certainly the rising of a counterculture, and the idea that a vacation was for couples instead of for families. And you couple that with the deregulation of air fares, makes it cheaper to fly, and then the gas crisis in 1973, the arab oil embargo, people are waiting in long lines for gasoline. Glen becomes expensive, and when gasoline becomes expensive, the vacation becomes expensive. I think its important to know about the Family Vacation because it tells us a lot about how families have changed the history. We talk about Family Vacations that is lampooned in these movies and always have this view of this nuclear family. In fact most of the pictures show a mom, a dad, and a boy and a girl. And maybe a dog. So this is very idealized view of the Family Vacation. Well, familiesnot like that anymore. A Family Vacation now might be three generations. It might be having grandma along, and as a grandma now i hope thats true. It might be a married couple, a samesex couple now. Theyve places they can go and not be turned away. Might be interracial couple of a single mom with a bunch of kids. So the idea of family has to become more flexible. I hope and it seems to me that places are opening up. If you go on a vacation with you were one child, thats a Family Vacation. Youre creating a family time. You dont have to look like ozzie and harriet to have a good Family Vacation. For more information on booktvs recent visit to provo and the many other destinations on our cities tour go to cspan. Org citiestour. Heres a look at upcoming back fairs and festivals happening around the country. On saturday, july 16th, the annual harlem book fair. Then in august the Second Annual mississippi book festival will be held at the State Capitol in jackson. Coming up in september, the brooklyn book festival held in downtown brooklyn. And on saturday, september 24th, for the 16th 16th year in a row, booktv will have live coverage of the National Book festival hosted by the library of congress at the Washington Convention center. For more information about the book fairs and festivals booktv will be covering and to watch previous festival coverage, christian the book fairs tab on our web site, booktv. Org. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. Joining us now from chicago and the publishers convention is ron charles. What do you do for a living . I assign most of the daily reviewses in the washington post, and every wednesday i right write eye my own review. We review 20 books a week. Not bad. And we get about 150. So most go into the flames, im afraid. Host 20 books a week. Why isnt there a book section . Guest there is a book section online but we decided about four years ago to spread the reviews out through the paper to see if we could find more readers. Seemed like a disaster at the time to me. But i have had to admit we do in fact have more readers for book reviews now. We just put them in places that people read more. The old book world supplement was the section that everyone put aside to read later and the time never came. Now theyre in there every day, were in the weekend, style, outlook every sunday. People see our reviews more. Host what kind of books do you review. Guest i review only literary folks but we review a lot of political books, hoyt, history, science, biography, arts on the weekends, books about hoyt of film and theater and that sort of thing. Host why do you stick to fiction. Guest because i dont have to know anything. Host is that the end of your answer . Guest pretty much it. If you do a Nonfiction Book you have to been an expert in five days on the subject. Who are you to go against David Mccullough and critique his history of such and such. With fiction i can say whatever i want. Host do the pressure publishers want to have their book reviewed in the washington post. Guest they say they do. There are fewer outlets for book reviews. So, yeah issue think its one of the important venues for book criticism. Host jonathan, we. Guest he retired. One of my colleagues for many years. Every week, sometimes twice a week. Now he still have michael greener, every thursday. Another Pulitzer Prize winning book reviewers. Host how did you get interest this . I was an english teacher for many years, a job i love but the paper grading was wearing me down. And a students mother suggested i review books instead. So i went to a book store, bought a book off the in fiction table, wrote off a review and sent to the Christian Science monitor and they bought and it asked for more. Host lounge were you there. Guest seven years, the book critic and the book editor there. Host can a good rescrew or bad review sell or hurt book sales. Guest theres some Academic Research i suggests that a review in a major newspaper has a marginal positive effect on sales but doesnt apparently matter whether the review is positive or negative. Just getting the cover and the name out there helps a little bit. I know there are cases where very positive reviews have pushed books on the bestseller list, and once its there, you tend to stay there. Host where are the post continue to print book reviews. Guest oh, yes. Not only i know we will because we just for the first 9 11 many years added to the book section. Were committed to it. Host what books that are coming out. Guest the big one is about the underground railroad, which imagines that the underground railroad before the civil war was an actual railroad underground and everybody says its fantastic. Anny approve has a huge model coming out. Robert butler, he has a book coming out. Reaches back to this vietnam war days. Suppose told be wonderful, too. Host who are someoff your go torn authors. Guest im a suck are for anybody anne rites and i love jonathan franzen. I am amazed by the number of really fine authors we have in this country and the number we keep producing every year. I have to say, our writing program are really good at producing fine fiction writers. Many more books being produced we want to review than we have room for. Many more. I wont say every review we run as a recommendation, but more and more we are turning that way because people need direction. They go into the book store and its overwhelming. So many books and they want to know, basically, what should i read . And its getting harder and harder, i think to justify using our limited space to tell people heres a book you have never heard of, dont read it. No danger of them finding that book, so i tend to i dont want a lot of pans in the paper unless their bigname books and i can save peoples time. Otherwise ill point people to brocks they can enjoy want to read. Host in washington is it important that you review a lot of the political books. Guest it is, people turn to us. We have a lot of expertise in that area. My colleague, the nonfiction editor, a lot of nonpolitical tooks but all the time. History books, policy bikes, any books that impinge on law or government. We specialize in those books. Host oh do you develop your bestseller list . Guest the best seller lest is generated by nielsen and they take from the maryland, virginia, and d. C. And thats information is just given to us and then we filter out some things like textbooks, other things that might show up at certain times of the year. Everyone else does it to make it adhere to editorial judgment. Host what some of the best selling books in washington right now. Guest i wish i looked at the list. It doesnt differ much from the national list. Once in a while there will be some event and that will push a book up on a list or someone will come to our great book store, politics and prose, and move 300 copies that week and that puts stuff on the list in general the list tracks pretty much the national list. We keep looking at that to see if we some switch. We like the elements that pop it but isnt that different. Host ron charles, youre here at the Publisher Convention in chicago. What is the importance of this to you . Guest i get to meet a lot of publicists i talk to all year by email. They give me good recommendations. Some of them have become good friends, trusted friends. They tell me what to look for. Thats the biggest benefit. Obviously to meet some authors sometimes, which is fun. Can set up future interviews with them. Sometimes im just a fan and i can just get an autograph or embarrass myself, that kind of thing. Host do you do athing electronic with the book reviews. We tweet them, we facebook them. I started an experiment with buying videos. I got this comic series about books i do once in a while in the post. Im ron charles you may know me this the book ride critic for a major american newspaper. No, not that one. In a previous episode we received dozens of messages around me home. Clearly in these hectic times you neat book criticism that is fast, fun, and incredibly hip. People aske, how long can you keep this up . The expense. Good question. Here we are dish dont know how many expos so far but still just as challenging as at the beginning. This weeks new book is a blockbuster called freedom. You may have heardlet this novel bus the literary chat started before anyone could buy it but the New York Times ran their review of the book back in 1834. They save its a masterpiece. What does it mean, pa . I dont know. I dont reckon anybody knows. Friends, its even been on the cover of time magazine. Do you realize what a big deal that is . The cover of time magazine. And before the book came out, president obama was fighting for freedom. What is about . You can feel like youre in familiar territory. The whole story follows the rise and fall of walter and patty bergen, a troubled couple in minnesota with two children, its a take on suburban life. Were trying to figure out where readers are in any kind of a platform, and reach them with book criticism or book news, like everybody else. Host are you find finding guest the book videos, i dont know what the numbers, on twitter i meet people all over the country and thats fun. Lot are also authors. Guest a lot of my authors