Behindthescenes a social media on twitter, instagram and facebook. Guys, we are here, chatter on books, r 34th episode which is stunning and we are in an undisclosed location which makes me unhappy because weve been in an undisclosed location for a few weeks and were at east city bookshop which is 645 pennsylvania avenue southeast. Im going to keeprepeating the address, 645 pennsylvania avenue southeast because it this is bricks and mortar and we want people to come to bookstores like east city bookshop so thank you for having us. David alldredge, kornheiser, Michael Kornheiser, the most important person in the room and were thrilled to have everybody from cspan here, god bless you all for being here in the close members of my family, thank you for being here. We have a good show and asi realized, this is our last one for a few weeks because were going to take a few weeks off and retool and take a breath. I like the show and i start piling a lot into it so at some point in one night might need to waive me and go slow down but weve got great things on tap. We have random thoughts from me, a terrific literary birthday which we want to discuss. Going to talk to laurie about the shop and what its like running a local independent bookstore. Going to talk about freshman reading, if youre a freshman you should be putting the phone down and the ipad down and reading the book because you have required reading, will kick that around and some very dicey looks. We have is our featured authordavid epstein is blowing minds everywhere amongst the ansi type a people and there are a lot of them in the dmv with his book range. Why generalists triumph in a specialized world. Its a great book, its very counterintuitive but we also have to talk about calvert woodley, featured wine of the evening. Jeannie and david, im going to count on you for this one. I was down at our sponsor, 433 connecticut avenue, people i know are regular patrons there and it really is a fabulous place. Its a dc institution, gloria, youve probably been there. Its the best staff, the greatest election and they gave us today a lovely chardonnay, solving on blanche fromcalifornia, what do you think . 2017. I dont want to sound like a wine person. Thats why we have michael here because hes not a wine person. It was not like a new zealand solving on blanche, it was much milder. Its supposed to have a long finish, im not sure what that means and will hold up well in the present conditions as we have today in yournations capital. And the cheese is a lovely french goats cheese. Abraham launches arena, the internationally famous, you like the cheese, merry . Michaels been absorbingit. Every time we have a cheese, he always looks at me area you can taste the terroir. Its supposed to have a searches note, ive never heard of these is having a citrus note but you get five dollars off which is spectacular, i myself went as a customer not too long ago and im in the checkout line and i forgot to say chatter five which you get five dollars off which is not insignificant. Random thoughts for today, to bounce off all you guys. You can jump in anytimelaurie but youre going to have your own segment as well. Thank you notes. Mike crawley, assistant professor, we had him on a couple weeks ago. Avila sky, wonderful selection of books called any other place, it was one of our most surprising offers and you should happen here sometime. Born in appalachia, as this interesting collection of short stories called any other place. He wrote to thank you notes, one to the group and one to me and im going to read the note and ask questions about thank you notes. This is to the whole gang, names everybody. Thanks for making it so easy to be on the show. Iwas nervous because youre such warm inviting people. I hope to see you soon, all the best, and he sent one to me which is personal so i wont read that one. Cannot interrupt . Im the point of contact for this guest. The reason he was booked is because of you. I received a thank you text which has a different purpose and place and thank you note and im a little surprised i did not receive a personalthank you notes on that lovely stationary. Hementions your name but thats it. My name is his name. I think this is a gender thing. Michael, when is the last time one of you wrote and or receive a handwritten note in the mail to mark. Its not fair for me. Tori, i think thats personally bad for her. I write thank you notes that make you weak. No, no. Between weddings, birth announcements, holiday cards, i write my fair share. Liz is much better andthat tradition in her family. Her mother works at a school where in her mine work you did write handwritten notes went out with every mailing. Her father writes these beautiful missives that go out as well, Great Holiday cards but i think its different to get handwritten notes. Im going to walk around with mike hawleys notes for weeks. I wrote you a note about two weeks ago. I took some friends to lunch who had been incredibly supportive of my recent art show and they wrote me thank you notes. I mean, im an interesting demographic for this but i would say they are important to me to write and to receive. I write thank you notes that make you sleep. Handwritten with a stamp . Absolutely as i told you many times, ive kept every letter been written to me since i was 12 and i will continue to dothat. Those will be interesting boxes to unpack when youre dead and gone. Ive been handwriting things because i think theres an intimacy writing that there isnt in anything else which is why historians, being a history major it troubles me that we dont write letters anymore. Thats how you really told people who you were and what you felt. Increasingly people in government dont write anything down and dont want anything left to be analyzed, to be pulled apart area and lauren, thank you notes . You might not be surprised to know that we do get a lot of thank you notes from authors on paper. Not just emails, very nice notes. I write a lot of thank you notes in my head that are very [laughter] i have a lot of plans and beautiful stationary that im going to write it out on and after time goes by ithink i need to send an email or i wont send it at all. I have a lot of plans inmy head when i win the lottery to. I did try to do it and my mother would be ashamed. The authors would like to be on the show, mike hawley can come back anytime,these delightful. Whatis your standard signature on a thank you notes . It depends, if its someone with whom im close, if its not, its all the best and i thought of this when i got mikes notes in the mail the other day, im going to frame and put on my wall, i thought okay, the day after shows i send an email to the authors and sometimes you all say david, really, talking too much again. I often send an email to the authors thank you notes and following up and sharing the link , i put them up. I would say an email or a text is better than nothing. I would say because we are at peace city bookshop at 645 pennsylvania avenue which i will repeat many times, there are lovely notecards in the store. That is part of my aspiration, we have so many beautiful cards that i want to use them all. Theyre from a family drawer at home. Thats done, random thank you notes are done. Last week we talked about Megan Rapinoe and what the title of her book would be, shes signed a deal with penguin and shes also doing a kids book, let me see if i can find it. Its coming out, thatsreally fast. I moved it up. Had gone to Great Lengths to say this isnt just about soccer, this is about being we want to be, saying what you want to say and all these things with no surprise, god bless her, i hope she gets a huge advance. We answer the question last week does she do a book, what will it be called . We had great titles. When does she run foroffice, michael . Shes already on the four year cycle so lets just plus for her right now, she should be finished with the book tour by then. It depends. You have to realize your personality comes through in different ways. For her, the book tour might fill this need for service and if you see the way shes responded to the media, to the microphone, she has something to say. That doesnt mean she necessarily needs to go out and serve inpublic office, this might beenough. This year my view of other athletes in any way . Shes sweet generous, she is oneofakind. I shouldnt say i would be surprised, i dont know that she necessarily automatically runs for office for the simple fact that her partner is sue bird who is an amazing athlete in her own right and all hall of famer in her own right but is not someone who likes to live in the public eye. And is very reluctant sometimes to live in the public eye. But having said that, shes been in the public eye so as megan for a very long time so circumstance, time, both their lives. I dont know them personally so i cant speak to where they are in their lives and this is something that calls to them. I increasingly think the only ones that can get into that level of the public eye are those who are used to it, who can handle the scrutiny and the pressure and the intensity and just dont care. Shell get 150 Million People who say nice things and 125 million who say mean things and she doesnt care. She has athick skin and thats what ittakes. We would like to have her on the show , when she comes out, shes going to go to mark when shes on the show we can ask her. Hopefully they have cspan where she lives. This is my weekly appeal to sean doolittle, he is a big supporter of local independent bookstores,visit his local. Have an off day at the end of the week. Im just going to throw this out there, when we first thought of this month ago, send an email off to somebody and they fire right back. They say great, he loves it, will have him on and they started throwing updates for when he would be in town and then i dont want to be cynical about the time the next started to take this spring, they started to backpedal on that offer but you still want him. Theres a busy schedule off the field as well and we know he was at a local bookstore in Cleveland Park this past weekend doing a reading as well. This is closer to next stadium. As i told you, theres an open date at the end of august. There might be a special popup of chatter on books. Last thing and this might be my favorite, today would be any show mussolinis birthday. 1883, not a name. The crowd is going what is he talkingabout mussolini . The guy from cspan is on the phone going get me out of here. 1883. Knew he wrote a novel . Anybody . Lori, youre the pro. Cowrote a novel called the cardinals mistress and i tried hard to find the name of his coauthor, who it was. Find anything and i thought because this book was so bad, the coauthor was probably killed but it was shockingly very anticlerical. And it was in serial form. It came out in serial form. Apparently it was dreadful, no surprise there and it finally got hold off the shelves or whatever circulation it was in because he reached some truce with the vatican i have some excerpts here. It was like a bodice ripper kind of a novel. He tried to find absolution by the next chapter. Im going to give this to michael because michael has the nicest voice. Cd2 highlighted sections at the bottom left and mark this is our reading by Michael Kornheiser of Benito Mussolinis novel. What kind of voice would you like for this . Did you have a racy italian bodice ripper voice. I actually did take italian. I will build you a secret, altered the depth of my conscience. I will be yourslave. Let me pause for one second. You really want me to read this . Youre already in. I remember this. Strike me, despise me, the me, grant me the revelation of yourself, rented i may you, granted i may lose myself with you andthe supreme illusion. You do not listen to me. Shameless courses on harlot. Well, i shall come to get you in the same castle, i shall let the common brutes of the marketplace satiate their idol lost on your cynical body. You shall be the mockery of the unreasoning mob. Your corpse will not have the rights of christian burial. You will be cast into the field, turning the page. Or you could stop. Nosurprise. Evidently it was dreadful but shockingly , people went. You know, on good reads where there are 9 million reviewsof every books , theres no review. Theres no review on good reads, there cant be. There are reviews on goodreads of Benito Mussolinis book so happy birthday mussolini. I am troubled wishing when he tell mussolini a happy birthday. Hitler was a failed visual artist. Though theres some kind of frustration. Someone close to us, to our family, we believe if the Vienna School of arts had accepted hitler, but they rejected him. Its a theory. David, last thing, happened today and youre the only one i know who would notice. In 1991 Yankee Stadium fans through cups and blowupdolls at they can say go. Why would they have done that . Because he was close a canseco. What about the blowup dolls part . If its too racy im assuming it had something to do with performanceenhancing material that he may or may not have been taking that we dont know for sureand we cant say for sure because to do that would be actionable. Lets go with someone we knew who had said that. Moving on. All right, now were going to shift to one of the many reasons were here at east city bookshop 6 45 pennsylvania avenue southeast. David will learn if hes nice to us, out of the title of his book a lot but were here with the owner of the store and you and i visited a couple of times, its a fabulous place. People should come here. Theres enough in the cranny and a book for everybody. You seem like a smart, intelligent, welleducated person. Whatever possessedyou in the amazon age to open a bookstore in 2016 . I was ready for that but the thing that really pushed me to finally do it was annoyance at the fact that i had to drive all the way across town or across the river to virginia just to buy a book. It used to be drovers. That was our Neighborhood Store and we spent a lot of time there everybody in the neighborhood went there. They were here for decades and decades and they closed in 2009 was kind of a low point or independent bookstores because you had finally the Big Box Stores that amazon had come on very strong and started with books. My kids never realized that but they started books so that was kind of rough time but i thought well, somebody will open a bookstore in this neighborhood because at that point, every bookstore and closed in town except there was still a barnes andnoble downtown. Politics and prose. Wasnt borders around . They closed in 2011 so they were there downtown as well but there was nothing. We had great used bookstores but nothing in southeast, northeast. Southwest. The only bookstores left were in northwest so. Those people by the way when they saw the buggy whip manufacturers going out of business went okay, thats not a business to be in. But you see every other one closing down but you go me, why you . It was both annoyance and having to drive across town to a bookstore and thinking that my neighborhood has a lot of readers, i knew this as a fact and i also i think that breakdowns and neighborhoods have good bookstores. And myneighborhood should have one. Im waiting for someone to open it. And of course, before i got this idea and i couldnt let go of it, so my kids are getting older. Im looking at what am i going to do next, i want to keep doing what im doing, do Something Different mark i couldnt let go of this idea so i said im going to do all the research i can do, learn everything about it because ive never done anything in the Book Business before this and i thought this will talk me out of it. This will be the cold water. I went to bookstore school which is, you dont call it that. Is for your school . Did you do it online mark. I actually went to florida to Amelia Island and it is a couple and its sort of recommended by the american booksellers association. I learned all about this and literally evil where there from all over the country who were either thinking about or had sort of started down the road to or just want to learn more about how to open a bookstore though 40 hours, 80 hours a day for five days, we learned a crash course in pointofsale systems and the terrible margins in bookselling and all the things you need to know. But what i took away from that was oh, if itll work anyplace, itll work in my neighborhood and then i couldnt let it goand then i have to say we opened in april, and april 2016. And the first day, there literally was this huge line all day long and i thought okay, now go down, you can catch a breath and figure out what were doing. And it never really slowed down. Its great. Its grown so much faster than i had projected. So its all good. 20 years ago if you walked into a bookstore there would be shelves and there be books. I need to ask some person behind a desk about a book. Now you come in and theres a lot going on. Theres always something going on so talk about the kinds of events you have going on and i wantto do this as respectfully as possible, the 13 book clubs you host here. We have 13 instore book clubs, those are just funds sponsored by our store. We also have a couple that are private book clubs that meet in our lounge area. Talk about why the private book clubs come to meeting you your area. They come here because its not their space, theycan come here and i dont have to clean up their house. And they like to be around books. And they need a mediator. Sometimes they need a mediator, thats my theory about why the instore book clubs work so well because often clubs are a bunch of friends, people have known each other for a long time. Their friends for a while and they start to turn on one another. They have issues with power struggles and things like that, whos going to choose the books and i think that here because we provide someone who can facilitate discussion and the book using and is a neutral space and nobody has to clean up or cook, we encourage everyone to bring wine or snacks and beer but nobody has to be the host. And that had people tell me that they also, they like the instore book clubs because they truly meet people who are just there to talk about the books so people, like i had, we have a customer who works for our councilmember and she said no one in book club knows that i work for a councilmember and i love it. I love that this is a safe place for people. It is and you heard people talk about the third space and its that kind of in between space that is not a theater, is not a private home its sort of a public space where public things happen you can also have a little bit of ownership and discuss and kids, on their way home from school and if there, if there little short we have a little change that we help them cover their books or call their mom or something so it fills a space for people. Who do you have comingup, what authors