[inaudible conversations] and welcome to booktvs live coverage of the 64th an usual book awards in new york city. These years awards are being hosted of morning joe. Coming up in a minute youll hear from maya. They sponsor the National Book awards. All evening booktv will be live tweeting and updating with the winners. If you would like to follow along booktv is our twitter handle and facebook. Com booktv is our facebook page. After these two awards are given out, there will be a break for dinner. You will see young peoples literature, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction awards give out. Now live coverage of the National Book awards. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as we begin the medal ceremony. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, [inaudible] good evening. How is everyone tonight . Beautiful im mika, cohost of morning joe. And im deeply honored to be here tonight. Im also very excited to say this to you on uninterrupted welcome to the 64th National Book awards. I got through it its the oscars of the book world, or as frank leeb wits called it, the oscars without money. Well take them. I have a very close connection to this evens awards. Just last month, we had the monitor honor of the the chairman of the National Book town daycare to announce the National Book foundation finalists. As a threetime author myself, i know firsthand what an incredible undertaking it is to write a book and the nightmares scenarios it poses on members of the family. Im so impressed by all of tonights nominees and honorees. On morning joe were proud to give authors the plat tomorrow to discuss their were work and the morning joe book bounce which is fantastic on amazon. Weve started a book club for nonfiction reading, and we hope to have a lot of finalists on the show very soon. As we gather this year, theres a lot of news and speculation in the book world. Random house and penguin merged this year, when they did there was a lot of hope, especially in the alternative rock world that the new company would be called random penguins. [laughter] they decided to call it Penguin Random house. Looking around the room, ive seen a lot of writers stuffed in these tuxedos, and they maybe should have called it random penguins. Just saying. You look handsome. The giants of the digital book industry are here tonight. Barnes noble, amazon, apple, and its been another banner year for digital books with the exception of any e books that had to be downloaded by from health care. Gov. [laughter] low blow. In fact, while im at it. I just heard that president obama was shopping a new book called how to work with congress. And it will be eligible for next years fiction category. [laughter] it hurts so badly. But were here tonight to celebrate writers and readers and every one of you in the industry who bring them together and the excellent work that you all do. As a reader and a writer, i applaud all your hard work, whether its books on paper or pixels or anything else. Books still make the world interesting and exciting and wonderful and where would our world be without them . So, since this is an awards program celebrating the best books of the move. Lets move in to it. I come from the world of morning joe. But morning joe is not here. So were going to be on time tonight. Were not going to be interrupted and not going go long. Were going keep our awards Program Running on time. I have to be up at 3 00 a. M. Im be at the forefront of this. Lets begin. So present the literary award to the Outstanding Service to the literary community. We have tonight tony morrisson. [applause] tony needs no introduction. Ill try this. One of the greatest novellests in american history, winner of the nobel prize in literature, recipient of the president ial medal of freedom, resip yet and host of other honors it gives me great pleasure to welcome tony morrisson. Thank you. Did you see me walk . You dont appreciate it because you havent been in a wheelchair like i have for a long time. Its important to me. And im really delighted. Its great and its a personal pleasure to honored friend and artist and a legend. When i sat down to gather my thoughts about what i could say about maya angelou. The first is in fact of in spite of her truly outrageous talent she doesnt summon that routine jealously and put down that artists as famous as she are accustom to. Instead, maya inspires delight as well as awe. Her reputation sparkles with elegance, jens generosity, humor, strength, clean honesty, compassion, and dare i say wisdom. My son died one christmas, and the very first nonfamily voice i heard on the phone was maya with that unmistakable voice of sheer [inaudible] i cant admit the pleasure of her company. With so much toxicity around in the world. A seb and trust me,my maya can cook. [laughter] i knew her at random house. Where she published her first book. The auto biography was popular, of course. But more than that, it had breadth and meaning. And i dont recall any woman writer more insightful or more courageous describing her life. And equally important is it gave license to a host of other africanamerican writers. It opened the door to our inside, our interior. Minus the white day or sanctions. Interestingly, its provocation in 1969, neither began nor completed mayas work. Just think of this as a curriculum vitae journalist, writing for [inaudible] in 1960,1961. Play wright, careen writer, film director, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1978 66. Activist, coordinator at the request of Martin Martin luther king, 1968, cooperation with malcolm x to build the organization for africanamerican unity in 1964. Yes, arthur of eight or fees, 1969 to this here, 2015. A poet, 10 collections of poetry , 1971, 1995, professor wake forest university, reynolds professor of american studies. I left out much. Childrens stories, essays, recordings and albums. Maybe one or two of these accomplishments could account for the esteem in which maya angelou is held, but all of them . The list is truly humbling. In spite of a childhood of wounds and obstacles that would break or paralyze many of us, suffering energized and strengthened her and along with good counseling, determination and persistence, her creative impulse struck like bolts of lightning. Her example is not one of survival. It truly is one of triumphed. Dr. Maya angelou, you improve our world by drawing from us, forcing from us our better selves. Thank you. [applause] [applause] old folks say it takes one to know one. Thank you my darling. Tony morrison, its a blessing. She is a blessing and its amazing, we have been sister friends all of these years and i am grateful for it. I know that in truth it takes one to know one and i am grateful. I know that tony is all of that and i know that you are, all of you literary folks, amazing. I mean, amazing that you have chosen to give me a gift, to honor me and im so pleased. Its amazing. I know that you are all writers and i am delighted that you have chosen to not only honor me that to ask ms. Toni morrison to honor me and honor you. And that is who you are. There is an old statement, an old statement that says, when it looks like the sun will not shine anymore. God put a rainbow in the clouds. Amazing. Amazing. [applause] the statement was aspired in genesis. It it says that the rain had persisted so unrelenting people thought it would never ease. To put the people at ease, god put a rainbow in the sky. That is in genesis. But in the 20th century im sorry 19th century, some africanamerican poet, maybe a woman, im not sure about that, but she said god didnt just put a rainbow in the sky. God put a rainbow in the clouds. In the clouds. We know that suns and moons and stars in 11 nations are always in the sky and illumination. However, clouds can so persist that people cant see a change in the possibility in the sky, in the clouds and here we are. Here you are. Amazing. You are rainbows in my clouds. See, its a blessing that you have decided to be a rainbow in my cloud. That you have decided, whether i deserved it or not, you have decided to honor me and i am grateful to you. I am grateful to Toni Morrison. I am grateful to bob loomis, my editor. A. [applause] for over 40 years, over 40 years, i imagine it, i have tried to tell the truth as i understand it in prose. Amazingly, i dont know, i know that there is a difficulty in trying to write prose. I know that you know all of that and you are smarter than many of us here. I know that you know all of that however, there is a possibility that when you use a few nouns and pronouns and some incredible poetry, you know what it means. Its very hard. I think you know that easy reading is hard writing. [laughter] but you know all of that because you are literary folks and you know that. I have in trying to tell the truth as far as i understand it. I didnt try to tell everything i know, but i have tried to tell the truth. You have honored me this evening. I am so grateful. I am so appreciative. My sons and daughters, and some of them are black and white and asian and Spanish Speaking in native american and and straight but i have tried to tell the truth. So that you have honored me. I cant say it enough to say thank you and i thank you. I think Toni Morrison and i thank you for realizing how she is. And how important we are to each other. People live in direct relation to the sheroes and the heroes they have and i thank you for honoring me. Thank you. [applause] [applause] well max. [applause] and now to present the medal for distinguished contribution to american letters is victor. Ascii. He is one of the americans journalisms great treasures. Longtime editor and publisher of the nation. He is author of six books including the National Book awardwinning, naming names. He is delacorte professor of magazines at columbia universitys graduate school of journalism director of the george t. Delacorte center and chairman of the columbia journalism review. It gives me great pleasure to introduce that there. Vic derf. [applause] well i am floating on Maya Angelous cloud. I love what i just heard. Let me say when i was asked to introduce my good friend el. Road this evening i was honored to be asked and said yes because i have such admiration for his looks, his plays and his other writings, his short stories but on reflection it has occurred to me that edgar has one more awards than our good for him. Among them the National Book award for saul bellow award for achievement in american fiction, the National Humanities medal bestowed by president clinton in 1988 and the gold medal bestowed by the American Academy of arts and letters. I thought that he should be home instead of spending his time going to evenings like this. He should be home writing his novels and short stories, better than the out accepting yet another award this evening that would divert him from his more important work. That was my Second Thought after the first thought of being honored to introduce him. Then i remembered that nothing diverts him from his work. Once my wife and me and i took a vacation with edgar and helen the love of his life and make calls captained tidy because she keeps cleaning up after him. [laughter] we went to some island in the caribbean. Those were the days before computers came along so at six in the morning we would hear it edgars typewriter clacking away and i knew from the days when he worked as an editor in chief at dial press, where his writers included among others norman mailer, James Baldwin and william kennedy, that one should never call his home in new rochelle before 6 00 a. M. , not because you would wake up actor or helen or one of their three extraordinary children, but because you would disturb him in the middle of his work as he put in two hours a day writing his novel before he got on the commuter train to new york for his day job. And its not merely that as a writer he will always manage to find time to write but rather then put these awards in a fancy display case, when he does take time off from his own writing as often as not he uses his present prestigious celebrity to advance the cause of the artist in society. For example, when you testified before congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the arts, he eloquently told congress why it would be a big mistake to condition new grants are writers behaving themselves politically, which congress was then disposed to do. Here is just some of what he had to say and these are quotes from edgar testifying before congress any legislative condition put on an artists speech no matter how in temperate or moderate, no matter how vague, no matter how vague or specific means to you publish a dictionary with certain words deleted from the language. It means you lay out a palette with certain colors struck from the spectrum. Do you really want to do this . Does congress and its woods of them believe that keeping words and blacking them out and erasing portions of the tape is what is needed to save this republic . Its bad not only for artists but its bad for us all. Now you dont need me to talk to you about his extraordinary books and why they deserve the sadr that he is receiving this evening, the book of daniel, red time, homer and langley each of which is different from the last not to mention the next book which will if you will excuse the expression, blow your mind. But i will mention his First Published fiction. It was called the beetle. Im not sure how old he was when he wrote it. It was inspired not by ringo star and john lennon or Paul Mccartney or but rather by metamorphosis. I mention it only because when he was asked about it many years later he described it to an interviewer with typical modesty and wry wit as an active etymological self defamation. You got it. Although this evening we celebrate edgars fiction and his stories you should know that he went to Kenyan College where he measured majored in philosophy and studied with the poet and new critic. This experience has not been lost on edgar. Dont take my word for it, but do read the essay he wrote for the nation called the citizen reads the constitution in which he considers his countries fundamental document as a critic would a literary texts. In this case, what he calls the sacred text of secular humanism, the constitution being the secular text of constitutional humanism. I dont know what if anything can edgar will have to say this evening but i want to share with you the fact that some years ago when he was asked if he would introduce, when i was asked just as i want to say to you some years ago when he was asked by George Plimpton who interviewed him for one of paris reviews interviews, he was asked about when he told the story about a befuddled woman who was interviewed at the 92nd st. Y. And a befuddled woman got up there in the question period. Her first question were doctorow from the floor was what made you write about the firestorm addressed in . Doctorow politely informed her that she probably had Kurt Vonneguts slaughterhouse five and the dresden firestorm had been done so beautifully there was little reason for anyone else to try. The point here is doctorows attitude. It leaves one only original territory to explore which is what he is done with all of his work. He has been asked if he has a reader in mind when he sits down to write and he has replied no, its just a matter of language, of living in sentences. There is no room for a reader in your mind. You dont think of anything but the language you are in. Well, edgar i have news for you. You may not have us in mind that you are in a roomful of your grateful readers. Edgar. [applause] before coming here this evening, i thought to Say Something about what was lately on my mind and what is on all our minds whether we know it or not. Something that has swept through our lives and taken us up in ways that are useful and even spectacular but also worrisome. And so ubiquitous and looming lee present in everything we do. The way we communicate and take care of ourselves and find things out and looked to be entertained. Well, that would have to be the internet. So again i want to congratulate the shortlisted content providers this evening. [laughter] the World Wide Web was conceived as a somewhat academic thing some years ago but its years of realization in Development Since the 80s had seen to me the work of the moment, coming into being as an astronomical event, a Virtual World is sick companion plan or an orbital swing. Its stuff a substance not mountain and seized and deserts and melting icebergs that information, data, knowledge and every form and every kind transmitted for any purpose, personal governmental educational political. Its a companion mind to create wealth, to educate, to ring news, to spy, to save lives, to make orbit my odd sense of it is something fixed loaded into something having to do with a population putting itself easily into his Arcane Service as immigrants swearing fealty to a new world. Techies, the programmers, the webmasters, the Security Experts , the hackers almost as if it appeared as it appeared it created the people necessary to maintain it. And i wonder what if there was no internet . What would these people have done with their lives . It was as if they were born for virtual, so promptly and efficiently do they bond with it to work out its and reduce its possibilities. In this World Affairs is a world of simulation, clearly evidenced by its language. Nevermind that text is now a verb. [laughter] more erratically a Search Engine is not an engine. A platform is not a platform. A book mark is knotted oakmark because any book is not a book. And a cookie is not a chocolate chip cookie. A cloud is something that maybe somewhere in the sky although not there to produce weather and surfing is an entity with neither a surfboard nor waives to ride. So language has been stolen or mor