Lets have a big round of applause for the National Book festival. [applause]. Show your love. Excellent. [applause]. And a little tip you need to check out their amazing website, National Book. Org. I have been there, it is exciting, it is addictive. I have have made it my homepage. I start every day at National Book data work. If you go there you can literally spend all day on the faqs, because you know all of those questions that you have frequently asked about the National Book foundation . They are answered at last. For example, one question i have found myself asking frequently is what is the National Book foundation . If you do not know. You just applauded for them and you do not know who they are. Do not lie to me National Book award audience, you are better than that really. Okay so i went to National Book. Org faqs and heres what i found. In 1986, the Publishing Community establish the National Book foundation, a notforprofit notforprofit organization to oversee the awards, diversify the base of philanthropic support, and expand their mission. At this point i found myself losing consciousness. But check out the website, it is awesome. National book. Org, ladies National Book. Org, ladies and gentlemen. Lets hear it [applause]. I am so honored to be a host tonight, i am here because i guess for the same reason you are here, i love books. We are all here, everybody all here, everybody in this room loves books. Right . [applause]. Even the agents love their books and they are here tonight too, they are representing. I grew up in household that was filled with books. My parents were super intellectuals, they both were Phi Beta Kappa graduates, they met as undergraduates at harvard and i say that last thing at the risk of making you hate them. It has, really the most alienating thing you can say to anybody is that you went to harvard, it is true. Is true. It is true, admit it. Like for example if i told you that i cooked math for example, you would be like we should be compassionate, we do do not know what led him to cook math. But if i told you i went to harbor you would be like what it dick wright. [laughter] and you would be right. So as a super smart kid it was challenging for me growing up. I remember one time i was in middle school, were sitting around the dinner table and i guess i was looking a little glum, a little down, my dad said to me, whats wrong . I said, all of the kids at school are continuously telling me im queer. In those days, in the 70s we are meant weird, on cool, on popular, that sort of thing. My of thing. My dad looked at me and he said, they are not continuously telling you you are queer. They are continually telling you, you are queer. Continuously would be your queer, youre queer, youre queer, youre queer. [laughter] continually would be your queer, youre queer. The moral of that story is that that is why i am severely damaged. Yes, its true. Well, i want to thank you for letting me talk about myself in the last five minutes. Although, i must say say if you are not in the mood to hear people talk about themselves you have come to the wrong place tonight. If history is any guide is going to kind of be a theme up in here tonight. But thats cool because its the National Book award. Ladies and gentlemen are you ready for the show . [applause]. Are you ready . [applause]. I have hosted this three times and i have got to say, this is the best National Book award audience i have ever dealt with. You guys are a pleasure. In absolute pressure. I am not doing this for the money, i am not being paid. The National Book foundation made that abundantly clear. They were like, you are getting a free meal and a metro card a menu or out out of here. I was like, dude, i did not get into publishing to make money, okay. That would be insane. They are like cool, no cool, no metro card, so it was good. [laughter] all right, we are going to begin our presentation with the literary and award. Is that even no word . Literary in. That sounds like an faq to me. What is a literary inches while we while we are about to find out. The literary and award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary committee. Our presenter was an innovated teacher, deputy chancellor and author of a School Leaders guide to excellence. She is now chancellor of the new York City Department of education, ladies and gentlemen, my hero, carmen farina. [applause]. So now i know you have to be both literate and funny to stand up here. So hopefully one of the 2i can do. It is really is really my pleasure to be here today to give this award to James Patterson. It is is a gift to an educator to have a writer that really gets people to read their books. He contributed and donated it to literacy to middle school children. Now if any of you have not had a seventh grader in your life, consider yourself lucky. For those of you who have had a seventh grader in your life, and you survived it, consider yourself even luckier. So what James Madison did but did not have to do, he decided to write for middle school audience. I was privileged enough to be in a room when he was talking to these middle school kids about reading. What he did with something ive been telling people for years to write when they write to middle school. Make the books growth, make them really interesting and a sense that everything goes wrong in their lives, make it as negative as possible and you will have immediate readers. I have three grandsons, one of which looks at a book and he breaks my heart because it is the last thing he wants to do. After meeting james and he donated books to all of our six graders and the new york city schools, i took the book about living life in middle school and charlie said wow, he really gets us. So it is wonderful to be able to say that there is a writer who sees beyond his own life and his own ability to write and make money, and he says what he wants to do is give the gift of literacy to other people. So for that and all of the other things he has done, i want to say James Patterson and my mind is a hero, and i hope many more of you will step up to the plate and help the children of new york city become more eager to read and what rights. Thank you so much. [applause]. Thank you carmen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Special thanks to little brown, michael teich, reagan author, larry kirschbaum, for sticking with me through thick and thicker since i was 26. Over one dozen years ago. Thanks also to barb barnett who is also here. It is a long way from north plank road in new york to the National Book awards. I feel exhilarated and proud happy to have my wife and son here. But to be honest i also feel a little uncomfortable, i feel exhilarated as it is a long way from newburgh. I feel uncomfortable because well, i am the elephant in the room, the bowl in the china shop, the stranger in a strange land, the big mac at ship chipper on a. Let me me tell you a few things about myself and maybe you not to give me as a stranger after tonight. It is relevant to my being here that newburgh was a tough town when i was a kid, it still is a tough town. My father grew up in the newburgh poorhouse called the pokey. His mother, mike, there was a char woman who cleaned the poorhouses bathrooms and kitchen. For her work, she and my father got to share a room. When my father was heading up to world war ii he received a phone call who is also going off to war. This man, George George hazelton said that his parents told him the night before that they loved him very much but they were not his birth parents. He had been adopted when he was one year old. Then George Hazelton revealed that he was my fathers brother. My grandmother have been forced to give up her brother george for adoption before my father was born. That is vintage newburgh. My other good grandfather owned a small restaurant there, the cook was an africanamerican woman named laura. When i was i was six, laura was having problems with her husband, she moved in with our family. That is the way it was in our house. I think i spent more time with lauras family than my own, and that experience was a very loving and lovely black family is how i came to write the alex cross novels. So thats where it started. During my senior year is a Patrick High School in new burke, i applied to harvard, yale, and bates, think i did not end up at harvard. I never got a response. So i want to see the christian brother who was principal of the high school, he said that he never sent my transcripts to any of those secular schools. This is a true story. Only to the affiliated Catholic Colleges. He then told me that i had a full scholarship to the Catholic College to which i had never applied. My years at that school, Manhattan College turned out to be wonderfully rewarding, it was a terrific experience. After matt had after manhattan i went to grad school and literature at the end are built, also rewarding. I took a job in advertising partly, believe it or not because i had been rejected for a job driving a taxi cap. The dispatcher said my hair was too long, i wish i had that problem now. He called me a communist and chased me out of the garage. That is nonfiction folks. Possibly to prove that i was not a communist, i took the job in advertising but i have been clean for over 20 years. During my years as a student and while i was working the night shift at mclean hospital, in belmont, i fell in love with novels and short stories. I read everything. My favorite novels to this day are mr. Bridge and mrs. Bridge. When i was 25i wrote a novel of my own, a mystery called a Thomas Bearman number. It number. It was turned down by 31 publishers. It then one and edgar as the best first mystery novel of the year. I keep a list of all the editors who turned on my first novel. Sometimes they semi books and asked for blurbs. Mostly though, they are dead. Because of these experiences especially growing up in newburgh i have always felt compelled to do the best i can, compelled to tell the stories i am capable of, especially stories for children, compelled to start an imprint for kids called jimmy with the simplest possible mission, when a kid finishes a jimmy book, he or she will say please give me another book. What a sweet thing to hear from your child. Please give me a no other book. Im also compelled to innovate because i feel publishing needs to innovate more, much more. On occasion i find myself stupidly standing up and saying i believe publishing is in trouble, that i believe American Literature is in some trouble, i am compelled to try to help independent bookstore survive and prosper and to help School Libraries in any way i can. When scholastic and i made an offer last year to give money to School Libraries we received over 28,000 pleas for pleas for help in the first ten days. That tells an incredible story about our School Libraries. I guess i am doomed for being a doer, a serial doer actually. Actually. I encourage the talented people in this room to always be doers. There is so so much to do right now. Lets all be literary ends, whatever the hell that means. Actually, i think most of us know what that means. Lets find a way to way to make sure theres another generation of readers out there, and bookstores, and libraries, and healthy, flourishing flourishing publishers. One must newburgh story. During the summer, my good grandfather, poppy would take me on his delivery route once a week and he would deliver ice, frozen food. We would we would be up at 4 00 a. M. Packing up his truck. We all know that is not the most romantic thing in the world to be driving a truck early in the morning. But but every morning my grandfather would mortar over the mountain over west point and would be singing at the top of his voice, that clumsy truck would be bouncing over the roads, he had a terrible voice. He would say he would say things like o susanna or put another nickel in the nickelodeon. He tell me, jim when you grow up i dont care if youre a truck driver president of the United States, just remember when you go over the mountain to work in the morning you have got to be singing. I do. I hope all is the same for you. That is it, the, the fourminute autobiography, vintage James Patterson. By the way, i did not wear a tux because the new burke tux is powder blue with a ruffled shirt thank you so much for this precious moment. [applause]. Lets hear one more time for James Patterson, ladies and gentlemen. [applause]. Before we go on just a little behind missing stuff that may interest you. The organizers have given me a rundown of the evening. With stage directions for me that really leaves nothing to chance. Im not suggesting they think i am an idiot, but it is possible based on reading this. For example, after i introduce carmen after i introduce carmen farina, it says and i quote, he takes a seat just offstage, water available. So i guess after five minutes of speaking will be so parched i will need to rehydrate. Well, it has been done. I can carry on now. They also provided me with a protein biscuit. I am good to go. How are the National Book awards working out for you so far . Are you enjoying the evening . Okay. The best is yet to come. The best is yet to come. Now, to present the medal for distinguished contribution to american letters, she letters, she is the author of the invisible circus, emerald city and other stories, look at me, which was nominated for the National Book award in 2001, and the bestseller the key. Her most recent novel is also a National Bestseller and won the 2011 pulitzer prize, the National Foot critics circle award for fiction, and the Los Angeles Times book price, ladies and gentlemen, price, ladies and gentlemen, i love her, jennifer egan. [applause]. In 100 years, assuming there are still people on earth and they still read books it is hard to imagine a way they may better understand American Life in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, then by reading done novels. His sensibility is epic, i use that word despite the fact that epic is going the way of awesome because no other will exactly do. This gale of delillos inquiry is global and historic, over 45 prolific years he has pushed deep into the fault line where the pressures where ordinary humans collide with the pressures of politics and history. There is tux but in the sheer range of his book, who else could follow underworld, a kaleidoscopic saga 50 years of American Life with a body artist and novel in which one primary character may be a dream or a ghost. More than once his books has raised this question, what role can an artist hope to play in a world where experience is so muffled and flattened by technology that the only authentic act are acts of violence . But i am getting it wrong harping on his ambition, to my mind his work is most astounding on the level of the sentence. He has an impasse gift for capturing rhythm and speech. It was the dialogue in his book that made me realize conversation is mostly repetition and that people never really answer each other. His mimicry can be very funny but it is also what renders us the humanity of his character. Readers of libra are unlikely to forget the sweetly, dogged dogged narration of Lee Harvey Oswalds mother, marguerite. His prose never settle for mere beauty or lyricism. The most familiar thing become strange in descriptive hands as if he were conjuring the negative state around them. To quote, his own description is 1991 novel, she liked working past the theory of this is it. Important important to keep going, obliterate the sure thing and come upon a moment of blessing. His work is made of stealthy blessings. Later, a writer set up his own profession, what terrace gain, novelist loose. The danger they represent equals our own failure to be dangerous. 1991. What will happen to reading and writing in this new century . It is a question question im guessing most people in this room have asked with a certain urgency. My own answer is always the same, it is up to us, the writers. If we capture the cadences and textures of contemporary life in ways that feel essential, people will read us. John delillos nimble nimble and innovative fiction has done this repeatedly. He has answered his own question the artists who can show us our american lives at this moment and help us fathom them is performing an essential role. Im so grateful to him for the rigor and playfulness of his work and for proving to my generation of writers that fiction can still do anything it wants. It is my great honor and pleasure to present don delillo with this award. [applause]. I am here to talk about myself. Books, this is why we are here this evening, lately i have been looking at books that stand on to loan shelves in a room just down the hall from the room where i work. Early books, paperbacks everyone, the first book i ever owned and they resemble some kind of nutty, evil plunder. Old and scarred, weathered and would crumble like they human. Im human and the strain when i left the book from the shelf gently, i understand again the power of memory that a book carries with it. What is there to remember . Who i was, where i was, what these books meant to me when i read them for the first time. The house of the dead, first printed in june 1959, 50 cents. Adventures in thin trade, may may 1956, cover illustration includes a woman wearing blac