Readers. Heres our primetime lineup tonight, starting at 7 00, Carol Anderson describes the guest i am reading a book that Robert Barwell road, a biography of alex haley. Alex haley was in tennessee. Hes in the news right now because this is the 40th anniversary, which people may have forgotten was the best watch Television Show ever, the last episode of hers about 85 of the American Television said watched some part of the 1977. Alex here they spoke about slavery really told it in such an terms that had been presented for. That has been with the movie. It just jolted the country and it filled up the library is with americans searching for their family histories. Robert norrell is a university of tennessee professor who wrote a book about his two books, the autobiography of malcolm x, which he wrote in the six days, race which he wrote in the 70s, which the author says are the two most bugs about black america in the 20th century and maybe the two most important books about American Culture in the 20th century. Host that is is one peer what else is on the list . S. Know well, i am reading a couple of going up by Russell Baker, john meacham told me that was the best memoir. I love the way Russell Baker wrote. I am reading a book about lamb omb who lived to be 95. He was fine and he was the last person to live in the Great Smoky Mountain National park because that park was bought and people had to move out and they let him stay in there. I went to see them a few months before he died at age 95. This is a book about his life. I really enjoyed reading a lot, over and over again about the area grew up and left in the mountains of tennessee. Host where did you grow up . Guest maryville, tennessee. It is just outside of knoxville. Right at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National park. I can walk out my backdoor and im im not the park. Host what attracted you from the biography is . Guest well, they do. I like biographies. Ive always liked biographies. Like most americans, above almost anything hemingway wrote, but i havent written much of that lately. I thought mark twains books a lot of biographies. Diane feinstein gave me a book called the death of caesar by Barry Strauss about senators who killed Julius Caesar and its remarkable detail. If youre a senator, a United States senator, and youve read it with a certain amount of interest. The roman senate was about 500 senators. Cesar appointed them all in about 30 of them persuaded him to come on the side and stab him to death. Host do you share books with your colleagues . Guest yeah, we do. We mentioned senator enzi of wyoming. Otherwise the book he read them book he read them he read himself a book report on the book and hell tell me about books he likes. Senator durbin reads a lot of books and hes been the gym when i am sometimes. Host lets go back to maryville, tennessee. Guest my parents, the New York Times interviewed my mother wants an wrote that i grew up in a lower middle class family in the middle of the mountains and when i called home that weekend, my mother was reading how to deal with his family and she said he had a library card from the day you were three and a music lesson for the day you were for. You have had everything you needed that was important. People tell me my mother took me down to the Public Library and they said mrs. Alexander, we dont have Library Cards for three years old. She said well, you should. And i got one. Give her some credit. Host where do you get books today . Guest i buy them. People send them to me. Diane feinstein gave me the cesar book. I thought john meachams look. David rubenstein has been named from the library of congress where he interviews authors. Hes interviewing meacham about his winston book. So i get a book out of five. Basically, i buy them and i hear about them. And i give them away like 300 or 400 friend for christmas one year. Novell spoke about the same people just because tennesseans are especially interested because he was the tennessean. Host a couple senators have mentioned this library of congress. David rubenstein sponsors and they bring in authors. Have you tried to attend that . Guest i think it has a terrific with it. He does it himself. You are doing a good job with it, too. He knows the subject and asked the question that brings out the author and the authors to do the best are the ones who carry on the best conversation. Evan thomas, who wrote the next thing is a good book. It is really the most balanced picture of richard nixon, who was really remarkably successful president , except for the big watergate problem which is a great big problem. The interviewed him. He interviewed bob woodward very well. John meacham is the next one. Richard nixon, youve got a couple pictures on your wall of you and richard nixon, but that was before your political career as governor of tennessee. Guest yeah, the first time i ran for governor, made democratic opponent called me nixons choirboy. I worked in the white house in 1969 and 70 for a man whos a wonderful individual and a former eisenhower aide who has had enormous respect from everybody. So that was really the beginning of my political activity. I started before that with howard baker, but that was early in my time. Host senator alexander, is president of the university of tennessee, what was your experience with the students when it came to reading of literature and some of the classics . Guest i tried to drop in on classes. One of them was not there anymore. His name was richard mary is. He had taught at the university of tennessee and when i was governor i created a Governors School for teachers of writing. He came down from harvard where he had been taught the freshman writing course to teach about 200 tennessee teachers for two weeks how to write, how to teach their students how to rate and they might be thirdgrade teachers, face great teachers, eighthgrade teachers, senior english teachers. I was a part of the university of tennessee for a lot of the action was the students and teachers. Host is there any value in a whole city where you hear about a whole city saying everyone read this book or university. Lets all read this book coming in. Is there a shared value to that . Guest sure, it comes as close to that of anything. There we were in 1977 on tv for eight consecutive nights. We only had three networks at the time. 85 of the American People watched at least one episode. So i think as i mentioned earlier it did two things. It confronted americans with the ugly story of slavery and how brutal it was in a hair wisdom of the slaves. Theres going to be a better day kind of thing. And then it showed that it was a family story. Seven generations to himself. And it cost american with people looking for their own genealogy. So there is an example of a whole country watching a book and the two major effects that came from it so there would unit managed to a community or family or Book Club Reading the same book. Host was writing hard . Guest i know him for about 10 years. He said he would write from a sometimes correct manuscript 26 times. I tell this to students who write a paper and turn it in. Alex haley won the National Book award. Not by turning his book in the first time, he wrote it. He also said he is a green pen instead of a red pen because they read ted looks like i caught you in a green pen is more friendly for your corrections. I like to write. I enjoyed writing and i encourage my Staff Members to write your writing is hard. It is a scale that lots of young people dont learn because they dont do it enough. There are two glued to the screen and to twitter. Being able to write a clear sentence, pick out a mass of information with the essences and saved in plain english, being able to persuade half the people is an important part of public life and being a good writer helps. Host what was your book six months off about . Guest thats about six months or family spent in australia after i was governor. My wife said about seven years we have to get out of here, so we picked a place. Three teenagers and a 7yearold. The day i was sworn out of office we lived there six months and the kids went to school and i was there six months off. I had a friend called Peter Jenkins to encourage me to read a book about governors. We visited the publishers of new york and went to random house and the publishers said to me in two peter, what he wanted write about . Is that the marvelous to read about what a great governor hes been in the publishers said his mother might read it. What else are you doing . Im not doing anything. He said that might be interesting and cavemen and then a knock in the book. It was read in its entirety on National Public radio. A program where he reads for 30 minutes and he did that. In 1888. Host is another book ready . Guest well, i thought of writing a memoir some time and if i do, ill probably call it what my grandfathgrandfath er used to tell me when i was a kid. He would say aim for the top. There is more room there. Im not thinking about doing that right now. I am too busy enjoying what im doing. Host a lot of her colleagues have written books. Guest i just read senator mcconnells the long game. I interviewed him for an hour on cspan about it. When a asked me to do it, i said i dont think Mitch Mcconnell could talk for an hour. You know, hes got a story in his own book where he said one of president george w. Bushs Staff Members said Mitch Mcconnell is very excited about a vote. President bush said how could you tell. Because mitch doesnt say much. I thought his book was very interesting and theres lots of good stories starting with the polio he had in early 1940s and how his mother we forget how desperate parents were then. They didnt know what to do about a kid with polio. They could see people in iron blogs. No vaccine. His mother took him down to where president roosevelt was, who learned something about what they did there with therapy and for two years when he massaged his legs for an hour or two a day and kept him from walking. I dont know how you keep a 2yearold from walking for a 3yearold. He credits that with the fact he could walk almost without a limp today. Host senator senator alexander, do you recommend any books . Guest yeah, sure. I tell them about the books. I recommend routes to everybody because it is such an essential part of the american story and the fact that it was such a learning experience for americans i think really changed the way we think about africanamerican life in our country changes the way white people would act. I told them about the death of caesar because i think i would be interesting to anyone who worked in the senate by senator feinstein. Host what about fiction . What about nonhistorical fiction and fan fiction . Is there relaxation reading for you . Guest , well, my favorite piece of fiction is all the kings men. I mean, i reread it last summer and i was just astonished. I had forgotten how good it was. He is a gifted comic gifted writer and he wrote that after world war ii. Its a little racy for that time. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it. It is so intricately put together in characters and you can still see jack murton and you can know who they are and see the family difficulties in the pictures of life in louisiana. That is such a powerful book. Another book, which is not fiction that i have been reading for months as te lawrences book called the seven pillars of wisdom. That may sound kind of strange. But this was lawrence of arabia. This is a book he wrote about his time in the desert that they are in the world war i time. According to his practice, he didnt take notes and then he lost the first draft or to workout burned up and he still wrote it. If youve read the book, it has all this enormous detail about the sand and said what happened in this movement. I dont know how you could possibly remember all of it. It is some of the most elegant writing i have ever read. So i read at night to go to sleep. If i want to read the seven pillars of wisdom and after that a chapter, i am not. Host do you have another airplane time to read . Guest i dont read books on airplanes. I just go back and forth to tennessee about an hour. I usually read the newspaper or catching up on work or sleeping. You know, i read when im by myself. Every myself. Every tonight before i go to bed most of the time are sometimes early in the morning. For the summer i go fishing for a couple weeks and take some books to read. Host mrs. Alexander is also a reader. Guest big time. She loves to read. We went to a discussion recently been in patchett who lives in nashville was holding and she was talking about her list of the best books, which she had done for parade magazine. My wife knew almost every one of them. I knew very few of them. Host senator lamar alexander, former university president. We appreciate your time on booktv. Guest thank you