hitler salute. ... i really think that we just have to try to model this. anyway, thank you. >> host: for the past three yours he been talking with radio talk show host and author, eric metaxas. thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you so much. what a joy. on our facebook page,

facebook.com/booktv. week's new book what happened about the 2016 presidential election will be released tuesday. she previewed the book in june and talk about her experiences during the campaign. [applause] >> hello, thank you for coming to this special event. i know what a long day it has been on the floor showing the team room so i am that much more appreciative that you are with us this evening. i'm carolyn reedy, chief executive officer of simon & schuster and it is my pleasure and honor to introduce larry rodham clinton. [applause] from new york and

first lady of the united states introduces a relative term, but you know hillary is a best-selling author and her tremendous ability to write books that galvanize readers and create traffic and excitement in your bookstores. simon & schuster is proud to have a relationship with hillary clinton and we published all five of her previous books beginning in 1996. all three of her memoirs have been bestsellers. this fall, together, we have another great hillary book

experience, not just one but two. she is hard at work on her new memoir which will be as surprising, fascinating, opinionated, provocative and deeply reflective as anything she has written before. we trust you will hear hillary as never before as she gives her unique take and analysis of recent events. we also have the gorgeous picture book additionally it takes a village with illustrations by marla phrasey. she will be interviewed by cheryl straight. [laughter] [applause] >> cheryl is familiar to you is

a popular and talented number one best-selling author in her own right whose books including wild have touched millions around the world and helped them to navigate their own personal journey. before we bring out hillary and cheryl, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, 65 million people voted for hillary clinton last november. [applause] >> if just a small fraction of those purchase a book we will still have the biggest book of the year. we welcome your help in achieving that milestone. please join me in welcoming

hillary rodham clinton and cheryl strayad. [applause] [cheers and applause bracket >> hi, hillary. we need a glass of wine or cup of coffee or something. which would you prefer? >> let's try chardonnay. one of the benefits of not being president of the united states and being a writer instead is you get to drink. >> we are going -- i have some questions from the audience.

i wanted to start with the most moving question, do you know how much you mean to us and how much we love you? [applause] >> i am touched by that. let me thank you for that really kind thought. i am thrilled that cheryl is here with us, one of my favorite authors and one of the people i have gotten to know over the last couple years. i have to tell you as booksellers, i hope you know how much you mean to me.

it has been a central part of my life as long as i can remember. libraries and bookstores are right at the top of my favorite things to do, so thank you. >> you have been quite busy, you have two books in september. let's talk about it takes a village. this was a hugely influential book published in 2006 and you decided to release a children's book edition. what inspired you to do that? >> it was published in 1996. the reason i was motivated to do it may sound a little bit déjà vu all over again but if you remember those years, there were people in politics who were

making incredibly harmful proposals, saying hurtful things and when i heard that point newt gingrich say we should take four children from their families and put them in orphanages, i was beyond upset and outraged and i had been a children's advocate, worked for the children's defense fund. i was a mom. i got there has to be a different way of bringing people together around our common responsibilities and what it means to be part of a community. of course you are an individual. i say in the beginning of the book it takes a village, the most important people in a child's life are the child's

family but the community plays a big role in providing education, healthcare, law enforcement, all kinds of religious instruction, everything that goes into making up a community. i have long been taken by the african proverb it takes a village. that is why i wrote that book and it became a password to talk about what we meant by community and with our obligations were and it became controversial in some circles. it was the topic of a number of speeches from the republican national convention in 1996 attacking me for i never know what they are attacking me for. long line of that. it has stayed with me.

that is why i thought it would be time to bring those concepts, community and citizenship and cooperation and support for kids into a children's book. how lucky was i that marla phrasey was available to do the illustrations. it is a beautiful book that i'm proud of. >> our moms would tell us of a boy is teasing you it means he likes you. maybe that is what the republicans are doing. >> if that is the case, i think enough is enough. >> she will go to the dance with you. you have another book coming out in september. what can you tell us about this book? >> this book for for me is a

personal, deep experience. and i have to say and emotional process. for a long time i collected quotes that were inspirational or a funny or meaningful to me to capture a thought, i have shared them with my friends over all those years and even had a book i carried them around in and you have a tough time or a funny time or quiet time and i flip through them and get reminded what they meant to me and after the election, i was thinking as i went through those quotations how it was sparing those thoughts about the life i lead, the ups, the downs, the great opportunities, accomplishments, disappointment and during the course of the campaign there were so many people who shared their own stories with me.

it is one of the real treasures of being out in the public eye. a lot you see is difficult. but those moments when somebody grabs your hand or you are backstage and a total stranger comes up and tells you their story or tells you they understand what you are going through or want you to know they are with you, like the first question today, that is incredibly meaningful to me. i began to go through those quotations and reflect about the country and my life and what happened in this election and put my thoughts on paper it away that is not just about me and the election but about resilience, getting back up when you are knocked down because everybody is, you find the

courage to do that and what helps you along the way and as i say, it has proven to be an extraordinary, personally meaningful but painful experience. it really is painful. >> we have seen you get up after being knocked down and this is where the first question came from. how did you muster the strength to go on after the election? where did you find solace? you have taken a lot of walks in the woods which you know i love. we were talking backstage and hillary does not have a title for this book she told you about and my suggestion is really wild. you have walking in the woods, hardship, what do you think?

really wild. pretty wild. if you see it in bookstores it came from cheryl. my question to you is about those moments when we feel we can't go on. you felt it was point. tell us about that. >> i believe resilience is one of the great attributes and gifts that you can be given through family, friends, your faith, whatever gives you the sense of purpose and courage it takes to keep going. i have been blessed to know so many people who have faced

difficult and painful experiences, whether it was the death of a loved one, a disease they are fighting, the midst of a horrible weather conditions like a hurricane, 9/11, i have seen in my own life and the lives of so many i have gotten to know, the most extraordinary capacity to keep going. i don't compare myself with difficult terrible times others have gone through. i have a great friend in the city, two great friends i made after 9/11 who were grievously injured, horrific burns in one case, in an induced coma for two month and the other was struck

down by the landing gear of one of the planes hitting the towers. i have been honored and humbled to see how they kept going. what happens to me happens in public in a personal way. what i am trying to do in the book is explain what it is like to break through barriers knowing how hard it is, knowing you will make mistakes, there are all kinds of challenges every step of the way but to explain what i have relied on, has given me hope and courage and resilience, a lot of it for me is rooted in my family, my friends, because i have been really lucky in both but a lot of it is because i have this

determination as someone said about me the other day, stubbornness, you just get up every day and do the best you can, 1 foot in front of the other. when you are fighting for something larger than your self which is what i always believed, that keeps you going even when you are down and nearly out personally. this book covers a lot of that and the experiences you all watched. but from my perspective, sometimes i work on it for a couple hours. a little writing area in the attic of our little farmhouse, we live 15 minutes north here. i work on it and we have great colleagues who are doing

research and helping me think how best to present things and it is so exhausting that i literally have to get up, go for a walk or go to bed. those are my choices. >> i can relate to that. the art of the memoir is about subjectivity, about telling the true story of what it felt like to be you in that moment. most memoirs don't -- that is not a public story. you are unique in that regard. one thing memoirs demand is that you be vulnerable to take risks, things you are thinking and feeling but somebody who had to be such a public person how do you navigate that? how do you find that place of vulnerability in your work?

my second question is are you going further in the next book because you are in a different position? >> i am going a lot further. both the experience and choices we face in the future demand that i go as far as i can. what you said resonated with me. this is my truth. people can disagree and they will. this is how i experienced being the first woman to break that barrier, get nominated, on stage for debates, deal with all the incredibly odd, bizarre happenings that were around. i am very clear in fat, saying you may think you know what

happened and you may be right to a certain extent based on what you perceived and how you process it but i will tell you how i thought and what i felt because you cannot make up what happened. [applause] >> that is part of the reason it is such an incredible experience trying to write it because even i forgot the wacky things that were said and done. to pool that out and try to be both personal and as dispassionate as possible and explain, part of the motivation is not only good for my mental

health but also really important that we come to grips with what we need to do in the future as a country. it is a wonderful coincidence time doing the children's book at the same time because the children's book is rooted in the idea of citizenship. how do we give our children the tools they need only for their own lives but to be active citizens and how do they cooperate with people. thinking about this election and all the lines that were drawn and partisanship and everything flying at us, important for me to say here is how i experienced it. i don't know if you had the same experience. lots of people lined the specific coast trail but this was your truth, your experience

and the reason it was so powerful is you could feel that. somebody else could take it tomorrow and not have the same experience, somebody else could run for president tomorrow or in four years and won't have the same experience. >> somebody else could run for president tomorrow? [applause] >> that is a long tomorrow. that is how i am trying to convey it. it really is, i think of it as unvarnished view of what i think happened. putting myself into these different events and pulling the curtain back so that readers can say what it was like standing on the stage debating your opponent? what was going through your

head? you will find out what was going through my head. [applause] >> i speak for all of us when i say we cannot wait to read it. what i am curious about, you said sometimes you have to go for a walk or take a nap or have a glass of chardonnay. talk about the challenges, what are the hardest things about writing this book? >> there are so many hard parts. here is how i would talk about it. one is a painful experience of honestly understanding what i didn't do well or didn't do well enough or what our shortcomings were, we missed an opportunity, didn't do in retrospect what

might have worked better. that is obviously painful. it is a kind of pain that is part of being in politics. i have won races, lost raises, i never felt the way i feel about this and that brings me to the second piece of it because the more you dig and the more you understand what we were up against, taking me out of the equation so it is not about what happened to you, it is what happened to us and how much more alert we need to be as a nation, particularly concerned about the role that russia played and the very serious interference that we know they were responsible for in our most fundamental democratic act. that in some ways is even more

painful. when i ran into thousand 8. i write a little bit about this. it was a hard-fought contest and i had so much respect for barack obama. it wasn't fun losing but i didn't worry about my country. i immediately turned around and went to work to help him get elected and got asked to be secretary of state, you lose and it hurts your feelings and you wish you had done better and would like to have won but i didn't worry about my country. i am really worried. i worry not just because there are partisan differences but we are living in such an abnormal time when we look at the way this white house is behaving about the biggest challenges we face, the dishonesty and fabrication, whether you call it fake news or lies, take your

choice, it is deeply troubling and it is also worrisome that it could cause lasting damage to our institutions. part of what i am writing is i will talk about what i think was in my control and we could have done better and wish we had but i am also going to talk about what happened that was totally unprecedented in american history, how do we think about the future? and our responsibilities, whatever political party or philosophy you have you can't be all right with the idea that a foreign adversary was trying to influence the outcome of our election. that to me is a big challenge we are going to face as a country. i try to explain what happened and what that means to try to

arm citizens, give people a simple as possible explanations they can go out and be active and speak up and have our debates about everything we argue about in politics but that should be among us, that should be between americans and not with somebody influencing how people are thinking and the information they got and the conclusions that they drew and the decisions they made. it is that tension between personal disappointment, that comes with the territory. i said the other day i am fine as a person but worried as an american and that is what i'm trying to unpack and explain to people. >> interesting that your writing and your career has always been intricately bound, your

experience with the experience of the world. from your very first speech 1969, you were talking about the meaning of your life in the context of what was happening socially and culturally. where did that come from? you talk about this book and when i got all the books you have written there is no separating you from the political realities. where did that begin? >> it really does begin with my parents. i had a typical suburban 1950s upbringing. my dad was a world war ii that, small businessman, worked hard, scraped every penny he made, getting business started and try to make it successful so we

could have a nice house and give us a good solid middle-class life. my mom had a very sad and difficult life, abandoned by her parents and literally thrown out of her grandparents home and went to work at the age of 13 working in somebody else's home, very different experiences. .. experiences but, together, they just had a deep conviction about how lucky we were to be in this country. even though my mother canceled out my father's vote every election, they talked about the news, we talked about it at dinner, my dad would ask if we had opinions and he would grill me so, literally, from the time of childhood being an american

instilled in me that sense of responsibility and citizenship. it may sound, you know, really old-fashioned, out of date now, but it was part of the glue that held us together as a country. and in the neighborhood that i lived in, all the fathers, you know, had served in the military during the second world war, all the mothers stayed home, they did pta things, they did other volunteer activities. and at a very early age, they enlisted us, you know? it was part of our responsibility to, you know, put up the lemonade stand and, you know, raise money to give to, you know, kids who were in the hospital or poor kids, you know, living somewhere in the world. it was just a, it was a very

open time because the world seemed like it was out thered waiting for us. and america was really coming into its own in a way that was tangible even to a child. i remember in the fifth grade my fifth grade teacher, mrs. krause -- after sputnik went up -- marches into our fifth grade classroom and says k we are supposed to do better in math and science because president eisenhower wants us to. i mean, that's the kind of stuff -- [laughter] that would happen in our classrooms. and so, okay, we're supposed to do better. and then we get to junior high, and president kennedy's there, and all of a sudden we get tested on our physical fitness because we have to be physically active in order to be good americans. b this was part of the whole ambience of how we were raised not just in our families, but in our schools and elsewhere. and, you know, i just always thought it was part of who i

was, and it became a big part of what i cared about. >> right.me and when you were doing sit-ups for kennedy -- [laughter] and doing science for eisenhower and so forth, what were you reading? what books were you reading? what books were influential to you as you became a young woman? >> well, i got in trouble during the physical fitness part because we were supposed to jump -- >> you mean broad jump? >> yes. >> which i, to this day -- >> yeah, and the vertical jump up on the side of the wall. and they kept coming around to me and said jump, i said, i have jumped. [laughter]id it just never took with me. [laughter] >> you athletic in any -- i mean, besides for the hiking? >> you know, i was when i was growing up, i played sports, i played softball, i played tennis, i swam and dove and, yo. know, i haven't actually kept up with that for many years. >> but now it's just mostly walking and hikingsome.

>> yeah, mostly walking -- >> we going to hike the pacific crest trail this summer together? is. >> that would be great. >> it's a date. >> if we go with -- [laughter] [applause] if we go with really wild -- >> really wild. and we'll do a whole publicity campaign. [laughter] on the pacific coast trail. >> and we get pop-up bookstores. [laughter] >> yeah. >> right? all on the trail. >> i think that's a great idea. so you love -- >> i love reading. i've always loved reading -- >> yeah. >> and, you know, i think like a lot of, a lot of young girls of my time, you know, i read every nancy drew book. i liked the early ones better than the later ones, i'll be honest. [applause]s the idea that, you know, she, she just seemed like such a go-getter and really smart and brave. >> kind of like someone we know. >> no, well, there's a lot of --

i heard the applause. and it was like a model for me and for my friends. and that -- when i think back, you know, i read a lot of books when i was growing up. but that had a big impact on me because she was, you know, dare i say a little bit of a role model, you know? >> absolutely. >> and i always felt so bad because her mother had died -- >> yeah. >> but she was taking care of the house, she was going to school, she was solving mysteries. i mean, really -- [laughter] >> yeah. well, there's a real tradition in literature with young women or girls whose mothers are dead because their main protectors are gone, and they're forced to venture out into the world and be courageous.ro and i think that nancy drew absolutely was an inspiration to so many girls and women for that reason. my own daughter loved them too. what about in those post-election months? do you turn to literature for consolation like so many of us

do? >> i do. i also turn to it for total distraction. and i've kept a record of every book i've read during my entire adulthood.d. >> oh, my gosh. how many have you read? >> i don't know, i haven't counted them. i have one of those books that has no -- >> yeah. >> -- that has nothing in them, and so i've been tracking them. and i was thinking about it thes other day. after the election i read a lot of mysteries. i am a -- [laughter] very devoted mystery reader. but i also, i have some favorites. i love jacqueline windspear andd macy dobbs, i love donna leone and bringing venice alive, and i love louise penny. [cheers and applause] and i, i had the great joy a couple months after the election

of meeting louise penny. and i really, you know, i just got so into her characters and her locales, three pines, you know? just made a big impression on me. and so it was really fun talking to somebody who has written this series using the same characters, you know, always have a murder but, you know, use the same characters. [laughter] and i just loved that.t so i read a lot of mysteries, and it was very comforting, i because it was somebody else's problem, you know? [laughter] they had to go off and solve the murder and save the day, and i loved that. >> that's wonderful. so when you're writing, i know your editor is in the room, but who is your most trusted reader, aside from your editor? >> my husband. >> yeah. >> yeah, my husband. >> so does he read everything you write? >> he reads a lot of what i write, and he's a very tough

critic and cross-examines me on why something's in or why something's out. but he's been -- really we started dating when we were in law school, and i had, i worked my way through law school. i had a small scholarship, but then i had a lot of jobs, and i had a job editing a long paper for an international law student. a and it was the first time that, you know, he sat down with me and we talked it over, and he gave me great advice. so he has always been my closest and most critical reader. >> yeah. that's what husbands are good for. >> yeah, i think so. >> mine too. so let's, i wanted to go back to that wellesley speech you gave when you were graduating.u and it was full of, i would say, i mean, you pointed out the troubles in the world, but there

was also a great sense of hope. and i'm curious about what you think right now. as you just mentioned, i do agree with you, and i think we're not alone in this. we feel like something different has happened in america than has happened before. and some of our very principles of our democracy are really at risk. i and i'm curious about how -- are you hopeful? and if the answer is yes, which i really hope it is -- [laughter] how do we do it? i mean, i think we're really in a pickle. and how do we move forward with less division, more kindness? >> well, i had the experience recently of really thinking hard about all of this. because, you're right, i spoke -- i was the first student speaker at wellesley back in 1969, and then i spoke at the at wellesley graduation last weekend. and i went back and reread the

speech from 1969, and i thought hard about what i wanted to say to the graduates but also to the, you know, broader world. and yeah, i think the bottom line is i am hopeful, but i really think hope needs to be linked to a strategy for dealing with what we are facing. and some of it is very personal acts. you mentioned kindness. i mean, you know, that is the a much overlooked -- that is a much overlooked attribute in these days. and showing kindness, showing support for one another, i'm still just sickened by what happened in portland with those two young men coming to the rescue of those young women who were being insulted and verbally abused by the white supremacist on the train. and when they attempted to

reason with this man and to intervene, he killed them both, and he wounded a third man who tried to also speak up. finish i'm deeply troubled by that, and that's not the only incident we've seen where all of a sudden it appears that there are attitudes and feelings that are bursting through the veneer of civilization, you know? we, i think, have done a lot in the last centuries to deal with some of the intractable problems. not just race and sexism and ethnicity and religion, but also what's an appropriate way of treating a fellow person. one of the reasons i love living in new york is that it's just elbow to elbow with people from everywhere, and is you've got to figure out how you, you know, how you accommodate that, how you work with that. and it really does call out a

level of behavior that should be expected of everyone. and what i saw in this election was a deliberate effort to blow the top off of that, tooth basically say whatever feeling you have, whatever, you know, resentment, however angry you might be, get out there and express it. and it's okay to, you know, take it out on oh people verbally or -- on other people verbally or physically as we saw during the campaign. that is incredibly dangerous. you know, that is unleashing a level of vitriol and defensiveness, hatred that i don't think we should tolerate. you know, as secretary of state -- [applause] you know, i traveled the world on behalf of our country, and i did that as a senator, i did it

as a first lady. i've been incredibly lucky. and i will tell you it doesn't take much to rip off the politeness and the accommodation that really keeps diverse people's -- peoples working and living together. we saw it in bosnia where it was deliberately intended to inflame neighbor against neighbor. we saw it in rwanda. i've seen it in many other places where political leaders -- for their own purpose, their own power, greed, ideology, religion, whatever it might be -- really light those flames. and there's always kindling there. there's always people who are nursing a grievance, who feel that they weren't treated rightg who think somebody's getting ahead, who see the world as a

zero sum game. and so those thoughts were very much present in my mind as i went back to wellesley and, you know, tried to, you know, say tw the graduates you're coming out of this great education you've been given at a time of a lot of you are turmoil, a lot of questioning. please, find your role. and something as simple as wherever you end up, go register to vote. get involved. to the point where your voice will actually be added to thosev with whom you agree or even if you don't agree on everything, people of reason wanting to get together. and i told them i think we're living at a time when there's a deliberate assault on truth and reason. and, you know, i think the enlightenment was a pretty good deal, and it helped to provide the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings of our founders.

and i still believe that, you know, we are the greatest, you know, manmade invention in the history of the world. and and we can't give up onn that, and we can't get discouraged, and we have to figure out ways we're going to keep going. >> now, i think that phrase "people of reason" is one that i just, i hunger for now. i've never been so nostalgic for so many republicans in my life. [laughter] as i am now. because i think that that's what, that's what we're missing out on. so as you know, last may i introduced you in san francisco at an event. and one of the things i said about you that i think the thing that probably got the loudest applause was i said that hillary clinton made the world ready for hillary clinton. and what i meant by that was one of the reasons that you inspire me and so many others is that you always have fought reallyou

hard and blazed a trail, you know? that you really have gone places where no woman has gone before. and, of course, you're standing on shoulders of so many women who came before you. i think whenever we say she blazed her own trail, we also mean and then the women who came before her who got her to the place where she could even blaze that trail. and, you know, things didn't turn out the way we hoped, but one thing that i've, that's given me a sense of hope in these months since the election is that the work you did, everything you accomplished in the course of that campaign season really will help that next woman who comes along and becomes our paris woman president. -- our first woman president. so i wanted to thank you for that. [applause]or i want to thank you for that. [applause] and, you know, i do have a little side division as an advice giver.

and i'm not going the give you advice, unless you want it -- >> please. absolutely. >> what i would like you to do is to imagine that woman whogi will become our first female president. what advice do you have for herr what words do you have for her? >> read my book -- [laughter] because i want her to fully understand what she's getting herself into. because it is unlike any experience she will, has ever had before. she might be a governor, she might be a senator, she might be -- >> a writer. >> -- a writer, yes. [laughter] she might be a business executive. who knows what she might be.whow but our system many our country -- in our country is the most difficult political environment in the world of any

democracy to elect a leader. why do i say that. o if you look at a lot of the women who become heads of government in the u.k., chancellor merkel in germany, florida da my year, indeer raganty, benazir bhutto, if you look at the names that we know well over the course of the last 50, 60 years, they often arise from a parliamentary system. and in a parliamentary system, you run in a small constituency where people actually know you, where they can evaluate you because maybe they'll see you at the grocery store, or they've come to one of your events, or your children are in school together. g g whatever it might be. and then you are selected by your peers to be their leader. so, again, your colleagues who are in your party in a

parliament, they see, oh, you know, cheryl, she's a great worker. she knows how to get things done. and you move up the scale. in our system you start from scratch. it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, how qualified you are -- [laughter] it doesn't matter. you can stand up and say i'm going to run for president, and then you have to go out and you have to talk to the entire country, and you have to raise a lot of money, and you have to go through the gauntlet that american presidential campaigns are. now, i think there's some benefit to that because it is the hardest job in the world. or at least it used to be theit hardest job in the world -- [laughter] [applause] and you have to be prepared for what it means to be literally

brutalized, you know?te the things that will be said and the way you'll be treated, it just kind of goes with the territory. and that's not to say that, you know, men don't get harsh treatment and aren't put in the spotlight, but you are carrying the burden of the double standard. and you have to know that. and it is, you know, in my book i take on the issue of sexismke and misogyny and talk about it, because we need to pull it out and put it in the bright light. and it may be uncomfortable for some people to read how i experienced it, what i believe about it, but i think that's a conversation we need to have. and so for this future woman candidate, it will be, you know, my -- i hope i'm still around --

it will be my great, you know, privilege to be able to say, okay, i'll give you my best experience, my best advice. but everybody has to find, you know, her or his own way. and i hope that it'll be sooner instead of later. >> and that she'll be progressive. yeah. [applause] >> well, yeah, that's -- just because you run doesn't mean you earn the vote, right? y >> yeah, that's right. >> yeah. >> okay. so i'm going to open it up now to to questions from the audience. i have a few here. anna from kansas city said what is your favorite book from childhood? so nancy drew, but did you have one, did you have -- do you have one favorite? >> well, i've said this before, and it's interesting because i was, obviously, a young teenager when i read brothers karamatsov. and i read some years ago that it was also one of laura bush's favorite books. and i found that coincidence

really fascinating. but that was one that stuck with me and has to this day. >> okay. martha from silver spring, maryland, says what's currently on your night stand and what's on your grandchildren's night stand? do they have a night stand? maybe not. >> no, they have stacks on the floor. [laughter] they have lots of books. i just finished a terrific book that i was just totally captivated by called "jersey brothers" by sally mott freeman. and it's the story of three brothers during world war ii, all of whom are in the navy, on of whom becomes a prisoner of war in the philippines. the other is an officer, you know, on, in the fleet working with the admirals who are waginn the war in the pacific, and the third, admiral mott -- because he stayed in the navy -- started off in the white house as one of the naval aides to president roosevelt.

and that, i mean, the book itself is a great read, and the author has done this amazing job of recreating dialogue that just seems so i authentic. i mean, she researched it for ten years, and, you know, as somebody who is in the midst of writing my own book, i mean, the amount of work that went into that and the imagination that she brought to it. but i had a personal connection, and that is when i was first lady, the map room, which is what it was call when roosevelt had all these maps on the wallll and churchill would come to stay in the white house, and they'd come down from the residence, and roosevelt would be in his wheelchair, and churchill would be smoking his cigar, and they'd go into the map room. and in addition to this main character of "jersey brothers," he talks about a young lieutenant named george elsie. and george elsie was one of the aides to roosevelt as well.or and the reason that was important to me is that when i became first lady, i said this

used to be so historic, and it's kind of like, you know, a waiting room now or a small meeting room. i said do you think there's anything left from the map room? and we looked and searched, and what we could find was already in archives. and then george elsie -- by that time, you know, an elderly man -- came forward and said, you know, i did roll up some maps. and he gave us a map, and it was a map from the european theater. and we put it up above fireplace there. so i'm reading this book totally entranced in it, and all of a sudden it's like this personal connection. >> wow. >> so that has been at the top of my night stand. >> the magic of books. okay. and booksellers. this one is from lauren from mystic, connecticut. she says please visit us again at savoy book shop in rhode island. is savoy in the house? all right, hi.

what's the role, and this is a really important question for me, i must say, as an author. what is the role of independent booksellers in the current political culture? >> oh, it is more important than ever. i, as i said, e love bookstoressing -- i love bookstores, and i love independent booksellers. and the stores that so many of you, you know, own, run, work in, and it is more important than ever. and i hope it's true, what i'm reading, that independent bookstores are on a real upward trajectory. is that true, i hope? [applause] a >> yeah. >> and it is, it is really encouraging to me that so many people are going back toeo bookstores, that they're buying, you know, real books that they can hold, touch and turn the corners down and all the things we do with our books.n so we cannot have enough discussion. you know, one of my really dear

friends, lissa muscatine, she and her husband brad own politics & prose in washington, and they have not just authors' events, i know you were there once, but they have discussions now where people are concerned about health care or the environment, you know, what does it mean to pull out of the paris accord as we apparently are going to do or immigration or, you know, what does nato really mean? using the bookstore, the independent bookstore as a gathering place, a community center to discuss some of these issues and bringing in an author whenever possible to be part of that. so i think that the role has always been important, but i think it's even more so now. and you had asked me about my grandchild, and, you know, we -- my grandchildren, and we took very seriously the advice to read to your children. so we've been reading to charlotte and aidan, you know, from the very beginning and, you

know, chelsea has this new wonderful book out i will plug called "she persisted" which is a children's book about american women -- [applause] and so i was over there, i was over there the orr o'day, and you can't -- the other day, and you can't, just as a mom, as a grandmother to see my daughter reading the book she wrote about american women to my granddaughter and my grandson, it doesn't get any better than that. so -- [applause] >> beautiful. >> -- children's books, for sure. [applause] >> and it just happens that the next question from renee in new york is along these lines. as you said, chelsea just published a new book, and renee wants to know if you and chelsea have ever thought about writing a book together, maybe a book about mother and daughter relationships or how to raise a strong feminist kid, male or female? have you, have the two of you discussed that at all? >> no, but i will now. >> that's right. [laughter] >> i think that's --

>> we're going to have a book deal by the end of the night. [laughter] >> i think it's a great idea. >> i do too. i do too. so another question, we sort of touched on this a bit, but specifically during the campaign did you have any to realize, or -- any time to read or werere you just reading the news constantly? >> you know, i didn't really have a lot of time, and that's a big loss for me because, you know, i read usually every night before i fall asleep. but i'd be so tired by the end of those long days and having to get up early in the morning, ig didn't really other than reams of briefing papers. i had this old-fashioned idea that, you know, the policies you proposed would actually be important in -- [laughter] governing your country. so we spent a lot of time, and i spent many nights going over, you know, what we were going to do to, you know, increase wages

and jobs and, you know, all of the real gutty issues that we were concerned about. but i didn't have much time for any pleasure reading. >> yeah. so have you -- paula from san diego wants to know have you read john lewis' "march trilogy." have you read it? it's amazing. >> i have not read it, but i know of it very well. john's a longtime, dear friend of mine. >> right.l. and she says so even if you haven't read those books, certainly you know his work and his message. and paula wants to know how can we continue applying that vision and that message that people like john lewis and others, spreading that kind of justice and kindness and equality, that struggle? how do we continue that struggle in these times? >> that's a great question. you know, john is the first person that i ever heard use the phrase "beloved community."

and it was in one of his early writings. it was in his speeches. it was really motivated by hissp faith, by his courageous witness as a civil rights leader and activist. and as long as i've known him, that has been what's driven him. how do we bring people together. how do we cross the divides. and i think it's pretty clear it's more important now than it has been for a long time. and part of what i'm doing in the book is trying to think through what are practical suggestions that anybody could do. because we are very divided. we are living in separate political worlds, and the partisan divide has gotten higher and higher, deeper and deeper and hard for people to cross over. ..

the great book of a few years ago the big sword. we live with people who believe like we do when we listen to them and we get into her echo chambers and that is exacerbated by what we watch on tv and listen to on the radio and read on line. .. >> >> that people had. but we have to take it out of the political realm and put into the citizenship three now. listen to each other and learn from each other to reduce debt with a sense of openness and effort to see

what is motivating somebody else. that doesn't mean all of a sudden you have to forget your values and beliefs i do think some people arepl espousing a horrible points of view and they will not be people i will have much in common with but the vast majority of people have legitimate questions and concerns on the all sides of the political divide we need more opportunities to have those conversations to make that happen. >> so the book is coming down in september you turn 70 in october what is the next chapter for you?. >> i have no idea. but i have no reason to have no idea.

i will do everything i can to support the resistance. [applause] i am a congenital organizer so i set up a new group called on word together and i took over maya leftover campaign funding to put into this group sold with these young start-ups that woke up after that election and said look we have to do something about this, people to register, trade them, town halls, because it is exactly what should be done i will do everything i can to help grow that and support it by

the big ticket offices but from the ground level up. city council, a school board county commissions and continue to find ways to work together so whatever damages coming from washington because that's who i am that is my idea they. [applause] >> we are out of time bute. just go to the door and went 84 years service.

>> hq booksellers. [cheers and applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

senator bernie sanders brings his thoughts how to bring about political change in american a and doug shown gives his assessment of the presidency. in and talking about the our hurricane that hit doubles to in texas to mark the 16th anniversary of 9/11 am laurence rate discussing the pulitzer prize-winning book.

that is all this weekend on booktv for pro. >> one thing i want to ask you first is have you had time to read much?. >> i just finished a great book. event reading the guns of august but i read a fiction book that i thought was terrific that is called although white you cannot see. and i read a lot of philosophy.

but my wife reads almost one book a week. roosevelts last battle. so she is a voracious reader and that is one of the things i absorb a lot of information every day with my ipad and i also read magazines. >> i lazore a lot of information. >> one is called the three days said in january. and the thing that makes the book so powerful is

eisenhower's concern nuclear weapons were the issue. that happened right after the transition to ensure that you had control over the military. in the what translates. the other one is called pikes scandal during the suez crisis. those were big mistakes. >> one more the id was one of the best i have read a long time was the book, right brothers by david mcauliffe. he is wonderful. so all these people from north carolina he does have

a bunch of sand and wind. [laughter] national title or not weekly mediation, not you. [laughter] . >> good evening. we want to give day will come to those who were watching us live on c-span.