National Book Festival

It's been a couple of years since I've been able to go to one of these. It's now a one day even at the Convention Center. It allows for many more people to attend. More programs to go on at the same time. And it's inside so not to be exposed to the elements like it was when it was on the National Mall.

More about the festival:

The Library of Congress National Book Festival is an annual literary event that brings together best-selling authors and thousands of book fans for author talks, panel discussions, book signings and other activities. Over its 16-year history, the National Book Festival has become one of the pre-eminent literary events in the United States.

It was created by Laura Bush and then-Librarian of Congress James H. Billington at the suggestion of Mrs. Bush, who had created the Texas Book Festival. The first National Book Festival was Sept. 8, 2001. Mrs. Bush served as honorary chair of the festival through 2008. President and Mrs. Obama have served as honorary co-chairs from 2009 to the present.

The festival is funded by private donors and corporate sponsors who share the Library’s commitment to reading and literacy. Since 2010, National Book Festival Board Co-Chairman David M. Rubenstein has been the festival’s lead benefactor and in 2013 pledged funding for the festival for five more years.

This year I head Jon Meacham talk about Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. More on Meacham:

Jon Meacham is the executive editor and executive vice president at Random House. During his career, he has been editor-in-chief of Newsweek, a contributing editor to Time Magazine, editor-at-large of WNET and a commentator on politics, history, and religious faith in America. Meacham’s book "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House" won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for biography. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and The Washington Post Book World. Meacham has written the best-selling book "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation" and edited "Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement," a collection of distinguished nonfiction about the midcentury struggle against Jim Crow. His most recent work is “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush” (Random House).

Between sessions I saw John Lewis and Ken Burns being interviewed for C-SPAN.

The second author I heard was Douglas Brinkley talk about Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America.

I had no idea how much FDR to further conservation and the national park system in the US. More on Brinkley:

Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University and a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and American Heritage. He is the author of more than 20 books and the Chicago Tribune has dubbed him “America's new past master.” Seven of Brinkley’s books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His book on Hurricane Katrina, “The Great Deluge,” won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and his recent biography “Cronkite” received the Sperber Prize for Best Book in Journalism. His most recent work is “Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America” (HarperCollins). Brinkley lives with his family in Texas.

I also dropped by for a little while to hear Bob Woodward being interviewed. I also ran into my friend Christian who was there to get a couple autographs. Actually the same two people who I heard talk. I saw Meacham  and then found Christian in the book signing line. We chatted while he waited in line. I want and saw my second talk. Then went back and found him in the next signing line and talked a little more. It was a very fun afternoon.

Linda Ronstadt at the 2013 National Book Festival

I had the wonderful opportunity to go down to the National Book Festival on Saturday. I got to see Linda Ronstadt talk about her new book Simple Dreams.

It is really sad that she has Parkinson's Disease. A great singing voice has been silenced but Linda can still talk and the talk she gave was just wonderful. It is great to see that she hasn't strayed very far from her liberal roots. She was very funny and irreverent and just fascinating to listen to.

Here's a little of her talk.



There's also an article about her in today's Post. This is part of what she said on Satuday:

“We weren’t all having orgies and smoking a big spliff,” she said, when I asked her to talk about the “sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll” lifestyle we all associate with rock stardom. Those stories are exaggerated, she said, and her nightlife was often cuddling up with her stuffed panda reading “Anna Karenina.” She admits that she did drugs, like so many others in her orbit then. But she said they weren’t really her thing: “My addiction was to reading.”

It was just fantastic to see her. I'm looking forward to reading her book. I tried to buy it but it was sold out. I take that as a very good sign.

The reviewer in the Post loved the book:

Just about everything in Linda Ronstadt’s “Musical Memoir” is engaging and interesting, but the best part comes first: a long chapter — the longest in the book — about her childhood and adolescence in Tucson, an enchanted time beginning with her birth in 1946, a time that, she realized many years later, established “an essential part of who I was: a girl from the Sonoran Desert.” This may come as a surprise to many of her admirers, who understandably associate her with the “California country rock sound” that first made her famous, but in fact for the last two decades of her career — suffering from Parkinson’s disease, she retired from public performing four years ago — she mainly sang Mexican music, the same music she had learned as a girl right across the border.

I got to see her at DAR Constitution Hall (probably around 1995-96) when she was promoting the album Feels Like Home one of my favorites. She did many of the songs from the album. Then sang How Do I Make You and then did one hit after another. It was amazing. Here's How Do I Make You.

At the National Book Festival

I'm at the National Book Festival on the Mall waiting to see Linda Ronstadt. 

The National Book Festival

This weekend was the National Book Festival on the Mall. This year it was two days. As always this is a wonderful even to go to. There are so many different authors to see it's hard to pick who to go and hear.

Authors at the National Book Festival

Here are the authors that I heard speak at the Festival: Eugene Robinson, David McCullough and Toni Morrison.

David McCullough at the National Book Festival

Here's a clip of David McCullough at the National Book Festival.

National Book Festival

Saturday I went down to the National Book Festival. As always it was a treat. I recorded some of what the authors said during their talks. The sound is not as good as I'd like. I got down to the Mall a little late and so didn't get a seat. I ended up standing for the three sessions but it was well worth it.

Gwen Ifill

The first person I saw was Gwen Ifill. A great way to start. I especially enjoyed her comments on the controversy surrounding her at the time of the VP debates last year.

Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson

Next I saw Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. They discussed their book The Battle for America 2008. They had some very interesting things to say. I wished I got what they said about Sarah Palin. As Dan Balz said she the story that keeps on giving.

Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan at the National Book Festival

The final speakers I saw were Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. They talked about their PBS series on National Parks and the companion book.

National Book Festival, 2008

I went down to the National Book Festival yesterday and saw three authors speak. Rick Atkinson, Bob Schieffer and Cokie Roberts.









































































Rick Atkinson talked about his book The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1953-1944. It is part of a trilogy of books about World War II. I'm in the middle of reading it right now. It is very good. I like the way he writes. He talked about how to make history interesting and the way he says he does it is by finding characters to write about.

National Book Festival 2008, Part II

I have to say I enjoyed Bob Schieffer the best out of the three speakers. I saw him several years ago and was equally impresses. He just seems like your average joe. He seems genuinely surprised that so many have come out to see him.

He told a story of going down to a college in Louisiana and the place where he was speaking was packed. People were sitting on the sills of windows that had been opened. There were even people on trees outside the windows. He said to the audience how grateful he was so many people had showed up to hear him speak. Then someone in the audience said it was mandatory.


He talked about the general state of politics. He said that with the bailout it was one of the few stories that he had a really hard time understanding. He said the experts are saying we need to do something but he added these are the same experts that got us into this mess in the first place.

He then said some of the things he believed in for the US. We don't torture. We don't have secret prisons. That's what the other guys do. Not us. That the power of ideas are far more powerful than any of our weapons. He said the reason the Cold War ended is that the people behind the Iron Curtain were able to see through television what other counties had.

He also said how Hubert Humphrey said that the voting rights act of 1964 was one of our most powerful foreign policy weapons. It showed that we really meant all people were created equal.

He then related this story. One of his first major assignments was when James Meredith was admitted to Ole Miss in 1962. He said there were riots and several people were killed. He remembers being shot at by National Guard snipers who were trying to control the crowd. Schieffer he'd never been more scared in his life even when he was in Viet Nam. He said last night I was in Oxford Mississippi to see the presidential debate. Participating was the first African-American with the chance of being president and a real war hero. Schieffer said we have a long way to go in this country but he never believe in his life time he would see this. He said it was truly historic.





























































































This last picture is of Bob Schieffer texting and he did it for awhile before he went on stage.

Nationl Book Festival 2008, Part III

The final speaker I listened to was Cokie Roberts. She was there talking about her books Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation and Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation. Both books deal with the wives and daughters of the founding fathers. And how they really had a roll in helping their husbands run for office and win elections.

She specifically talked about Dolley Madison and how she helped her husband win re-election. Madison's opponent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney said he run against James Madison and Dolley Madison but he'd prefer to only have run against Mr. Madison.





































































































This last picture is rather interesting. Cokie is waiting to be introduced. All of the speakers are filmed for the Library of Congress archives. You can just see the camera man to the right of the picture. He's turned the camera right on Cokie and she proceeds to ask what are you doing and make a series of rather funny faces. Cokie was incredibly personable in her talk and very passionate about her subject. I think I'm going to have to get the books.

National Book Fair

The 6th annual National Book Festival was held on the Mall this Saturday. What a great even to go to. It is an all day fair with authors talking about there books. There are half a dozen or so tents set up on the Mall. Each tent is about a specific subject ranging from poetry to fiction to history.

I went down to see Doris Kearns Goodwin talk about her book Team of Rivals. As one review put it: Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln’s political genius by examining his relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates.

It is a great book. She talked about how Lincoln was able to put aside his personal feelings on many of these men and include them in the cabinet because these were the best men in very troubled times. Seward became one of Lincoln’s closest friends in the end along the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

You could tell by the way she spoke how much she admires Lincoln. She went over some of the key points in her book about Lincoln’s poor upbringing and lack of school. And the series of set backs in his life that molded his character. She also commented on Lincoln’s great story telling. In answering one of the questions after her talk about if Lincoln could get elected today, she said Lincoln was the consummate politician. In this day and age he would be a huge hit on the Daily Show or Steve Colbert Show.

Over and over again she made the point that Lincoln was able to put aside his personal hurts and feelings on these men (Chase tried to get Lincoln dumped by the Republicans in 1864 and have Chased put on the ballot for president. He ended up appointing Chase the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. When asked why he did this, Lincoln said that Chase would be the best person to look after the interests of the freed slaves. Seward thought he would run the show while Lincoln would be a mere figurehead) and pick the best people for the job.

The best comment she made was when asked if you could ask Lincoln one question what would it be. She said most would ask about what he would have done about reconstruction. Ms. Goodwin’s answer was she would ask Mr. Lincoln to tell one of his stories because they meant so much to him and showed a great deal of what his thinking was. She ended by saying she hope we all were able to get an idea from her book about the man she considered to be the greatest President this country has ever seen.

I wonder around little more after that. I stopped and listened to a mystery writer speak. He was very funny. He said he’s biggest job was convincing his family he actually had a job.

In all it was a very enjoyable Saturday event on the Mall.