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Saturday Morning News

First Lady Receives $8 Million Advance for Book

Aired December 16, 2000 - 8:18 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: First lady and Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton has agreed to a multi-million dollar deal with Simon & Schuster to publish her memoirs. Today's "Washington Post" puts the figure at $8 million. The book is expected to deal with Mrs. Clinton's eight years in the White House. Simon & Schuster won a bidding war with seven other publishers for the book and it's due out early 2003.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, as long as we're on the subject of books, we have got 'em here, and I'm poring over this Beatles book. I love this Beatles book. It is, it's just great fun. Maybe I'm showing my age. James Marcus is with Amazon.com. He's going to join us and talk about this book and a few others, what to get your friends and family for the holiday season. And James, thanks for being with us.

PHILLIPS: Hi, James.

JAMES MARCUS, AMAZON.COM: My pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Awfully early out there in Seattle. We appreciate it.

MARCUS: Not a problem.

PHILLIPS: He's looking at the Beatles book, I'm looking at the love book, and I guess we'll get to both of those, but we're going to start out with the Beatles.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's do the Beatles. I've been leafing through this. I'm just engrossed by this book. It's all first person stuff, just them kind of telling their stories. They kind of opened up the archives. My question is do you have to be sort of my age or a little bit older to appreciate this or is there a younger generation that you could give this to?

MARCUS: No, I think it's proved to be multi-generational. I agree with you that 30 years after the Beatles threw in the towel you might think they were about to become a victim of cultural amnesia, but the successful of The Beatles Anthology, which has been our number one selling book at Amazon.com through almost the entire holiday season, proves that they are not being forgotten by any generation.

Indeed, there aren't enough old fogies in America to account for all the old Beatles fans buying this book. O'BRIEN: And how much -- this book is expensive, right? This is a $60 book?

MARCUS: Yeah, it's something of a big ticket item, but I think this is the official story. It's lovingly and lavishly told and although for Fab Four scholars there might not be any revelations in here, this is really the ultimate source book for The Beatles and as you mentioned, it's packed...

O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, wait a minute. James, scholars? There's Beatology is a discipline now? Is that...

MARCUS: I believe there is a flourishing academic discipline...

O'BRIEN: Professor of Beatology.

MARCUS: Or professor of Ringo studies. I think there are subspecialties now as well, so.

PHILLIPS: Good, right.

MARCUS: No, but it's a fantastic gift item and has, as I said, been the number one gift book essentially since November when it came out.

O'BRIEN: All right.

PHILLIPS: All right, here's a timely one, "Maestro" by Bob Woodward, "Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom." Now, you say it's an interesting book about Greenspan and what he's been up to lately, but more interesting was how he proposed to his wife.

MARCUS: Well, I think it's both. I mean Greenspan is a famously inscrutable figure. At this point, he's sort of a monetary Wizard of Oz to the United States. But according to Woodward, he was that inscrutable even in his youth and he proposed to his wife and evidently she had no idea what he was talking about. He said something about stagflation or...

PHILLIPS: It almost as confusing as the interest rates.

MARCUS: Yeah. But he asked again and the second time she understood him and away they went.

O'BRIEN: And Andrea Mitchell said that's irrational exuberance in reply, right? Isn't that right?

MARCUS: Well, I think he wanted to have a 30 year bond with her or something. But she said OK and -- no, but I would add about this book that it is a fine portrait of a very inscrutable and enormously powerful man. But it does give you some insight into how the United States economy works and how the Fed has both bolstered it and reigned it in during the last 10 years.

PHILLIPS: And Woodward's one to definitely scrutinize. That's for sure. MARCUS: Woodward is our foremost fly on the wall and so he's the man you want to write these books.

O'BRIEN: I, you know, I've raised my interest in you, I don't know. Let's -- we could go on and on. Now, J.K. Rowling has the good press agent. There's no question about that. But there is a similar author out there sort of in the same vein, same demographic they're going after. That's Philip Pullman and there's a series, "The Amber Spy Glass" being the latest of them. For those who are uninitiated, James, just give us a quick fill on what this is all about and why this might be good for your Harry Potter fans out there.

MARCUS: Well, again, simply because Philip Pullman is English, because he's written a series of books and because like J.K. Rawlings' wonderful series, this one revolves around a young protagonist, a girl in this case, engaged in a battle with primeval evil, I mean very bad evil. And there's also a magical wizardly element to the book. And so I think the comparisons are inevitable and, you know, if I may be blasphemous for just a moment, I love J.K. Rawling but for me, Philip Pullman is, perhaps, a little stronger, being, I think, a darker and more complex writer, but also the creator of a thrilling adventure story that not only young adults but I think older adults will just eat up.

He's a fantastic, fantastic writer and this whole series is an amazing feat of storytelling and imagination.

PHILLIPS: Well, speaking of fantastic writers, Stephen Ambrose, "Nothing Like It In the World," great historical storyteller, yes?

MARCUS: Um-hmm.

O'BRIEN: I called that book, by the way.

PHILLIPS: Oh, you want this one?

O'BRIEN: Yeah, I want that one.

PHILLIPS: Oh, I wanted to send it to my grandfather.

MARCUS: Let's not bicker, you two.

PHILLIPS: All right, all right. We're taking dibs. What's so stirring about this story? That's the word you used, stirring.

MARCUS: Well, the thing with Ambrose is, you know, he's probably our foremost historian of W.W.II. He's written "Citizen Soldiers" and "D-Day." Now he's turned to a peacetime enterprise that I think is just as daunting in its enormity and logistical complexity as "D-Day," which is the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

What he does in his military histories and brilliantly does here is one hand, he covers the high level shenanigans among the politicians and financiers and technocrats to get this thing built, but he's always great at covering the men and women on the ground who did the scut (ph) work, you know, who fought the battle or in this case the army of laborers who actually built the railroad.

He's just a master at cutting back and forth between on the ground and the corridors of power and it's a great story. It's a great adventure story in its own way and enormously popular.

O'BRIEN: The man can tell a yarn. There is no question about it. Now...

MARCUS: He's a yarn spinner.

O'BRIEN: ... unfortunately, James, we've got to put a golden spike in this segment, but Kyra just wants to mention this novel, real quick.

PHILLIPS: I do. "Feast of Love."

O'BRIEN: "The Feast of Love" which...

PHILLIPS: If you're in love or inspiring to be in love, this is the book, right?

O'BRIEN: Yeah, the author is...

MARCUS: This is, for my money, the novel of the year.

PHILLIPS: All right.

MARCUS: Charles Baxter the author. All right, James, thanks very much. James Marcus is with Amazon.com. We appreciate you getting up early in Seattle on our behalf.

MARCUS: Yeah, sure.

O'BRIEN: Take care.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

MARCUS: Happy holidays.

PHILLIPS: Same to you.

O'BRIEN: Same to you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks again, James.

MARCUS: OK.

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