Biography: The Corridors of Power (2009): Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

A. Scott Berg is the author of numerous biographies including Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, for which he received the National Book Award, and Lindbergh, for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. He is currently working on a biography of Woodrow Wilson.

H. W. Brands is a professor of history at Texas A&M University. Among his many acclaimed books are T. R.: The Last Romantic and the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Biography finalist Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Jim Newton is the editor of the Los Angeles Times' editorial pages. He shared in the Pulitzer prizes awarded to the Los Angeles Times for coverage of the 1992 riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. He is the author of Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made.

Ronald C. White, Jr. is the author of three books on Abraham Lincoln, most recently A. Lincoln: A Biography. White earned his Ph.D. at Princeton and has lectured on Lincoln at hundreds of universities and organizations, as well as at Gettysburg and the White House.