Palin writes in her book about how offended she was when Couric asked her what books and magazines she regularly read to establish her worldview.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—or as some have ludicrously suggested, couldn’t—answer her question; it was that her condescension irritated me. It was as though she had suddenly stumbled on a primitive newcomer from an undiscovered tribe.”

In Sarah from Alaska, we describe how astonished staffers were that Palin chose not to answer the simple question and write that campaign aides had actually prepared her to answer a similar question.

“It wasn’t the exact question Palin’s aides had anticipated, but it was close. They had guessed that Couric, or a future interviewer, might ask the governor what nonfiction books she had read recently,” we write in Sarah from Alaska, “From his vantage point behind the cameras, Chris Edwards looked on in horror at Palin’s refusal to answer the question. He was the one who brought press clippings to her room each morning, and he knew that she got her news from a variety of sources. Why didn’t she just answer the question?”