C-SPAN Bookshelf

Journalist Boyce Upholt talks about the history and geography of the Mississippi River and human attempts to control it going back to the Founding Era. He discusses how government-built levees, dikes, and dams have transformed the landscape and ecosystem along the 2,340-mile-long Mississippi and the impact that commerce, floods, and pollution have had on the population along its banks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff joins David M. Rubenstein to discuss her biographies of Cleopatra, Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams before visiting the vault of the National Archives to view the Treaty of Paris and other priceless documents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, talked about growing up as a Trump and his family's involvement in business and politics. This event was held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In September 1975, 17 days apart, two women, one in Sacramento and the other in San Francisco, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. The first attempt on September the 5th came from Annette Squeaky Fromm. The Charles Manson follower spent over 30 years in prison, is out on parole, and is 76 years old. The other attempt came on the non-entrance side of St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on September the 24th, 1975. The shooter, Sara Jane Moore, served 32 years in prison and died almost 50 years to the day on September the 24th, 2025. Author Jerry Spieler wrote the book "Housewife Assassin" in 2009. She talked to and exchanged letters with Sara Jane Moore on several occasions. Here's her up-to-date story about the woman who tried to kill President Ford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his memoir, "Who Knew," media mogul Barry Diller talks about his career in television and Hollywood, and about his personal life and longtime relationship with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. Mr. Diller has been an executive at ABC and head of Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox (where he created the Fox television network). While at ABC in the mid-1970s, Mr. Diller was responsible for creating the Movie of the Week and the television miniseries, including "Roots." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joins host David M. Rubenstein to discuss her new book, her early life and her view of the Constitution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Karen Hao discussed her reporting on OpenAI under the leadership of Sam Altman. The Commonwealth Club of California hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The book is called "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Author Dan Wang was born in China in 1992. His parents moved to Canada when he was seven. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York. Then in 2018, Dan Wang went to live in China until he returned to the US in 2023. He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States. He writes in his introduction: "A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness and overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty discusses her life-long interest in Russia, which she first visited in 1969 as an exchange student. A fluent Russian speaker, she spent 10 years covering Russia for Voice of America and CNN. Besides serving as Moscow Bureau Chief, Jill Dougherty was White House correspondent during the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. While in Moscow, she covered the presidencies of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, master of the legal thriller John Grisham joins host David M. Rubenstein to discuss his early life, writing process, latest novel and his work with wrongfully convicted prisoners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Washington Post's Christian Davenport reported on the private companies in space flight and the rivalry between Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., hosts this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The names are almost all known nationally: Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Kramer, and Donald Trump. These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s. Their early public lives are now featured in Jonathan Mahler's book, "The Gods of New York." The book is divided into four large chapters titled 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989. Mr. Mahler, a feature writer for the New York Times Magazine, closes his book with this last paragraph: "The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered. The great working-class city was gone." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Goodall talked about her book Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink (Grand Central Publishing; September 2, 2009). In the book, she and her co-authors describe people and projects around the world that are rescuing species on the brink of extinction. The guest interviewer was John Nielsen. The interview was held at Georgetown University, prior to Ms. Goodall giving a special lecture. Primatologist Jane Goodall, famous for her work with chimpanzees, is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. She is the author of many books, including In the Shadow of Man; Reason for Hope, and Chimpanzees I Love. John Nielsen, journalist in residence at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is the author of Condor: To the Brink and Back - The Life and Times of One Giant Bird and the producer of WWF's "The Wild Things," a bi-weekly podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. "It's a portrait of a man at war with himself," according to the authors. "It's riven with melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late." William Taubman, seven years older than his brother at 83, is an emeritus political science professor from Amherst College. Brother Phil spent 30 years with the New York Times and is an author of several books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critic and opinion writer Christopher Scalia, son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, recommends 13 novels with conservative themes that, he says, aren’t widely known by conservatives. In his book "13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven't Read," the former English professor discusses books by Walter Scott, George Eliot, P.D. James, Zora Neale Hurston, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fox News contributor Joe Concha gave his take on President Donald Trump's return to the White House for a second, non-consecutive term. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California, hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Flynn's book is titled, "The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer." Mr. Flynn points out in his introduction that "Meyer travels from communist to conservative, peace activist to soldier, Jew to Catholic, rhapsodist of Satan to cheerleader for Reagan, and free love enthusiast to family man." Flynn, who is a senior editor at the American Spectator and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, tells readers how he found the forgotten papers of Frank Meyer. It's in a warehouse in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Meyer lived between 1909 and 1972. He was 62 when he died. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, President Trump announced that a deal had been reached between the U.S. government and China regarding the control of the widely popular social media platform, TikTok. In April 2024, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a law that required TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok within a year or face a ban in the United States. Forbes technology reporter Emily Baker-White, author of "Every Screen on the Planet," talks about the meteoric rise of TikTok, used by an estimated 150 million Americans, and the U.S. government's concerns over its influence and ownership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Weiner discussed the history and evolution of the Central Intelligence Agency from the end of the Cold War through the first quarter of the 21st century. Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our last podcast, Ed Luce of the Financial Times told us about his book, "Zbig," for Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017) who he calls America's great power prophet. In this episode, we're going to feature a Booknotes interview from April 2, 1989, with Dr. Brzezinski. He was the first guest for the weekly Sunday evening program that ran until 2005. His book at the time was about his longtime prediction that there would be a failure of communism in the Soviet Union. The name of Brzezinski's book was "The Grand Failure." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro went to prison in 2024 after being found guilty of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6th Committee. In his book, "I Went to Prison So You Won’t Have To," Mr. Navarro describes the Justice Department's case against him, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him prison. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former influencer Lee Tilghman described the impact on herself of making a career on social media. Strand Books in New York City hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I was initially very skeptical about embarking on a full life biography of anyone, let alone a figure as big as Zbig." Edward Luce is talking about President Carter's former national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Luce is the Financial Times' chief commentator and columnist. Luce is a native of Sussex, England, and has spent close to 20 years in the United States since the mid-90s. He is an Oxford grad. Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, got his PhD at Harvard, and spent time in Canada during the time his father was posted as police council general in Montreal. Brzezinski was national security advisor from 1977 to 1981. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ann Butler was a CIA spy for 25+ years. She donned disguises, used false names, and learned how to evade surveillance. She did this clandestine work while simultaneously raising five children. As she says, "No one suspected a pregnant woman was a spy." Ann Butler talks about her work with the Agency, what it took to become an overseas operative in the mid-1980s, and some of the methods she used to extract information from targets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell's book, The Day My Brother Was Murdered, explores crime and justice in American cities through the stories of murders that occurred the night that his 18-year-old brother was killed as an innocent bystander during a drive-by shooting.. The loss of his brother inspired Gianno Caldwell to establish the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, which is dedicated to addressing the pervasive issue of crime and its impact on communities across the country. Melissa Giller of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute interviewed Mr. Caldwell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Simon Ball is the author of the book "Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination." Professor Ball is British and is located at the University of Leeds. His publisher, Yale University Press, says: "Assassination, the murder of a specific individual by an organized conspiracy in pursuit of political ends has shaped the fate not only of the famous and infamous victims, but also of nations and empires." Simon Ball tells the story of hundreds of assassins from 1914 to the present. He claims the most important assassination during those years was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was the start of World War I. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Liberty Media chairman and cable TV pioneer John Malone, author of "Born to Be Wired," discusses his life and entrepreneurship. Mr. Malone's many business ventures include the Discovery Channel, QVC, SiriusXM, Formula One, and Ticketmaster. He also talks about competing with Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, the value of philanthropy, Republican leadership in Congress, and living life as a high-functioning autistic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian Heath Hardage Lee, author of The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon, talked about the life and times of the former first lady (1969-74). She said that Pat Nixon, who was voted "Most Admired Woman in the World" in 1972, was largely mis-portrayed by the press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Sam Tanenhaus opens the acknowledgement section in his latest book, "Buckley," this way: "I first met William F. Buckley in 1990, shortly after I had begun work on a biography of Whitaker Chambers…Bill Buckley had been Chambers' last patron and most eloquent champion." The biography of Chambers was published in 1997. Now 28 years later, Sam Tanenhaus finished his 1,018-page book on the life of William Buckley Jr. "Within months of our first conversation, Bill Buckley had opened doors," writes Tanenhaus, "uncovered grant money, made phone calls, and performed innumerable other kindnesses, large and small." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley, author of "The Affirmative Action Myth," argues that the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 70s have had an overall negative impact on the success of Black Americans. He says that Black incomes, homeownership, and educational attainment were all on an upward trajectory prior to these policies being implemented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Education Design Lab founder Kathleen deLaski examined whether the U.S. higher education system can meet the needs of future generations of students. She discusses alternatives to the four-year college degree, including educational bootcamps, skills-based learning, and apprenticeships. This event took place at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian Jay Winik first appeared on the Booknotes television program 24 years ago to discuss his book, "April 1865." It became a #1 New York Times bestseller, reportedly read by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and many others. It's the narrative story of the Civil War. For his latest book, Winik stepped back four years in history to look at how the Civil War began. This time the book is titled "1861: The Lost Peace." "Northerners had little regard for the strength or determination of the South," writes Winik. Lincoln friend John Hay said the Southern Army was nothing more than a vast mob. The New York Tribune said it differently: "Jeff Davis and company will be swinging from the battlements at Washington by the 4th of July." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and writer George Will, whose nationally syndicated column has been running since 1974, discusses his life and career in the opinion business. Mr. Will talks about the impact of his work on U.S. politics over the past 50 years, conservatism in the age of Donald Trump, his love of baseball, and other topics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was an inside look at the glamorous Condé Nast publishing empire, the people who crafted its publications, and the standards they set for American culture. Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sir Richard J. Evans has been writing about Germany and Adolf Hitler for his entire professional life. He was knighted in Britain in 2012 for his service to scholarship. From 2003-2008, Professor Evans published a trilogy of the Third Reich with a total of over 2,500 pages. His latest book is titled "Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich." In his preface, Sir Richard, a former professor at Cambridge University writes: "The individuals who stand at the center of this book range from the top to the bottom, from Hitler all the way down to the lowest of the Nazi party." There are 22 chapters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sports journalist and academic Jane McManus, author of "The Fast Track," discusses the rise in popularity of women's sports since the early 1970s and the challenges female athletes have faced since then, including unequal pay and lack of media coverage. Prof. McManus talks about the experiences of Billie Jean King, Venus and Serena Williams, Caitlin Clark, Riley Gaines, and other female competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isabel Allende spoke about identity & resilience in her historical novel set in the 19th century against a backdrop of civil war breaking out in Chile. The Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our earlier discussion with Zaakir Tameez about his biography of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject. On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called "Lincoln" on the Booknotes television program. David Donald died in 2009 at age 88. During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his "Lincoln" book by historian Eric Foner. "It is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever. It's the most balanced of the biographies out there," said Foner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and musician Lee Hawkins, author of "I Am Nobody's Slave," talks about the impact that slavery and Jim Crow have had on his family through multiple generations. Mr. Hawkins examines the relationship between the past violence experienced by family members, often at the hands of white people, and the way his parents raised and severely disciplined him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This conversation was a behind-the-scenes account of the 2024 presidential election that sent Donald Trump back to the White House for a second, non-consecutive term -- only the second president other than Grover Cleveland to achieve that distinction, and after a litany of criminal and civil investigations and two assassination attempts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charles Sumner was from Boston, Massachusetts. He was a U.S. Senator for 23 years from 1851 to 1874. Sumner, an anti-slavery Republican, was brutally caned on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Democrats in 1856, during the lead-up to the Civil War. The attack, which almost killed Sumner, kept him out of the Senate for over 3 years. Sumner didn't marry until he was 55 years old, but his marriage to Alice Hooper ended in divorce seven years later. The 6' 4" Republican died of a heart attack in his home on March 11, 1874. Zaakir Tameez, a graduate of Yale Law School, reports in his new biography that Charles Sumner, in his opinion, was the conscious of a nation. In his introduction, Tameez writes: "This biography brings Sumner back to life, returning him to the place he deserves in the pantheon of American heroes. That said, this book is no hagiography." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Technology reporter Nicole Kobie, author of "The Long History of the Future," talks about how technology evolves and discusses why many predicted technologies – including driverless and flying cars, smart cities, hyperloops, and autonomous robots – haven’t become a reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling author John Grisham and co-author Jim McCloskey wrote about the challenges of exonerating a person who is wrongfully convicted. Princeton Library, Centurion, and Labyrinth Books in Princeton, New Jersey, sponsored this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The patriarch, C.F. Seabrook, was hailed as the Henry Ford of agriculture. His son, Jack, a keen businessman, was poised to take over what Life magazine called the biggest vegetable factory on earth. His son, John Seabrook, has written about his grandfather and father in his book called "The Spinach King." It's subtitled "The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty." Work on "The Spinach King" started in the early 1980s when John Seabrook was with the New Yorker Magazine. John Seabrook says: "I had a grandfather who was a champion of white supremacy, a true believer in the superiority of the Nordic Christian male." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Progressive professor Cornel West and conservative professor Robert George talk about their decades-long friendship and teaching together at Princeton University. They also discuss their new book, "Truth Matters," a dialogue between the two on such topics as American history, great books, faith, and free speech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Financial Times San Francisco Correspondent Patrick McGee examined Apple's relationship with China and the impact of locating so many factories there. The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco hosted this event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a word, Evan Osnos' latest book focuses on the subject of money. His book is titled "The Haves and the Have Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultra-Rich." There are 10 essays which originally appeared in his home publication, The New Yorker. The oldest one, "Survival of the Richest," ran in 2017. The newest, titled "Land of Make-Believe," was published in 2024. In his introduction, Osnos writes that: "Reporting in the enclaves of the very rich, Monte Carlo, Palm Beach, Palo Alto and Hollywood is complicated. It's not a world that relishes scrutiny." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Kramer (G.W. Bush Institute), Stephanie Streett (Clinton Foundation), Alice Yates (George & Barbara Bush Foundation), and Mark Updegrove (LBJ Foundation) talk about preserving the legacies of U.S. presidents and the work their privately funded organizations do to achieve this, including through the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, which launched in 2015. They also talk about the relationship between their foundations and the government funded presidential library system, which is overseen by the National Archives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former President Bill Clinton talked with his co-author James Patterson about their latest novel: A mystery in the White House that leads to the first gentleman on trial for murder. Politics and Prose Bookstore hosted this event at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dave Barry's memoir is called "Class Clown." It is at least his 46th book. On the front of his book, he makes an important declaration: "How I went 77 years without growing up." For 30 years, Dave Barry wrote a weekly humor column published in newspapers, mostly on the weekends. He retired that column in 2005 but has kept writing. On the back flap of his memoir, the bio says he has more best sellers than you can count on two hands. Barry won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He lives in Miami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices