Brian Lamb is the most self-effacing man on television. So, all the questions he asks on his C-SPAN history, politics, and public policy author-interview show, Booknotes, are focused on the book and author at hand. What a concept! As a result, this collection of the show's interviews since its inception in 1989 (divided into "Storytellers," "Reporters," and "Leaders"--the latter including Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher) is a treasure trove. Where else could you learn that presidential historian Forrest McDonald writes in the nude? Or that New York Times reporter Malcolm Browne started out as a chemist but left the profession after he accidentally blew up his laboratory?


From Booklist
Some of the most enjoyable reading for habitual readers is reading about writing. This fat book is a font of such enjoyment. Since April 1989, the commercial-free information TV service C-SPAN has presented a series of interviews between C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb and the authors of new history and public affairs books. "How did you get interested in this subject?" Lamb asks. "Where do you write?" "Who are these people you thank in the acknowledgments?" Responding to such quiet, personal questions, the writers wind up telling us about the human relationships, the lifestyles, the personal preferences, the practical considerations--the living that goes into the creating of books. Historians David McCullough and Shelby Foote, scholars Stephen Carter and Francis Fukuyama, journalists Anna Quindlen and Peter Arnett, and world leaders Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Carter are a few who have answered Lamb, and the anecdotes and observations collected here, with which they and more than 120 equally prominent peers responded, are deeply amusing, absorbing, and affecting. Ray Olson


From Kirkus Reviews
These excerpts from more than 150 of C-SPAN's weekly Booknotes interviews have all the conversational richness of the fabled Paris Review interviews. The informal pleasures of the spoken word distinguish this collection, in which Booknotes host and C-SPAN founder Lamb's questions are omitted, allowing interviewees' voices to take center stage. Unadorned, these authors reveal themselves with honesty and vigor; the interviews, divided into three sections, ``Storytellers,'' ``Reporters,'' and ``Leaders'' (this breakdown isn't as clean as it sounds; the reporters, of course, have plenty of stories to tell in their books, too). Among the best are biographers Stephen Ambrose and Robert D. Richardson Jr., and journalists Neil Sheehan and Stanley Crouch. The selections range from such well-known writers as David Halberstam and David McCullough to such lesser-known figures as Nicholas Basbanes, a chronicler of bibliomaniacs. For numerous reporters the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam war were defining experiences. Richard Nixon talks about the long view of history. Colin Powell describes signing 2,000 to 4,000 of his books at a sitting--one every 2.9 seconds. Doris Kearns Goodwin and John Keegan summarize their longhand writing methods, while Halberstam says using a word processor has probably doubled his productivity. Edmund Morris brazenly chides editors who ``love to obliterate,'' and Paul Kennedy celebrates the care given by his copy editor but laments that once his proofs have been read it's too late to change anything--``you're deep frozen in what you've said.'' Time and again these authors assert that writing is terribly hard work, and rarely fun; many just despise it; only a handful (George Will, famously) dare claim to love it. All would seem to agree with David Hackworth that ``writing a book takes a lot of your life.'' An often riveting insider's perspective on the writing life by some of our foremost authors. (16 pages photos, not seen) (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Card catalog description
For nearly a decade, Booknotes has been an oasis of book programming on television, the only place where Americans can regularly find in-depth, quality discussion of books. Now, in celebration of over eight years of Booknotes, Lamb has collected the program's most interesting, revealing, and memorable moments. In essays that let the authors speak for themselves, Booknotes includes David Halberstam, who explains how he readies himself to write by having "a very lazy cappuccino;" Doris Kearns Goodwin, on spending six years working on her Roosevelt book in a study filled with pictures of FDR and Eleanor; Civil War historian Shelby Foote, explaining why he has to sleep in the room he writes in; Stephen Ambrose, on why he became a historian instead of a doctor; Norman Mailer, on why he never gets writer's block. David McCullough tells us about meeting Harry Truman; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., describes the difference between memoir and autobiography; Paul Kennedy speaks about suddenly being a best-selling author; Tina Rosenberg tells us how she selected her book title; Martin Gilbert discusses Churchill's laundry list; Robert Caro considers the ways in which writers document the lives of the powerful; Howell Raines reveals all about fly-fishing. These are just a few of the authors that can be found in Booknotes. The result is a collection that any reader or writer will savor, a peek behind the curtain and into the minds of some of our finest contemporary authors.


From the Inside Flap
For nearly a decade, Booknotes has been an oasis of book programming on television, the only place where Americans can regularly find in-depth, quality discussions of books.


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A compilation of excerpts from 150 of the best interviews with authors from Lamb's unique C-SPAN show, "Booknotes" is "a font of enjoyment. The anecdotes and observations collected here are deeply amusing, absorbing, and affecting" ("Booklist"). 42 color photos.

SYNOPSIS

Since 1989 Brian Lamb has provided intelligent readers a reclusive island in an engulfing tide of numbing television programs. His weekly C-SPAN show, "Booknotes," offers in-depth discussions with authors of major nonfiction books. In a refreshingly uncluttered setting, Lamb prods the minds of some of our greatest living writers, inviting them to expound on the process and power of the written word. The best of these hour-long programs are collected in the pages of Booknotes, whose authorial voice, in the sleek style of its televised ancestor, sounds free of editorial commentary. The following is a sample of the more than 150 short essays contained in the book:

Biographer David McCullough on how he retraced Harry Truman's steps from the Capitol to the White House on the day Truman learned FDR had died.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam on how he prepares to write by having "a very lazy cappuccino," and why five hours in a library is "like eating salted peanuts."

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on the six years she researched and wrote about Roosevelts in a study filled with pictures of FDR and Eleanor.

Shelby Foote on how he wrote his 1.5 million-word Civil War trilogy -- longhand, with a dip pen, over the course of 20 years, while always sleeping in the room where he worked.

Norman Mailer, who has finished more than 25 books, on his philosophy of writer's block.

Charles Kuralt on the writing office he designed to look "like a seedy, failing, small gentlemen's club."

Colin Powell on the transition from hiding his emotions as a general to sharing them as an author -- and on what it's like to autograph exactly 60,001 books during a five-week tour.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on what it's like to raise a child in the White House.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the late suppers she'd make for her husband in 10 Downing St.

Lamb's discussions with historians, writers, and public figures invite a provocative consideration of the minds behind the biggest books of our time. His program is a jewel of television, and his book a luminous collection.