C-SPAN Bookshelf

Journalist Kara Swisher spoke about her career and covering the tech industry and its key players. She was interviewed by author and Financial Times global business columnist and associate editor Rana Foroohar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skyhorse President & Publisher Tony Lyons discusses the company he founded in 2006, his latest expansion efforts and outlook on the publishing industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Trusty, our guest this week, is an attorney with 28 years of experience as a prosecutor, first in the state of Maryland and later with the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, DC. He has worked as an attorney for Donald Trump on several pending cases. In June last year, Mr. Trusty withdrew from representing former President Trump, citing irreconcilable differences. However, in his public app...

Patti Davis discusses her book "Dear Mom and Dad," a memoir written as a letter to her late parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan. She talks about being in the spotlight after her father entered politics in the 1960s, her complicated relationship with her mother, her views on the Reagan administration's handling of illegal drugs and the AIDS epidemic, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

Writer Marie Arana shares stories and little-known histories of the diverse Latino population of America, the fastest-growing minority in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Glenn Kirschner, our guest this week, is an attorney with 30 years of trial experience. For 24 of those years, he prosecuted 50 murder trials for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. Three years ago, he created for YouTube viewers a daily video analysis of Donald Trump's legal issues and indictments. He calls his show "Justice Matters" and records his remarks from his home in Virginia. We...

"For every young kid that makes a mistake, they can look at Don Scott and say, 'I'll never give up. I can still be what I want to be in America.'" That was former Republican governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia speaking about our guest this week, the state's newly elected Democratic speaker of the House of Delegates. Don Scott talks about the hurdles he overcame, including spending almost eight year...

Wesleyan University professor Andrew Curran looked at how the concept of race emerged during the 18th-century Enlightenment period. George Mason University history professor Christy Pichichero interviewed him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Daniel Paisner discusses his ghostwriting career and the recent National Convention of Ghostwriters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Between 1881 and 1914, over ten million people crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America, the largest mass migration of people from one continent to another in human history." Those are the words of our guest, Steven Ujifusa, from his introduction to his book "The Last Ships from Hamburg". Over 2.5 million of these immigrants to America were Jews. A significant percentage came from Russia. Mr....

Charles Scribner III, author of "Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing," talks about his family's history at the famous publishing house that was founded by his great-great-grandfather in 1846. He also shares stories about some of the authors published by Scribner over the decades, including Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Winston Churchill. Learn more about your ad c...

Writer and podcaster Coleman Hughes argued that the U.S. should move towards a colorblind approach to politics and race. He was interviewed by the Atlantic staff writer and author Thomas Chatterton Williams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henry Wallace was President Franklin Roosevelt's vice president during his third term, 1941-1945. FDR then chose Harry Truman as vice president in his fourth and last term. In author Benn Steil's book "The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century," he writes, "Wallace loved humankind but was mostly vexed or bored by humans…" Steil takes us through Wallace's life, from...

Tech entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun talks about his work in Silicon Valley and the future of artificial intelligence. Thrun, formerly a vice president at Google, is the founder or co-founder of Google X (R&D), Waymo (self-driving cars), Google Brain (AI), Kitty Hawk (flying vehicles), and Udacity (online learning). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer Ijeoma Oluo looked at how everyday Americans are fighting oppression in our systems and institutions to bring about change in communities. She was interviewed by author and activist Soraya Chemaly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Free speech activist Mary Beth Tinker discussed Iowa's state law on "age-appropriate" books in public school libraries. About Books also reported on the latest publishing industry news and current non-fiction books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henry William Brands Jr. has written close to 40 books in the past 36 years. The Portland, Oregon, native is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, the same school where he earned his PhD in 1985. His first American history book, written in 1988, was titled "Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy." The list of other books includes one on Lyndon Joh...

ALL NEW EPISODE!!! Retired U.S. Senate Historian Betty Koed shares stories from her book "Scenes: People, Places and Events That Shaped the United States Senate." It's a collection of brief chronicles of Senate history that she presented to Senators during their Tuesday caucus lunches between 2009 and 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Donald McNeil spoke about what he's learned from covering pandemics for 25 years for the New York Times. He was interviewed by Science Magazine senior correspondent Jon Cohen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Nigel Hamilton was a student at Cambridge University in Great Britain, he stayed for a brief time with Winston and Lady Churchill at their home at Chartwell in Kent. He also spent hours talking about World War II with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. These experiences led to a life as an author about history. Nigel Hamilton first moved to the United States in 1988 and is now a U.S. citizen....

Reagan OMB director David Stockman argued that the economic policies of the Trump administration were a failure. He was interviewed by New York Times Federal Reserve & economy reporter Jeanna Smialek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Brad Meltzer discussed the 10th anniversary of his children's series Ordinary People Change the World. About Books also reported on the latest publishing industry news and current non-fiction books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been 3 years since the January 6th events at the U.S. Capitol occurred. Since that time close to 300 individuals have been charged with a crime by the U.S. Justice Department. Because of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, defendants have a right to an attorney, paid for by the taxpayers if necessary. Kira (KEER-uh) Anne West, our guest this...

Journalist Rachel Slade looked at the challenges of manufacturing goods in the United States through the lens of a sweatshirt company in Maine. She was interviewed by author and New York Times editorial board member Farah Stockman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The name of the book is "The Vice President's Black Wife." The author is Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Prof. Myers teaches history at Indiana University. She explains best what is between the covers of her book in the first paragraph of the introduction: "This is the story of an American family. Set in Great Crossing, Kentucky, in the early nineteenth century, it’s a tale that seems typical at first g...