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Booknotes+

C-SPAN

Taking the concept from Brian Lamb's long running Booknotes TV program, the podcast offers listeners more books and authors. Booknotes+ features a mix of new interviews with authors and historians, along with some old favorites from the archives. The platform may be different, but the goal is the same – give listeners the opportunity to learn something new.

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28 episodes
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Avg 1 hr 7 min
English

Episodes 28

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Tuesday · 1 hr 4 min
Craig Whitlock, Washington Post Investigative Reporter
On Saturday, August 8, on the front page of the Washington Post was this headline: "Some Vets Went Along with Scams of the G.I. Bill." Leading the team of Post reporters was Craig Whitlock. His co-author was Andrew Ba Tran. The dateline on the story was San Diego. The first paragraph of the story was: "At Blue Star Learning, a vocational school that defrauded taxpayers of $29 million in GI Bill funds, learning was not the point." Craig Whitlock, 28-year Washington Post veteran, was a gust on Booknotes+ in both 2021 and 2024, the first time for his book "The Afghanistan Papers" and the second about his book "Fat Leonard," about a Malaysian man now serving a 15-year prison sentence for defrauding the U.S. Navy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 22 · 1 hr 8 min
Andrew Burstein, "Being Thomas Jefferson"
Andrew Burstein recently retired as a professor of history at Louisiana State University. "Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History" is his 16th book about the early years of the United States. In the introduction, Prof. Burstein writes: "This book is about extraordinary drama that punctuated the life of a famous man who had an unusual need to control his environment." Andrew Burstein continues, noting that "as much as his creative imagination led to memorable achievements, the capaciousness of his intellect exacted a price. When enticed by nature's mysteries, his eyes were wide open to new possibilities. And when it came to the clash of egos in public venues, he was acutely sensitive to slights." Professor Burstein says Jefferson "was driven for public celebrity." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 15 · 1 hr 12 min
Jonathan Jordan, "Ike and Winston
Jonathan Jordan devotes 544 pages and 57 chapters of his book "Ike and Winston" to telling the story of the friendship between Dwight David Eisenhower and Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. President Eisenhower lived to be 78 and died in 1969. Sir Winston died four years before that, in 1965, at age 90. Author Jonathan Jordan says: "Churchill could have had his pick of friendship, but he wanted Ike's. In the beginning, he courted Ike for what Ike could do for Britain. The Kansan held the trust of men like Franklin Roosevelt and George C. Marshall. This influence gave Ike the power to destroy or create, and Ike had the gambler's nerve to use that power. London needed a friend like that." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 8 · 1 hr 4 min
Scott Greenberger, "The Forsaken Founder"
In the beginning of Scott Greenberger's new book, "The Forsaken Founder," Dawn Davis, publisher of the Simon & Schuster imprint 37 Ink, introduces us to this new history of a mostly unfamiliar name. Davis writes: "Hamilton, Franklin, Washington, Madison. These are names we know." However, she writes that "there was another man in the room at the founding, a prodigy whose contributions were just as essential, whose name has largely been forgotten: Gouverneur Morris. Morris, as the penman of the Constitution, wrote the words "We the people," which are his and his alone. The subtitle to Scott Greenberger's book is "Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 1 · 1 hr 4 min
Joby Warrick, "The Jackal"
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, has been in prison for 32 years in France. He was captured in Sudan on August 14, 1994. In his book titled "The Jackal," Washington Post correspondent Joby Warrick reports on his 2025 meeting with the jailed terrorist in Paris. Carlos told him: "I killed 83 people with my own hand." Reporter Warrick writes that: "Carlos mattered. He was the human face of a dangerous new form of international terrorism that emerged in the 1970s and the 1980s, which became the template for later groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State." The Jackal will be 77 years old on October 12th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 25 · 1 hr 6 min
Paul Taylor, "This Is Getting Old"
Paul Taylor tells his readers: "For the first 25 years, I was a newspaper reporter. For the next 25, a political reformer, a demographer, a pollster, an author, and a public speaker." He's now 77 and has written a memoir titled "This Is Getting Old: Two Boomers and Their Generation at Dusk." Besides Paul Taylor, the other boomer in his book refers to his wife of 57 years, Stefanie. He asked his friend and agent Peter Bernstein (BERN-steen) to find a traditional publisher. His only reward, according to Taylor, "was a collection of lovely rejection notes." Not to be stopped, he would move on to Plan B, self-publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 18 · 1 hr 3 min
JD Vance, "Hillbilly Elegy"
In the political history of the United States, books have had a big impact on who the public follows in elections. In 1956, John F. Kennedy published "Profiles in Courage," which sold 2.8 million copies by his death in 1963. Jimmy Carter released his title "Why Not the Best?" in 1975, the year before he was elected president. When Barack Obama first released his life story in 1995, he only sold approximately 9,000 copies. When it was re-released in 2004, he sold 4.7 million copies. President Trump's "Art of the Deal," published in 1987, sold at least 1.5 million. JD Vance was unknown in 2016 when he appeared on C-SPAN's Q&A. His book "Hillbilly Elegy" has sold over 3 million copies. Ten years later he's 42 and has been a U.S. Senator for two years and Vice President of the United States since January of 2025. Here he is from 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 11 · 1 hr 9 min
John Jenkins, "Summer of '71" – Part 2
This is the second of a two-part interview with journalist John A. Jenkins. His book is "Summer of '71: Five Months That Changed America." Jenkins writes in the introduction: "[I]t is hard to overstate the importance of the events that defined the American experience during the fateful five months of May through September 1971." A good portion of the first part of the interview with John Jenkins focused on Daniel Ellsberg and the publishing of the Pentagon Papers. This discussion opens with the history of Angela Davis and the Soledad Brothers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 4 · 59 min
John Jenkins, "Summer of '71" – Part 1
John A. Jenkins has been a journalist most of his life in the city of his birth, Washington, DC. He says he's never known another summer like the one 55 years ago. His book, "Summer of '71: Five Months That Changed America," focuses on well-known names from that era: Daniel Ellsberg, Neil Sheehan, Henry Kissinger, Sarah Weddington, and Angela Davis. John Jenkins writes that "each main character has an important back story that sets them up for the summer of '71 to come." He also writes: "My purpose here is to show the drama, the pain, and the hope of a summer when America faced some of its greatest challenges at home and abroad." This is part one of a two-part interview with Mr. Jenkins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 28 · 1 hr 6 min
Christine Kuehn, "Family of Spies"
The author's name is Christine Kuehn. The book is titled "Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor." Christine Kuehn worked on her family's story for over 30 years. According to the publisher's note, it began with a letter from a screenwriter asking about a story. It was the first time she had ever heard about the secrets of the Kuehn family. Her father had never spoken about his mother Friedel (FREE-duhl) and his father Otto's work for the Nazis while based in Hawaii, or the spying they did for the Japanese government prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. Christine was born in the U.S., but her father and the rest of the Kuehn family came from Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 21 · 1 hr 6 min
Ted Widmer, "The Living Declaration"
The commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence has now gone beyond the Fourth of July. Many books have been published about the Declaration in the first half of 2026. The question for Americans is: "Have you read the Declaration in full?" A recent study says that only 3 in 10 U.S. citizens have read the Declaration in its entirety. Author Ted Widmer has published, through the Library of America, a detailed history of how the Declaration came about. The book is called "The Living Declaration: A Biography of America's Founding Text." This is Ted Widmer's twelfth book, which includes an introduction by the well-known historian Gordon S. Wood. Professor Wood died at age 92, just days before the publication of this book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 14 · 1 hr 13 min
Valerie Fridland, "Why We Talk Funny"
After 47 years of C-SPAN televising the Congress of United States, we feel there is no better place to hear accents and dialects of the American people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In her book "Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents," Valerie Fridland promises to unlock "the secrets of what linguistic science, psychology and history tell us about the evolution of human speech." Valerie Fridland teaches in the Great Courses series at the University of Nevada, Reno. She did her undergraduate work at Georgetown in 1990 and received her PhD from Michigan State in 1998. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 7 · 1 hr 8 min
Claudia Rowe, "Wards of the State"
Claudia Rowe is the author of "Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care." Rowe has been writing about the hallways and courtrooms, where kids and government clash, for 30 years. "Every person in this book," according to Claudia Rowe, "agreed to talk to me for one of two reasons, or both: They wanted to be seen, to be understood. And they wanted to change foster care." Rowe points out that about 400,000 kids in the United States today are growing up with the state government as their legal guardian. Every year, on turning 18, about 20,000 age out, many moving straight into homelessness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 30 · 1 hr 6 min
Richard Brookhiser, "The Hero Returns"
Richard Brookhiser is an American journalist, biographer, historian, and senior editor at National Review. He has appeared on C-SPAN for many years as the author of biographies of America's founders. His latest book features a Frenchman and is titled "The Hero Returns." His focus is on Lafayette (LAH-fee-et) and the legacy of revolution. Mr. Brookhiser's particular attention is on 1824, the year the former Revolutionary War hero returned to the United States for a tour of all 24 states at the invitation of President James Monroe. The retired general was celebrated in each of those states during his visit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 23 · 1 hr 9 min
Michael Cullinane, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet"
In July of this year, 2026, the new, multi-million-dollar Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opens to the public in Medora, North Dakota, population 121. The senior historian for the T.R. Library is a man named Michael Patrick Cullinane, a professor of history at Dickinson State University in North Dakota, 36 miles from Medora. To coincide with the opening of T.R.'s Library, Professor Cullinane has written a book titled "Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet." He credits Mrs. Roosevelt with building a tennis court right outside the president's West Wing office. Cullinane says: "The convenient location robbed Roosevelt of any excuse to skip his daily exercise." In the book, Cullinane introduces readers to over 30 of T.R.'s tennis partners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 16 · 1 hr 7 min
David Garrow on Martin Luther King, Jr. & Barack Obama
David J. Garrow is a prize-winning historian. Since graduating from Wesleyan University in 1975 and completing his law degree at Duke in 1981, he has spent most of his time writing about civil rights. His best selling and most praised book is titled "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," published in 1986. We last talked to David Garrow in May of 2017 about his book "Rising Star" – 1,472 pages about President Barack Obama. The book was limited to President Obama's life before his presidency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 9 · 1 hr 2 min
Lerone Bennett Jr., "Forced Into Glory"
Dr. Lerone Bennett Jr. was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, on October 17, 1928. He spent over 50 years with Johnson Publishing, ultimately became executive editor of its Ebony magazine. Bennett died at age 89 on February 14, 2018, in Chicago, his home base of many years. Dr. Bennett's mother worked as a maid, his father a chauffeur. Their son graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta. His Booknotes television appearance was on July 21, 2000. The book is titled "Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream." Bennett provided a different view of what is normally written about Mr. Lincoln. Lerone Bennett Jr. claimed that Lincoln was a racist at heart and had little interest in abolition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 2 · 1 hr 8 min
Lois Romano, "An Inconvenient Widow"
Lois Romano, formerly of the Washington Post, re-examines the legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln. In the promotion of the book, Simon & Schuster, the publisher, claims that Mrs. Lincoln "was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally failed by history." In her prologue, Lois Romano writes: "After Lincoln died in 1865, there was no one to protect Mary. Since leaving the White House, she had been adrift and virtually homeless, restlessly moving from hotel to hotel, from city to city." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 26 · 1 hr 27 min
Danny Funt, "Everybody Loses"
Danny Funt is the author of the book "Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling." In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in a 6-3 decision that legalized sports betting nationally by declaring the federal prohibition unconstitutional. According to Danny Funt, sports leagues oversight went from the position that "gambling carries a serious risk of addiction and a long history of corrupting athletes and referees, to gambling is a relatively harmless wholesale form of entertainment." Mr. Funt points out that in eight short years, sports gambling is now legal in close to 40 states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 19 · 1 hr 10 min
Theo Baker, "How to Rule the World"
Theo Baker will graduate from Stanford University on June 14th, 2026. About one month prior, his first book, "How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University," is being published by Penguin Press. Praise for his book, gathered by Penguin Press, is plentiful. Author William D. Cohen writes: "[Theo Baker's] astounding reporting as a Stanford freshman led to the downfall of the university's president." Mr. Baker's parents are Susan Glasser of the New Yorker Magazine and Peter Baker of the New York Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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