A Look at C-SPAN's "Booknotes" Television Series
It was a television institution. Airing every Sunday night at 8:00 PM during the years 1989 through 2004, C-SPAN’s "Booknotes" television program gave its viewers an insider’s look at a recent non-fiction book and its author. Brian Lamb, the network's CEO, was the program's host. His guests were historians, scientists, politicians, world leaders, and others who came to discuss their recent books with Lamb and his audience.
"Booknotes" was C-SPAN’s original author interview program. It focused on then-current non-fiction works in categories such as history, biography, politics, the military, diplomacy, and science. Booknotes gave authors an opportunity unmatched anywhere else in the television industry to talk at length about themselves and their books to an educated reading audience. Indeed, guests who appeared on the Booknotes program still recall the experience as a positive and beneficial one for the both the author and the reader.
The George Mason University Libraries are currently preserving and archiving books, papers, and photographs pertaining to the "Booknotes" program.
For a complete inventory of the physical books in the collection, please see the records in the Libraries' catalog . To view the original Booknotes interviews in their entirety or browse transcripts of these interviews, visit the C-SPAN Booknotes site .
