A glorious era in television broadcasting came to a quiet end just before 9:00 eastern time on Sunday evening when, without fanfare or mention of this particular edition's significance, C—SPAN's Brian Lamb held a book that had been under discussion for an hour, named the author of the book, and thanked the author for appearing on the program. The author said "Thank you," and that was that; Booknotes is no longer. C—SPAN's mainstay on Sunday nights at 8:00 ended its fifteen—year run. The time slot will house a new show, entitled Q&A, beginning this weekend.

For the record, the last person to sit across from Lamb on the most simplistic set in TV was Mark Edmundson, a professor of English from the University of Virginia, and author of a new book entitled "Why Read?" In his only stylistic bow to the occasion of the final airing of Booknotes, Lamb wore a dark necktie with little blue and red open books, spines facing outward — the most whimsical article of clothing he has ever worn on air.

In its final incarnation, Booknotes was just the same as its first — Edmunson discussed his book, his love of reading and the reasons why Emerson is his favorite author, the methods he employs in his classroom, his impressions on why liberal professors (he is an admitted member of the group) tend to be counterproductively intolerant of conservative thought, and why it is that majoring in literature needs to be emphasized more in the academy than pre—this or pre—that.

Just as predictably, Lamb's questions varied from asking about direct excerpts from Edmundson's book and the classic "Brian questions" such as "Where do you read?"; Where are you from?"; "What did your parents do?" and "How much do you read every day?" Inevitably, these questions led to some fascinating twists and turns.

Not surprisingly, Lamb's choice of "Why Read?" as the final discussion for Booknotes was absolutely appropriate, and gave this modestly subtle man the chance to collect and show short clips of Booknotes past for Edmundson, on which he was asked to comment. While Edmundson's answers to the comments of various authors such as Paul Johnson, Cornel West, Shelby Foote, Nikki Giovanni, and Gertrude Himmelfarb were interesting in and of themselves, the clips served as the only retrospective the understated Lamb would ever allow, and as a reminder of the wonderful collection of people Lamb has brought together for grateful viewers over the years.

In addition to the provocative thought, statements from the subject being interviewed that both elicit a nod of the head and an incredulous sneer, Lamb managed to give the final edition of Booknotes its requisite laugh—out—loud moment. While showing Edmundson a 30—second clip from a 1993 Booknotes, Christopher Hitchens expressed his admiration for the author Gore Vidal, said he had modeled himself after Vidal, and, finally, admitted a sort of "penis envy for" Vidal. Although not having seen much else Sunday evening, it's pretty safe to say that was the funniest thing on television last night.

Thankfully, the end of Booknotes hardly means the end of intelligent discussion of books and authors on C—SPAN, as noted above, and there is always BookTV on C—SPAN2 each weekend. Yet Booknotes was the foundation of this kind of C—SPAN programming, and remained the crown jewel of the network, and its passing makes for a melancholy good—bye. Of course, the history of the program will live on at www.booknotes.org and each edition is available on DVD or videotape from the C—SPAN Archives. Q&A may be a great show (there is actually no "may" about it), but it will never be like Booknotes, a one—of—a—kind program that let writers speak and viewers listen like no other program before.

Good—byes are never easy, but for fifteen years of great discussion, a lot of laughs, and a true American original, it's the easiest thing in the world to say a simple word to Brian Lamb: Thanks.

Matt May can be reached at matthewtmay@yahoo.com; his blogspot is mattymay.blogspot.com