Brian Lamb of C—SPAN has announced that the December 5th edition of Booknotes will be the last show in the series. That will mark the 800th book discussed for an hour by Lamb interviewing the author. Unlike so many other author interviews, it was always obvious that Brian Lamb took the trouble to closely read each of the texts he discussed. In fact, in announcing the end of the series, Lamb revealed that he spent an average of 20 hours preparing for each broadcast.

I will greatly miss the show. Brian asked the sort of questions in which I was interested, including, 'Where do you do your writing?' and inquired into the methodology used byt he writer in researching and writing. He would include obscure authors of obscure books on American political history, as well as superstar best—sellers. As always, he kept his own politics to himself, and focused on the author's ideas.

The saving grace is that C—SPAN's website will maintain an archive of all 800 broadcasts, available for downloading and watching at your convenience.

The world of American letters is sustaining a serious loss. I hope that sooner or later a worthy successor will emerge, and C—SPAN can revive the show.

Posted by Thomas  8 11 04