To some, the very phrase “Book TV” might seem to be anathema, potentially even heretical or at the very least distasteful. Regardless, the past few decades have witnessed a détente between these two seemingly contradictory, and potentially even combative, forms of mass media, and C-SPAN 2 has done a fine job of bringing noted authors to this program to talk about their recent printed endeavors. On the site, visitors can peruse some of their programmatic sections, including “After Words”, “History”, “In Depth”, and “Public Lives”. Within each section, visitors can view current and archived interviews with individuals like Christopher Hitchens, Francis Fukuyama, Shelby Steele, and Camille Paglia. For those long-time CSPAN viewers, there is also a section dedicated to “Encore Booknotes”, which serves as the current incarnation of the program “Booknotes”, which went off the air in 2004. While all of this would certainly be enough for any site, the other features include areas dedicated to the traveling Book TV Bus (which visits book festivals and such events around the country) and a place for visitors to submit questions to authors who will be appearing on the program in the future.
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