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Booknotes : Life Stories : Notable Biographers on the People Who Shaped America
From presidents to generals, from civil rights activists to poets, from inventors to scientists, Brian Lamb explores the lives of our most fascinating Americans on Booknotes, his weekly C-Span interview program. He and his guests have examined the lives of Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, Robert McNamara, Adlai Stevenson, Albert Einstein, Will Rogers, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, and Thurgood Marshall, to name just a dozen of the seminal figures now found in Life Stories. The biographers featured here are often no less legendary than their David Herbert Donald on Abraham Lincoln, Ron Chernow on John D. Rockefeller, Doris Kearns Goodwin on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, David McCullough on Harry Truman, Norman Mailer on Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Caro on Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Katharine Graham and Frank McCourt on their own lives.
In his first book, America's Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas , Lamb showed a remarkable ability to elicit fascinating insights into the creative process from authors eager to explain their craft. In Life Stories , Lamb extends his vision by taking an intimate look with our favorite biographers at the historical figures they've devoted their careers to portraying. He encourages these writers to open up about their methods, their sources of inspiration, and their fascinating subjects. As in the first book, Lamb's original questions have been omitted from the edited text, producing seamless conversational essays that allow the storyteller in each writer to fully emerge. Like Booknotes, this new book also includes full-color photographs by Brian Lamb that enrich our appreciation of these biographical portraits.
This volume highlights celebrated lives while also providing memorable portraits of the era in which each figure lived, lending a rare sense of immediacy to history. For instance, David Hackett Fischer, biographer of Paul Revere, reflects on the birth of an American myth and whether Revere's heroism actually took place as Longfellow recorded it in his famous poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." In quoting Susan B. Anthony, Lynn Sherr shows how her activism profoundly changed "Once we get women to their full equality and independence, then men will be freer also. Families will be better off when men can stay home and do more of the child-rearing." Brian Lamb has achieved a deserved place in American letters for coaxing hundreds of writers from the anonymity of their writing studios into the living rooms of every American home. His interviews are themselves great biographies.
In his first book, America's Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas , Lamb showed a remarkable ability to elicit fascinating insights into the creative process from authors eager to explain their craft. In Life Stories , Lamb extends his vision by taking an intimate look with our favorite biographers at the historical figures they've devoted their careers to portraying. He encourages these writers to open up about their methods, their sources of inspiration, and their fascinating subjects. As in the first book, Lamb's original questions have been omitted from the edited text, producing seamless conversational essays that allow the storyteller in each writer to fully emerge. Like Booknotes, this new book also includes full-color photographs by Brian Lamb that enrich our appreciation of these biographical portraits.
This volume highlights celebrated lives while also providing memorable portraits of the era in which each figure lived, lending a rare sense of immediacy to history. For instance, David Hackett Fischer, biographer of Paul Revere, reflects on the birth of an American myth and whether Revere's heroism actually took place as Longfellow recorded it in his famous poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." In quoting Susan B. Anthony, Lynn Sherr shows how her activism profoundly changed "Once we get women to their full equality and independence, then men will be freer also. Families will be better off when men can stay home and do more of the child-rearing." Brian Lamb has achieved a deserved place in American letters for coaxing hundreds of writers from the anonymity of their writing studios into the living rooms of every American home. His interviews are themselves great biographies.
471 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
2 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Brian Lamb
10 books25 followersBrian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, currently serves as the C-SPAN Networks' Executive Chairman. Since C-SPAN's founding in 1979, Brian has been a regular on-camera presence, interviewing all presidents since Reagan and many world leaders, members of Congress, journalists and authors. Over 15 years beginning in 1989, Brian interviewed 801 nonfiction authors for a weekly series called "Booknotes." Currently, Brian hosts "Q & A," a Sunday evening, hour-long interview program with people who are making things happen in the public sphere.
Six books of collected Brian Lamb interviews have been published by PublicAffairs based on the "Booknotes" and "Q & A" series, most recently, "Sundays at Eight." And in 2010, PublicAffairs published "The Supreme Court," a collection of interviews Brian and C-SPAN colleague Susan Swain conducted with eleven current and former Supreme Court justices. C-SPAN's 10th book with PublicAffairs, "The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America's Best - and Worst - Chief Executives," was published in spring 2019.
Brian's work with C-SPAN has been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Honor and the National Humanities Medal. In 2011, Purdue University, Brian's alma mater, announced the naming of the Brian Lamb School of Communication.
Brian is a longtime resident of Arlington, Virginia. When he's not devouring newspapers, websites, nonfiction books, or Thai food at his favorite local restaurant, Brian is likely in hot pursuit of the latest country music release.
Six books of collected Brian Lamb interviews have been published by PublicAffairs based on the "Booknotes" and "Q & A" series, most recently, "Sundays at Eight." And in 2010, PublicAffairs published "The Supreme Court," a collection of interviews Brian and C-SPAN colleague Susan Swain conducted with eleven current and former Supreme Court justices. C-SPAN's 10th book with PublicAffairs, "The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America's Best - and Worst - Chief Executives," was published in spring 2019.
Brian's work with C-SPAN has been recognized with the Presidential Medal of Honor and the National Humanities Medal. In 2011, Purdue University, Brian's alma mater, announced the naming of the Brian Lamb School of Communication.
Brian is a longtime resident of Arlington, Virginia. When he's not devouring newspapers, websites, nonfiction books, or Thai food at his favorite local restaurant, Brian is likely in hot pursuit of the latest country music release.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 10, 2009
Described as "biography lite." This is a collection of snippets about famous people, each only a few pages long. They are compliled from NPR interviews of authors of biographies. I have completed about a dozen, and gleaned some interesting trivia. It is great bathroom reading... Example of an interesting thing learned: Margaret Thatcher took home leftovers from State dinners to feed to her family.
maybe-read-available
July 3, 2009920.02 Boo
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews