Book TV airs on C-Span 2 this week from 8 a.m. Thursday to 8 a.m. Monday and focuses on political and historical books as well as the book industry. The following are highlights for this coming weekend. For more information, go to Book TV's website.
Thursday, November 27
8 a.m. For an event hosted by the Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, Colo., Jake Page, author of In the Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-Year History of American Indians (Free Press, $16.95, 9780684855776/0684855771), explores aspects of Native American history and addresses current issues involving Indians living in the U.S. (Re-airs Thursday at 8 p.m.)
9 a.m. William Least Heat-Moon, author of Columbus in the Americas (Wiley, $19.95, 9780471211891/0471211893), contends that Columbus's interaction with the indigenous people of the lands he explored caused them irreparable harm. (Re-airs Thursday at 9 p.m.)
Friday, November 28
5 p.m. Daniel Frick, author of Reinventing Richard Nixon: A Cultural History of an American Obsession (University Press of Kansas, $34.95, 9780700615995/0700615997), examines the political and cultural impact of the former president. (Re-airs Saturday at 5 a.m., Saturday, December 13, at 12 p.m., and Sunday, December 14, at 1 a.m. and 8:15 p.m.)
Saturday, November 29
9 a.m. Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, editors of State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (Ecco, $29.95, 9780061470905/0061470902), present a collection of writing pertaining to each of the 50 states. (Re-airs Saturday at 9 p.m., and Monday at 2 a.m. 7 a.m.)
6 p.m. Encore Booknotes. For a segment that first aired in 1995, Gertrude Himmelfarb, author of The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values (Vintage, $19.95, 9780679764908/0679764909), asserted that the Victorian virtues of hard work and deferred gratification are the tools to fix current social problems in America.
10 p.m. After Words. Susan Shillinglaw interviews Rick Wartzman, author of Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (PublicAffairs, $26.95, 9781586483319/1586483315). Shillinglaw recounts the backlash to Steinbeck's novel, published in 1939. (Re-airs Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., Monday at 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., and Sunday, December 7, at 10:30 a.m.)
Sunday, November 30
9 a.m. Fred Pearce, author of Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff (Beacon Press, $24.95, 9780807085882/080708588X), talks about traveling to more than 20 countries to find out how the items he used in his everyday life were produced. (Re-airs Sunday at 4 p.m.)