August 15, 2012

Book TV’s In Depth Author Interviews

One of the best ways to learn about some of the greatest authors of our time is with Book TV’s In Depth Author Interview Series. These comprehensive, live three-hour interviews cover an author’s work throughout their career. It’s a great way to hear from your favorite authors and to discover the ideas of authors you might not know much about. The show starts out as an interview from one of C-SPAN’s hosts. One of the best aspects of the show is that after the first half hour it becomes a live call-in program so the authors get asked all sorts of questions from different viewpoints of people across the United States. All the programs are available to watch for free from the C-SPAN video library and for the modest price of $0.99 you can purchase each program on MP3 audio download from C-SPAN. This may be the best series Book TV offers and it gives invaluable insights into the greatest authors of our time.

Here are some of the In Depth interviews we’ve featured over the years with write ups of what these interviews cover:

In Depth with Gore Vidal

In this In Depth interview Gore Vidal talks about his upbringing with books reading to his his grandfather who was the U.S. Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma. He also discusses his 7-part historical novel series “Narratives of Empire” which chronicles the American Empire from dawn to decay starting with the novel Burr about Aaron Burr and other founding fathers and going up to The Golden Age which he published in 2000 and goes into World War II and the start of the Cold War. Through this interview Gore Vidal offers his critique of American Empire and his “populist” viewpoint which speaks against America’s expansive foreign policy, militarism, and corporate rule. It’s an entertaining 3-hour interview with the irascible and irreverent Gore Vidal.

In Depth with Tom Wolfe

In this streaming video from C-SPAN’s BookTV, Tom Wolfe talks about his career as writer from The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby which he wrote back in the 1960s all the way up to his latest novel I Am Charlotte Simmons which explores the college campus life in the present day. He fields call-in questions from people across the United States and tells us the secrets of his craft. Indeed, no writer today is as fun to listen to as Tom Wolfe.

In Depth with Francis Fukuyama

In this interview with political philosopher and author Francis Fukuyama, he discusses many of his books including America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. Much of the discussion is over Iraq which Fukuyama opposed, and he has since openly criticized Neoconservatives even though Fukuyama is a conservative himself. He fields many questions from callers across the political spectrum. This free interview is available on streaming video from BookTV.

In Depth with Thomas Friedman

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is full of ideas on globalization, foreign affairs, economics, education, fuel efficiency, and much more and he gets a chance to express a lot of them in this 3 hour interview from C-SPAN’s BookTV. He fields questions from callers all over the world, discussing this new “flat” world we’re living in and what that means for all of us. This title is available as a streaming video.

In Depth with John Updike

In this generous 3-hour interview provided on streaming video by BookTV, John Updike talks about his life as a writer and observer of the human condition. Last week the literary world mourned the death of Updike who’s literary reputation places him among the likes of Mailer, Vonnegut and Roth as one of the great contemporary American novelists. Here you can watch him as he examines his childhood, discusses his early start with the New Yorker Magazine, and answers questions about his prolific career as an author and literary critic. This streaming video is available through the BookTV website.

In Depth with Temple Grandin

In this three-hour interview from BookTV’s In-Depth series, author Temple Grandin discusses her autism and the wide spectrum of autism, and how she has used her insights into autism to help her relate to the inner worlds of animal. Her autism leads to hypersensitivity to noise and other sensory stimuli and she correlates it to how animals perceive the world through their senses. She talks about how she has used this correlation to improve animal welfare in the agricultural industry. In the interview Grandin also provides a host of insights into what it is like to live as an autistic person. This talk is available on streaming video from C-SPAN’s BookTV.

In Depth with Susan Sontag

One of our favorite free video resources is the C- SPAN BookTV series In Depth. This series features 3-hour long interviews with America’s greatest and most prolific authors towards the latter part of their careers. Included in the interviews are questions from callers across the United States, that always make for interesting discussion. This free video includes the three hour video interview with the late author & activist Susan Sontag. She answers questions about politics, movies, and the many nonfiction & fiction books she has written throughout her career. Watch this free streaming video from BookTV.

And here are all 80+ of the In Depth interviews we feature! This is all of the In Depth programs featured in the C-SPAN video library through the summer of 2011:

In Depth with Alice Walker

In Depth with Angela Davis

In Depth with Ann Coulter

In Depth with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

In Depth with Barbara Ehrenreich

In Depth with Bernard Lewis

In Depth with Bill Ayers

In Depth with Bill Bennett

In Depth with Bob Woodward

In Depth with Charles Murray

In Depth with Christopher Buckley

In Depth with Christopher Hitchens

In Depth with Cornel West

In Depth with David Halberstam

In Depth with David Herbert Donald

In Depth with David Horowitz

In Depth with David McCullough

In Depth with Dinesh D’Souza

In Depth with Doris Kearns Goodwin

In Depth with Edmund Morris

In Depth with Edward O. Wilson

In Depth with Francis Fukuyama

In Depth with Garry Wills

In Depth with Gary Gallagher

In Depth with George Will

In Depth with Gordon Wood

In Depth with Gore Vidal

In Depth with H.W. Brands

In Depth with Harold Bloom

In Depth with Harvey Mansfield

In Depth with Helen Caldicott

In Depth with Howard Zinn

In Depth with Hugh Hewitt

In Depth with Jacques Barzun

In Depth with James McPherson

In Depth with Jimmy Carter

In Depth with Joan Didion

In Depth with John Dean

In Depth with John Hope Franklin

In Depth with John Keegan

In Depth with John Lukacs

In Depth with John Updike

In Depth with Jonah Goldberg

In Depth with Jonathan Kozol

In Depth with Ken Auletta

In Depth with Kevin Phillips

In Depth with Lewis Lapham

In Depth with Margaret MacMillan

In Depth with Mark Bowden

In Depth with Martha Nussbaum

In Depth with Martin Gilbert

In Depth with Michael Eric Dyson

In Depth with Michelle Malkin

In Depth with Michio Kaku

In Depth with Milton Friedman

In Depth with Newt Gingrich

In Depth with Niall Ferguson

In Depth with Noam Chomsky

In Depth with Norman Podhoretz

In Depth with P.J. O’Rourke

In Depth with Pat Buchanan

In Depth with Peggy Noonan

In Depth with R. Emmett Tyrrell

In Depth with Ralph Nader

In Depth with Ray Kurzweil

In Depth with Richard Rhodes

In Depth with Robert Caro

In Depth with Robert Kaplan

In Depth with Robert Remini

In Depth with Ron Powers

In Depth with Salman Rushdie

In Depth with Shelby Foote

In Depth with Shelby Steele

In Depth with Sherwin Nuland

In Depth with Simon Winchester

In Depth with Stephen Ambrose

In Depth with Steven Pinker

In Depth with Studs Terkel

In Depth with Susan Sontag

In Depth with T.R. Reid

In Depth with Tammy Bruce

In Depth with Taylor Branch

In Depth with Temple Grandin

In Depth with Thomas Friedman

In Depth with Tom Clancy

In Depth with Tom Wolfe

In Depth with Toni Morrison

In Depth with Victor Davis Hanson

In Depth with Vincent Bugliosi

In Depth with William F. Buckley Jr.

Go In Depth with C-SPAN’s Book TV!