C-SPAN Bookshelf C-SPAN

The book "Fire and Rain" is a narrative, according to author Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, about the way national security decisions, formed at the highest level of government, affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. Her primary focus is on the way the Nixon administration fought and ended the Vietnam War. Early in the book, Hofstra University professor Eisenberg quotes President Nixon's predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, during his 1964 election campaign: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." However, the U.S. left Vietnam permanently in 1975 and, at the end, the number of U.S. military personnel killed in the war was 58,098.
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Half Jewish and a member of the Hitler Youth who saw Adolf Hitler in person, Jochen "Jack" Wurfl, author of "My Two Lives," talks about surviving in Nazi Germany and his later life and success in the United States. To hide their identities after the Nazis took over in 1933, Mr. Wurfl and his brother were baptized Catholic and later joined the Hitler Youth. His Catholic father, deemed a political enemy by the state, was sent to a concentration camp in Austria, while his Jewish mother was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz, where she perished.
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USA Today's Susan Page spoke about the life and career of Barbara Walters. She was interviewed by former ABC News White House Correspondent Ann Compton.
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Publishing industry analyst Brenna Connor discussed sales trends and bestsellers in the first quarter of 2024, as well as predictions for the remainder of the year. About Books also reported on the latest publishing news and new releases.
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Early in his newest of over 30 books, Joseph Epstein, our guest this week, writes: "I feel extremely lucky in all these realms in which I had no real choice: parents, epoch, country, and throw in religion, city, and social class." The 87-year-old Epstein, a longtime essayist for the Wall Street Journal, has written his autobiography called "Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life." He has spent 20 years as editor of The American Scholar and 30 years teaching in the English department at Northwestern University.
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Filmmakers Zachary Treitz and Christian Hansen discuss their 4-part Netflix docuseries "American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders," about the events surrounding the death of freelance journalist Danny Casolaro (cas-uh-LARE-oh) in 1991. At the time of his death, officially ruled a suicide, Mr. Casolaro was working on a story about a series of crimes – including drug running, money laundering, and murder – that he argued were connected to a cabal of ex-government officials associated with the Reagan administration and the CIA. He referred to this group as "the Octopus."
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