C-SPAN's end of an era
■"After Many Million Pages, 'Booknotes' Ends Its Run," by Frank J. Prial, New York Times, 4 December 2004, p. A17.
After 15 years and roughly 750 guests (I must have rung in at about 725), Brian Lamb hangs it up for "Booknotes" tonight There will be no replacement for him as host, so the show ends with his willingness to do it. As he said in a previous interview, getting ready for each show was like cramming for a final exam.
Plus, as Lamb notes, "This was a labor of love. I did it on my own time. We're a small outfit here at C-Span and we really don't have anyone in house to turn it over to."
This is what Robert Caro had to say about being on the show:
"And he does read them. After a number of interviews, you get to know when people have only read a part of your book. Not only had Brian read all the book, he understood that I wanted to covey the importance of the Senate to the United States. He brought something totally unique to American television."
I couldn't agree more. I was both intimidated and totally psyched when I saw how many pages he had dog-eared in his copy of PNM, not to mention the reams and reams of tiny notes he had written in the margins. I could tell right then and there, this was going to be one spectacular interview.
And it was . . . without a doubt, the best interview I've ever given. Lamb seemed to get the book on so many levels, that by the time the show was maybe one third of the way through, the studio completely melted away for me and I forgot I was being taped (you can tell, because I laugh). It has never happened since, that very intense feeling of being right then and there in an interview. The guy is simply the master of a genre that was his own.
I realize now that the big achievement for me wasn't the interview, because that was going to be good because Lamb is simply that good. The big achievement for me was that he put PNM on "Booknotes," because only 52 books got on the show each year, and this was one crowded year for political books.
You know, PNM didn't make the New York Times end-of-year list for "Notable Books," and I knew that couldn't be in the cards because the paper passed on reviewing the book when it came out (can't be "notable" if the Times doesn't review it!). But I know it's a good book, and one of the best political books of the year—because Brian Lamb read it and said so by choosing it for his program.
For that, and helping become a New York Times best seller, I thank him once again.
Sorry to say, Mr. Lamb won't be in the studio with me for my call-in segment on Thursday night. I would have enjoyed paying my respects again.