

C-SPAN Bookshelf
C-SPAN
The C-SPAN Bookshelf podcast feed makes it easy for you to listen to all of the C-SPAN podcast episodes about nonfiction books. Each week we gather episodes from the different C-SPAN podcasts that feature authors talking about history, biography, current events, and culture to make it easier to discover the episodes and listen. If you like nonfiction books, follow this podcast feed so you never miss an episode!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 27, 2025 • 1h 3min
Q&A: Media Mogul Barry Diller on His Life and Career in Television and Hollywood
In his memoir, "Who Knew," media mogul Barry Diller talks about his career in television and Hollywood, and about his personal life and longtime relationship with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. Mr. Diller has been an executive at ABC and head of Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox (where he created the Fox television network). While at ABC in the mid-1970s, Mr. Diller was responsible for creating the Movie of the Week and the television miniseries, including "Roots." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 26, 2025 • 1h 2min
Justice Amy Coney Barrett on "Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution"
Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett joins host David M. Rubenstein to discuss her new book, her early life and her view of the Constitution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 26, 2025 • 1h 14min
Empire of AI - Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Journalist Karen Hao discussed her reporting on OpenAI under the leadership of Sam Altman. The Commonwealth Club of California hosted this event.
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Oct 21, 2025 • 1h 5min
BN+: Dan Wang on Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future
The book is called "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Author Dan Wang was born in China in 1992. His parents moved to Canada when he was seven. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York. Then in 2018, Dan Wang went to live in China until he returned to the US in 2023. He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States. He writes in his introduction: "A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness and overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 20, 2025 • 1h 4min
Q&A: Jill Dougherty — My Russia: War or Peace and a Life Covering the Kremlin
Former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty discusses her life-long interest in Russia, which she first visited in 1969 as an exchange student. A fluent Russian speaker, she spent 10 years covering Russia for Voice of America and CNN. Besides serving as Moscow Bureau Chief, Jill Dougherty was White House correspondent during the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. While in Moscow, she covered the presidencies of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 19, 2025 • 1h 2min
From the Library of Congress: John Grisham on Storytelling and Justice
From the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, master of the legal thriller John Grisham joins host David M. Rubenstein to discuss his early life, writing process, latest novel and his work with wrongfully convicted prisoners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 19, 2025 • 57min
AW: "Rocket Dreams..." C. Davenport, Musk, Bezos and space race
The Washington Post's Christian Davenport reported on the private companies in space flight and the rivalry between Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., hosts this event.
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Oct 14, 2025 • 1h
BN+: Jonathan Mahler on The Gods of New York: NYC in the 1980s
The names are almost all known nationally: Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Kramer, and Donald Trump. These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s. Their early public lives are now featured in Jonathan Mahler's book, "The Gods of New York." The book is divided into four large chapters titled 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989. Mr. Mahler, a feature writer for the New York Times Magazine, closes his book with this last paragraph: "The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered. The great working-class city was gone." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 12, 2025 • 55min
AW: Jane Goodall "Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink"
Jane Goodall talked about her book Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink (Grand Central Publishing; September 2, 2009). In the book, she and her co-authors describe people and projects around the world that are rescuing species on the brink of extinction. The guest interviewer was John Nielsen. The interview was held at Georgetown University, prior to Ms. Goodall giving a special lecture. Primatologist Jane Goodall, famous for her work with chimpanzees, is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute. She is the author of many books, including In the Shadow of Man; Reason for Hope, and Chimpanzees I Love. John Nielsen, journalist in residence at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is the author of Condor: To the Brink and Back - The Life and Times of One Giant Bird and the producer of WWF's "The Wild Things," a bi-weekly podcast.
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Oct 7, 2025 • 1h 10min
BN+: Inside McNamara at War: Philip and William Taubman on Vietnam and U.S. Power
Philip Taubman and his brother William have written what the publisher Norton is calling "McNamara at War: A New History." It's a full life biography of former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. "It's a portrait of a man at war with himself," according to the authors. "It's riven with melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late." William Taubman, seven years older than his brother at 83, is an emeritus political science professor from Amherst College. Brother Phil spent 30 years with the New York Times and is an author of several books.
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