Dear Reader,
I feel like I owe you an apology. After raising the trumpets for the National Book Festival, I ended up not going. Saturday was the Jones Point Park ceremony and then yesterday, we went to Clifton instead.
Did you have a good time? I’m glad the weather worked out, although seeing the shiny foreheads tells me it was a bit too warm on Saturday.
We watched on C-SPAN when we could. Who did you enjoy? I’m a History-Biography type (no!) and was pleased the cameras and Peter Slen stayed there.
The most impressive author we listened to was Robert
Caro. After all these years
and all the discussions, one would think we’ve had enough of hearing about the
events in Dallas of November 22, 1963. But Caro’s talk added something by telling the
perspective of LBJ and others he interviewed for the book. At times, he had the audience riveted.
Before some of you get excited, Caro slammed the door on the possibility of Johnson’s involvement in the assassination. In all his readings, and no one has read more, there was not one shred of evidence of that being the case.
So I did miss the festival this year, but thanks to C-SPAN I didn’t. At one point, as I watching their coverage, I realized how lucky we are to have them. Watching Congress make sausage (you know, on the rare occasions they do) is not my cup of tea, but Book TV is one of the great all-time shows in the history of television and radio. When they pair up with the Library of Congress to bring us this annual party for book lovers, it is some kind of nirvana.
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