The most boring 48 hours on TV!

I can't say I'm excited about it, but every weekend I check cable TV listings for the C-SPAN channel. During the week, they air Senate and House of Representatives votes and debates. But on the weekends the programming changes to Book TV.

They have mostly half hour or one hour recorded presentations of authors talking about their books, reading from them, and taking questions from the audience or callers. I'm so used to soundbites on call-in programs that when somebody forms a long detailed question I half expect the hosts or author to interrupt and say "and your question is?" But they generally let the caller explain their question in full detail.

In the old Tonight Show, they used to book authors for the last 10 or 15 minutes. Nowadays, you see authors of books on politics, history, curious observations (Freakonomics, Blink, Outliers) on some talk shows such as Charlie Rose but not on variety shows. The two most trusted news sources for twentysomethings devote nearly half their programs to interviews with noted thinkers frequently nonfiction authors: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

I don't read as much for fun or knowledge except about technical topics I want to learn about for a specific use. But by watching or taping some of these presentations, I've gotten more insight on Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, and other curious incidents and discoveries and popular trends.

Why an exclamation mark in the title? I suppose bold, underline, italics, allcaps, and blinking text might have been a bit beyond what was necessary.  ¶ 4:14 PM