Booknotes+

The book is called "The Real Hoosiers". The author is Pennsylvania-based Jack McCallum. He was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated for 30 years. "The Real Hoosiers" is a book about parts of Indiana, race, and basketball. To tell the story, McCallum focuses on the life of "The Big O," well-known basketball success Oscar Robertson, who is now 85 years old. Oscar Robertson started his career at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis. Author McCallum says his is a story of a city, a state, and a country struggling to come to terms with race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was a United States Senator for 23 years. He lived to be 63, from January of 1811 to March of 1874. Stephen Puleo has written the first major, full biography of Sumner since 1960. It's titled "The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union." Mr. Puleo writes: "His positions cost him dearly. Southerners despised him, sometimes feared him, and celebrated gleefully when Sumner was beaten unconscious in the Senate chamber in May of 1856." Stephen Puleo first published the full story of the caning of Charles Sumner in 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew Pettegree is a British historian at St. Andrews University in Scotland. His specialty is the history of the book and media transformations. He has written a great deal about the written word with an emphasis on libraries. His latest book is titled "The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading." In his introduction, Prof. Pettegree writes: "In all nations, once war broke out, writers and libraries were expected to play a full role in forging victory….after the Second World War the Allies would face the problems of how to sanitize, or exploit, the collections of the defeated." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's latest book, they open with this introduction: "This is a book of love stories. Every one of them involved a president of the United States, and we will tell their stories through letters they wrote. Through this collection of carefully chosen letters, we reveal the writers at their most vulnerable, providing a surprisingly intimate and deeply personal portrait that is often obscured by the public persona." Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's book is titled "Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Traub's latest book is titled "True Believer: Hubert Humphrey's Quest for a More Just America." In the introduction, Mr. Traub writes: "I return to Humphrey in order to explain what liberalism was at its ascendant moment, why it mattered so much to so may people, why it abruptly lost its appeal to the majority of Americans – and, perhaps, how it might rejuvenate itself." Hubert Humphrey served as mayor of Minneapolis, United States Senator, Vice President of the United States under Lyndon Johnson, and a candidate for President in several years, including 1968. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The year is 1942, the month is November. The subject of Peter Englund's book is "An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II." Mr. Englund, who is based in his native Sweden, features close to 40 people from around the world and what they were doing during that month and year of the war. He writes that: "At the start of that [November] many people still believed that the Axis powers would be victorious. By the end of that month it had become clear that it was only a matter of time before [Germany, Japan, and Italy] would lose." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Trusty, our guest this week, is an attorney with 28 years of experience as a prosecutor, first in the state of Maryland and later with the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, DC. He has worked as an attorney for Donald Trump on several pending cases. In June last year, Mr. Trusty withdrew from representing former President Trump, citing irreconcilable differences. However, in his public appearances, Jim Trusty remains a critic of the different prosecutors and their approach to his former client. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Glenn Kirschner, our guest this week, is an attorney with 30 years of trial experience. For 24 of those years, he prosecuted 50 murder trials for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, DC. Three years ago, he created for YouTube viewers a daily video analysis of Donald Trump's legal issues and indictments. He calls his show "Justice Matters" and records his remarks from his home in Virginia. We asked him how he puts it all together. As you'll learn, he is not a fan of Donald Trump. Our next episode of Booknotes+ will feature Jim Trusty, a former attorney for the 45th president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Between 1881 and 1914, over ten million people crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America, the largest mass migration of people from one continent to another in human history." Those are the words of our guest, Steven Ujifusa, from his introduction to his book "The Last Ships from Hamburg". Over 2.5 million of these immigrants to America were Jews. A significant percentage came from Russia. Mr. Ujifusa focuses mostly on three men to tell the story: Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line shipping company; and J.P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henry Wallace was President Franklin Roosevelt's vice president during his third term, 1941-1945. FDR then chose Harry Truman as vice president in his fourth and last term. In author Benn Steil's book "The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century," he writes, "Wallace loved humankind but was mostly vexed or bored by humans…" Steil takes us through Wallace's life, from Iowa farm boy to presidential candidate on the Progressive ticket in 1948. Wallace preached the supremacy of human rights over property rights yet excused the absence of human rights in Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Henry William Brands Jr. has written close to 40 books in the past 36 years. The Portland, Oregon, native is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, the same school where he earned his PhD in 1985. His first American history book, written in 1988, was titled "Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy." The list of other books includes one on Lyndon Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Jackson, U.S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and many others. We talked to Prof. Brands about these and his newest offering, "Founding Partisans," about Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, and John Adams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Nigel Hamilton was a student at Cambridge University in Great Britain, he stayed for a brief time with Winston and Lady Churchill at their home at Chartwell in Kent. He also spent hours talking about World War II with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. These experiences led to a life as an author about history. Nigel Hamilton first moved to the United States in 1988 and is now a U.S. citizen. He's based in the Boston area and his books include "JFK: Reckless Youth," two volumes on President Bill Clinton, and a trilogy on FDR as Commander in Chief during World War II from 1941 to 1945. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It has been 3 years since the January 6th events at the U.S. Capitol occurred. Since that time close to 300 individuals have been charged with a crime by the U.S. Justice Department. Because of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, defendants have a right to an attorney, paid for by the taxpayers if necessary. Kira Anne West, our guest this week, has been one of the defense attorneys involved in the January 6th trials in the United States District Court of the District of Columbia. She's a graduate of Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The name of the book is "The Vice President's Black Wife." The author is Amrita Chakrabarti Myers. Prof. Myers teaches history at Indiana University. She explains best what is between the covers of her book in the first paragraph of the introduction: "This is the story of an American family. Set in Great Crossing, Kentucky, in the early nineteenth century, it’s a tale that seems typical at first glance: a plantation owner was sexually involved with an enslaved woman and had children with her. The union of Julia Ann Chinn and Richard Mentor Johnson, a congressman from Kentucky who became vice president of the United States in 1837 under Martin Van Buren is, however, anything but standard." Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With less than a year to go before the 2024 presidential election, there continues to be a lot of chatter about the possible impact of a candidate on the ballot who is not a Republican or a Democrat. Over the years, third party candidates have made a difference in several elections. The third party candidate to get the largest percentage of votes was Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, at 27 percent. Next was Ross Perot at 19 percent in 1992. His campaign didn't start until the same year of the election. Here he is, from March 1992, talking about his life and politics. Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week a conversation with the new host of Q&A, Peter Slen. We discuss the mission of the program, what to expect, and the best parts of hosting a one-hour conversation with interesting individuals. Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the cover of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s memoir is a photo of him holding a 3-olive martini. It was obviously his choice and part of a message he chooses to send his readers about his life after 79 years. Mr. Tyrrell founded the American Spectator magazine in 1967. In the author's bio in the back of the book it says: "He has never had another job, though he came terrifyingly close in the late 1960s when the Vice President asked him to join his staff. After strenuous negotiations, the Vice President settled for Tyrrell as a consultant. After that the Vice President resigned." The Vice President was Spiro Agnew. Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British-born author Nick Bunker, our guest this week, has written books on the Mayflower Pilgrims, the Revolutionary War, and a biography of Benjamin Franklin. Lately he has turned his attention to America and the world in 1950. His book is titled "In the Shadow of Fear." Nick Bunker, a graduate of King's College, Cambridge, and Columbia University, focuses on names like Joseph McCarthy, Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, Margaret Chase Smith, George Marshall, Robert Taft, Alger Hiss, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. In addition, Bunker pays close attention to the Korean War. Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael S. Bryant, our guest this week, is a professor of history and legal studies specializing in the impact of the Holocaust. He's based at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Among his many writings he co-edited and contributed an essay to a book titled "Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' and the Holocaust." In the introduction, the editors point out that: "When the Bavarian government's copyright to Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' lapsed on January 1, 2016, the opportunity to reissue the book in German arose for the first time since 1945." Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not normal to hear what a politician really thinks about his or her colleagues in the United States House and Senate while they are still in office. McKay Coppins of the Atlantic magazine, our guest this week, tried to change that with his bestselling book about Senator Mitt Romney of Utah. The book, called "Romney: A Reckoning," is, according to the publisher, "a redemptive story about a flawed politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life." Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices