BookTV Live from LA This Weekend

By Neal 

When I saw that C-SPAN’s BookTV programming this weekend was going to include live broadcasts from the LA Times Festival of Books, and that Sunday’s festival coverage was going to kick off at 1:30 p.m., I admit—my immediate reaction was “Hey, my panel is at 1:30 Sunday!” Sadly, I had forgotten to account for the three-hour difference in time zones; they’ll actually be airing the religion and culture panel, because Christopher Hitchens taunting Zachary Karabell and Jonathan Kirsch mercilessly is bound to make for good television. I wish I could say you’d get to see me later in the afternoon, teaming up with Carolyn Kellogg to debate the rightness and goodness of the literary criticism wing of the blogosphere with Andrew Keen, whose new book The Cult of the Amateur argues that blogs as a class undermine western civilization’s standard of excellence (OK, I’m simplifying), but no… the D.C. policy wonks have ruled in favor of William Langewiesche, T. Christian Miller, and Robert Scheer talking about Iraq. Actually, having interviewed Langewiesche for a not-yet-online Publishers Weekly piece about his new book, The Atomic Bazaar, I should say that’ll probably be worth watching.