Every year as the National Book Festival approaches (and especially on National Book Festival day), book lovers from other parts of the country send us sad tweets about how much they wish they could be here.
We wish they could all be here too, but we have some solutions for those who can’t.
We have been fortunate to have C-SPAN2’s Book TV as a festival sponsor since the first festival back in 2001 – giving history and biography lovers the ability to watch author interviews and discussions live throughout the day. C-SPAN is returning this year and will present another stellar sampling of festival authors. Tentatively scheduled: our new Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, author and journalist Evan Osnos and American hero Buzz Aldrin.
This year we are excited to further expand our effort to give a national audience access to this national festival. PBS Book View Now, with production by Detroit Public Television (DPTV), will provide comprehensive coverage of the event.
A live stream will be available free from noon until 6 p.m. E.T. accessible at PBS.org, select PBS station websites and the WORLDChannel.org, among other locations.
Select segments will be archived and available on-demand on PBS.org, PBS station websites and PBS video apps.
Interviews are tentatively scheduled with festival stars including, Tom Brokaw, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo and Louise Erdrich, who will be presented with the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction to kick off the day’s activities.
We are so excited to be working with C-SPAN, PBS and DPTV on this wall-to-wall coverage for book lovers.
And of course, in addition to watching the coverage, you can participate in the conversation on Twitter @librarycongress #NatBookFest15.
Wherever you are in the world, please join us on Sept. 5!