Booknotes: Stories from American History

As with any work that consists of an anthology, this is going to be somewhat subjective to my tastes, and how useful I found all of these stories overall. Often, it is difficult to try and rate each work individually (I know, I tried with this book) and often one has to ask the question: Is this book as good as the sum of it's parts? I have to say yes...with a caveat.

As can be said of any anthology, there are some good notes here, and some mediocre ones. Each author attempts to sell you on the book that they have just published, and that you should read it. The authors range from those that I vaguely know of, to those that have clearly not withstood the test of time, and now have been forgotten by the general public. Some of the topics are highly interesting, with ideas and works on everything from former slave ships, to the work of a president while he was in office. I think that this book got off to a rough start for me with the colonial era, since I simply knew much of the information already, and/or the works simply weren't written that well to make me want to read the author's text. Others were quite interesting, and a concise version of what the person wrote about made me want to find their book and read more.

But now to the caveat. There is simply no getting around the fact that this book is old...almost 20 years old, in fact. I would not bring this up, except for the fact that technology has passed the need for a book like this. Today, Booknotes has been off the air for over a decade, and many of the full interviews, running from 1989 to 2004, over an hour each, are available to stream online for free, or purchase on DVD if you really feel the need to do so. With that said, is there really a need to buy this book? If you want a more condensed version of the interview, perhaps, but who is to say that these are really the best stories, and that you won't miss something by not looking at their website with over 800 interviews? Also, I must confess that I am the kind of person that likes to multi-task, or at times, simply not read a book, and these interviews are more preferable to listen to as I use the internet or do other menial tasks, which, if you are anyone like me, is something to consider. In the end, I would give this book a three out of five. If you find this at a used bookstore, perhaps you should pick this up, but I would suggest visiting their website first, if you plan on reading this book at all. You will get far more information there.