Things I'd Like to See This Weekend on C-SPAN's "Book TV"

Saturday
10:00 am Vook TV
This week Atria Books announced the launch of the "vook," a video-book hybrid that combines text with original video content in an ebook format. As with any new technology, people have lots of questions about the vook: Do I really have to call it a vook? Isn't vook kind of a stupid name? Will I have the opportunity to scratch the eyes out of the person who made up the word vook? Here a representative of Atria addresses these and other issues, including vook verb confusion. (Do you read a vook or watch it? And if you're in a hurry, do you skim a vook or surf it?) He also describes the development of the vook and some missteps along the way, notably a children's vook about White House pets that featured the Zapruder film. Also discussed: A line of vook accessories, including TiVook, which allows you to digitally record your vook now to enjoy whenever you're ready--hailed by J.D. Power and Associates as "the most redundant technological development of the last 40,000 years." The first four vooks are priced at $6.99, but are expected to be cheaper when they come out in vaperback.

2:00 pm Going Rogue Going Fast
Sarah Palin's memoir, originally scheduled to be come out in the spring of 2010, has been fast-tracked by her publisher. In this segment, a representative of HarperCollins explains how the entire publishing schedule for Going Rogue has been dramatically accelerated. It is available now for pre-order online, and goes on sale November 17th. The media campaign is already under way, with the book being praised on Fox News and excoriated on MSNBC before it has even been printed. Ratings of either five or zero stars have been posted on Amazon by people who couldn't possibly have read it yet. At this rate, no one will have to actually read the book. If the pace of this schedule continues, booksellers should start returning the book by Thanksgiving, and the remaining stock will have been remaindered by mid-December. The paperback will be published for New Year's, with any remaining copies pulped by Valentine's Day. "It's all about efficiencies," the publisher says.

Sunday
11:00 am Who's a Rogue?
Former Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko, author of Rogue Warrior, The Rogue Warrior's Strategy for Success, Leadership Secrets of a Rogue Warrior, and a whole bunch of others books with the word rogue on the cover, discusses his beef with Sarah Palin's memoir. "Going Rogue? You gotta be &#%*$!@ kidding me. Listen babe, you ain't rogue til you've done a %#$*!@& nighttime HALO jump into enemy territory carrying 230 !&%$*@# pounds of special ops equipment and pasted a few !%#&*@$ bad guys. Offing a @#*!&%$ moose from a helicopter in designer hunting gear don't cut it in my *&#!%@$ book--in fact, in any of my #%$!&*@ books." Marcinko speculates that Palin meant to call her book Going Rouge, "after her &#*!@%$ hockey mom lipstick or something." He was somewhat mollified to learn that until recently Palin had been pronouncing rogue "rogooey," but says "I may still have to fry her #@&!%*$ ass."

3:00 pm Speech Impediment
Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, discusses his book Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor. Is it true Mr. Bush had a speech impediment? "His mouth," Mr. Latimer says. He reveals that one particular word always gave Mr. Bush trouble: "We had to make sure it was carefully spelled out on the teleprompter--NUKE-YOU-LER--so he'd be sure to pronounce it correctly." The hardest part about writing for Mr. Bush was his constant pressure to work the phrase "the intercourse between nations" into his speeches. "He'd giggle just thinking about it," Latimer says.