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

Saturday
10:00 am Glenn Beck
The cable news pundit discusses his ongoing problems with sponsors. More than forty companies have pulled their advertising from Beck's Fox News Channel show over his statement that President Barack Obama is a racist. Now he faces similar difficulties with several of his published books. Recently the word "idiots" was removed from the title of Beck's Arguing with Idiots following a carefully orchestrated campaign by a determined, well-organized group of idiots; Thomas Paine returned from the dead to demand that all references to him and his treatise Common Sense be purged from Glenn Beck's Common Sense; and Jesus has pulled the word "Christmas" from Beck's novel The Christmas Sweater.

2:00 pm Child & Child
The phenomenal revival of interest in Julia Child, spurred by the success of the film Julie & Julia (based on Julia Powell's book), has inspired a new Child-related book project--one that will posthumously fulfill the late cookbook author's frustrated ambitions to be a novelist. Here thriller writer Lee Child discusses his forthcoming book Child & Child, in which rugged hero Jack Reacher attempts to make Julia Child's tricky Coq au Vin recipe, dogged by agents of the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) who are determined to see him fail. The novel opens with a bang as Reacher, in the process of preparing his ingredients, beats the crap out of a chicken.

Sunday
11:00 am Obama's Beach Reads
The White House was careful to announce the list of books that President Obama planned to take on vacation--five acclaimed and respectable works of fiction and nonfiction, including David McCullough's John Adams, Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded, and Kent Haruf's Plainsong. Here White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tries to explain a widely-circulated photo of the President lying on a beach in Martha's Vineyard reading Tucker Max's I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, with copies of Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life and Tori Spelling's Mommywood lying in the sand nearby. At first Gibbs calls it an attempt to smear the President, though he later insists this was a reference to an incident involving sunscreen.

2:00 pm Obscure Dickens
A series profiling lesser-known Dickens characters. This week: Abie Cadabra, wily magician in David Copperfield who teaches the title character how to make an elephant disappear.

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

Saturday
11:00 am Sarah Palin
Discussing her decision to resign as governor of Alaska and how it will affect her forthcoming memoir, Palin again demonstrates why she is the most oddly compelling figure to appear on the political landscape since Mayor McCheese. Palin says her book will argue that deciding to terminate instead of going to full term is not a choice that pregnant women should have, but is a perfectly viable option for a state governor. She also reveals that she is working on a children's book called Quacking Up, about a lame duck named Maverick who resigns as head of her flock for vague and murky reasons, teaching young readers that quitting isn't quitting if you call it something else. A discussion of Palin's political future rounds out the final four seconds of the program.

2:00 pm Pen-Palling Around With Terrorists
Writer Jack Cashill defends his theory that former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, author of the memoir Fugitive Days, actually wrote Barack Obama's bestselling book Dreams from My Father. Cashill's theory is based on several pieces of textual evidence: Both men write about power ("Ayers, in fact, evokes the word 'power' and its derivatives 75 times in Fugitive Days, Obama 83 times in Dreams"); both are obsessed with eyebrows ("There are six references to 'eyebrows' in Fugitive Days -- bushy ones, flaring ones, arched ones, black ones and, stunningly, seven references in Dreams -- heavy ones, bushy ones, wispy ones"); and both misquote Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago. Cashill concedes that since the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet used the word 'power' more than 150 times in his biographical writings about Lincoln, and had distinctly prominent eyebrows as well, it is at least possible that Carl Sandburg wrote both Fugitive Days and Dreams from My Father. Also discussed: Passing references to Shakespeare in both books lead to speculation that the Immortal Bard is the author. Cashill scoffs at this notion, suggesting that it is more likely the books were written by either Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

Sunday
10:00 am Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times columnist discusses his recent list of The Best Kids' Books Ever, which emphasizes well-seasoned personal favorites from decades gone by such as the Hardy Boys series, the Freddie the Pig series, On to Oregon, and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Mr. Kristof hints that he may produce a second list, this one consisting of books that might actually appeal to real live children, or at least children who aren't Benjamin Button.

4:00 pm Obscure Dickens
A series profiling lesser-known Dickens characters. This week: Dick Dicklewicker, Oliver Twist's best friend at the orphanage, who disappears under mysterious circumstances when the book is adapted for the musical Oliver!

Ghosting

Jack Cashill has a theory that Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground member, is the actual author of Barack Obama's book Dreams from My Father. The theory is based on supposed similarities between Obama's book and various writings by Ayers. These include overusing the word "power," misquoting Carl Sandburg, and referring to various kinds of eyebrows. You can judge his evidence for yourself, but you have to wonder why he thinks Ayers is the ghostwriter without considering the other possibility. Why couldn't Obama be the secret author of Bill Ayers' books? I'm just saying.