# List of Booknotes interviews first aired in 1997

Booknotes is an American television series on the C-SPAN network hosted by Brian Lamb, which originally aired from 1989 to 2004. The format of the show is a one-hour, one-on-one interview with a non-fiction author. The series was broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern Time each Sunday night, and was the longest-running author interview program in U.S. broadcast history.
| First broadcast (with link to transcript / video) | Author | Book | Subject matter |
| January 5, 1997 | Edward Jay Epstein | Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer | Armand Hammer |
| January 12, 1997 | Robert Ferrell | The Strange Deaths of President Harding | Warren G. Harding |
| January 19, 1997 | Alfred Zacher | Trial and Triumph: Presidential Power in the Second Term | President of the United States |
| January 23, 1997 | Anita Hill | Speaking Truth to Power | Memoir/Autobiography; Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination |
| January 26, 1997 | David Boaz | Libertarianism: A Primer | Libertarianism |
| February 2, 1997 | Henry Grunwald | One Man's America: A Journalist's Search for the Heart of His Country | Memoir/Autobiography; Journalism; Time Magazine |
| February 9, 1997 | John Brady | Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater | Lee Atwater |
| February 16, 1997 | Katharine Graham | Personal History | Memoir/Autobiography; The Washington Post; The Washington Post Company |
| February 23, 1997 and March 2, 1997 | Sam Tanenhaus | Whittaker Chambers: A Biography | Whittaker Chambers |
| March 9, 1997 | Sarah Gordon | Passage to Union: How the Railroads Transformed American Life, 1829-1929 | History of rail transport in North America |
| March 19, 1997 | John Fialka | War By Other Means: Economic Espionage in America | Industrial espionage |
| March 23, 1997 | Jon Katz | Virtuous Reality: How America Surrendered Discussion of Moral Values to Opportunists, Nitwits & Blockheads Like William Bennett | William Bennett |
| March 30, 1997 | Claude Andrew Clegg III | An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad | Elijah Muhammad |
| April 6, 1997 | Keith Richburg | Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa | Africa |
| April 13, 1997 | David Horowitz | Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey | Memoir/Autobiography; American Left |
| April 20, 1997 | Leonard Garment | Crazy Rhythm: My Journey From Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street, to Nixon's White House, Watergate and Beyond | Memoir/Autobiography; Billie Holiday Category:Presidency of Richard Nixon |
| April 27, 1997 | Stephen Oates | The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 | Origins of the American Civil War |
| May 4, 1997 | Christopher Buckley | Wry Martinis | Essays |
| May 11, 1997 | Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro | The Coming Conflict with China | Sino-American relations |
| May 18, 1997 | Anne Matthews | Bright College Years: Inside the American Campus Today | Higher education in the United States |
| May 25, 1997 | Jane Holtz Kay | Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back | Automotive industry in the United States |
| June 1, 1997 | Jill Krementz | The Writer's Desk | Creative writing; Kurt Vonnegut |
| June 8, 1997 | Pavel Palazchenko | My Years With Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter | Memoir/Autobiography; Mikhail Gorbachev; Eduard Shevardnadze |
| June 15, 1997 | Walter A. McDougall | Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 | Foreign policy of the United States |
| June 22, 1997 | James Humes | Confessions of a White House Ghostwriter: Five Presidents and other Political Adventures | Memoir/Autobiography; Speechwriting |
| June 29, 1997 | Walter Cronkite | A Reporter's Life | Memoir/Autobiography; Journalism; CBS News |
| July 6, 1997 | Jack Rakove | Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution | The U.S. Constitution |
| July 13, 1997 | Tom Clancy and Gen. Fred Franks | Into the Storm: A Study in Command | General officers in the United States; General (United States) |
| July 20, 1997 | Robert Hughes | American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America | Visual art of the United States |
| July 27, 1997 | Sylvia Jukes Morris | Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce | Clare Boothe Luce |
| August 3, 1997 | LeAlan Jones | Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago | Ghetto Life 101; Ida B. Wells Homes |
| August 10, 1997 | James Tobin | Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II | Ernie Pyle |
| August 17, 1997 | Pauline Maier | American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence | The United States Declaration of Independence |
| August 24, 1997 | Peter Maas | Underboss: Sammy The Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia | Sammy "The Bull" Gravano |
| August 28, 1997 | John Berendt | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story | Savannah, Georgia; Jim Williams |
| August 31, 1997 | Frank McCourt | Angela's Ashes | Memoir/Autobiography; Limerick, Ireland; Brooklyn, New York; Irish Americans; Malachy McCourt; Alphie McCourt |
| September 7, 1997 | Brian Burrell | The Words We Live By: The Creeds, Mottoes, and Pledges That Have Shaped America | Creeds; Mottoes; Oaths; The Pledge of Allegiance; "In God We Trust" |
| September 14, 1997 | John Toland | Captured By History: One Man's Vision of Our Tumultuous Century | 20th century |
| September 21, 1997 | Peter Gomes | The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart | The Bible |
| October 5, 1997 | Howard Gardner | Extraordinary Minds: Portraits of Four Exceptional Individuals and an Examination of Our Own Extraordinariness | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Sigmund Freud; Virginia Woolf; Mahatma Gandhi |
| October 12, 1997 | Geoffrey Perret | Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President | Ulysses S. Grant |
| October 19, 1997 | Nat Hentoff | Speaking Freely: A Memoir | Memoir/Autobiography; First Amendment; Jazz |
| October 26, 1997 | Alan Schom | Napoleon Bonaparte | Napoleon Bonaparte |
| November 2, 1997 | Thomas West | Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class and Justice in the Origins of America | Founding Fathers of the United States |
| November 16, 1997 | David Gelernter | Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber | The Unabomber |
| November 30, 1997 | Jeff Shesol | Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade | Lyndon Johnson; Robert F. Kennedy |
| December 7, 1997 | Tim Russert | Meet the Press: 50 Years of History in the Making | Meet the Press |
| December 14, 1997 | Susan Butler | East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart | Amelia Earhart |
| December 21, 1997 | Jim Hightower | There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos | Progressivism in the United States |
| December 28, 1997 | Sally Quinn | The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining | Dinner parties |