Host youre watching booktv on cspan2. Joining us now from chicago and publishes convention is ron charles who is the editor of Washington Post book world. Mr. Charles what do you do for living . Guest i assigned most of the daily reviews to the Washington Post and every wednesday i write my own review. Host how many books a week where. Guest we reviewed 20 books a week. And we get about 150 so must go into the dash lets go so about 20 books a week are reviewed reviewed. Weiss reviewed. Wise why isnt their book section, standalone book section . Guest theres a standalone book section on line but we decided four years ago to spread the reviews out to find more readers. Seemed like a disaster the time to me but i have to admit we do in fact have more readers for book reviews now. We just put them in places that people. More. The old book world the supplement was much beloved but tended to be the section that everyone put aside to read later when they had time and that time never came. Now
From 1953 to 1956, there was a white house projectionist who wrote down every movie that the president saw and with one exception, who the president saw it with. The one exception is under kennedy. He saw a movie, we dont know who he saw it with. Its a treasure trove of all of the president s were seeing at a particular time. The theater has been around for a long time and helpful to president s trying to get people along on a vote. So, for example, george w. Bush brought in ted kennedy to see 13 days which was a movie about john f. Kennedys experience of the cuban missile crisis that made john f. Kennedy look good. So bush brought in ted kennedy and ended up working together on the no child left behind law. They were able to get that past the majority. Who was on the record . He would not watch movies with Robert Mitchum in them because he had been arrested for marijuana possession. He would try to sneak movies with mitchum by eisenhower. When mitchum got up on the screen, eisenhower
Much impact. I looked at cultural influences. Now thanks to the internet, there are so many ways to find out what president s have watched, read, tweeted, i put them together to take a look. What was the most interesting finding as you dug into this . Wood row wilson was the only phd. President and phd. I found that appealing. He wasnt that big a reader but he loved theater. He saw 250 plays as president. His favorite genre is vaudeville. He thought a hook across the stage or a pie in the face as much as the next guy. We found out when scott burge was here that he played 1200 rounds of golf. What about the image . Did that create the same kind of image todays golf would do . Interesting is wilson and the theater going, world war i, the Washington Post editorialized in favor of wilson going to theater in wartime. You see the critical of the president playing golf or going to the theater. Wilson was pratzed becau ee eee because it helped to keep that industry alive. You shouldnt overindu
Another thing in short supply this holiday season books. From the paper to print them on, to finished titles to stock store shelves, there are issues every step of the way.