Library of Congress gives a glimpse of American Publishing through Behind the Book Event Series

Asha Bajaj
3 min readNov 25, 2020

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#LibraryOfCongress; #BehindTheBook; #NewEventSeries; #AmericanPublishing

Washington, Library of Congress/Canadian-Media: Library of Congress would present Robert Gottlieb in Conversation with Robert A. Caro and Nan Talese in Conversation with Margaret Atwood, in Behind the Book, a New Event Series, Library of Congress (LoC) reports said.

Library of Congress. Image credit: Twitter handle

Behind the Book, a New Event Series, provides a behind-the-scenes view of the world of American book publishing, the editors, designers, publicists, agents, and publishers who make the books that win prizes and endure.

Image credit: Library of Congress

The schedule of events is as follows:

The first virtual event in this occasional series will begin on Thursday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m., with a focus on Great American Editors featuring legendary editor Robert Gottlieb — former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster and former publisher of Alfred A. Knopf, as well as former editor and publisher of The New Yorker — in conversation with one of his best-known writers, Robert A. Caro, author of the critically acclaimed biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.

The authors Gottlieb has worked with are like a “Who’s Who” of famous writers: Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, John Cheever, John le Carré, Michael Crichton, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Graham, Barbara Tuchman, Nora Ephron, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan. The program will feature tributes to Gottlieb from President Bill Clinton, radio host Diane Rehm, journalist Charles McGrath, and literary agent Lynn Nesbit.

On Thursday, Dec. 17, at 7 p.m., the focus on Great American Editors continues with Nan Talese, a senior vice president of Doubleday and editorial director of her eponymous imprint, in conversation with the internationally celebrated novelists, Margaret Atwood. Talese has been a leading editor at Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Houghton Mifflin and has edited such literary stars as Pat Conroy, Deirdre Bair, Ian McEwan, Jennifer Egan, Antonia Fraser, Barry Unsworth, Valerie Martin, Thomas Keneally, Mia Farrow, Barry Unsworth, Peter Ackroyd, Louis Begley, and George Plimpton.

Programs in this new series will premiere on the Library’s Facebook page and its YouTube site (with captions). These presentations will be available for viewing afterward at those sites and on the Library of Congress website at loc.gov/collections/event-videos/.

Additional programs in the Behind the Book series will be announced as they are scheduled, with the next being announced in January 2021.

As the world’s largest library built in 1800 in Washington D.C., LoC offers access to the creative record of the United States, and from around the world, both on-site and online, and is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. ​​

​While maintaining one of the largest and most diverse collections of scientific and technical information in the world, LoC also bibliographic services and develops the general collections of the library in all areas of science, technology, business, and economics

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Asha Bajaj

I write on national and international Health, Politics, Business, Education, Environment, Biodiversity, Science, First Nations, Humanitarian, gender, women