. >> host: senator lamar alexander, former governor, army university president. we appreciate your time on booktv. >> guest: thank you. >> here's a preview of some of the books being published this fall. >> look for these titles in bookstores in the coming weeks and months, i want for the authors on booktv. >> we are living in the moment when a man who is in the white house right now is a constitutional lawyer by trade, and training, who won the nobel peace prize, who was portrayed as a transformative figure in american politics, and is presiding over a global assassination program. is presiding over the most intense, presided over the most intense persecution and prosecution of whistleblowers in u.s. history, has used the espionage act more during his two terms in office than all of the presidency's in u.s. history combined since the act was signed into law in the early 1900s. this president, obama, is viewed as this great liberal leader who had incredible support, and yet dick cheney, i imagine him flyfishing somewhere in wyoming, having a good chuckle over how

. >> lamar alexander, former university president and current senator, appreciate your time. >> online book seller amazon puts out a list of the well known cities across the u.s. with ranking based on data of purchased books, magazines and newspaper. seattle, washington tops off the list and it is home of amazon's corporate head quarters. portland, oregon is second and the nation's capitol third and san francisco and austin, texas round out the list of the top five. las vegas, tucson, san diego. baltimore, maryland is 11th on the list making it the second most well read city on the east coast. look for the article on businesswire.com to find out who all made the list. lara heimert, was coming out this fall? >> i am excited about the word detective by john simpson who is the formal editor and chief of the oxford dictionary who has been there for 40 years until retiring in 2013 and oversaw the complete transformation of dicti dictionaries. i think for anyone who read the professor and mad man you can remember the description of what it was like to assemble a dictionary in the 19th centur

i had lamar alexander bring me a book about the senate that's sitting right over there on the table. and he said he thought it was a best book about how the senate operates that he had read. so we do share from time to time books that that we think are important and helpful. >> host: now, why would senator alexander bring that to you? >> guest: you know, i can't remember. we were, we were talking about books, and he -- i can't remember exactly what i was talking about, but he said, oh, you know, you need to, you need to read book. and then he brought it to me. >> host: senator shaheen, are there books that you go back to time and again? be they novels, historical books? >> guest: less now than i used to when i was growing up. there were books that i used to re-read frequently. but because time is more challenging today, it's harder to do that. but, you know, one of the things that i like is having had the opportunity to read to my children, and some of the books that i read to them and that my grandchildren have been interested in are some of my favorite books. books like charlotte's

have been talking to members of congress about the national parks and we asked tennessee senator lamar alexander which special -- which park has special meaning for him. alexander: the great smoky mountain national park. because i grew up there, because i live there and i really love it. it is the most visited national park in the country. most people do not know that. it has nearly 10 million visitors a year compared to western parks that sometimes have two or three or 4 million. it has more trees, different kinds of trees than all of europe put together. all sites -- sorts of wildlife. 80 years ago when it was formed there were 80 black bears and now there are 1600. i see two dozen wild turkey in my backyard. i like the fact that can walk out of my house and walked two miles to conservation property the great smoky park which includes the highest mountains in the eastern united states. i like the stories about the people who live there. unlike the western parts which were built out of land the country already owned, the great smoky's were created in 1934 from land that north carolina and tenne

we recently ask senator lamar alexander which national park have meaning for him. >> the great smokyuntain national park. i lived there. and because i really love it. it is the most visited national park in the country. it has nearly 10 million visitors a year it has more trees than all of europe put together all sorts of wildlife 80 years ago when it was formed there was about 100 black bears another 1600. and i can see two dozen in my front yard. i like the fact i can walk out of my house walk about 2 miles to my conservation property and walking to the great smoky park which includes the highest mountains in the eastern united states. i like the stories about the people that live there because unlike the western parks which were built out of land that the country artie owned. they were created in 1934 from land that north carolina and tennessee gave it to the country and people were moved out of the parks and they bought their land. those of us who live around there feel like we own it because it used to be ours. there is a sense of ownership. even though people come to the park f

then tennessee senator lamar alexander sits down to discuss the books that have influenced his life and career. at 10 p.m. on "after words," seymour hersh describes the killing of osama bin laden. and we wrap up booktv in prime time at 11 p.m.. donald mcneil jr. of of "the new york times" reports on the origin toes and spread of the zika virus. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> the new boston post recently put together a list of the top ten conservative books to put on a summer reading list. the list starts off with pulitzer prize-winning columnist george will's "the pursuit of happiness and oh sobering thoughts," which is a collection of essays written in 1978. william f. buckley jr. is next on the list with an exploration of his roman catholic faith in "nearer my god." the downing street years by margaret that much every is third on the list and discusses her time as the prime minister of the united kingdom. in the way of the wasp, richard brookhiser examines the personality and values of george h.w. bush and his views on public service and tradition. the autobiography

my favorite person that spoke to us this week was lamar alexander. he gave us a positive perspective and told us we could do whatever we wanted to do be when we got older. he told us a story about doing voice state back in tennessee he was elected to be the governor and the governor had a talk with him and said some day one of you will be the governor of tennessee and he actually was. it was really cool to hear the inspiring stories like that. and you know, he talked about how you don't need to be partisan and just agree to disagree thing. c-span: based on what you saw this week what do you want to become in the future? of all jobs people have that spoke with you? >> dream would be public service but the military mentors shown me that i do think i want to serve after college so that was really cool to see their perspective. c-span: take advantage of your hand up and get your name and where where you are from. >> i am melissa sylvester and the most inspiring person i heard was my military mentor, major, long of the air force who inspired me with her d

. >> senator lamar alexander, if somebody asked you for a recommendation about tennessee or tennessee history what would you recommend? >> i would recommend alex stewart by john rise erwin. stewart was a clipper who is a barrel maker and lived in hancock county, a remote county. john rice erwin is the creator of the museum of appalachian. he could make anything. he could pull teeth, catch a squirrel and skin it, fry it and eat it. he was so interesting he was invited to washington to be part of the smithsonian folk life festival one time. if you want to get a sense of how some mountain people lived totally off the land, alex stewart by john rice erwin. >> host: a lot of famous politicians from tennessee. poke, a couple presidents like jackson and johnson. >> i mentioned two, john meechamp best

jones and his book is "in defense of negativity" -- "the end of white christian america" and then lamar alexander sits down to discuss books that influenced his life and career. at 10 p.m. on after wards, seymour hersh describes the killing of osama bin laden and then we talk about a report on the spread of the zika virus. first up, here is robert jones talking about t"the end of whit christian america". [inaudible conversation] ...

just part of what lamar alexander have to say about the smokies, and thursday marks the 100th anniversary of the park service. that morning, we will focus the first part of "washington past, present, and future of the parks. we will be live from arlington national symmetry as american history tv marks the 100th anniversary. 7:00 eastern on c-span3. -- sunday night of of oneas an average racial lynching a week in the south. it was a brilliant psychological device to hold down a race, because you were afraid it could happen to you. lynching," about the trial following the 1981 killing inmichael donald by the kkk mobile, how about. >> michael was this teenager, trained become a clear, the youngest of seven children, and his and wants to ask him to give et a pack of cigarettes. a man pulls out his pistol and orders him into a backseat of the car, and he knows when he gets in the car what is going to happen. a black man in alabama, you know. eastern. night 8:00 return house and senate from their recess two weeks from today. on the agenda, federal spending for fiscal year 2017, programs for the

. >> this is the most interesting dc education story at the moment, which is senator lamar alexander,hair of the senate education committee who is pushing hard his interpretation of essa is that it was slapping the wrist, slapping the hands of the federal government, back up, we want to give state governments more power now and he is often at odds with secretary king and the obama administration of the regulatory process. can the federal government dictate more than senator alexander and republicans are saying that the federal government ought to do. if the senate were to flip, this is actually a really important flip. if senator alexander is no longer chair, for example, bernie sanders, chair, what a lot of republicans were hoping. >> are you worried? do you think the senate is going to flip? >> i think it's a flip of a coin right now which way it goes. this is probably the most k-12 ripple of the decision -- of whether or not hillary clinton or donald trump is the president, how are they going to have the u.s. department of education interpret essa and how much flexibility do govern