"Connie Martinson Talks Books" Archives

Claremont Graduate University has begun posting online the first author interviews from an extraordinary trove of more than 2,500 taped television interviews with prominent authors of fiction and nonfiction over the last 30 years. They include Mary Gordon, Al Gore, Joseph Heller, Barack Obama, Calvin Trillin, Joyce Carol Oates, Maya Angelou, Gore Vidal, and Elie Wiesel.

The collection was donated by Connie Martinson, host of the cable TV program “Connie Martinson Talks Books,” which has been described by Los Angeles magazine as the city’s “premier television book show.”

Under the direction of the Drucker Institute and CGU’s Transdisciplinary Studies Program, the university plans to digitize the entire collection for easy online access by scholars and the general public. “The Martinson Collection is a fantastic way for us to highlight Peter Drucker’s idea that ‘management is a liberal art,’” said Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute. “Well-run organizations don’t just focus on finance, marketing and the like. Their values are shaped by the lessons of history and sociology, literature and philosophy, culture, and religion.”