PA Books

PA Books is a weekly program on PCN that features an hour-long conversation with authors of newly published books on topics unique to Pennsylvania. After more than 20 years on the air, the program continues to produce an extensive video collection of interviews with the experts on Pennsylvania's history and culture. PA Books has preserved key moments for Pennsylvania by focusing on significant events like the Battles of Gettysburg and the Industrial Revolution, examining the lives of Pennsylvania's most famous citizens like W.C. Fields and Andrew Mellon, and hosting notable guests like Pulitzer Prize-Winner Joseph Ellis and former Phillies' greats Bill White and Tug McGraw. Back when it premiered on PCN in 1996, PA Books was only available on PCN on cable. With the PCN Select streaming service, viewers can stream new and on demand episodes of PA Books at any time.

New episodes air Sundays at 7 PM. You can also catch your favorite episodes daily at 8 AM.

Upcoming Episodes:

August 1: “Salut!: France Meets Philadelphia” with Lynn Miller & Therese Dolan - One highly visible example of French influence on the city of Philadelphia is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, modeled on the Champs-Élysées. In "Salut!", Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan trace the fruitful, three-centuries-long relationship between the City of Brotherly Love and France. This detailed volume illustrates the effect of Huguenots settling in Philadelphia and 18-year-old William […]

August 8: “Geography, Geology and Genius” with Martha Capwell Fox - This is the first book that tells the story of how a small slice of eastern Pennsylvania became the cradle of the American Industrial Revolution. Pennsylvania was America’s powerhouse in the nineteenth century, supplying the hot-burning, high-energy anthracite coal that ignited the iron and, later, steel industries that transformed the United States. This revolution began […]

August 22: “Calder: The Conquest of Space: The Later Years: 1940-1976” with Jed Perl - The second and final volume of this magnificent biography begins during World War II, when Calder–known to all as Sandy–and his wife, Louisa, opened their home to a stream of artists and writers in exile from Europe. In the postwar decades, they divided their time between the United States and France, as Calder made his […]