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Greetings From Politics and Prose! Author Events with Howard Dean, Eugenia Kim,
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UPCOMING EVENTS - 10 DAY SUMMARY |
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Thursday August 13 Monday August 17 Tuesday August 18 Wednesday August 19 Thursday August 20 |
Monday August 24, Tuesday August 25 Wednesday August 26 Thursday August 27 Monday August 31
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LETTER FROM CARLA & BARBARA |
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As I return from vacation, I am reminded again of the stimulation of evenings at Politics and Prose. If this sounds like self-praise, please understand that it is really the authors, their books, and the audiences which make the events so rich. The store is in the right place at the right time. Scores of authors live within a mile or two; hundreds within twenty miles. We only provide the venue and expectations. Last Wednesday, for example, Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz presented their book on the 2008 campaign. They both live in the Washington area, so Haynes has presented his new books here many times. I first met him in 1965 when I was a participant in the march from Montgomery to Selma, and he was covering the event for The Washington Star! I missed the talk, but the staff tells me that there was an overflow crowd to hear the two ace correspondents discuss THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA 2008. Of course, there was. Two intelligent, articulate journalists were talking about a possible turning point for our nation. By a decisive margin, the nation selected a new path. The audience was eager to hear how that happened, and curious to know what story our country will tell as we go forward. And we all have another chance to ask them questions, as they have agreed to a second event, on Monday, August 31, 7 p.m. On Tuesday night, another journalist who lives in the Washington area, Helene Cooper, read and talked about her memoir, THE HOUSE AT SUGAR BEACH. She contrasted her two lives: first, as a privileged youngster in a mansion in Monrovia, Liberia; then, when forced (and lucky enough) to flee the civil war, as a teenager and college student in the southern United States with her mother and sister. Helene Cooper is also an ace. She covers the White House for the New York Times and before that was a diplomatic correspondent for both the Wall Street Journal and the Times. Her accomplishment is her ability to turn off the reporter self and find the scared little girl who had to leave home and resettle as an immigrant. Her reading was delightful as she alternated between Liberian and American English. Our guests often comment on the fun they have speaking at Politics and Prose. The audience is completely tuned in; their questions are perceptive; the interchange is illuminating; and they buy books! Thank you for the contribution that you all bring to these memorable events. • Carla Cohen
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CARLA COMMENTS | |
Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a bestseller again, thanks to the film Julie & Julia, which opened last weekend. According to the Associated Press, "On Monday, a $40 hardcover of Mastering... topped the charts of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, easily outpacing a $7.99 paperback of the book that gave the film its title, "Julie & Julia" - Julie Powell's memoir about spending a year preparing all the recipes in Child's book. Knopf has ordered an additional 75,000 copies of Mastering, which on Monday was sold out on Amazon," but we still have some in stock. Movies have such power; a whole new generation is introduced to the great Julia. Twenty years ago, Julia Child signed books at Politics and Prose. On that day, we sold 250 books, which remains one of our records. Julia signed them all and then some. As on the day President Clinton was here, the line snaked up the street. Afterwards, I said to my mother, "Julia Child signed 250 books. She’s the same age as you; could you do that?" My mother replied, "Sure, I could sign my name 250 times; I just couldn’t write the book!"
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COMING NOW TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE |
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If you can’t attend a talk, but would like to reserve a signed copy, MORE GREAT EVENTS IN THE WEEK AHEAD
Thursday, August 13 4 p.m. In an event with fortuitous timing, Politics and Prose will have its own town meeting on healthcare. From his unique perspective as a physician, former Vermont governor, and DNC chairman, Dr. Howard Dean will come to the store discuss his book, Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. He counters the hollow arguments and rhetorical charges of a socialist agenda and looks at rising health care costs and their impact on individuals and small businesses. Monday, August 17 7 p.m. We urge you to come to hear Michael Rosen introduce his book What Else But Home. During a six-year period, he and his wife, Leslie Gruss, became the de-facto parents of several boys "from the projects". This relationship began when their son, Ripton, joined a baseball game on a field across the street from the Rosen’s Lower East Side penthouse. At the end of the game, Ripton invited his new friends back to his apartment where they ate and ate and ate and played video games. The boys were mostly Dominican-American. They knew nothing except the street, its culture, its fashions, and its prejudices. None currently had fathers present; the schools utterly failed them; and here’s the message: it’s too much to expect the schools by themselves to close the gap between lower and middle class. Come and listen to this powerful story that illustrates the challenges facing America in integrating low-income people into mainstream society. Tuesday, August 18 7 p.m. In a perfect blend of the personal and political, the graceful Eugenia Kim will read and talk about her beautiful novel, The Calligrapher’s Daughter, which weaves one family's story into Korean history. It’s got everything – a great story about an upper-class, caste-driven family, and the struggle for Korean independence against the cruel Japanese occupation in the first part of the 20th century. Born in 1910, Najin was the only surviving child of her parents - Han, a calligrapher and scholar, and Haejung, a woman from the northern part of Korea. Najin wanted to be recognized for her own contributions and education rather than merely facilitating the achievements of the men in her life. In the final chapters, we witness the country's changes from a static and highly structured culture to one of increasing modernity. The book particularly reveals Najin’s story, but the rest of her family all emerge as familiar personalities. Kim joins other wonderful Korean-American authors, such as Chang Rae Lee (Native Speaker) and Min Jin Lee (Free Food for Millionaires), who open windows on American immigrant perspectives and a proud and ancient country. Co-sponsored by The Asia Society, Washington, D.C. Wednesday, August 19 7 p.m. A compilation of James Wood’s essays - many first published in The New Yorker, others the fruit of his Harvard lectures in literature - How Fiction Works illuminates the many elements involved in the genre. Plot, narrative, the extent of the real in realism--Wood discusses these general features of fiction in the specific contexts of classic and contemporary writers from Homer and Flaubert to Updike and Kundera. James Wood is recognized as the leading literary critic of his generation.
Thursday, August 20 7 p.m. Alex S. Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning media critic currently at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, argues that the real problem with the media isn’t bias but an erosion of fact-based news. Losing The News suggests that, without the reliable pipeline of accurate reporting, we lack the information that will allow us to be capable watchdogs of government. Monday, August 24 7 p.m. David Wessel, the chief economics correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, presents his book In Fed We Trust, on efforts by Chairman Ben Bernanke to prevent The Panic of ’09. How successful have the Fed’s policies been and to what effect? Tuesday, August 25 7 p.m. T.R. Reid, a longtime correspondent for The Washington Post and an NPR commentator, tours successful health care systems worldwide, revealing possibilities for the U.S. As the Obama Administration pursues The Healing of America with health care reform, we can look for models in wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies. Wednesday, August 26 7 p.m. From Prohibition through the Watts riots, gangsters, led by Bugsy Siegel’s onetime protégé, battled cops for control of Los Angeles. In L.A. Noir, John Buntin, who writes on crime for Governing magazine, focuses on William Parker, who joined the police force in the 1920s and dedicated his life to developing a strong LAPD. Thursday, August 27 7 p.m. In 2002, when Nick McDonell was seventeen, his debut novel, Twelve, was received with much praise. His third novel, An Expensive Education, is a portrait of personalities who become ensnared in an African conflict, and who engage in debate over it on Harvard’s campus. Monday, August 31 7 p.m. If you missed Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson when they were at P&P on August 5, you have another chance as they have agreed to a second event. Their new book,The Battle for America 2008, a narrative analysis of the presidential campaign, covers the undercurrents of race, gender, and class as Obama and McCain battled from Iowa to the White House. Dan and Haynes, two of The Washington Post’s top journalists, will briefly introduce their book and then take your questions about the election and the current state of President Obama’s administration. There will be only weekday author events during the month of August.
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO... | |
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Friday, August 21, 7:30 p.m. 
"The Parthenon," the home of Chrissellen Petropoulos HAO-JIAN TIAN | |
P&P BESTSELLERS | |
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#1 FICTION: That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
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NEW IN PAPERBACK | |
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SIGNED BOOKS |
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THE CONFESSIONS OF EDWARD DAY |
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT | |
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Little ones can have fun lifting flaps and pulling tabs to uncover ANIMAL BABIES A TO Z (Intervisual Books, $14.95). In Chuck Murphy’s pop-up, each letter of the alphabet lifts or slides to reveal a new bouncing baby representative of the animal kingdom. Plus, the unusual menagerie of animals proves to be a fun lesson in zoology. Check out the ibis behind I, the dinosaurs behind D, and the show-stopper behind Z. Ages 3-6 - Lisa Chaplin-Hobbs For more recommendations for kids from our staff, pick up a copy of the Children and Teens’ Favorites Summer 2009 in the store or browse our summer selections for children and teens on the website by clicking here. Monday Morning Storytime is on hiatus and will resume on September 14 after Labor Day. For more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.
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MARKDOWN BOOKS | |
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Among the many great books in this section you’ll find: We’ve got a lot of great fiction here this week. FLAUBERT’S PARROT, Julian Barnes’s breakthrough novel, though only published in 1984, might very well count as a classic. It’s a witty, surprising, thoroughly delightful postmodern look at Flaubert, French literature, authenticity, and much more. It stretches the reading experience in new directions while also meditating on books and their place in one’s life. It may remind you of Nabokov and Calvino, yet it’s an ingeniously original work. Available in paperback, $5.98. If you’re looking for shorter fiction, we have BEETHOVEN WAS ONE-SIXTEENTH BLACK, from the South African Nobel laureate and master of the short story, Nadine Gordimer. Now in her 80s, Gordimer has seen a lot, and her sharp observations of society and insight into individuals inform all her work. This collection combines love, politics, and memory in surprising ways. One story features the imagined return of Edward Said and Susan Sontag; in another a parrot speaks for a noted historian; and a piece about writing offers three different endings. Available in hardcover, $6.98. For more recently acquired remainders, click here. | |
MUSIC NEWS | |
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Click here for András’s reviews and Music News and to buy these albums. • András Goldinger | |
BOOK GROUPS | |
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Thursday, August 13, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, August 16, 6 p.m. Monday, August 17 Tuesday, August 18, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 19, 12:30 p.m. Thursday, August 20, 2 p.m.
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE | |
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Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008 (202) 364-1919 or (800) 722-0790 Fax: (202) 966-7532 |
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Julia Child would be celebrating her 97th birthday this coming Saturday, August 15 and she died five years ago on August 13, 2004. So, it is exciting that there has been so much recent attention to her writing and legacy thanks to a recent film. This comes from an industry newsletter, Shelf Talk:
BOOK OF THE WEEK 
FARID FELLAG, ARTISANAL BAKER