Author Events with Jonathan Tropper, Max Blumenthal & Benjamin Moser

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Greetings From Politics and Prose! E-mail for the Week of September 03, 2009 Author Events with Jonathan Tropper, Max Blumenthal & Benjamin Moser
Shortcut Bar: Click below to skip to popular destinations Letter from Barbara & Carla \| Carla Comments \| Barbara's Byline \| Book Notes \| Upcoming Events Off-Site Events \| Bestsellers \| New In Paperback \| Signed Books Children and Teens \| Markdown Books \| Music \| Book Groups \| Announcements \| Coffeehouse
UPCOMING EVENTS - 10 DAY SUMMARY
Click here or on the title links for descriptions and online purchase. Members always save 20% on event books. We are holding only Monday-Thursday author events during the month of August.
Thursday September 3 7 pm Jonathan Tropper This Is Where I Leave You Labor Day Weekend NO EVENTS SCHEDULED Tuesday September 8 7 pm Max Blumenthal Republican Gomorrah	Wednesday September 9 7 pm Benjamin Moser Why This World Thursday September 10 7 pm Rich Cohen Israel Is Real Friday September 11 - Sunday September 13 25th Anniversary Storewide Member Sale For more events, click here.
LETTER FROM CARLA & BARBARA
Welcome to the autumn in Washington. We ourselves have been away several weeks and much of our staff has had vacation. Many of us feel that the New Year actually starts on Labor Day. And this is especially true this year, as we will be celebrating a gala New Year in conjunction with our 25th Anniversary. Don’t forget that our annual post-Labor Day, come-in-and-see-the-store member sale is the weekend of September 11-13 (during which almost everything is 20% off to members) . . . and the weekend after that brings our block party in the parking lot (see details here). If you have not yet received a copy of our September calendar, check the website www.politics-prose.com or come to the store to receive a paper copy. We are thinking about our little store across the street, the friends who helped us get started, the books we have loved, and the authors whom we’ve cared about. We are looking backward to our accomplishments and to the future with gala events and new programs during these months before the holidays. We have all been reading for this wonderful 2009 fall book season. We will be offering some of the books at 20% off for pre-ordering. See the list here. A couple of these books have just arrived: STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS (Random House, $26), Tracy Kidder’s lovely new nonfiction story about a remarkable Burundian refugee. (The author will be here on September 15.) A GATE AT THE STAIRS (Knopf, $25.95), Lorrie Moore’s passionate and funny novel about a college student in the middle West encountering some of the shifts in twenty-first century life. (The author will be here on September 24.) Go back to top of email
BARBARA'S BYLINE
THE ANTHOLOGIST by Nicholson Baker I read an advance reading copy (we call them ARC's) of review of Nicholson Baker's new novel, THE ANTHOLOGIST way back in June, and I was totally smitten by it. I've loved Nicholson Baker ever since his first novel, The Mezzanine, was published some 20 years ago, but I've also approached each new book with caution because there have been some that just didn't work for me. Happily, The Anthologist was totally enjoyable right from, a beguiling love story about poets that everyone who writes or reads lyrical verse will savor. Narrator Paul Chowder, a published poet, struggles with his writer's block in writing a preface to an anthology of poetry. In the process of diffusing the block, he obsesses both with humor and pathos: "Poetry is a controlled refinement of sobbing . . . The rhyming of rhymes is a powerful form of self-medication. . . Rhyming is the avoidance of mental pain by addicting yourself to what will happen next." Chowder instructs his reader to write down each poem that he encounters and recite it out loud. In my reading, I found that I was so enchanted with some of Chowder's aphorisms that I was writing them down as well. For anyone with a literary streak, The Anthologist is a sure winner. Yelp Reviews P&P Regularly I log in to a website that I only learned about this past year, Yelp.com, a close relative of the Zagat restaurant guides. Yelp allows customers to post their own reviews of places they shop online. Since the time that Politics and Prose has been listed on Yelp, customers have posted 60 reviews, almost all of them superlative. Just this past week a new one came in: "I live in New York and take a four hour Vamoose bus ride just to spend a day at P&P. This is my favorite place in the world." If you want to read all the reviews of Politics and Prose or post your own, the site is www.Yelp.com. Go back to top of email
CARLA COMMENTS
When we visit our daughter Eve in San Francisco, we like to catch up on movies. We saw Julie and Julia, In the Loop, and the HBO documentary The Nine Lives of Marion Barry. Sacred: Meryl Streep was more Julia Child than Julia Child, and she was wonderful. Nora Ephron’s script was lively and covered interesting topics besides eating and cooking (such as the chilling effect of McCarthyism on the Foreign Service). Just at this time when Mastering the Art of French Cooking is becoming a #1 bestseller, in another reminder of how cooking and food are intertwined with culture, Sheila Lukins, coauthor with Julee Rosso of THE SILVER PALATE COOKBOOK, died. I loved and admired Julia Child, but I never wanted to cook like that. Too many steps. Too much recipe following. No, THE SILVER PALATE and THE NEW BASICS were perfect for me. Great new flavors and ideas without the fuss and bother of perfect French food. We were the generation in which everybody we knew had those two books on their kitchen shelves. Profane: Very profane and also very funny is *In the Loop*, a British comedy about the British and American collaboration over the invasion of Iraq. The writers have done a wonderful job with the details of who said what to whom and the movie, alas, rings absolutely true. I can’t say with knowledge that there is anybody like Malcolm, the British chief of staff, who uses the F-word as verb, adjective, noun, adverb, and more times than I have ever heard; however, there are certainly junior staff who do not tell the truth because they want their superiors to hold onto power. There are certainly generals who know that a war is a bad idea but don’t resign because they rationalize they can do more on the inside; and there are certainly government officials who make liberal use of the media. Sad: Marion Barry is exactly the same age as I am, and we arrived in Washington at exactly the same time. For a long time, I believed he was going to make a real difference. He was a persuasive leader. Pride, Inc. was a great idea. He would be a creative elected official, I thought. I worked hard for him in his early campaigns. What happened? It’s hard to say, even after watching the documentary. Perhaps we expected too much of him - or, with all of the poverty in Washington and with entrenched officials who only want the paycheck, perhaps no one can perform the mayor’s job effectively. Go back to top of email
BOOK NOTES
NEW - Dinner with the Author Series Politics & Prose is offering an opportunity to enjoy a delicious meal and take part in a stimulating discussion with an author in a relaxed and intimate setting. The dinners are to be held from 6:30 - 9:30 p.m. at Rock Creek Restaurant - which is located at Mazza Gallerie, 5300 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. on the third floor across from the movie theaters. Parking will be validated. The cost for dinner - $75.00 per person or $140.00 per couple - includes one copy of the evening's book. Cash bar available. Our first three events are: Tuesday, September 22 RON SUSKIND THE WAY OF THE WORLD (Harper Perennial, $16.99) Thursday, October 29 TOM GJELTEN BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA (Penguin, $17.00) Wednesday, November 4 RICK ATKINSON THE LONG GRAY LINE (Holt, $17.00) For more information or to sign up to attend, please contact Bonnie Kogod at bkogod@politics-prose.com or 202-363-7738. To attend the Ron Suskind dinner, please sign up by September 16. Seating is limited. Go back to top of email
COMING NOW TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE
If you can’t attend a talk, but would like to reserve a signed copy, click the title links to pre-purchase online. Members save 20% off on these titles. Click here if you would like to buy a recorded author talk. Thursday, September 3 7 p.m. This is Where I Leave You, the latest novel from Jonathan Tropper, author of *The Book of Joe* and Everything Changes, focuses on the Foxmans, a family dysfunctional in its own unpredictable and often comic ways. Gathered for the funeral of the father, the four adult children and their mother (a renowned parenting expert) relive the past and try to come to terms with the challenges of their own families. Friday, September 4 - Monday, September 7 LABOR DAY WEEKEND - No Events Scheduled Tuesday, September 8 7 p.m. In REPUBLICAN GOMORRAH, the award-winning journalist and videographer Max Blumenthal looks at the Republican Party through the lens of Erich Fromm’s belief that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings. Blumenthal identifies various fringe groups as the party’s new mainstream and exposes a recent history of eccentricity, crisis, and scandal as shaping Republican attitudes and agendas. Wednesday, September 9 7 p.m. Benjamin Moser’s WHY THIS WORLD: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) draws on interviews and newly available documents and demonstrates the importance of the Jewish mystical tradition in the enigmatic Brazilian writer's life and work. Thursday, September 10 7 p.m. In ISRAEL IS REAL, a compact, personal history, Rich Cohen (*Sweet and Low) traces the history of Israel from a Diaspora to the modern nation, taking readers through the significant milestones in Israel’s development and offering graceful portraits of some of the major figures. Friday, September 11 - Sunday, September 13* 25th Anniversary Storewide Member Sale! For the full schedule and to purchase any of the above books, click here. Go back to top of email
P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO...
Tuesday, September 8, 8 p.m. The Avalon Theater 5612 Connecticut Avenue, NW PO BRONSON and ASHLEY MERRYMAN in conversation with DAN PINK NURTURESHOCK: New Thinking About Children (Twelve, $24.99) Bronson (*What Should I Do with My Life?, Why Do I Love These People?)and Merryman reveal what decades of scientific studies teach us about the complexities of raising, happy, healthy, self-motivated kids. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they explain why many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children, such as gifted and talented programs and school integration, are, in fact, backfiring. Nutureshock* is an insightful and challenging exploration of issues in the lives of both children and adults. $10 tickets are available through Hooks Book Events. Wednesday, September 9, 7 p.m. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue 600 I Street, NW Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown Sam Tanenhaus The Death of Conservatism (Random House, $17) Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review and Week in Review, argues that, for seventy-five years, the Right has been split between two factions: consensus-driven “realists” who believe in the virtue of government and its power to adjust to changing conditions, and movement “revanchists” who distrust government and society—and often find themselves at war with America itself. Tanenhaus suggests that the true role of conservatism is not to advance a narrow ideological agenda but to engage in a serious dialogue with liberalism and join with it in upholding “the politics of stability.” More information and $6 tickets are available at www.sixthandi.org, or receive two (2) free tickets with the purchase of the book. Please call 202-408-3100 with questions. Co-sponsored with The New Republic. Sunday, September 13, 4 p.m. Eckles Library Mount Vernon Campus of George Washington University 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Dr. Nancy Schlossberg Revitalizing Retirement: Reshaping Your Identity, Relationships, and Purpose (APA Life Tools, $16.95) Dr. Schlossberg will discuss the issues, hurdles, and opportunities presented by retirement, its importance as a gateway to a major new phase of life, and strategies for making this major transition a successful one for you and your family. Free parking and a shuttle to the Eckles Library is available in the GW-MVC Garage on Whitehaven Parkway. For further information about this FREE event, call Sonia Crow at Palisades Village, 202-244-3310. Monday, September 14, 7 p.m. Friendship Heights Village Center 4433 S. Park Avenue, Chevy Chase JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA MAKING YOUR CASE: The Art of Persuading Judges (West, $29.95) Justice Scalia was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on September 26, 1986. *Making Your Case, coauthored by legal writing expert Bryan Garner, covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning and judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining style. Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797. Wednesday, September 16, 7 p.m.* The Arts Club of Washington 2017 I Street, NW Dave Smith and Jean Valentine present CAPTIVE VOICES: New and Selected Poems, 1960-2008 by Eleanor Ross Taylor (Southern Messenger Poets series, LSU Press, $21.95) Taylor is an award-winning author of six poetry collections. The presenters will read selections from Taylor’s poetry as well as their own. For information about this FREE reception, contact Sandra Beasley, ACW Literary Chair at 703-994-3166. Thursday, September 17, 6:45 p.m. National Academy of Sciences 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW (Enter on 2100 C Street, NW) Smithsonian Resident Associates present MELANIE MITCHELL COMPLEXITY: A Guided Tour (Oxford Univ. Press, $29.95) The science of complexity seeks to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior emerges from simple interactions among myriad individuals - and applies general principles across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena - including evolution, artificial intelligence, computation, genetics, and information processing. For $25 tickets ($15 for NAS or Smithsonian Members), call 202-633-3030 or visit this link. Photo ID is required. Thursday, September 17, 7:30 p.m. Friendship Heights Village Center 4433 S. Park Avenue, Chevy Chase PETER CARLSON K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist (PublicAffairs, $26.95) This bizarre and hilarious story of Nikita Khrushchev’s 1959 two-week journey across America has received great reviews. Khrushchev befriended and offended movie stars and political leaders alike - all the while reminding Americans that he possessed the nuclear power to blow them up. Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797 Tuesday September 22, 6:30 p.m. The Transition Network One Washington Circle Hotel One Washington Circle, NW Closest Metro: Foggy Bottom MARC FREEDMAN Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life (PublicAffairs, $14.95) Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures - an organization that matches the needs of our communities with the energies and skills of the 50+ population - will offer his insights at the September meeting of The Transition Network. For details and reservations ($30 for TTN members; $38 for nonmembers and guests; includes dinner, cash bar), visit www.thetransitionnetwork.org or call Virginia Sorkin at 703-243-1523. Go back to top of email
SIGNED BOOKS OF THE WEEK
Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow (Random House, $26) First Editions, First Printings. September 2009 - Hardcover Doctorow’s historical novel uses Homer and Langley Collyer, eccentric brothers and infamous New York recluses, to bring the events of the 20th century alive, mostly from the confines of the Collyers dilapidated, Fifth Avenue home. - Bill Leggett THE WAY HOME by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown, $24.99) First Editions, First Printings. May 2009 - Hardcover Pelecanos stopped by the store again to sign more copies of this new presidential favorite, one of the books on President Obama's summer reading list! The Battle for America 2008 by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson (Viking, $29.95) Not first editions. August 2009 - Hardcover A narrative analysis of the presidential campaign, that covers the undercurrents of race, gender, and class as Obama and McCain battled from Iowa to the White House. Go back to top of emai
P&P BESTSELLERS
Our top twelve hardcover FICTION and NON-FICTION bestsellers are always 20% off for P&P members. For our complete lists, click on the titles below. #1 NONFICTION: The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T. R. Reid #1 FICTION: That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo Go back to top of emai
NEW IN PAPERBACK
Click FICTION or NON-FICTION to browse a complete list of recent paperback releases. The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships by Robert B. Silvers 2666 by Roberto Bolaño Go back to top of email
FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT
BOOK OF THE WEEK (20% off through 9/9) There is no end to what we can learn about what color can do. An Eye for Color: The Story of Josef Albers (Holt, $16.99) is an inspiring story by Natasha Wing about neighbors, opened eyes, and accidental colors. Young readers and emerging artists alike will enjoy this brilliant tribute to the first living artist to be awarded a retrospective of his work at the MoMA. Julia Breckenreid’s art pays homage to Albers’s fascination with the ability colors have to express soft and loud sounds, or melancholy and joyous moods. This is a great gift idea for art teachers or for children to relax with after school. Ages 8 and up � MIRobinson Children and Teens’ Department Announces Bookmark Contest In celebration of the store’s 25th anniversary, the Children and Teens’ Department is holding a bookmark contest for 5-18 year olds. The theme is: Happy Birthday Politics and Prose and/or Growing up with Books at Politics and Prose. Pick up an entry blank in the Children and Teens’ Department or click here to download it. Submit one paper entry per person to the Children and Teens’ Department; electronic entries will not be accepted. Winning designs will be printed on Politics and Prose bookmarks. Contest ends September 21, 2009. ANNOUNCEMENT TO TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS Welcome to the 2009-2010 school year. Politics and Prose would like to take this opportunity to clarify our teacher discount policy and to ask each of you to update your teacher identification in our files. Teachers and librarians of nursery school through 12th grade receive a 20% discount on books for school and a 10% discount on all personal purchases. The same discount scheme applies to librarians in the tri-state public library systems. Next time you are in the store, please show professional identification to update your file. You will then be eligible for the educator’s discounts for the entire school year. We are also very excited about the fall Children's Events schedule. Click here to download a copy, or pick one up in the Children's Department. Monday Morning Storytime is on hiatus and will resume on September 14 after Labor Day. For September events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here. Go back to top of email
MARKDOWN BOOKS
Among the many great books in this section you’ll find: READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN: A Memoir in Books has been consistently popular since it appeared in 2003. Azar Nafisi has written a multi-faceted work that appeals to readers of autobiography, history, literary criticism, and more. Her story centers on revolution and literature; where the two clash, as in Iran under the strict Islamic regime of the 1990s, one finds new meanings in the very acts of reading and writing. Teaching the great novels of the Western canon in secret to a select group of women students, Nafisi makes familiar titles like The Great Gatsby, Daisy Miller, Pride and Prejudice, and, yes, Lolita, new and exciting; we’ve never read them quite the way she has. Available in paperback, $5.98. In her novels, short story collections, and biography of *Georgia O’Keeffe, Roxana Robinson* has proven herself an illuminating and perceptive writer. Her fourth novel, COST, is a complex and riveting portrait of a family besieged by numerous difficulties. Julia, an art lecturer, is hoping for the best from a summer she plans to spend tending her mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and mending her relationship with her difficult and repressive father. But then she discovers her younger son has become addicted to heroin, and as the various troubles converge, the family members are forced to come to new terms with each other. Available in paperback, $4.98. � Laurie Greer For more recently acquired remainders, click here. Go back to top of email
MUSIC NEWS
Click here for András’s reviews and Music News and to buy these albums. Woody Guthrie Box New Classical: Kashkashian, Schiff, Perahia, Horowitz New Jazz: Glasper, Pres Beatles Remasters R.I.P. Les Paul Go back to top of email
BOOK GROUPS
P&P's book groups meet monthly and are free and open to the public. Book-group titles are 20% off for participants. These are the selections for the next week. Read the book and join us! Thursday, September 3, 7:30 p.m. CAPITAL JAMES JOYCE CLUB (1st Thursday) Finish Chapter 10, "The Wandering Rock". Also read the Sirens episode in Book 12 of The Odyssey; and "The Sirens" in Chapter 11 of James Joyce's Ulysses. Monday, September 7 CLASSICS (1st Monday, 7:30 p.m.) No Meeting due to Labor Day Next Meeting will be Monday, October 5 Euripides: Ten Plays Read "The Bacchae". Tuesday, September 8, 7:30 p.m. EVENING FICTION (2nd Tuesday) Stoner by John Williams Wednesday, September 9, 7:30 p.m. KNITTING CIRCLE (1st & 3rd Thursday, 2 p.m.; 2nd Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.) Thursday, September 10, 7:30 p.m. SCIENCE FICTION (2nd Thursday) Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress Click here for future groups. Go back to top of email
ANNOUNCEMENT
DISCONTINUATION of the BASIC NECESSITIES PROGRAM We are discontinuing the toiletry drop-off program, effective immediately. Since the inception of the program in 2001, Basic Necessities, the service group formed by members of the Schwartz-Carretero family, has collected more than a million items. These toiletries were donated to community shelters; and countless individuals have benefited from the generosity of Politics and Prose customers. We thank the program coordinators for their vision, efforts and commitment, and wish the young ladies luck as they head off to college. If customers wish to continue to make donations of toiletry items, the Community Council for the Homeless at Friendship Place (4713 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., in Tenleytown) will be happy to accept them. Please contact Bill Long weekdays 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE
See photos from Julia's travels and more news from the coffeehouse on the Modern Times blog. Go back to top of email
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008 (202) 364-1919 or (800) 722-0790 Fax: (202) 966-7532

UPCOMING EVENTS - 10 DAY SUMMARY

LETTER FROM CARLA & BARBARA

BARBARA'S BYLINE

CARLA COMMENTS

BOOK NOTES

COMING NOW TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE

P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO...

SIGNED BOOKS OF THE WEEK

P&P BESTSELLERS

NEW IN PAPERBACK

FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT

MARKDOWN BOOKS

MUSIC NEWS

BOOK GROUPS

ANNOUNCEMENT

NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE