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Greetings From Politics and Prose! AUTHOR EVENTS with MICHAEL CHABON, ANNETTE GORDON-REED
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Shortcut Bar: Click below to skip to popular destinations |
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UPCOMING EVENTS - 10 DAY SUMMARY |
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Thursday October 8 Friday October 9 Saturday October 10 Sunday October 11 Monday October 12
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Tuesday October 13 Wednesday October 14 Thursday October 15 Friday October 16 Saturday October 17 Sunday October 18 For our full events calendar, click here. |
LETTER FROM CARLA & BARBARA |
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2009 Man Booker Prize Howard Norman says Mantel selected a brilliant narrative strategy; you have to read closely to figure out who is telling you what. What we have always admired about her is that she combines horror (as in beheadings -- not vampires) and humor so cleverly. She found a topic that fully engages her skill. Henry VIII would not brook opposition, and his punishments were gruesome. Mantel's style is understated and droll so even the squeamish can read on. In awarding the prize, the jury quoted the words of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, whose story this is, "The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes." The leading contender with Mantel was A.S. Byatt for THE CHILDREN'S BOOK Book, also an historical novel, and one about a period closer to ours, fin de siècle Britain leading up to WWI. Byatt reimagined a large group of aesthetes: writers, potters, puppet masters and more, all based on a group around E. Nesbit, the children's author. Those of us who have read Byatt's book also liked it a great deal. Wolf Hall does not publish until next week, but you can reserve your copy NOW. The Children's Bookarrived in the store on Tuesday. MICHAEL CHABON - Friday, October 9 at Lisner Auditorium Our floor manager Conor Moran wants those of you who love Michael Chabon's fiction to know, "Chabon’s second foray into non-fiction has all of the grace and wit of his best novels. Manhood for Amateurs chronicles not only what it means to recognize yourself as a man, but, perhaps more importantly, how it feels to look back on the journey to adulthood. Writing in short, easily digestible essays, Chabon brings healthy doses of humor, nostalgia, and frankness to his exploration of adulthood. These pieces read like carefully plotted stories that illuminate our own lives and make us look at where we’re headed." Don't miss this opportunity to hear from this favorite author. Tickets are still available ($7, or get 2 free with purchase of the book). A NEW EVENT -- Friday, October 23, 1 p.m.
The first dinner with Ron Suskind was a complete success: a chance to learn more about his book The Way of the World and our tragic entrance into Iraq, to meet and talk to a passionate reporter, and to meet other P&P members over a very good dinner. The third dinner on Tuesday, November 17 features Rick Atkinson and a twentieth anniversary edition of The Long Gray Line, about the West Point class of 1966 that became the officer corps in the Vietnam War. Each three-course dinner is at Rock Creek Restaurant (in Mazza Gallerie) and costs $65 per person or $115 for a couple and includes a paperback book. Please let Bonnie Kogod know if you would like to come: bkogod@politics-prose.com. UPDATED WEBSITE and ONLINE SALE (The small print for the sale: Orders may be picked up in-store, but must be paid for online. Discounts will not apply to academic titles, textbooks, memberships, gift certificates, and other similar items at the discretion of P&P. Books listed as Subject to Availability or Between Printings may not be available.)
When we arrive in the airport in Mexico, the air is balmy, the jacarandas are in bloom, and the sun shines brightly almost every day. Mexico is easy to get to, very cosmopolitan, and, at the same time, gives us glimpses of history going back centuries. This year we will travel by bus from Mexico City to study pre-Columbian archeological sites, explore gracious colonial towns, and view crafts in small villages. We will spend four nights in the capital, then travel to a small city called Tlaxcala for two days, and finally finish with four nights at a resort hotel outside of Cuernavaca. We have a superb and informed guide who has been with us each year; he meets us at the airport and helps us navigate through Mexico. The Week that Was - SIGNED BOOKS Certainly a highlight was Peter Yarrow’s presentation on Friday night. Although we had been told by the publisher that he would sing only “a couple” of songs, he regaled the audience of over 400 with a concert that lasted well over an hour. He invited the children to participate. He sang old favorites. He reminisced about his late musical partner Mary Travers. He spoke about the causes he has championed. Signed copies of DAY IS DONE and many of his other books are still available. Click here for a list. Sunday, Neil Sheehan presented A FIERY PEACE IN A COLD WAR, his much praised new history of the Cold War and the missile race. The focus is on the admirable General Bernard Schriever who stood toe to toe with the crazed Curtis LeMay to champion an anti-ballistic missile system as a way of preventing war. Monday, Congressman BARNEY FRANK, Chair of the Financial Services Committee, spoke in conversation with his biographer Stuart Weisman and David Cohen, a long time public interest lobbyist (and Carla’s husband) at 6th and I Historic Synagogue. There was much laughter at Barney’s wit and much applause at his good, liberal sense. Finally, last week journalist Peter Maass spoke for his book A CRUDE WORLD on all of the reasons why the U.S. should reduce the amount of oil that it uses. Click here to read what Carla wrote about it in her comments.
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CARLA COMMENTS | |
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The author of Love Thy Neighbor - about the civil war in Bosnia - traveled around the world surveying large countries like Russia and Nigeria, medium-sized ones like Venezuela and Ecuador, and tiny ones like Equatorial Guinea. In every case he found that oil is a detriment, not a benefit to them. When oil dominates the economy, not only is there endless opportunity for graft and corruption, but other sectors like agriculture and manufacturing often suffer from neglect. Only Norway with well established democratic institutions escapes this curse. (Unfortunately, Maass did not include Mexico in his survey; it would be interesting to see whether or not he thinks that that government can control or is controlled by extractive interests.) Peter Maass reveals the relationship between the United States and the oil producing countries: we tolerate corruption and graft in order to keep the oil flowing. He concludes, “There is too much corruption-inducing, economy-deforming, conflict-enhancing, fate-altering value locked up in natural resources like oil.” You will see that the United States must – as Thomas Friedman has been exhorting – find other ways of producing energy and make oil less valuable. There is a convergence between answers to global warming and governance. Peter Maass has done an admirable job of presenting a vast amount of material in a brief and readable account. | |
BARBARA'S BYINE | |
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During the past year, since it went into paperback, several customers have told me about how their reading of Still Alice (Simon & Schuster, $15) had been unusually rewarding, but I knew only vaguely that this first novel by a neuroscientist, Lisa Genova, was a portrait of a woman with Alzheimer's. Genova traces the steady decline of Alice Howland, a professor of cognitive science at Harvard, from memory lapses to her inability to recognize her own adult children. My experience in reading this gradual decline and collapse into mental disarray was almost uncanny since I had a mother named Alice who started on the same tragic path when she also was within a university community, on the Board of Regents at the University of Maryland. Literary skills are not Genova's forte, but her ability to convey the crippling disintegration and terror experienced by someone with Alzheimer's is powerful, and for any readers with a family member suffering from this terrible disease, reading Still Alice can only contribute to their understanding.
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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, or a recorded author talk,
Thursday October 8 10:30 a.m. John Feinstein’s fourth sports mystery, Change Up: Mystery at the World Series, plunges Stevie and Susan Carol into a moral dilemma at the World Series. The two befriend Norbert Doyle and his teenage children, then get to do THE interview before Norbert unexpectedly opens in game two. But what if the truth the young reporters uncover differs from the previously-known story? Are they duty-bound to offer full disclosure? Ages 8-12. 7 p.m. In Worse Than War, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen extends his investigation of crimes against humanity from the Holocaust to the more recent genocides in Yugoslavia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Burundi, and Sudan. He is forthright in his condemnation of the responsible nations of the world. “We can persist in our malign neglect … failing to understand the real nature of genocide; failing to recognize we can far more effectively protect millions of people…and failing to choose to act on this knowledge.” He calls for measures that warn political leaders contemplating eliminationist policies that they will incur substantial political and economic costs. Friday, October 9 4:30 p.m. Sarah Dessen’s new novel. Along For The Ride, is the thoughtful coming-of-age story of Auden, a child who has always been the serious adult in the family. Never really having learned to have fun, Auden spends her last summer before college with her new stepmother and month-old stepsister at her father's beach house. There she meets a young man working through grief and loss - who, like Auden, stays up all night. She learns to ride a bike, bowl, and enjoy summer-job camaraderie with other teen girls. Ages 12-16. 7 p.m. Annette Gordon-Reed , a law professor at NYU as well as a history professor at Rutgers, won the National Book Award for The Hemingses Of Monticello, a groundbreaking study of Jefferson’s long-standing relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave in his household. In presenting this well-researched work, Gordon-Reed overturned the conventional thinking of white historians. 7 p.m. @ GW Lisner Auditorium
Saturday October 10 1 p.m. Recovering from a serious bicycle accident, Mary Collins, a professor of creative writing now living in Connecticut, began thinking about the imbalance between our overactive minds and underused bodies. She then set off on a nationwide trek to discover how a species designed for movement has immobilized itself in offices and cars. In conversation with health experts, city planners, and zoologists, American Idle seeks to discover what impact our sedentary lifestyle has on mental and physical fitness, judgment, and social activity. 3 p.m. In How It's Being Done, Karin Chenoweth, a noted education writer, builds on It’s Being Done, her study of how “hard-to-teach” students can excel if held to certain standards and given support and commitment from educators. Looking closely at schools that have achieved high success rates despite poverty and other disadvantages, she offers inspiration and concrete tools to guide teachers and administrators in reaching similar goals. 6 p.m. The first biographer to have access to Monk’s papers, Robin D.G. Kelley, a noted figure in ethnic and cultural studies, revises received impressions of a musical original sometimes more famous for his behavior than his music. This thoroughly-researched life focuses on Thelonious Monk’s musical development, especially his role in the evolving New York City jazz scene of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. Sunday October 11 1 p.m. Dylan Landis’s debut novel, Normal People Don't Live Like This, is the coming-of-age story of a girl living on the Upper West Side during the 1970s. At the heart of Leah’s questions and confusions is her mother, and Landis draws a complex and moving portrait of two people who are more alike than they often recognize. 5 p.m. Melvin Urofsky, editor of a five-volume collection of Brandeis’s letters, has put his deep and intimate knowledge of the man to work in this landmark biography. Nominated for the Supreme Court by Woodrow Wilson, Louis D. Brandeis was a progressive reformer who maintained that law has to change in order to stay current with the times. Many of the powerful arguments that Brandeis expressed in his dissents served later as the basis for corrective legislation.
Monday October 12 8 - 10 a.m. We will open early for a DIARY OF A WIMPY KID #4: Dog Days Book Release Party. This isthe newest book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series!. We’ll provide lots of breakfast treats, a temporary Wimpy Kid tattoo with each of the first 50 books purchased, and a grand drawing for a collector’s edition Wimpy Kid t-shirt. We’ve even arranged for the DC schools to be closed so that you can stay home all day and read. Ages 8-12. 7 p.m. In Without Fidel, a dual portrait of the Castro brothers, Anne Louise Bardach, an award-winning investigative journalist with extensive experience covering Cuba, explores Fidel’s legacy and speculates on a post-Raúl government. Based on extensive interviews with the Castros, Cuban citizens, émigrés in Miami, and members of the Obama administration, her work is a comprehensive study of the Castro era. Tuesday October 13 7 p.m. One of the best pound-for-pound fighters in history, Sugar Ray Robinson came of age in the ’40s and ’50s. His story is also the story of post-war Harlem, where figures such as Lena Horne, Langston Hughes, and Miles Davis flourished. At the height of his career, Robinson owned a Harlem nightclub that was frequently the hottest spot in town. In Sweet Thunder, Wil Haygood - a writer for the Washington Post and biographer of Adam Clayton Powell and Sammy Davis, Jr. - brings Robinson to life and frames him within Harlem’s electric milieu. Wednesday October 14 4:30 p.m. Fire hates it that men fall in love with her because of her monstrous beauty. However, she is not above using her power to save the kingdom and to manipulate Archer, her lifelong friend with benefits. Politically complex and emotionally wrenching, this prequel to Graceling by Kristin Cashore blazes from the first page to the last. Ages 14-18. 7 p.m. Max Cleland was badly wounded when he served in Vietnam and hurt emotionally when he lost his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2002—defeated by a foul campaign that impugned his patriotism. His political failure reignited the despair he had felt when wounded in the war, 35 years earlier. He found his equilibrium and the Heart Of A Patriot by returning to Walter Reed to deal with his depression, and he has used the lessons of his own experiences to help young men and women wounded in the Iraq war.
Thursday October 15 7 p.m. Antony Beevor, the eminent World War II historian and author of Stalingrad, The Battle for Spain, and The Fall of Berlin 1945, here turns his attention to D-Day and the Normandy invasion. While military casualties were on a par with those of the Eastern front (Anglo-American losses were some 2,000 men per division per month after D-Day), Beevor notes that civilian deaths were also high, with more than 3,000 French civilians killed in the first 24 hours of Operation Overlord. This vivid account supplements its grisly statistics with many telling descriptions of the events from participants and frank assessments of the strategies and behavior of the military leaders involved. It continues the narrative through to the liberation of Paris. Friday October 16 4 p.m. Denis MacShane, a British MP and chairman of the All-Party Commission of Enquiry into Anti-Semitism, argues that we are now facing an ideological assault based on hatred of Jews that threatens universal values, world peace, and even attempts to fight poverty and environmental change. MacShane considers how anti-Semitism has become a linking mechanism between different extremisms; how it operates in national party politics and in the European Parliament; and how Holocaust denial has hardened into an organized ideological position. Globalising Hatred is both a cri de coeur for a new tolerance and an attempt to throw light on a form of hatred that mobilizes politics across many continents. 7 p.m. Barbara Ehrenreich has turned American optimism on its head in this savvy piece of cultural criticism, Bright-Sided. She argues that optimism is "the American ideology" and is used to promote growth through capitalism. When institutions demand that their employees not dwell on bad news, real disasters can result from unreadyness. Examples of this are the warnings about terrorism before 9/11 and the reports of New Orleans's vulnerability to weather events. Ehrenreich blames the epidemic of positive thinking for our current economic woes. Saturday October 17 1 p.m. Rich Benjamin, a fellow at Demos, a nonprofit think-tank supporting an equitable economy and inclusive democracy, made a 27,000-mile journey around the United States to test the premise that America is a post-racial society. In Searching For Whitopia, he describes that his road-trip revealed a country more divided by class than by race, but still pervaded by structural racism. 6 p.m. Tim Flannery has been a leader in efforts to change human behavior to avoid planetary catastrophe. In Now Or Never, Flannery says, “In the next forty to ninety years humanity will exceed …the capacity of Earth to supply our needs, thereby greatly exacerbating the risk of widespread starvation.” In the coming decades, the Earth’s climate system will pass a point of no return. Why are we failing to cut back on consumption and live in a more sustainable manner? Sunday October 18 1 p.m. Allison Silberberg has worked unceasingly to bring wider attention to the stories of courageous and innovative Visionaries In Our Midst, who have made a big difference in their communities. She hopes that sharing the experiences of people who have made “something happen…who innovate and work to build a better life for others,” will inspire and guide those also working for community change. 5 p.m. Since the release of I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets, Paul Karasik has archived even more of Fletcher Hank’s brutally surreal comics. In You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation, he presents a second sampling of Hank’s work. An expansive introduction offers details on the artist’s drunken personal life and includes some of the incredible early drawings Hank made as assignments for a cartooning correspondence school. To see the complete schedule and to purchase any of the above books, click here. |
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO... | |
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Politics & Prose supplies books to the following book signing events. Thursday, October 8, 7 p.m.  Arts Club of Washington Friday, October 9, 6:30 p.m. l'Alliance Française de Washington Friday, October 9, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 15, 2:30 p.m.
Thursday October 15, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, October 16, 7:30 p.m.
October 18 - 28
On Thursday, October 22nd at 7:30 p.m., an outstanding fiction event - Past Imperfect: New Jewish Fiction - will feature acclaimed novelists Binnie Kirshenbaum, Jonathon Keats and Norah Labiner. The Literary Festival is offering FREE TICKETS to the first 5 people who send an email to litfest@washingtondcjcc.org with the name of their favorite Jewish novelist. Click here for more information. Sunday, October 18, 3 p.m.
Monday, October 19, 7 p.m.
Monday, October 19, 7 p.m.
Monday, October 19, 7:30 p.m. 
National Geographic Live Tuesday, October 20, 7 p.m. Friendship Heights Village Center Tuesday, October 20, 7:30 p.m. National Geographic Live Wednesday, October 21, 6 p.m.
Wednesday, October 21, 7 p.m.
This event is presented in partnership with Nextbook Inc., as part of Jewish Body Week – a series of events exploring the subjects raised in Melvin Konner’s 2009 book, The Jewish Body. Tickets are $6, or receive 2 free tickets with the purchase of the book. Tickets and books can be purchased at www.sixthandi.org. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
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P&P BESTSELLERS | |
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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 FICTION: JULIET, NAKED by Nick Hornby
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NEW IN PAPERBACK | |
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Click FICTION or NON-FICTION to browse a complete list of recent paperback releases. INDIGNATION by Philip Roth
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT | |
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You don’t have to live on a farm to eagerly await APPLESAUCE SEASON (Roaring Brook Press, $17.99). Around the time school starts, Grandma will say, "It’s time for applesauce." The weekly trip to the farmer’s market yields many varieties of apples to add to the pot. "There have to be at least three kinds in each pot of sauce for real flavor,” Grandma says. Together, the family makes all kinds of accompanying dishes for applesauce, as well as pies, cakes and plenty of apples to eat "out of hand." Mordicai Gerstein’s lively illustrations welcome you right into this family’s kitchen and Eden Ross Lipson’s seasonal story leaves you feeling very satisfied, although certainly craving applesauce! (But don’t worry, the recipe is included in the back.) Ages 5-8. –Jory Hearst
There will be no story time on Monday, October 12, 2009.
We are hosting a number of after-school events for teens in October and November, starting with Sarah Dessen on Friday, October 9 at 4:30 p.m. Kristin Cashore, Michael Scott, Shannon Hale, and Scott Westerfeld are among the others. Check P&P's Teen page for more details. 25 Years of Children's Favorites For October events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here. | |
MARKDOWN BOOKS | |
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There have been many different explanations for the downing of the plane carrying Pakistan’s leader, Zia ul-Haq, in 1988. In his inventive and surprising debut novel, A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES, the young Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif offers a few more theories. Was it venom-tipped sabers? Curses? A crow on the wrong flight path? Part Kafka, part Catch-22, this is a funny and satirical look at conspiracy theories as well as at modern military and intelligence infrastructures. Available in paperback, $4.98. • Laurie Greer
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MUSIC NEWS | |
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Youssou N’Dour film at the Avalon
Click here for András’s reviews and Music News and to buy these albums.
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BOOK GROUPS | |
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Politics & Prose currently hosts sixteen different book groups in the store each month. Thursday, October 8, 7:30 p.m. Monday, October 12, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 13, 7:30 p.m. Click here for more information about these and other upcoming book group meetings.
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE | |
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New Single Origin Coffee Read more news from the coffeehouse on the Modern Times blog.
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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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We are delighted to announce that Hilary Mantel has won the 2009 Man Booker Prize, especially since we had already selected 
Politics & Prose Mexico Trip 2010
Last week journalist Peter Maass made a compelling presentation of his book 
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
University of the District of Columbia
One Washington Circle Hotel
National Geographic Live
The GW Lisner Auditorium
Washington DCJCC
The Washington Home & Community Hospices 
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
Friendship Heights Village Center
Zola Wine & Kitchen
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
BOOK OF THE WEEK 
Monday, October 12, 8 - 10 a.m. - BOOK RELEASE PARTY 
From D.C.’s favorite mystery/thriller writer, George Pelecanos, we’re fortunate to have 
