Click here for our events calendar.
 Click here for more complete descriptions and to buy signed copies online.
Members always save 20% on event books. Click here to register!

All calendars - planners, wall calendars, and page-a-day desk calendars - are now 50% off. They are on display in our fiction room. Holiday books and cards are also discounted 40% for clearance and are on display near the travel section in the rear of the store. These discounts apply to items remaining in stock only.

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We got a grand start to our 2010 author events on Monday night with Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Greg Jaffe and former New York Times Pentagon correspondent David Cloud talking about their history of the modern U.S. Army and its culture, The Fourth Star (Crown, $28).  On a blustery evening with the wind chill temperature in the teens, we had a standing-room-only crowd that consisted of many former military officers, including a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam. The latter spoke very forcefully about how he felt that the authors had been overly critical of General Petraeus's performance in Iraq, but the authors replied that they didn’t feel that they had been critical at all.  In fact, they felt they had praised him for his leading the army away from battlefields to peacekeeping missions.

Many in the audience were fascinated by questions about how much dissension the army will tolerate.  The authors cited such examples as Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling’s public criticism of the army’s officer corps.  One member of the audience pointed out that President Truman would have immediately fired any officer for such incendiary remarks criticizing the army’s leadership.  Yingling was subsequently praised by General Chiarelli, who said, “Isn’t this the kind of officer we want in our Army?  He’s passionate, intelligent, and engaged.” 

Like all of our events, we recorded the talk and the question and answer session which followed.  This particular CD will be informative and stimulating for anyone interested in how our military has changed since its plunging morale in Vietnam. Thomas Ricks, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and author of The Gamble, about the Iraq war from 2006 to 2008, blurbs The Fourth Star as “the best book I’ve read on the military in a long time.”

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If you can’t attend a talk, but would like to reserve a signed copy or a recorded author talk,
click the title links to purchase online. P&P members save 20% on these author event titles.

Thursday, January 7

Elizabeth Gilbert - Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
at SIXTH & I HISTORIC SYNAGOGUE
600 I Street NW
Metro: Gallery Place/ Chinatown
Talk, Q&A, and Signing
7 p.m. Readers of  Eat, Pray, Love will recall that Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship while she was in Indonesia. In this sequel to her best-selling memoir, Gilbert looks for guidelines historically and internationally as she reflects how to approach the institution of marriage differently her second time around.
$30 general admission tickets, which include a copy of Committed, may be purchased by clicking this link. (Politics & Prose members receive a discounted price of $24.) Call 202-364-1919 for more information.

Terry Teachout - Pops
7 p.m. Teachout, the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal and culture critic for Commentary, presents a masterful and affectionate biography of the king of jazz, Louis Armstrong.  Born in the poorest quarter of New Orleans, Armstrong was one of the few artists to criticize President Eisenhower for failing to enforce desegregation.

Friday January 8

Janine Wedel - Shadow Elite
7 p.m.  Wedel, professor of public policy at George Mason University and a fellow of the New America Foundation, examines how a growing number of private networks, including Washington think tanks, have come to wield significant power over domestic, foreign, and financial policy with little or no accountability.

Saturday January 9

Alan Sipress - The Fatal Strain
6 p.m. Remember the avian flu scare some five years ago?  It may have left the headlines, but an avian flu pandemic remains a threat. Sipress, a former Washington Post journalist, accompanied WHO experts as they tracked underreported cases of flu and infected birds throughout Southeast Asia.

Sunday January 10

Mimi Clark Gronlund - Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark
5 p.m. Clark, the 90th Supreme Court Justice, sat on the high bench for 18 years. Before that, from 1945 through 1949, he served as the U.S. Attorney General. Gronlund, his daughter, has written a thorough and engaging account of her father’s career, including his crucial role as a swing vote in cases involving criminal justice and separation of powers.

Monday January 11

Jeremy Rifkin - The Empathic Civilization
7 p.m. Visionary social critic and author most recently of The European Dream and The Hydrogen Economy, Rifkin argues that globalization necessitates as great a change in our perspective of the world as did the Age of Reason in the 18th century. Connected technologically, humans are still divided in many other ways; to meet the collective challenges of disease, climate change, and economic crises, we need to develop a greater empathetic consciousness.

Tuesday January 12

Amanda Little - Power Trip
7 p.m. Little, an award-winning journalist on environmental issues, explores the nature of our reliance on fossil fuels. Beginning with an account of the widespread blackout of 2003, she looks at the history of oil consumption and examines possible energy alternatives for the future.

Wednesday January 13

Mika Brzezinski - All Things At Once
7 p.m. MSNBC anchor and co-host of “Morning Joe” as well as a wife and mother, Brzezinski has achieved a hard-won balance of career and family. Her inspirational memoir recounts the challenges she met on her way to success, from her childhood in a family of over-achievers (she’s the only daughter of the former National Security Advisor) to the early clinching and losing of a dream job at CBS and a stint as a stay-at-home mom.  Mika will be in-conversation with her MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough.

Thursday January 14

Raj Patel - The Value Of Nothing
7 p.m. How much would something cost if the price reflected ecological, social, and other costs currently hidden? Patel, a writer, activist, and academic, discusses markets, considers new ways of describing worth, and argues that current food, climate, and economic crises stem from larger political problems.

Friday January 15

Steven Solomon - Water
7 p.m. In this history of what is arguably the world’s most essential natural resource, Solomon shows how water has been the make-or-break element in civilizations from the Roman Empire to medieval China to the modern industrial world. The future, however, promises drought and scarcity, particularly in Africa and the Middle East; the consequent struggles will require innovative reconfigurations of wealth and leadership.

Saturday January 16

Judith Martin - Miss Manners' Guide To A Surprisingly Dignified Wedding
1 p.m. Having recently been a mother-of-the-bride, Martin knows at first hand the pressures of planning a wedding. She offers advice on how to arrange a correct but comfortable event, one that avoids showing off, overspending, and exploiting friends.

Jasper Fforde - Shades Of Grey
3:30 p.m. In his latest novel, the creator of Thursday Next has imagined a color-coded world: only the elite can see the higher end of the color spectrum, whereas some see nothing but grey. A mid-level employee of the Color Control Agency, Eddie starts asking questions when he gets involved with a woman from the dark side.
If you are interested in reading and discussing the book before the author comes, our Science Fiction Book Group meets on Tuesday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m. and is reading Shades of Grey as our January selection. 

Elizabeth Kostova - The Swan Thieves
6 p.m. In her second novel, the author of the bestselling Dracula fiction, The Historian, delves into art and the unconscious. Her narrator is a psychiatrist who dabbles in painting, and whose new patient, a world-renowned artist, has vandalized a picture of Leda and the Swan in the National Gallery.

To see the complete schedule and to purchase any of the above books, click here.

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Politics & Prose supplies books to the following book signing events.
Reservations and tickets should be acquired from the hosting organization.
If you can’t attend a talk, but would like to purchase a signed book, call
202-364-1919 or 1-800-722-0790 or click the title links below.

Wednesday, January 13,  3 p.m.

Friendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Ave.
Chevy Chase, MD
TRACY CHEVALIER
REMARKABLE CREATURES  (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26)
Tracy Chevalier caused a literary sensation with her debut novel, Girl With the Pearl Earring. Remarkable Creatures tells the story of Mary Anning, who unearthed the ichthyosaurus at age 12, a discovery that rocked the scientific world. She later discovered the plesiosaurus and pterodactyl. These discoveries became key pieces of evidence for extinction. Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797.

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Noah's Compass
by Anne Tyler
(Knopf, $25.95)
Hardcover - January 2010
First editions, first printings

From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.

Drive by Daniel Pink
(Riverhead, $26.95)
Hardcover - December 2009

This event on Tuesday night packed the store, and we sold out!
Daniel Pink will be stopping in this weekend to sign and personalize more books.
Pre-order yours if you missed him and click here to read an account of the event posted
by John S. Gomperts, a longtime customer and president of Civic Ventures.

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P&P members always save 20% on our top twelve FICTION and NON-FICTION hardcover bestsellers.
To see our complete bestseller lists, click on the titles below.

#1 FICTION:  A GATE AT THE STAIRS by Lorrie Moore

#1 NONFICTION: COMMITTED by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Click FICTION or NON-FICTION  to browse a complete list of recent paperback releases.

A RELIABLE WIFE  by Robert Goolrick

BUYING IN: What We Buy and Who We Are  by Rob Walker

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BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through 01/13/2010)
A naturally curious penguin, Edna knows there must be something more to the world than just the white of ice and snow, the blackness of night and the blue depths of the sea.  In A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis (HarperCollins, $17.99), Edna gracefully declines offers of lunch and adventure to seek “something else”.  Her quest is rewarded when she discovers a scientific expedition whose members befriend the penguin colony and leave behind a small souvenir to remind the penguins of the possibility for “something else”, even if it is inedible.  Unsatisfied, Edna stares wistfully into the horizon wondering, “What else could there be?” If you need a little more color in your lives during these cold and short winter days, try this book for inspiration! Ages 3-6, Kerri Poore

 

Lisa Chaplin-Hobbs hosts story time for young children every Monday morning at 10:30 a.m.
Story Time will resume on January 11.
There will be no story time on Monday, January 18 due to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.
Story time will resume again on Monday, January 25.

For upcoming events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.

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Marilynne Robinson’s companion volume to Gilead, HOME is a moving novel about family, faith, and the struggle to do right by both your own values and those of the people you love. The Boughton patriarch is dying, and his adult children, Glory and Jack, feel duty-bound to come back - Glory to help cook and nurse, Jack, the ne’er do well son, to try to ease a long rupture with his father. The novel is built on the textures of everyday life: the meals, the chores, the disappointments, and through these mundane events Robinson builds a narrative of unnerving power. Available in hardcover, $5.98.

If you’re one of the many admirers of this year’s Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall, you’ll be interested in Hilary Mantel’s memoir, GIVING UP THE GHOST. Mantel’s was a somewhat unconventional upbringing, and she never quite understood the adult relationships around her. Nor could she make sense of the strange visions she had as a child. Later, after law school, a misdiagnosed illness, experimental medications, marriage, and long sojourns abroad, she started writing. Her story is fascinating, unusual, and deftly told. Available in hardcover, $5.98.

Click here to browse more remainders that have recently arrived.

 

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MONTEVERDI’S 1610 VESPERS
Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine (more familiarly known as the 1610 Vespers) is unquestionably a masterpiece of the Baroque era. In the words of Folger Consort’s notes, the Vespers is “grand in conception and structure, and…represents the very best of all the musical styles current in Italy at the beginning of the 17th century.”

Two recommended versions: John Eliot Gardiner’s 1610 VESPERS (London, 2 CDs, $17.98) was recorded at St. Mark’s, Venice, in 1989, featuring Michael Chance and a young Bryn Terfel, and the Monteverdi Choir. Andrew Parrott’s 1610 VESPERS (Virgin Classics, 2 CDs, $10.99) features Emma Kirkby and Nigel Rogers, and the Taverner Choir.

Washingtonians will have a chance to hear two versions of this work early in its 400th anniversary year: This Friday and Saturday, January 8 and 9, the Folger Consort will present the Vespers at the National Cathedral (see http://www.folger.edu/Content/Whats-On/Folger-Consort/More-on-the-1610-Vespers/ ); on Sunday, January 17, the Artek Early Music Ensemble will perform at the National Gallery of Art.

 

Click here for more of Andrá́s’s reviews and Music News.

 

NEWS FROM THE CLIMATE ACTION PROJECT
“Politics & Prose Climate Action Project goes to Copenhagen!”
Nina Dodge has been representing the Politics & Prose Climate Action Project at parallel public climate meetings and events in Denmark and Sweden during the UN's Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Click here to read more, follow her experiences, and see some of her photos.