Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of December.
Click here for more complete descriptions and to buy signed copies online.
Members always save 20% on event books. Click here to register!

 

 

We would like to pause a moment to reflect on another loss this week in the Washington, D.C. book community. Our colleague John Olsson, the owner of the local chain Olsson's Books and Records, died last Thursday. We often described our relationship with Olsson's as a friendly competition, as we would see his employees at the bookseller meetings and conferences, at NAIBA and BEA. Many of them have come to work with us over the years. Many of you would attend their events as well as ours and shop in his many neighborhood stores as well as our store in upper Northwest. It was a loss when his business closed two years ago, and it is another loss keenly felt with his death and funeral this week. The Washington Post obituary is available here and a condolence page here.

 

 

Sunday, November 21, 1 p.m. Carla Cohen Memorial Tribute

For 26 years, Carla Cohen, our founder, and co-owner of Politics and Prose, brought her energy and intellect to building and maintaining one of the nation’s great bookstores.  Please join us as we pay tribute to her incredible legacy in a memorial reception to which customers, colleagues, family and friends are invited.  As the event approaches, we will continue to post more details on the online calendar event's page.

The Washington Literacy Council has received many donations in her name, a number of them made anonymously. They are not able to privately thank some of these donors, so they wish to pass this message along to you in order to express their appreciation publicly.

 

Dear Politics and Prose Patrons:

The Washington Literacy Council sincerely appreciates your generous donations made in memory of Carla Cohen. Carla supported literacy on all levels and provided great awareness and support for the Washington Literacy Council's efforts to increase the literacy rate in the District.

Your donations continue our efforts to provide quality reading education and support for adults with the most limited reading skills, greatest needs and fewest resources.

On behalf of our students, volunteers, board and staff, I thank you.

Mary T. Algire
Executive Director
The Washington Literacy Council

 

 

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak
signed by the translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
(Pantheon, $30)
October 2010 - Hardcover

 

 

 

 

 

We also just discovered a box of 11 first editions of Red Pyramid (Hyperion, $17.99), signed by Rick Riordan. They will go to the first 11 lucky callers.

Remember that we can now cover these books in archival covers for you for $1.50.

 

Go back to top of emaii

 

All Politics & Prose Weekly Hardcover Bestsellers are 20% off for Members.
Click here to receive the benefits of Politics & Prose membership.
Click the book titles for more information about these featured books.

FICTION

1. Law of Attraction, by Allison Liotta (Touchstone, $25)
2. Confession, by John Grisham (Doubleday, $28.95)
3. Great House, by Nicole Krauss (W. W. Norton, $24.95)
4. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
5. Our Kind of Traitor, by John le Carre (Viking, $27.95)
6. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, by David Sedaris, illus. by Ian Falconer (Little, Brown, $21.99)
7. How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu (Riverhead, $25.95)
8. Eighteen Acres, by Nicolle Wallace (Atria, $25)
9. To the End of the Land, by David Grossman (Knopf, $26.95)
10. By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25)
11. The Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett (Dutton, $36)
12. Room, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown, $24.95)

Click here for our fiction paperback bestsellers.

NONFICTION

1. First Family: Abigail and John Adams, by Joseph J. Ellis (Knopf, $27.95)
2. The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief, by V.S. Naipaul (Knopf, $26.95)
3. Life, by Keith Richards (Little, Brown, $29.99)
4. The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, by Jane Leavy (Harper, $27.99)
5. Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes, by Stephen Sondheim (Knopf , $39.95)
6. Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, by Robert D. Kaplan, (Random House, $28)
7. Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (Penguin, $40)
8. Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family, by Condoleezza Rice (Crown, $27) signed first editions still available
9. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House, $30)
10. Obama's Wars, by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, $30)
11. The Mind's Eye, by Oliver Sacks (Knopf, $26.95)
12. Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition, by James T. Kloppenberg (Princeton Univ., $24.95)

Click here for our non-fiction paperback bestsellers.

Go back to top of emaii

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, November 4

Henry Cole - A Nest for Celeste (Katherine Tegen, $16.99)
10:30 a.m. Celeste is a mouse who lives in a New Orleans manor house. It’s 1821, and when John James Audubon and his assistant, Joseph Mason, move in, Celeste and Joseph become fast friends, and she rides around in his pocket. Cole, a former science teacher, enhances this story of adventure, history, and science with beautiful pencil drawings.  (Ages 9-12)

Simon Winchester - Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories (HarperCollins, $27.99)
7 p.m. With his gift for compulsively readable narrative nonfiction and his knack for finding fascinating subjects, Winchester is the perfect biographer for the Atlantic Ocean. The author of The Professor and the Madman, Krakatoa, and many others here takes a long, close look at a body of water pivotal to eras of exploration and colonization, commerce and war. Top of Form

Friday, November 5

Oliver Sacks - The Mind's Eye (Knopf, $26.95)
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL EARLY DECEMBER so that we can arrange an appropriate venue. Updated information will be released shortly.
What would it be like suddenly to be unable to read? Or not to be able to recognize your children? Or, like Dr. Sacks, to lose vision to one side? In his latest collection of essays on the frighteningly fragile, amazingly resilient human brain, the neurologist and author most recently of Musicophilia offers case studies of people who have lost certain cognitive abilities yet who nonetheless lead fairly normal lives as their brains find ways to compensate for the damage.

Saturday, November 6

Michael E. Parrish - Citizen Rauh: An American Liberal's Life in Law and Politics (University of Michigan Press, $45)
1 p.m. Parrish’s study of the life and work of Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., demonstrates how one man can make a difference. Rauh, a lawyer, championed New Deal liberalism, worked on behalf of labor unions, and was active in Civil Rights struggles. His many clients ranged from Arthur Miller to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In telling Rauh’s story, Parrish, the Distinguished Professor of History at U.C. San Diego, also chronicles American history from Sacco and Vanzetti to the Reagan presidency.

 

Robert Dallek - The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945-1953 (HarperCollins, $28.99)
6 p.m. In Dallek’s analysis of mid-20th-century conflicts, the strife in China, Korea, and the Middle East was rooted in a missed opportunity at the end of World War II. When leaders including Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, de Gaulle, and Stalin had the opportunity to strengthen international cooperation, they instead fell back into the old patterns of power politics that had just plunged their nations into war.

Sunday, November 7

Washington Writers' Publishing House Prize Winners

1 p.m. Washington Writers’ Publishing House is a non-profit organization that has published over 50 volumes of poetry since 1973 and nearly a dozen volumes of fiction. The press sponsors an annual competition for writers living in the Washington-Baltimore area. P&P is proud to host a reading by the 2010 winners in poetry and fiction.

2010 Poetry Prize
Holly Karapetkova - Words We Might One Day Say (WWPF, $15)
Widely published in literary journals, Karapetkova’s poetry concerns themes of motherhood and myth, especially those of Greek and Bulgarian folklore. She has written for children as well as adults and teaches at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.  

2010 Fiction Prize
Andrew Wingfield - Right of Way (WWPF, $16.95)
Set in the fictional Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Cleave Springs, Wingfield’s linked stories present a distinctive community by introducing a diverse cast of characters, from long-time residents to new arrivals. 

Joan Nathan - Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France (Knopf, $40)
5 p.m. Winner of the James Beard Award and the IACP Award for Jewish Cooking in America and The New American Cooking, Nathan, who has a master’s degree in French literature, here explores Jewish cooking in France. A rich tradition reflecting the 2,000-year presence of Jews in France, this cuisine is flavored by history as much as by spices, and Nathan tells the stories behind the recipes.

Monday, November 8

Kate Buford - Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe
7 p.m. Jim Thorpe (1888-1953) won the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics, but was stripped of his medals for having violated the amateur athletic code. He went on to play professional baseball and football, advocated on behalf of Native Americans, lectured, joined the merchant marine, and acted in films. But he also abused alcohol and had three failed marriages. Buford’s biography rounds out the legend of this complex man.

Tuesday, November 9

Michelle Meadows - Hibernation Station
10:30 a.m. The woodland express is specially staffed by bears, who look out for animals along the route and help those that hibernate find warm, dry places to sleep through the winter. The charming illustrations show the creatures all ready for their long naps, the snakes in striped night shirts and the frog wearing pajamas decorated with flies. (Ages 2-6)

Carlos Eire - Learning To Die In Miami / Miami y Mis Mil Muertes
7 p.m. The sequel to his 2003 National Book Award-winning memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana finds the eleven-year-old Eire and his brother landing in Miami. It’s 1962 and they have just left Cuba, their parents, and their old lives. Their new ones will be shaped by a new language, a series of foster homes, and - along with any immigrant’s initial confusion and uncertainty, the difficult transition from childhood to adult responsibilities.

Wednesday November 10

John Heilemann & Mark Halperin - Game Change
4 p.m. Join us for the release of the paperback edition of this bestselling account of the 2008 presidential campaign. Heilemann, national political correspondent for New York magazine, and Halperin, senior political correspondent for Time, report on the camps of Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin, offering rich repartee and a fast-paced narrative.

Wendell Potter - Deadly Spin
7 p.m. A former senior vice president of CIGNA, Potter made headlines when he testified before the Senate panel on health-care reform in 2009. Here he gives an inside look at the health-insurance industry and shows how its aggressive public-relations campaigns amount to disinformation, while the concern for corporate profits overrides the interests of consumers. Until this situation changes, the author argues, there can’t be any true reform of our national health care system.

Thursday November 11

Reza Aslan - Tablet and Pen
7 p.m. Under the auspices of Words Without Borders, which “opens doors to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the best international literature,” Aslan, author of No God But God, has assembled an anthology of short stories, memoirs, essays, and poems by a wide selection of Middle Eastern writers, ranging from Khalil Gibran to Orhan Pamuk. Much of this work appears in English for the first time.

Friday November 12

Matthew Locricchio - Teen Cuisine
10:30 a.m. Locricchio is an award-winning cookbook author, and his new collection presents practical recipes for such basics as pancakes and chicken broth, along with more exotic fare like Santa Fe Tofu Scrambler and Black Bean Soup. The appealing photos will inspire teens to try their hands in the kitchen. (Ages 12 and up)

Madhur Jaffrey - At Home with Madhur Jaffrey
7 p.m. In her latest collection of recipes from India and southern Asia, the chef and prolific cookbook-writer simplifies the traditions for today’s time-pressed cooks. Jaffrey focuses on streamlined processes and accessible ingredients, but also explains the roles of the different seasonings and sauces, chutneys and dals, making these exotic dishes as familiar as many other comfort foods.

 

Saturday November 13

Mary Ann Larkin - That Deep and Steady Hum & Martin Galvin - Sounding the Atlantic
1 p.m. Join us for a reading by two local poets with wide-ranging themes. Larkin, author of five chapbooks and the co-founder of Pond Road Press, mines her own and America’s past for poems on family and immigration. Galvin, with four chapbooks to his credit, also looks back to childhood, dramatizing the events, and especially the voices, from his upbringing in an Irish neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Dana Milbank - Tears of a Clown
3:30 p.m. Milbank, prizewinning Washington Post reporter and author of Homo Politicus, here investigates how Glenn Beck evolved from his apparently non-ideological background into a man who rants, raves, and weeps on demand. A self-described “rodeo clown,” is Beck in fact just an over-the-top showman, or does he really believe the conspiracy theories he touts and that millions idolize him for?

Mary Frances Berry & Josh Gottheimer - Power in Words
6 p.m. President Obama is an undeniably gifted speaker, and in this collection of some of his major addresses, the authors provide historical context and political analysis, illuminating the rhetoric and the occasions. Berry, a historian and activist, and Gottheimer, a speechwriter for Bill Clinton, have also included commentary from Obama’s own staffers, who tell the stories behind the speeches.

Sunday November 14

Timothy Snyder - Bloodlands
1 p.m. Its title alluding to the territory between Germany and Russia, Snyder’s study investigates the dual slaughters perpetrated from 1929 through the end of World War II by Hitler and Stalin. Focusing on victims—Ukrainian peasants, Jews, Poles, and Belarusians shot during the Great Terror—rather than on politics, Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, shows how the combined brutality of these two dictators resulted in a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.

Danielle Evans - Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self & Patricia Engel - Vida

5 p.m. These two debut collections of fiction feature striking voices and fresh perspectives on the coming-of age narrative. Engel who, like her narrator Sabina, is the daughter of Colombian immigrants, recounts a young woman’s navigation through her parents’ expectations, college, and assorted relationships as she moves from childhood in New Jersey to her own life in Miami. In Evans’s stories, teenage girls and young women face down a variety of troubles stemming from sexism, racism, and their own misjudgments.

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

 

 

Go back to top of email

Saturday, November 6, 12 p.m.

National Geographic Society
1600 M Street, NW
TIM LAMAN
FACE TO FACE WITH ORANGUTANS (National Geographic, $16.95)

Photojournalist and scientist Tim Laman spends much of his time in the rain forests of Borneo, where he has gotten friendly with a number of amazing animal species. Among his favorites is the orangutan, a particularly intelligent primate known as the "man of the forest." In his lively presentation, Laman will share images of orangutans and other rainforest dwellers, and take you into the treetops where he climbs to make up-high, up-close observations. Laman co-authored this book with his wife, Cheryl Knott.

Presented in conjunction with FotoWeek DC 2010.

Click here for tickets: Adults: $16 (3-Part Series: $24); Kids 12 and under: $8 (Series: $16).

Saturday, November 6, 7 p.m.

National Geographic Society
1600 M Street, NW
JOHN BREDAR
THE PRESIDENT'S PHOTOGRAPHER (National Geographic, $35)
Find out what it's like to cover the most powerful man in the world as we present a screening of the new National Geographic Television Special, The President's Photographer. The film follows chief White House photographer Pete Souza as he in turn follows President Obama from Air Force One to the heart of the West Wing. This world premiere screening will be followed by a discussion with executive producer John Bredar, author of a new NG book on the same subject, and several past White House photographers, including Eric Draper, Robert McNeely, and David Valdez.

Presented in conjunction with FotoWeek DC 2010. The event will be preceded by a reception at 6 p.m.

Click here for $20 tickets (NG Member: $18).

Monday, November 8, 7 p.m.

Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
AMY SEDARIS
SIMPLE TIMES: Crafts for Poor People (Grand Central, $27.99)
America's most delightfully unconventional hostess and the bestselling author of I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence delivers a new book that will forever change the world of crafting. Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People proves that crafting is one of life's more pleasurable leisure activities and anyone with a couple of hours to kill and access to pipe cleaners can join the elite society of crafters. 

The book explains how to make popular crafts, such as crab-claw roach clips and crepe-paper moccasins, and how to avoid common crafting accidents (feather asphyxia, pine cone lodged in throat).

Sedaris is an actress and comedienne best known for portraying Jerri Blank in the Comedy Central series Strangers with Candy, and for her roles on Exit 57, Just Shoot Me, Sex & the City, Monk, and Cracking Up.

Click here for $30 tickets (includes one copy of the book). Questions? Please call 202.408.3100.

Thursday, November 11, 7 p.m.

Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
STACY SCHIFF
CLEOPATRA: A Life (Little, Brown, $29.99)

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff (Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov); A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America) separates fact from fiction to illuminate Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt and one of the most intriguing women of all time. History remembers Cleopatra as an irresistible seductress, but she was also a canny political strategist, a brilliant manager, and a tough negotiator. We have not seen a more influential woman since—much less one who happened to be the single mother of four children, and by a wide margin the wealthiest person in her world.

Click here to purchase $8 tickets in advance or receive 2 FREE tickets with the purchase of the book ($30) through Sixth & I. Tickets will be $10 the day of the event. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.

Sunday, November 14, 2 p.m.

Music Center at Strathmore
5301 Tuckerman Lane
North Bethesda, MD

Sunday at Strathmore with
STEVEN SONDHEIM

FINISHING THE HAT: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (Knopf, $39.95)

The Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks hosts and celebrates the great American songwriter, who penned some of the most memorable Broadway classics of the last 50 years, from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd and more. Winner of eight Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, Grammy Awards and many other honors, this witty, literary lion of American theater has stories to tell.

Click here to buy your tickets online or call 301-581-5100. Politics & Prose customers are invited to use discount code 1754 to get 10% off! Please note: this event does not include musical performances.

Monday, November 15, 7 p.m.

University of the District of Columbia
4200 Connecticut Ave NW
University Auditorium, Building 46 East
|Metro: Van Ness/UDC

LIVE TELECAST OF CORNEL WEST’S INTERVIEW WITH JAY-Z FROM THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

DECODED (Spiegel & Grau, $35)

"When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted it to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip hop lyrics - not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC are poetry if you look at them closely enough. The second was I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to."- Jay-Z

This is a free event and seating is general admission. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. Decoded will be available for purchase at the event and a limited number will be pre-signed. For more information, visit hooksbookevents.com.

Thursday, November 18, 7:30 p.m.

Friendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Ave.
Chevy Chase, MD
MAURINE BEASLEY
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: Transformative First Lady (Univ. of Kansas, $29.95)

Although previous books have dealt with Eleanor Roosevelt, this is the first to focus on her White House years. Ms. Beasley, professor emerita of journalism at the University of Maryland, former education editor for the Kansas City Star, and staff writer for the Washington Post, is a scholar with extensive knowledge of Mrs. Roosevelt's life and times and provides in her book a detailed examination of the innovative first lady that will enlighten those who think they already know her.

Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797. Copies of the book, provided by Politics and Prose Bookstore, will be available for purchase.

Go back to top of email

 

 

CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through 11/10/2010)

In 1940, in southern France, four boys followed a dog into a deep hole and made a wondrous discovery: THE SECRET CAVE (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99) filled with fabulous pictures painted on its walls. It was the finest known collection of undisturbed prehistoric art. Emily Arnold McCully accompanies her fast-paced story of the discovery of the cave at Lascaux with rich authentic illustrations that bring both the adventure and the cave paintings to life. Ages 6-10 – Dara La Porte

Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here. 

Please join us for Storytime on Mondays at 10:30 a.m., BearSong, the Guitar Man, is back after several years' hiatus, leading stories, songs, finger plays, and more for children from birth to 4 years old and their caregivers.

For upcoming events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.
Click here to access the teen blog.

SIGNED FIRST EDITION CHILDREN’S BOOK CLUB

Did you miss out on buying a first edition Harry Potter book when J.K. Rowling was at Politics and Prose in 1999? Would you want a signed first edition, first printing of a new book by Chris Van Allsburg, Peter Sis, or David Wiesner? Now you can sign up to have a first edition, first printing of a newly released children’s or young adult book delivered each month directly to your - or another collector’s – doorstep. You can also save on shipping if you pick your book up at the store.

There is no enrollment fee. The cost of each book ($30 or less, when including shipping) is the only charge, which will be processed every month when the books arrive at Politics & Prose. P&P members will receive 20% off on all selections. If you are not currently a member, we encourage you to register for a membership. You will save in the long run, and also receive all of the other member benefits - discounts on bestsellers, author event books, our notifications of the events by mail and email, the opportunity to participate in our four annual storewide member sales, and other discount promotions.

Our first three selections are:

October: IT’S A BOOK by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook, $12.99)
November: ZEN GHOSTS by Jon Muth (Scholastic, $17.99)
December: ART AND MAX by David Wiesner (Clarion, $17.99)

You may enroll in the program for six or twelve months at a time. And into the coming year, you can be sure that we will continue to select books to cherish for years to come! To this end, for an extra $1.50, you can choose to have us protect your book in an acid-free archival book cover.

Call 202-363-1919 or email Amy Kane at the store for more information, or click here to sign up online for the Politics & Prose Children's Signed First Edition Club.

AND TO GO WITH A SIGNED BOOK GIFT SUBSCRIPTION

Our irresistible children’s bookends ($20, $28, $38) are handmade by a small locally owned business in Hagerstown, Maryland.  They are made of multi-ply birch and painted with nontoxic acrylic paint.  They come in three sizes, many styles and colors. Click here to see a larger selection and to order online.

Go back to top of email

Go back to top of email