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EVENTS IN BRIEF |
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Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of February.
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011 Thursday, January 6, 2011 Friday, January 7, 2011 |
Saturday, January 8, 2011 6 p.m. Steven Simon and Dana Allin - The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the Rumors of War Sunday, January 9, 2011 Monday, January 10, 2011
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LETTER FROM BARBARA | ||||||
As always, Christmas week shopping was very, very busy with many customers happy not to have to fight the snowstorms of last year's Christmas. Both Santa and the Christmas Grinch visited us, and it was all bookseller Thad Ellerbe could do to keep them apart.
 When Egan came to read from her earlier The Keep, I introduced her by saying that I thought she was brilliant, wildly imaginative, and one of our most creative fiction writers, so I was full of anticipation in starting A Visit From the Goon Squad. For reasons I now can't remember, about a quarter-way into the novel it was getting more imaginative than I could grasp, and I passed it along to Bill Leggett, a younger bookseller here. He loved it! Now I'm going to remind myself that sometimes to really appreciate a work of literature, you may have to do some work, but then the rewards are great. Will I get my rewards? I'll get back to writing about the Goon Squad as soon as I reread the beginning and then keep going right through to the end.
CALENDARS AND SEASONAL ITEMS ON SALE |
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BOOKNOTES | ||||||
Two books which the publishers could not supply fast enough this season were THE CLASSICAL TRADITION and DECADE, and they have been out of stock until now. If you were looking for these books earlier in the month and couldn't get them, now they are here, and we are offering each of them at 20% off to members this week. DECADE(Phaidon, $39.95) is an anthology of the last decade's most arresting, iconic, and unusual photographs, edited by Eamonn McCabe with text by Terence McNamee with Anna Rader and Adrian Johnson. It's a fantastic gift for the artist or the aficionado. Dwight Garner chose it as one of the best coffeetable books for the season in the New York Times Holiday Gift Guide, and we have to agree. Stop in and take a look through its pages, and you'll want to take one home. Michael Dirda reviewed THE CLASSICAL TRADITION(Harvard Univ., $49.95), back in October. We selected it as one of our top choices for your favorite art historian or classicist. Again, if you just page through briefly, you'll become engrossed and wish to fill in the gaps in your education! The Classical Tradition is all around us - in architecture, literature, politics, and our museums. Ancient Greece and Rome did more than leave us ruins to uncover—they established a living legacy on which Western civilization continues to build. An international team of experts - headed by Anthony Grafton, Princeton professor of history and author of The Footnote; Glenn W. Most, of the University of Chicago; and Salvatore Settis, of the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa - has compiled this rich encyclopedia, which provides a complete picture of the all-encompassing influence. Organized alphabetically, 500 authoritative articles cover all facets of Greek and Roman thought, from cartography and democracy to maxims and tragedy. Images, both color and black-and-white, present the visual end of the spectrum, running the gamut from Palladio to I.M Pei, from the Pre-Raphaelites to Charles Addams. - Laurie Greer
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SIGNED BOOK OF THE WEEK |
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BESTSELLERS | ||||||
All Politics & Prose Weekly Hardcover Bestsellers are 20% off for Members.
Click here for our fiction paperback bestsellers.
Click here for our non-fiction paperback bestsellers.
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COMING SOON TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE | ||||||
If you can't attend a talk, but would like to buy a signed copy or a recorded author presentation, click the title links to reserve your book online.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011, 7 p.m. Anne Midgette - My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music Thursday, January 6, 2011, 7 p.m. Edmund Morris - Colonel Roosevelt Friday, January 7, 2011, 7 p.m. Tom Rachman - The Imperfectionists Saturday, January 8, 2011, 1 p.m. Matthew Gilmore and Joshua Olsen - Foggy Bottom and the West End in Vintage Images
Saturday, January 8, 2011, 6 p.m. Steven Simon and Dana Allin - The Sixth Crisis: Iran, Israel, America, and the Rumors of War Sunday, January 9, 2011, 5 p.m. Rachel Machacek - The Science of Single Monday, January 10, 2011, 7 p.m. Karen Armstrong - Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue This is a ticketed event. Purchase
of this book from Politics & Prose entitles you to two complimentary
tickets to our author event and booksigning. Please reserve your tickets and books online by clicking here or call us at 202-364-1919 to purchase tickets by phone. |
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . . |
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Politics & Prose supplies books to book signing parties and events for other organizations. These are often open to the public; however, reservations and tickets should be acquired from the hosting organization. Please contact offsite@politics-prose.com if you are planning an event and would like us to supply the books. Saturday, January 8, 2 p.m.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT | ||||||
DAVE THE POTTER (Little, Brown, $16.99) was born a slave in the early 1800s. No one knows how he learned to read and write, or how he became an accomplished potter and poet. He made huge vessels inscribed with poignant, haiku-like poetry. Laban Carrick Hill’s simple, rhythmic language and Bryan Collier’s collage-style illustrations bring Dave’s artistry to life, from the first spin of the potter’s wheel to the final glazing. The endnotes include a chronology of Dave’s life, photographs of his remaining work, and a sampling of his original poetry. Ages 5-12. Amy Kane Story time takes a hiatus during the winter holiday season. Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here. |
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MARKDOWN BOOKS | ||||||
Books on Teddy Roosevelt tend to be huge, but Timothy Egan, author of the National Book Award-winning The Worst Hard Time, has written a concise and compelling account of TR and a devastating national disaster.THE BIG BURN: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved Americalooks back to 1910 when drought-stricken forests in three Western states ignited in an inferno that tested the strength of the rangers that fought it. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot fought the robber barons to put conservation measures in place. Available in hardcover, $6.98. Witold Rybczynski has written marvelous books on subjects ranging from the legacy of Palladio to the life of Frederick Law Olmstead (and he will be coming to P&P on January 20 for his latest book, Makeshift Metropolis). In his recent LAST HARVEST: How a Cornfield Became New DalevilleRybczynski chronicles the development of the “neotraditional” New Daleville, a planned community in rural Pennsylvania. While charting the course of this new residential area, the book delves back into the past, examining the history of domestic architecture and changing ideas about privacy and community. Available in hardcover, $4.98. From the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock to the push West and on into the final frontier, the United States has been seen as a country of explorers and adventurers. But thinkers have also been essential to the development of the nation, and in BEYOND THE REVOLUTION: A History of American Thought from Paine to Pragmatism, the prize-winning historian and former professor William Goetzmann tells an intellectual history that’s as compelling as the adventure stories. Looking at political theorists, literary giants like Melville, polymaths like William James, the book showcases a particularly American ingenuity.Available in hardcover, $7.98. • Laurie Greer
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MUSIC NEWS |
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JEREMY DENK PLAYS IVES Pianist Jeremy Denk’s album, JEREMY DENK PLAYS IVES (Think Denk Media, $14.98) has garnered raves: it’s on the year-end Best Of lists of the New Yorker’s Alex Ross; the Washington Post’s Anne Midgette (who’ll be at P&P next week—see below); the New York Times’s Vivien Schweitzer; and the New Republic’s David Hajdu, who said Ives’s Piano Sonatas No. 1 and 2 (“Concord”) are “played with stunning originality, ferocity, and humor.” Mr. Denk sent copies of his admirable disc (normally only available online) directly to Politics and Prose; they’re at the front register with some of the reviews posted. Also check our Mr. Denk’s wonderful blog, Think Denk (http://jeremydenk.net/blog/ ). LEON FLEISHER & ANNE MIDGETTE Our first author event of the new year will be next Wednesday, January 5, when Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette will talk about the book she co-wrote, Leon Fleisher’s MY NINE LIVES: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music (Doubleday, $26). While Mr. Fleisher cannot be with us, listen to his fine CD from 2004, TWO HANDS (Vanguard Classics, $16.98), the first recorded after his many years battling hand problems. NEW BIG BANDS Later that same evening, there’s a rare opportunity to hear two of the most heralded of the new generation big bands at Subterranean A, at 1432 R Street, NW. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society from Brooklyn and Fight the Big Bull from Richmond will perform. Hear Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society on their CD, INFERNAL MACHINES (New Amsterdam, $16.98). ONE LAST CHRISTMAS TREAT My favorite new Christmas album this year was drummer Matt Wilson’s CHRISTMAS TREE-O (Palmetto). I got to see the group (with reed player Jeff Lederer and bassist Paul Sikivie) at Twins a few weeks back, and while they were in town, they recorded a mini-concert; see and hear the “tree-o” on NPR’s video “Tiny Desk Concert” doing some favorite songs (here, http://www.npr.org/2010/12/20/132118091/matt-wilsons-christmas-tree-o-tiny-desk-concert ), including a fun, stop-time sing-along to “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and a wailing “Hallelujah Chorus” in a medley with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Enjoy!
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BOOK GROUPS |
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Politics & Prose currently hosts sixteen different book groups in the store each month. Book-group titles are discounted 20% to participants. Please join us!
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