Saturday, January 22
6 p.m. Richard Panek - The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

Sunday, January 23
5 p.m. James Zug - Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear

Monday, January 24
7 p.m. Mark Hertsgaard - Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth

Tuesday, January 25
10:30 a.m. AJ Stern - Frankly Frannie: Funny Business
7 p.m. Ron Reagan - My Father at 100

Thursday, January 27
10:30 a.m. John Bemelmans Marciano - Madeline at the White House
7 p.m. Elaine Showalter - The Vintage Book of American Women Writers

Friday, January 28
7 p.m. Matteo Pistono - In the Shadow of the Buddha

Saturday, January 29
6 p.m. N. Jeremi Duru - Advancing the Ball

Sunday, January 30
Beth Kephart - Dangerous Neighbors - CANCELED
5 p.m. Anne Trubek - A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses

Monday, January 31
7 p.m. Book Group Night

Brooks writes: "The people studying the mind and the brain are producing amazing insights about who we are, and yet these insights are having a sufficient impact on the wider culture...This book is an attempt to do that. It's an attempt to integrate science and psychology with sociology, politics, cultural commentary, and the literature of success."

Surely you know now why I describe the Brooks's novel as ambitious. Although its plot is weak and frequently interrupted by excursions into modern research in cognitive science, the two main characters, Harold and Erica, pass from infancy to adulthood, including careers and marriage, largely unaware of the unconscious forces shaping their lives. Consequently the reader understands them far better than they understand themselves. When the book is published in early March, we'll have lots of copies, but click here to put yourself on the waiting list for this sure-to-be-much-discussed new novel.

LOVE LETTERS FOR LITERACY

On February 15th, the Literary Council of Washington will hold its annual Love Letters for Literacy benefit. Authors, broadcasters, celebrities, and a WLC student read works on the subject of love. The event starts with a reception and dinner, and ends with dessert and drinks. Carla and I will be honored by the program, and Carla's husband David will be accepting the award on her behalf. I hope many of our customers will add their support to the Literacy Council by attending the event and hearing the stories about learning to read as a life-changing event. For more information or to sponsor the event, please contact Terry Algire at terry.algire@washlit.org or Tim Rogers at tim@capallies.com.

We have just announced the next two selections in the Signed First Editions Club. These signed editions will only be available to our customers through participation in the club,

JANUARY: THE EMPTY FAMILY: Stories, by Colm Toíbín (Scribner, $24)
Beloved for his most recent novel Brooklyn, Colm Toíbín received a starred review from Kirkus, which said that his newest collection "reconfirms his mastery of the short story....Likely to rank with the best story collections of the year.”

FEBRUARY: WHEN THE KILLING'S DONE, by T.C.Boyle (Viking, $26.95)
From the bestselling author of The Women, T.C. Boyle's newest book, set in the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, delves into family histories and explores questions about human dominion over the wild land. Confrontations between protectors of native species and animal rights' activists become increasingly dramatic and violent and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself.

You can register for six or twelve months and will obtain collectible, limited-edition signed books every month. Click here to find out more!

Our booksellers also recommend:

THE LOTUS EATERS, by Tatjana Soli (Griffin, $14.99)
Through the eyes of photojournalists, a motley crew - by turns cutthroat, jaded, idealistic, and scared, Tatjana Soli uncovers a new side of the Vietnam War. Among the photographers, we meet Helen, a college dropout determined to make it in a man’s profession; Darrow, a prizewinning artist addicted to the adrenaline of war; and Linh, a solitary Vietnamese correspondent with a secret. Grizzled bureau chiefs, ruthless spies, and lonely French expats round out the cast. With delicate, sophisticated prose, Soli plumbs the uncomfortable paradox of their profession: that in order to expose the war and hasten its conclusion, the reporters must seek out and feed off of the most horrific violence. - Elizabeth Sher

Click here to see more of our Signed Event Books. Also, for only $1.50 additional per book, Politics & Prose now offers an Archival Book Covering Service.

These were two of our favorites when they were in hardcover.

Click here to see more recently released paperbacks, both Fiction and Non-Fiction.

THE WAY HOME
By George Pelecanos
(Back Bay, $14.99)
Hailed by the Associated Press as “one of the most literary of America’s crime writers,” Pelecanos shows his gifts for storytelling and complex characters in his latest novel, which opens with a father leaving his son at a Washington-area juvenile prison. Ten years later, seemingly reformed, the son is inadvertently involved in a burglary.

This review for the hardcover edition is one of the last that Carla contributed.

INTO THE STORY: A Writer's Journey through Life, Politics, Sports and Loss
By David Maraniss
(Simon & Schuster, $16)
In the hands of a great reporter and a thoughtful individual, a collection of essays can become a way of having a wonderful conversation. In INTO THE STORY (Simon & Schuster, $26) our friend, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss (Clemente, They Marched Into Sunlight), covers a rich array of topics—pieces from his books on Clinton, Roberto Clemente, Vince Lombardi—and from his journalism. He offers the moving portrait of Clark Welch’s return to Vietnam and a horrifying eyewitness account of the events of 9/ll. The collection showcases the range of Maraniss’s interests: politics, sports, friendship, and family. While I had read many of the articles before, I found myself rereading them with great pleasure. Gathered together as chapters in this book, they reflect Maraniss’s admirable craft and sensibility. A great reporter does more than relate the news; he filters it through his education, experience, and moral sense. It is particularly the last of these which I enjoyed here. - Carla Cohen

Click www.politics-prose.com/event for our author events calendar through February.

Thursday, January 20

Jacqueline Kelly - The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
10:30 a.m. Twelve-year-old Calpurnia Tate is growing up in rural Texas in 1899. She wants to read Darwin's The Origin of Species but her local library has banned the book. Undaunted, Calpurnia gets a copy from her grandfather, a naturalist, and the two explore plants and animals together.  Winner of the 2010 Newbery Honor Award, this book is not to be missed. Ages 10-13

Witold Rybczynski - Makeshift Metropolis
7 p.m. With more people living in cities than ever before, Rybczynski's spirited and comprehensive survey of the past and future of urban development is a compelling and immediate book. Looking back to colonial town-planning and ahead to the needs—and pleasures—of the 21st-century metropolis, Rybczynski offers history we can build on.

Saturday, January 22

Richard Panek - The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality
6 p.m. The more science discovers about the universe, the less we seem to know: just 4% of matter is familiar; the other 96% is a dark mystery. Panek, noted science writer and author of The Invisible Century, chronicles both the struggle to understand dark matter and dark energy and the human story of the scientists engaged in this research.

Sunday, January 23

5 p.m. James Zug - Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear
Zug, Outside columnist and author of a history of squash among other books, collaborated with Paul Assaiante, long-time men's tennis and squash coach at Trinity College, on this account of the Trinity squash team's phenomenal success, which culminated with the 2009 national collegiate championship. Assaiante discusses motivation, mentoring, and recruitment as well as his own personal challenges.

Monday, January 24

Mark Hertsgaard - Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth
7 p.m. As a new father, Hertsgaard worried about what kind of world his daughter would grow up in if climate change proceeds unchecked. His investigation of regions already struggling with problems like flooding and drought, such as Bangladesh and the Sahel, showed him that innovative ways of managing these conditions exist now, and they may chart a course to saving the planet.

Tuesday, January 25

AJ Stern - Frankly Frannie: Funny Business
10:30 a.m. Frannie Miller can’t wait to grow up and have a real job in an office. She’s already got the briefcase and asks her parents for an administrative assistant. When the Millers go to Orlando, Frannie, the master of getting into and out of sticky situations, ignores the theme parks and tries to become the keynote speaker at a business convention her hotel is hosting. Ages 6-8

Ron Reagan - My Father at 100
7 p.m. Were he still alive, President Reagan would turn 100 on February 6. To mark the centennial, his son, a political commentator for MSNBC and host of his own radio show, has written an intimate memoir about the father he knew—and the one he didn’t. This moving portrait combines views of both the public and the private man.

Wednesday, January 26

Brian Greene - The Hidden Reality
7 p.m. Parallel worlds and a multi-verse—the stuff of science fiction is fast becoming the subject of cutting-edge science. Greene, author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, once again shows his mastery at rendering complex physics fascinating and accessible as he tells the story of modern science’s push beyond the universe.

Thursday, January 27

John Bemelmans Marciano - Madeline at the White House
10:30 a.m. Ludwig Bemelmans wrote the first Madeline book in 1939. His grandson has completed a story, which the elder Bemelmans started in 1961, of Madeline’s visit to the White House . She and her eleven classmates come to town for the annual Easter Egg Roll as special guests of Candle, the President’s daughter, who takes them on a beautiful nighttime tour of the city.  Ages 3-5

Elaine Showalter - The Vintage Book of American Women Writers
7 p.m. Showalter introduced readers to dozens of heretofore overlooked literary figures in A Jury of Her Peers, her comprehensive study of women writers. Now she has edited a rich selection of poetry and fiction by American women from Anne Bradstreet—the earliest English poet of the New World—to Annie Proulx, with selections from Mary Rowlandson, Margaret Fuller, and many others.

Friday, January 28

Matteo Pistono - In the Shadow of the Buddha
7 p.m. A practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and founder of Nekorpa, an organization working to protect the world’s sacred sites, Pistono went to Tibet looking for a simpler life. He found instead a culture under siege and has spent nearly a decade writing about, photographing, and publicizing Chinese repression of Tibetan society.

Saturday, January 29

N. Jeremi Duru - Advancing the Ball
6 p.m. After years of working with the National Football League, Duru, a professor and civil rights litigator, recounts how a few men convinced the league to enact the “Rooney Rule,” which requires each team to interview a minority candidate when hiring a new coach. The book has an impressive forward by Tony Dungy.

Sunday, January 30

Anne Trubek - A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses
5 p.m. As a corollary to the question of why we read, Trubek considers why we make literary shrines out of the homes where great writers produced their work. Do we flock to authors’ houses simply to pay homage? To glimpse the ghost of a muse? Touring the haunts of Hemingway, Twain, Alcott, and others, Trubek reserves judgment as she observes guides, pilgrims, and décor.

Beth Kephart - Dangerous Neighbors
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED

Monday, January 31

Book Group Night
7 p.m. Whether you participate in one of P&P’s public book groups, are part of one with your friends and neighbors, or are looking to form or  take part in a new group, join us for this discussion.  We’ll talk about starting book groups and keeping them going, consider how to stimulate talk and how to stay on the subject. We’ll also trade ideas about book group experiences, pool recommendations about books, and discuss how the store can help support your group. Please RSVP to Book Groups@politics-prose.com.

This event is part of the project Democracy and Human Rights: Lessons from the Past for the Current Czech Foreign Policy, organized by the Embassy from January through June 2011. Canadian author Anna Porter returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Habsburg lands. Wine and light refreshments will be served - and the book will be available for purchase - after the event.  Please R.S.V.P. to czech_events@yahoo.com. Questions? Call 202-274-9108.    

Wednesday, February 2, 8 – 10 a.m.

Greater Washington Board of Trade Business Leadership Series
Capital Hilton
1001 16th St, NW
RUSSELL SIMMONS
SUPER RICH: A GUIDE TO HAVING IT ALL (Gotham, $22.50)
Dubbed the CEO of Hip-Hop by BusinessWeek, Russell Simmons is the mastermind behind many wildly successful ventures, including Def Jam Records, Phat Farm, Def Comedy Jam, and the Hip-Hop Summit Action network, which promotes empowerment in young people. Join the Board of Trade on February 2 as Russell Simmons, Chairman of Rush Communications, discusses his new book. For more information and to register, click here or visit www.hooksbookevents.com.

Bookmark this link for future offsite events.

FICTION

1. The Inner Circle, by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central, $26.99)
2. The Empty Family: Stories, by Colm Toibin (Scribner, $24)
3. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
4. To the End of the Land, by David Grossman (Knopf, $26.95)
5. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (Random House, $26)
6. Luka and the Fire of Life, by Salman Rushdie (Random House, $25)
7. Room, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown, $24.99)
8. Clara and Mr. Tiffany, by Susan Vreeland (Random House, $26)
9. The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer (Knopf, $26.95)
10. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Knopf, $25.95)
11. Purple Jesus by Ron Cooper (Bancroft Press, $21.95)
12. An Object of Beauty, by Steve Martin (Grand Central, $26.99)

Click here for our fiction paperback bestsellers.

NONFICTION

1. Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, by Karen Armstrong (Knopf, $22.95)
2. American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt, by Daniel Rasmussen (HarperCollins, $26.99)
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (Crown, $26)
4. Colonel Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris (Random House, $35)
5. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $27)
6. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House, $30)
7. Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown,$29.99)
8. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua (Penguin, $25.95)
9. All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera (Portfolio, $32.95)
10. White House Diary, by Jimmy Carter (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30)
11. Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (Penguin, $40)
12. Bottom of FormI Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, by Izzeldin Abuelaish (Walker, $24)

Click here for our non-fiction paperback bestsellers.

THE SECRET RIVER is our next selection for the Children's Signed First Editions Club. Click here to register or to obtain more information. Or call our book club coordinator Amy Kane at 202-364-1919. Quantities are limited so sign up early!

Monday mornings at 10:30 a.m.
BearSong, the Guitar Man, leads his weekly morning story time with stories, songs, finger plays, and more for children from birth to 4 years old and their caregivers.

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

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

Here’s a story that involves both science and art, adventure and discovery, feminism and entomology. CHRYSALIS: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis is Kim Todd’s fascinating life and times of the natural scientist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) who, in addition to raising a family, traveled from Amsterdam to Surinam, where she studied and collected animal and plant specimens. She specialized in the mysterious life cycle of moths and butterflies, and while her fieldwork made significant contributions to science, her engravings and drawing were as beautiful as they were accurate—wonderful additions to the fine arts. Available in paperback, $4.98.

T.C. Boyle has a knack for focusing on the colorful figures of recent history and spinning rich, compelling fictions from their lives. His recent novel, THE WOMEN, narrated by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Japanese apprentice, gives a close-up view of the architect and his passions, his wives, his divorces, his lovers—and, oh, yes, his architecture, too. Taliesin, where the bulk of the story takes place, suffers a series of calamities that seem to mirror the turbulence of its creator’s life. Available in hardcover, $6.98.

For her first novel, THE TOSS OF A LEMON, Padma Viswanathan drew on her widowed grandmother’s life and the strict customs governing the behavior of a woman in her circumstances. Full of deft observations about Indian culture, the novel charts the many changes the society underwent—at all levels—from the late 19th century, when ten-year-old Sivakami becomes the bride of a healer who dies young, through her children’s conventional, and painful, upbringing, and to the 20th century and her grandchildren, with their ambivalent relationship to tradition. Available in hardcover, $4.98.

Click here to browse other remainders that have recently become available.

• Laurie Greer

NEW

Aurelio, LARU BEYA (Sub Pop/Next Ambiance Records, $15.98) – The Garifuna people (from West African, Carib, and Arawak ancestry) dot the Caribbean coast of Central America from Belize to Nicaragua. Young singer and guitarist Aurelio Martinez was mentored by the late Andy Palacio, who carried Garifuna music to a wider international audience. Listen these catchy Caribbean tunes; Aurelio and Garifuna Soul were a hit last week at New York’s Globalfest, and you can hear their set on NPR (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/19/132860822/aurelio-and-garifuna-soul-globalfest-2011 ).

Joel Harrison String Choir, THE MUSIC OF PAUL MOTIAN (Sunnyside, $16.98) – I’m a huge fan of Paul Motian—as a drummer, bandleader, and composer. Now, other jazz artists are playing his catchy, memorable, often melancholy tunes. Guitarist Joel Harrison has assembled a chamber-jazz group with two guitars (the leader himself plus Liberty Ellman) and a string quartet (all prominent soloists as well) to play Motian’s haunting songs.

Barbara Cook & Michael Feinstein, CHEEK TO CHEEK: Live from Feinstein’s (Duck Hole Records, $17.98) – Two singers who truly know the American Songbook inside and out are Barbara Cook and Michael Feinstein. Their joint autumn set recorded at Mr. Feinstein’s club is full of great songs, and a couple of clever medleys: “The World Keeps Changing/There’ll Be Some Changes Made,” and “The Very Thought of You/Tea for Two.”

Gregg Allman, LOW COUNTRY BLUES (Rounder, $18.98) – Gregg Allman has always sung the blues with conviction, and with a love for the masters of the form. His new album has great covers of songs by Sleepy John Estes, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters, Skip James, and Junior Wells, among others. The CD was produced by roots-master T Bone Burnett, with contributions by Dr. John on piano and Doyle Branhall II on some smokin’ electric guitar.

The Decemberists, THE KING IS DEAD (Captitol, $17.98) – The very literate popsters are back in a less overwrought manner, this time with singer Gillian Welch on backup vocals.

ALAN LOMAX: BOOK & BOX SET

I’m just starting to read John Szwed’s new biography, ALAN LOMAX: The Man Who Recorded the World (Viking, $29.95). Lomax did pioneering field recording, research, and dissemination of music from around the U.S., and the world. It’s fascinating reading, spanning recordings from the age of wax cylinders all the way to our own age of instant global diffusion. Szwed has written a terrific book, and I highly recommend it.

There’s one whole chapter on Lomax’s first big recording project for the Library of Congress—in Haiti. Last year, some of these priceless recordings were issued in a deluxe box set: ALAN LOMAX IN HAITI, 1936-1937 (Harte Recordings, 10 CDs, $129.99) includes two books containing extensive notes and Lomax’s journal, a replica of the map he used, and color video footage. There are extensive annotations by Haitian scholar Gage Averill. The box set is nominated for two Grammys: Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.

Click here for news and reviews. Please call us at 202-364-1919 or email me at agoldinger@politics-prose.com to order these CDs.

Tuesday, January 25, 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Book Group
Sestets: Poems, by Charles Wright

Wednesday, January 26, 7:30 p.m.
Graphic Novel Book Group
City of Glass, by Paul Auster; adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli

Thursday, January 27, 7:30 p.m.
Fascinating History Book Group
Massachussetts Avenue in the Gilded Age, by Mark Ozer

This month Modern Times Coffeehouse displays 15 portraits from Yemen and Egypt. Photographer James O'Gara writes, "Yemen is one of the most beautiful places imaginable for a photographer. The air is clear, the light is even and pure, and the average adult male is more distinguished looking than Alec Guinness. Yemenis are remarkably hospitable, and fairly laid back about photography, but there are limits. There will be no photographs of women, who are almost universally veiled (with the niqab: just a slit for the eyes)."

Photographing Egypt's zabaleen garbage collectors presents its own set of opportunities and challenges: "Eking out a living in the collapsing splendor of Cairo is no mean feat; more remarkable still is the way illiterate peasant migrants from the countryside have found steady work in sorting, cleaning, melting, and otherwise recycling garbage, all done with machinery that would cause an OSHA inspector to faint."

The show will be on display until the end of January.

Click here to visit the Modern Times blog.