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Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of March.
Members always save 20% on author event books and titles included in other special promotions. Click here to register!
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Thursday, February 17
10:30 a.m. Ben Hatke - Zita the Space Girl
7 p.m. Susan Jacoby - Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
Friday, February 18
7 p.m. Amy Chua - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Saturday, February 19
7 p.m. Clarence Lusane - The Black History of the White House
Sunday, February 20
5 p.m. Richard Whitmire - The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District
Monday, February 21
7 p.m. Ariel Sabar - Heart Of The City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York
Tuesday, February 22
7 p.m. Bruce Riedel - Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad |
Wednesday, February 23
7 p.m. Dambisa Moyo - How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly--and the Stark Choices Ahead
Thursday, February 24
7 p.m. Bing West - The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
Friday, February 25
7 p.m. Michael Chorost - World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet
Saturday, February 26
6 p.m. Edward Dolnick - The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
Sunday, February 27
5 p.m. Stanley Meisler - When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years
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LETTER FROM BARBARA |
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AN OPEN INVITATION TO WASHINGTON DC AREA BORDERS CUSTOMERS
As many of Borders' stores close, we recognize that we are losing an important member of our DC bookselling community. Our condolences go out to the local employees and customers of this institution. Borders began as an independent like us. Although we have been in competition, we recognize the contribution their stores have added to America's literary culture.
In brick-and-mortar stores, the publishing industry, and local neighborhoods across the country, it is distressing to witness the economic downturn affecting yet another national business. For this reason, we wish to extend a special, limited-time opportunity to booklovers in our area in the hope that they might discover a new home with us.
Our nearly 9,000 members participate in our daily events and support our business. All current Borders customers who would like to experience Politics & Prose membership - and receive discounts on our bestsellers, author event titles, and our March Storewide Member Sale as well as a subscription to our monthly events calendars - may exchange their Borders Rewards cards for complimentary 3-month P&P memberships valid from now until May 31, 2011.
Moreover, eBooks purchased from P&P can be read on Borders Kobo. Our booksellers can assist with downloads.
Please let your friends and colleagues who currently shop at the local White Flint, Friendship Heights, and L Street Borders locations know that we would be delighted to welcome them and introduce them to a new community.
This week we will play host for books by and about several controversial women - Amy Chua, Dambisa Moyo, and Michelle Rhee. Previously known for challenging conventional thinking about developing democracies and the rise and fall of great powers, economic historian Amy Chua now has received both praise and criticism for exposing her unorthodox parenting method in her new book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Come and join the discussion this Friday, February 18.
On Sunday, February 20, Richard Whitmire will share The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District. It's about our former public school chancellor Michelle Rhee, the experience she brought, and the lessons she took from her tenure. As an unflinching and determined catalyst for change, Chancellor Rhee became the subject of intense public interest, scrutiny, and debate as she took on the unions and community politics in her pursuit of necessary, drastic action to support the students.
And next Wednesday, February 23, international development critic Dambisa Moyo returns to Politics & Prose. She declared that development policy in Africa was profoundly misguided in Dead Aid and now she turns her attention to American financial policy with her second book How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly--and the Stark Choices Ahead.
We hope you can join us for these - and other - stimulating events this coming week.
THE COUNCIL THAT KEEPS ON GIVING
Tuesday night the Literary Council of Washington honored Carla and me with Lifetime Literacy Achievement Awards at a very festive dinner downtown at Morton's Steakhouse. Carla's husband, David, accepted on her behalf. The evening was hosted by Steve and Cokie Roberts, who coincidentally have a new book, OUR HAGGADAH: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families, fresh from the printer. Mayor Vincent Gray presented the awards. As part of the program our good customers Jane Leavy, author of the critically acclaimed biography of Mickey Mantle, THE LAST BOY, and Senator Bill Cohen and his wife, Janet Langhart also spoke and read.
Aside from providing countless hours in volunteer literacy tutoring, the Council volunteers also provide free gift-wrapping at Politics and Prose during the holidays in return for donations to the Literacy Council. In a city in which 37 percent of our adult population is functionally illiterate, unable to fill out a job application or read a child a simple story, the work of the Council becomes more important than ever. Even if you missed the dinner, it's still not too late to donate to this hard-working organization, www.washingtonliterarycouncil.org.
DISCOUNTS ON BIOGRAPHIES
During the month of February, we are offering discounts to all P&P members on books from our biography sections (which includes, of course, memoirs and autobiographies, Children and Teen's titles, and any biographies from our remainder room). This is a great opportunity to find a presidential biography for President's Day or read about a notable figure for African-American History Month. This discount applies to any biographies which we currently have in stock on the shelves, and which do not need to be specially ordered.
- Barbara Meade
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DAVID'S DELIBERATIONS
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 RIVETING POLITICAL BIOGRAPHIES
Last Sunday was a high moment for me at Politics & Prose. I introduced Douglas Waller's riveting biography WILD BILL DONOVAN: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (Free Press, $30). Donovan headed the OSS in World War II, the predecessor agency to the CIA. Several OSS officers who served under Donovan were present, and the audience spontaneously applauded their public service.
Waller writes with great respect for history and enables the reader to learn of Donovan's charisma, his thwarted ambitions, and the tragedies that befell him.
Donovan performed outstanding public service in the fight against Hitler. Like other anti-New-Deal Republicans, such as Henry Stimson, Frank Knox, and John McCloy, he stepped up to the task. FDR recognized that he needed them and asked them to serve; and serve they did, with distinction and verve.
Douglas Waller's book made me think about other political biographies that helped me more deeply understand their subjects:
John Farrell's Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century
John Jacobs's A Rage for Justice: The Passion and Politics of Phillip Burton
and Don Oberdorfer's Senator Mansfield: The Extraordinary Life of a Great American Statesman and Diplomat
Please join this discussion and send us your picks for outstanding biographies, recent or older ones,
that give us a real sense of the person. E-mail Andrew Getman and he'll include them in a future email. Remember biographies are discounted for P&P members until the end of the month!
- David Cohen
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BOOK NOTES |
 PANORAMA (Random House, $26)
By H.G. Adler
Adler's strategy for surviving the Holocaust (Theresienstadt, Buchenwald) was to remember everything, with the goal of bearing witness later. His literary approach to the material is to transform the unimaginable into a detailed chronicle of everyday life in Bohemia, both before and during the war. The pressure to get everything down on paper before it's lost forever results in a modernist stream-of-consciousness narrative with a powerful, compelling momentum. Like Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, this novel is a bildungsroman whose voice changes as its protagonist grows up. Yet Adler's reality is one more familiar from Kafka (his narrator's name is Josef Kramer) than from Joyce, Adler's realism weighted with surrealism. Told in ten extended episodes, the story charts Josef's life from age four, as he struggled to learn the "proper" ways of doing things, to his mid-thirties after release from a concentration camp where "proper" had lost all its former meanings. As Josef becomes more self-aware and worldly, so the recurrent motifs he observes-rules, authority, trains, the future-develop additional, often chilling, significance. Adler wrote a massive history of Theresienstadt, a book of philosophy, and five novels; no one genre, let alone single book, could contain all he'd experienced. Somewhere in Panorama's continuum from normal to abnormal lies the point at which the world lost its mind; Adler has made a stunning work of art out of it.
- Recommended by Laurie Greer
TOWNIE
by Andre Dubus III
(W.W. Norton, $25.95)
While his absent father wrote award-winning short stories and taught literature at Massachusetts’s Bradford College, Andre Dubus III learned how to fight. Raised by his mother, moving from Boston’s worst neighborhoods to crumpling towns up and down the North Shore, Dubus schooled himself in the violence of the streets. Later, Dubus forced himself through another painstaking metamorphosis -- in fits and starts, through several attempts at college and various stints as a construction worker, bartender, and prison guard, he taught himself to write. Townie belongs in the pantheon of great contemporary memoirs. Dubus is at the peak of his evocative powers, whether he’s describing the physical transformation of his body or the awakening of his mind.
- Recommended by Elizabeth Sher
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HEMINGWAY CLASS |
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THE FICTION OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Taught by Jackson R. Bryer
The Nick Adams Stories, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms
March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, April 6, 1-2:30 p.m.
(On March 9, the class will meet 3-4:30 p.m.)
This course will study the short fiction and two novels of Ernest Hemingway, whose themes and unique prose style have influenced several generations of writers around the world. The emphases of the course will be on discussion of the common themes, characters, and stylistic devices that run through his work; on Hemingway’s fiction as a reflection of the times in which he wrote; and on the development of his fictional techniques and themes.
Two 90-minute classes will be devoted to each book. The texts used will be the Scribner paperback editions.
Enrollment: $100 (P&P Members: $80). Click here to read more about the books and to sign up.
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UPCOMING TICKETED EVENTS
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In order to accommodate a larger audience, we sometimes hold our events at other locations. Please reserve your tickets early if you plan to attend.
Monday, February 28, 7 p.m.
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH
I SHALL NOT HATE: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity (Walker, $24)
"Anger is not the same as hate," Dr. Abuelaish states, and his words carry weight. Born in the Jabalia refugee camp and now a physician, Abuelaish treats both Israelis and Palestinians. His account of everyday life in the contested Gaza Strip is a story of check points and embargoes, humiliations and violence—yet even after his daughters were killed in their home by Israeli forces, Dr. Abuelaish still believes that a commitment to peaceful solutions can end the region's terrible bloodshed. Learn more about him and his foundation here -> http://www.daughtersforlife.com/
Click here for $8 tickets, or to receive two free tickets with purchase of the book from P&P.
Monday, March 14, 7 p.m.
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
JOSHUA FOER
MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Penguin, $26.95)
Foer's unlikely journey from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion frames a revelatory exploration of the vast, hidden impact of memory on every aspect of our lives. This book will be released on March 3, but you can read an excerpt online with Google Preview by clicking here.
Click here for $10 tickets, or to receive two free tickets with purchase of the book from P&P.
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| NEW IN PAPERBACK |
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Click here to see recently released paperbacks, both Fiction and Non-Fiction.
THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK by Brando Skyhorse (Free Press, $14)
We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours. Those who’d never been here before could at last see the Promised Land in the darkness; those who’d been deported and come back, only a shadow of that promise. Before the sun rises on this famished desert, stretching from the fiercest undertow in the Pacific to the steepest flint-tipped crest in the San Gabriel Mountains, the temperature drops to an icy chill, the border disappears, and in a finger snap of a blink of an eye, we are running, carried on the breath of a morning frost into hot kitchens to cook your food, waltzing across miles of tile floor to clean your houses, settling like dew on shaggy front lawns to cut your grass. We run into this American dream with a determination to shed everything we know and love that weights us down if we have any hope of survival. This is how we learn to navigate the terrain.
Brando Skyhorse’s debut novel, THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK recounts the lives of Mexican Americans living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, once a fashionable home for people in the movie business and now a working-class community. Through a series of shifting points of view, we meet Felicia, a cleaning lady, and her daughter Aurora. We meet Efren Mendoza, a bus driver, and his brother Manny former jefe of the street gang Locos and father to Juan who’s just enlisted in the Army. And there are others -- all of these people who make up a neighborhood, people we see every day, never imagining the richness of their lives, or knowing how they intersect.
The title comes from an incident that shaped the whole community, an act of violence, an accidental shooting, affecting some tangentially and affecting others deeply and crucially. This is a fine and beautiful novel by any standard, but as a first novel, it is astoundingly good. - Mark LaFramboise
MAKING TOAST: A Family Story by Roger Rosenblatt (Ecco, $12.99), is a beautiful but heartbreaking
account of grandparents who move in with their grandchildren and son-in-law
after the unexpected death of their daughter. They must balance the
management of their grief with the need to carve out a new life in a household
far more chaotic than the one they had envisioned for their golden years.
But because this is a home with young children, there are also moments of
humor and wonder, and the reader is left with feelings of hope and joy.
In this tender story, Rosenblatt celebrates the life of his beloved daughter,
the strength of family, and the satisfaction of being able to do a job really
well. - Tracey Filar Atwood
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COMING SOON TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE |
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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.
P&P members save 20% on all of these event titles.
Click www.politics-prose.com/event for our author events calendar through February.
Thursday, February 17
Ben Hatke - Zita the Space Girl
10:30 a.m. In Hatke's exciting graphic novel, Zita hits a red button and launches her friend Joseph into space. She hits the button a second time and sends herself out to find Joseph. As she crosses the universe, Zita encounters monsters, alien friends, and strange situations. Zita is resourceful, funny, and determined to rescue Joseph and bring them both home. Ages 7-10
Susan Jacoby - Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
7 p.m. In 2000 some 12.4% of Americans were age 65 and older. As this percentage rises, there are more retirement communities and more talk of imminent "cures" for old age. In her investigation of the lives of the aging, especially the poor and minorities, Jacoby, author of Freethinkers and The Age of American Unreason, finds a reality sharply at odds with the image of the active, carefree elderly.
Friday, February 18
Amy Chua - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
7 p.m. Chua follows her economic and historical studies, World on Fire and Day of Empire, with a look at parenting. Eschewing what she sees as the permissive Western style for a more disciplined Asian method, Chua recounts how she and her husband raised their two daughters to meet high academic standards, develop a strong work ethic, and respect authority.
Saturday, February 19
Clarence Lusane - The Black History of the White House
7 p.m. Lusane's chronicle of the White House is also the story of the struggle for civil rights in America. A professor at American University and former editor of Black Political Agenda, Lusane recounts the stories of the black laborers who built the White House, the scandal concerning Booker T. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt that earned the building its name, and various crises that pushed forward a progressive agenda.
Sunday, February 20
Richard Whitmire - The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District
5 p.m. Michelle Rhee wrote the introduction to Whitmire’s Why Boys Fail. Now, in his second book, Whitmire profiles Rhee, fleshing out the public figure with details of her personal life. The center of the story is Rhee’s contentious tenure as chancellor of Washington, D.C. public schools, and the book includes an interview with Rhee on what she learned from the experience.
Monday, February 21
Ariel Sabar - Heart Of The City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York
7 p.m. The second book by the author of the award-winning memoir, My Father’s Paradise, was sparked by the fact that his parents met in Washington Square Park. Intrigued by the idea of chance meetings and the role of place in providing them, Sabar tells the true stories of nine couples who met in New York City.
Tuesday, February 22
Bruce Riedel - Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad
7 p.m. One of the foremost experts on U.S. Middle East policy, Riedel, author of The Search for al Qaeda, here focuses on Pakistan and its pivotal role in a global jihad movement. Riedel examines how American foreign policy decisions have contributed to Pakistan’s radicalization and offers suggestions for ways to help stabilize that country.
Wednesday, February 23
Dambisa Moyo - How The West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly--and the Stark Choices Ahead
7 p.m. In her second book, Moyo, the economist and author of Dead Aid, examines American economic policy and finds that a series of shortsighted measures have left the U.S. in danger of losing status and wealth to the developing world. How best to redress this situation? Moyo outlines several options.
Thursday, February 24
Bing West - The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
7 p.m. A former Marine colonel, West has chronicled recent wars in a series of books, including The Village and The Strongest Tribe. His new work is a close look at the challenges U.S. forces face in Afghanistan. West argues that the overall battle will be won or lost according to what happens in villages and among tribes, not in capital cities or think tanks.
Friday, February 25
Michael Chorost - World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet
7 p.m. Chorost’s vision is the ultimate in connectedness: insert new DNA into neurons via viruses, implant nanowires, and one brain can be wirelessly linked to others. Techno-miracle, or nightmare? As he outlines a possible cyborg future, Chorost, journalist and author of Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World, describes the very human functions of the mind and its dreams.
Saturday, February 26
Edward Dolnick - The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World
6 p.m. Kepler, Galileo, and Newton were as involved in theology as they were with science. In his new history of the life and times of these seventeenth-century thinkers, Dolnick, author of The Forger’s Spell, The Rescue Artist, and other books, weaves the mathematical and astronomical breakthroughs with their discoverers’ faith in the role of a deity at the heart of the universe.
Sunday, February 27
Stanley Meisler - When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years
5 p.m. A journalist for the Los Angeles Times, author of a biography of Kofi Annan, and former deputy director of the Peace Corps Office of Evaluation and Research, Meisler marks the 50th year of the Corps with a history of its work. Based on his own experience and those of the many former volunteers he interviewed, Meisler contrasts the organization’s ideals with the political realities, both domestic and foreign, that have affected its mission.
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .
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Friday, February 18, 7:30 PM
 Washington National Cathedral
3101 Wisconsin Ave, NW
JONATHAN FRANZEN
FREEDOM (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28)
This event is co-sponsored by Washington National Cathedral and PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
Come to hear an author hailed by Time magazine as “the great American novelist” in one of Washington’s most stunning and historic settings when Jonathan Franzen delivers Washington National Cathedral’s 2011 PEN/Faulkner Lecture. Featuring a reading from the widely acclaimed Freedom, Franzen’s latest novel, the evening includes the author’s thoughts about his own writing and life experience. In addition, Franzen will sign books.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of four novels—The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections (recipient of the 2001 National Book Award), and Freedom—and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.
Click here for more information and to buy $22 tickets ($16 for seniors and students).
Tuesday, February 22, 6:30 p.m.
 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
PAULA SHOYER
THE KOSHER BAKER: Over 160 Dairy-Free Recipes from Traditional to Trendy (Brandeis Univ., $35)
Paula Shoyer, local pastry chef and owner of Paula’s Parisian Pastries Cooking School in Chevy Chase, will teach a class offering sweet and satisfying instructions for the classic chocolate babka. The Kosher Baker, was recently named one of the best holiday baking books by the Washington Post Express.
This $30 class includes a light dinner, samples, and ingredients. Please call 202-408-3100 to register.
Thursday, February 24, 12 noon
 Hay-Adams, Top of the Hay
Sixteenth & H Streets, NW
RON CHERNOW
WASHINGTON: A LIFE (Penguin Press, $40)
This event is presented as part of The Hay-Adams Author Series
Join the National Book Award winner for a three-course lunch and lively discussion of his latest New York Times bestseller, a richly nuanced and vivid portrait of the real George Washington. The first public event in the new Top of the Hay, with stunning views directly across from the White House, will be co-hosted by renowned historian Michael Bechloss. A book signing will follow.
Ron Chernow's first book The House of Morgan received the 1990 National Book Award. His books Alexander Hamilton and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller were nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography and spent months on the New York Times bestseller list.
$85 ticket includes lunch, wine, tax and gratuity. Click here or call (202) 220-4844 for more information.
Friday, February 25, 1 p.m. (Exhibit opens)
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
JT WALDMAN
MEGILLAT ESTHER: The Book of Esther (Jewish Publication Society of America, $22)
JT Waldman turns The Book of Esther, with its twisting plot, into an illustrative masterpiece. The graphic novel is brought to life in an exhibit with interactive elements and an invitation for visitors to take part in the creative process. Waldman is a comic book illustrator and interaction designer. He is currently working on his next graphic novel, which he designed with the late Harvey Pekar. This exhibit will be on view from Monday through Friday, February 25 - April 29 during open tour hours from 1-2 p.m. Waldman will be speaking at 6th in the City Shabbat on March 11. Click here for information about attending this service. Click here for more information about the exhibit. Click here for a Google Preview of the book and its art.
Saturday, February 26, 7:30 p.m.
 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
MICHAEL SHOWALTER
MR. FUNNY PANTS (Grand Central, $25)
Michael Showalter, the writer and star of The State, Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Michael & Michael Have Issues, combines funny anecdotes, stories, jokes, observations, and graphic elements in his first book, Mr. Funny Pants. Full of Showalter's odd charm, Mr. Funny Pants journeys into the deep (and not-so-deep) recesses of his creative mind to tell Showalter's story: his obsessions--creative and otherwise--his successes, and his failings.
Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 the day of the event, or receive 2 FREE tickets with the purchase of the book ($25) through Sixth & I. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
Tuesday, March 22, 7 p.m.
 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
JODI PICOULT
SING YOU HOME (Atria, $28)
Of all the hot-button issues Jodi Picoult has explored in her bestselling novels, probably none is more divisive and emotional than the one at the heart of her new book, Sing You Home, about a same-sex couple and their attempts to have a child. Sing You Home includes a CD of original songs created for the novel by Ellen Wilber (lyrics by Picoult). Wilber will perform at the event. Picoult will be in conversation with Ron Charles, deputy editor and a weekly fiction critic for The Washington Post "Book World."
$35 tickets include one (1) copy of Sing You Home when you purchase tickets through Sixth & I. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
Bookmark this link for future offsite events.
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P&P BESTSELLERS
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All Politics & Prose Weekly Hardcover Bestsellers are 20% off for Members.
Click the book titles for more information about these featured books.
Bookmark www.politics-prose.com/bestsellers/hardcover-fiction and www.politics-prose.com/bestsellers/hardcover-nonfiction for our weekly discounted bestsellers.
Click here to receive the benefits of Politics & Prose membership.
FICTION
- Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell (Knopf, $24.95)
- I Think I Love You, by Allison Pearson (Knopf, $24.95)
- West of Here, by Jonathan Evison (Algonquin, $24.95)
- The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld (Riverhead, $26.95)
- The Fates Will Find Their Way, by Hannah Pittard (Ecco, $22.99)
- Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
- The Empty Family: Stories, by Colm Toibin (Scribner, $24)
- A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Novel, by Alan Bradley (Delacorte, $23)
- Traveling Light: Poems, by Linda Pastan (W. W. Norton, $24.95)
- The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown (Amy Einhorn, $24.95)
- An Object of Beauty, by Steve Martin (Grand Central, $26.99)
- Faithful Place, by Tana French (Viking, $25.95)
Click here for our fiction paperback bestsellers.
NONFICTION
- Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown, $29.99)
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $27)
- Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age, by Susan Jacoby (Pantheon, $27.95)
- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua (Penguin, $25.95)
- Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, by Karen Armstrong (Knopf, $22.95)
- Known and Unknown: A Memoir, by Donald Rumsfeld (Sentinel, $36)
- I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, by Izzeldin Abuelaish (Walker, $24)
- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House, $30)
- The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District, by Richard Whitmire (Jossey-Bass, $24.95)
- Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, by Edward Glaeser (Penguin, $29.95)
- The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, by Brian Greene (Knopf, $29.95)
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (Crown, $26)
Click here for our non-fiction paperback bestsellers.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT |
CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through February 23)
As winter sets in, the little rabbit knows cold weather is coming and wonders what other animals will do to stay warm. SNOW RABBIT, SPRING RABBIT: A Book of Changing Seasons (Knopf, $15.99) peeks in on the various ways animals cope in this delightful introduction to migration, hibernation, and everything in between. Il Sung Na’s colorful, whimsical illustrations bring to life the animals’ activities: turtles swim south, majestic birds soar, and alligators float inert in the water. When the warmth of spring finally arrives, the pages explode in beautiful colors and the animals bask in the sun. Ages 2-4. --Amy Kane
Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here.
Click here to access the teen blog.
Monday mornings at 10:30 a.m.
STORY TIME
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.
For upcoming events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.
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MARKDOWN BOOKS
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Zadie Smith’s fiction has been compared to E. M. Forester’s—in CHANGING MY MIND: Occasional Essays, Smith gives her own assessment of Forester’s work. Smith’s first book of nonfiction, this volume is as witty and wide ranging as her remarkable novels. If you’ve wondered what she’s like, several of these pieces offer a look at her background and family life, providing insightful cultural criticism at the same time. Here also are essays on movies and Oscar night fashion, forays into war reporting in Liberia, book reviews, and much more, all spiced with humor and intelligence. Available in hardcover, $9.98.
Words like good and evil carry a religious overtone, but they can also apply to a secular, democratic society. And they should, as the philosopher Susan Neiman, author of Evil in Modern Thought, argues in her compelling MORAL CLARITY: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists. Neiman wants to construct a useful framework for both thought and action in the modern world; to do that, she reaches back to the Enlightenment, showing how ideas of happiness and progress can be reclaimed for the 21st century. Starting with what it means to be realistic, Neiman looks at a variety of thinkers and texts from Homer and the Bible to Rousseau, Kant, and Arendt. Agree or disagree, there’s a lot to think about here. Available in hardcover, $5.98.
Aside from getting lost in a plot or absorbing facts, what really happens when you read? READING IN THE BRAIN: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention will tell you just how your brain takes in those printed words and what the various sectors do with them. Stanislas Dehaene started as a mathematician and became a cognitive neuroscientist. Without sacrificing the complexity of the acts of seeing, perceiving, and thinking, he gives readers a clear look at the process of reading, considering how many characters the eye can take in at a time, why we can pass over typos without noticing them, and what happens in the brain to cause dyslexia. It’s all fascinating. Available in hardcover, $7.98.
Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.
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MUSIC NEWS
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NEW
Vijay Iyer, TIRTHA (ACT, $15.98) – Two years ago, pianist Vijay Iyer released Historicity, a trio record that was the consensus best jazz album of the year. Last year, he followed up with his Solo recital. Now, Mr. Iyer has collaborated with two Indian musicians for another outstanding CD. Tirtha is the name of the trio, with Prasanna on electric guitar, and Nitin Mitta on tablas. The crossing of jazz and Indian music has gained new momentum in the last few years, and this trio takes the conversation between those two vast traditions to new heights. Highly recommended.
P J Harvey, LET ENGLAND SHAKE (Island, $14.98) – P J Harvey can sing forcefully, and also with delicacy; in a low bluesy growl, or, as heard on her new album, in a more vulnerable, high voice. Harvey sings about England, wars, and history, within a folk-rock setting of guitars, autoharp, and some intriguing harmonies and samples. This an album to explore.
Terry Gross did a fine interview with Polly Jean Harvey this week on Fresh Air (http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/133749985/pj-harvey-on-war-and-the-new-england ).
Alfred Brendel, A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE (Decca, $24.98) – Four of Brendel’s favorite unreleased concert recordings: the Brahms Piano Concerto No.1; the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25; the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 31; and Schubert’s Impromptu in F minor.
A FEW WELL-DESERVED GRAMMY AWARDS
Americana Album: You Are Not Alone, Mavis Staples
Traditional World Music Album: Ali and Toumani, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté
Latin Jazz Album: Chucho’s Steps, Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers
Tropical Latin Album: Viva La Tradición, Spanish Harlem Orchestra
Traditional Folk Album: Genuine Negro Jig, Carolina Chocolate Drops
Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra): Mitsuko Uchida (Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 23 & 24, Cleveland Orchestra)
Chamber Music Performance: Parker Quartet, Ligeti: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2
and finally,
Best New Artist: Esperanza Spalding
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.
• András Goldinger
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BOOK GROUPS |
Politics & Prose currently hosts sixteen different book groups in the store each month.
P&P's book groups meet monthly and are free and open to the public.
These are the selections for the next week. Click the titles to read more about these books.
Click here to learn more about participating in a Politics & Prose book group and to see the entire month of upcoming meetings.
Book-group titles are discounted 20% to participants. Please join us!
Sunday, February 20, 6 p.m.
Spirituality Book Group
The Art of Power, by Thich Nhat Hanh
March 20 selection: The Meaning of Life, by the Dalai Lama
Monday, February 21, 7:30 p.m.
Legacies of American Exceptionalism (Swarthmore) Book Group
The American, by Henry James
March 21: The Street, by Ann Petry
Wednesday, February 23, 7:30 p.m.
Graphic Novel Book Group
City of Glass, by Paul Auster; adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli
March 23 selection: Market Day, by James Sturm
Thursday, February 24, 7;30 p.m.
Fascinating History Book Group
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World, by Roger Crowley
March 24 selection: Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
Monday, February 28, 7:30 p.m.
Public Affairs Book Group
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History, by Margaret MacMillan
March 28 selection: The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE |
Beans of Change
I am happy to announce that, starting this week, we have decided to start carrying coffee roasted by the fine people of Caffe Pronto. With a roasting facility in Annapolis, they can provide fresh and delicious tasting coffees sourced from the best current crops in over 15 countries worldwide. I can't tell you how exciting this is for us; I've been consistently blown away by their Vincente espresso blend - overflowing with sweetness and chocolate tones - and look forward to sampling all of their varietals (currently stocking a Sigri Estate Papua New Guinea). Try it! Tell us what you think. Thanks for being with us as we take another step in Modern Times evolution.
- Javier Rivas
Click here for news from the Modern Times blog.
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