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Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of April.
Members always save 20% on author event books and titles included in other special promotions. Click here to register!
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Thursday, March 10
7 p.m. Sara Wheeler - The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle
Friday. March 11
7 p.m. Jeff Greenfield - Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics
Saturday, March 12
6 p.m. Meryle Secrest - Modigliani: A Life
Sunday, March 13
1 p.m. Rabbi Arthur Waskow & Rabbi Phyllis Berman - Freedom Journeys: The Tale of Exodus and Wilderness Across Millennia
5 p.m. Alan Cheuse - Song of Slaves in the Desert
Monday, March 14
7 p.m. Joshua Foer - Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
Tuesday, March 15
7 p.m. Michael Farquhar - Behind the Palace Doors: Five Centuries of Sex, Adventure, Vice, Treachery, and Folly from Royal Britain
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Wednesday, March 16
7 p.m. David Brooks - The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
Thursday, March 17
10:30 a.m. Kekla Magoon - Camo Girl
7 p.m. Karen Tei Yamashita - I Hotel - ADDITIONAL EVENT
Friday, March 18 - Sunday, March 20
POLITICS & PROSE SPRING STOREWIDE MEMBER SALE
Friday, March 18
7 p.m. Julie Orringer - The Invisible Bridge
Saturday, March 19
6 p.m. Alan Paul - Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing
Sunday, March 20
5 p.m. Jaimy Gordon - Lord of Misrule
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LETTER FROM BARBARA |
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For many years, local biographer Meryle Secrest has been presenting her books at P&P. Almost invariably they have been about artists’ lives of the last century: Frank Lloyd Wright, Stephen Sondheim, Duveen, Richard Rogers, Leonard Bernstein, and Salvador Dali. This is an impressive list for any author, and now, she has continued her career with a new subject and a new book, MODIGLIANI: A Life(Knopf, $35), which received a long, glowing review in this week’s New Yorker. Reviewer Peter Schjeldahl reminds us that all these artists shared a common trait, spoiled mother's boys who never offered to help with the dishes. "Secrest is a seasoned guide to this propensity, as the biographer of other, more or less peremptory peacocks."
I don’t know whether Meryle Secrest only chooses colorful lives or if she makes every life colorful, but all of her books, including the one about her adventures in writing biography, Shoot the Widow(“You can't expect to be liked in my business, but with any luck you can avoid going to jail.”), ferret out an abundance of charismatic qualities from her subjects. Booklist describes this new life of Modigliani as an “astute and gripping biography,” a wonderful but not unexpected tribute to our local author. She will speak here on Saturday evening March 12 at 6 p.m.
And don't forget New York Times columnist David Brooks on Wednesday night, March 16, another author recently featured in the New Yorker with an excerpt from his new book, THE SOCIAL ANIMAL(Random House, $27). We still don't have any consensus among our seasoned booksellers about where to shelve it. Psychology? Sociology? Fiction? In reality, a skeleton story is the coat hanger for David Brooks to roll out numerous, some very recent, discoveries in psychology, in particular, social psychology. Two weeks ago, I speculated on whether David Brooks is our new Zola, a facetious question, . . . but please come, hear his fascinating accounts about how we make choices in our lives with so much unconscious conditioning, and let us know where you would shelve the book.
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BOOK NOTES |
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Monday, March 14, 7 p.m.
JOSHUA FOER
MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN (Penguin Press, $26.95)
On February 20, Joshua Foer included a short piece about his memory competition preparations and exploits in a New York Times Magazine article. In his book, he also explores how the social use and purpose of memory has changed as we have shifted from preliterate to an overly literate culture. It is fascinating material; I can’t wait to hear more from him in person, and begin trying his tips on building my own “memory palace.”
Anyone would think that, as a student of foreign languages, I would be adept at memorizing vocabulary, conversational dialogues, songs, and poetry. And yet those drills cause me to struggle; it has always been the experience of speaking - especially in another country - that makes the languages “sticky,” as Foer says.
As it turns out, this experiential component to language acquisition makes a lot of sense. As Foer explains, making the memories adhere to something tangible is the goal and an important tool in memorizing anything, whether strangers’ names, punchlines for jokes, facts or dates. He visually places images in a very real location in his mind. He uses his childhood home, museums, buildings that he can imagine walking around and seeing clues in order to aid his memory recall. His book is filled with anecdotes and suggestions. This is going to be an exciting event!
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PODCAST OF THE WEEK
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 Last week we shared several authors who have been featured on This American Life and wrote, "We are weekly drawn in by the program’s trademark pathos and wit, served up by contributors like David Sedaris, Adam Gopnik, David Rakoff, and Sarah Vowell: the Major Leaguers of the comic essay."
On September 23, 2010, Politics & Prose hosted David Rakoff in the store for his most recent book, HALF EMPTY (Doubleday, $24.95) This latest collection of humorous essays from the author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable revels in the power of negative thinking. Firmly on the side of those determined to keep their expectations low so as never to be disappointed, Rakoff is a droll and unsentimental cultural critic. Click here to listen.
And while we are on the theme of This American Life, we are looking forward to hosting Sarah Vowell on March 26. She created a short video and reads along. Check it out!
Click here for more suggestions from David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, and other contributors to This American Life.
We record nearly every in-store author event. You can browse our current selection of event recordings here. If would like to request a recording from a past event which is not already posted, send an email to Wendy Brown. |
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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.
Thursday, April 7, 7 p.m.
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
HOWARD JACOBSON
THE FINKLER QUESTION (Bloomsbury, $15)
Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, Jacobson’s novel was cited for being “very funny....but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be.” The eponymous Finkler is a popular Jewish philosopher, writer, and television personality, and the story focuses on his long friendship with gentile Julian Treslove, who becomes obsessed with what it means to be Jewish.
Click here for $10 tickets, or to buy The Finkler Question ($15) from P&P
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SPRING INTO SONNETS CLASS |
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Six Tuesdays, April 19-May 24
3-4:30 PM.
This 14-line poetic form invented in 13th-century Italy and brought to its apogee in 16th-century England is enjoying a comeback today, though really, it has never gone out of fashion. And no wonder: sonnets are not just a form; they are a way of thinking. And what a way! Endless variations within a set number of lines but with some conventions to be followed or ignored explore love, lack, loss—the gamut of human emotions.
Come spend some time roaming around in this enduring form and never look at sonnets again in the same way. We’ll begin with Petrarch and Shakespeare and move up in time to the present. Smart, sexy, sassy—sonnets are intellectual and emotional chess, endlessly reinvented. You might just get inspired to try one yourself!
Gigi Bradford & Louisa Newlin have just finished a series of lesson plans for the Folger Shakespeare Library on how to teach sonnets and have fallen in love with them all over again. No experience is necessary to join this group, just an open mind, a love of words, and pleasure in the company of others.
Cost: $80 for P & P members; $100 for non-members.
Syllabus: The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, Phillis Levin, editor (Penguin, $25)
Up to 30 participants: waiting list thereafter.
Click here to register and order your book.
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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 April.
Thursday, March 10
Sara Wheeler - The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle
7 p.m. Ten years ago Wheeler’s Terra Incognita recounted her trip to the Antarctic. Her new book charts a visit to the opposite Pole. During her circuit of the Arctic, Wheeler joins the crew of a Russian icebreaker and teams up with Lapps herding reindeer. The lands she visits are not pristine wild country but are haunted by the terrors of the Gulag and rife with the effects of pollution and climate change.
Friday. March 11
Jeff Greenfield - Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics
7 p.m. After his account of The Real Campaign, Greenfield, CBS News reporter and commentator, turns to the fantasy of “what if” for this alternative take on recent American history. What if JFK had been assassinated before taking office? What if Robert Kennedy had lived and been elected president? As in the best fiction, these imagined scenarios shed new light on the actual events.
Saturday, March 12
Meryle Secrest - Modigliani: A Life
6 p.m. The veteran biographer of cultural figures including Frank Lloyd Wright, Duveen, and Stephen Sondheim, Secrest portrays Modigliani not as a dissolute Bohemian but as a serious Modern artist. Grounded in extensive research, this life shows the lengths Modigliani went to hide his tuberculosis and cements his status as a major painter.
Sunday, March 13
Rabbi Arthur Waskow & Rabbi Phyllis Berman - Freedom Journeys: The Tale of Exodus and Wilderness Across Millennia
1 p.m. What does the Biblical story of the Exodus have to offer modern readers? Plenty. The co-authors of Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World survey past readings and find contemporary parallels for the enslavement, plagues, and, finally, liberation recounted in the archetypal Book.
Alan Cheuse - Song of Slaves in the Desert
5 p.m. From Timbuktu to South Carolina, the new historical novel from the George Mason professor and NPR book commentator dramatizes the legacy of slavery over the course of several generations. Cheuse skillfully juxtaposes the terrible brutality of plantation life with the passions of a forbidden love.
Monday, March 14
Joshua Foer - Moonwalking with Einstein @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
7 p.m. Foer's wide-ranging primer on memory looks back to ancient mnemonic techniques, such as the memory palace, and presents today's cutting-edge cognitive research on how we remember. In between, he profiles both prodigious memorizers and victims of severe amnesia, and offers an inside look at the National Memory Championships. Read an excerpt online with Google Preview by clicking here.
This is a ticketed event. Tickets are $10 each, or two free admission tickets are provided with each book purchased from P&P.
Tuesday, March 15
Michael Farquhar - Behind the Palace Doors
7 p.m. From the author of The Treasury of Royal Scandals and The Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans, this profile of British royalty from the Tudors to the Windsors presents the follies, passions, and ambitions of a long line of monarchs and consorts.
Wednesday, March 16
David Brooks - The Social Animal
7 p.m. Harold and Erica are a paradigm of success: happily married, materially well off, careers on track. In Brooks’s inventive narrative, the story of his protagonists is also the story of current advances in cognitive science, psychology, and sociology, all of which suggest that people are less self-determined than they think.
Thursday, March 17
Kekla Magoon - Camo Girl
10:30 a.m. Ella and Zachary have been friends since before kindergarten; they love to play fantasy games together. Then Bailey moves to town and Ella is no longer the only African-American at her school. Bailey, athletic, popular, and good-looking, falls for Ella. Can Ella remain loyal to Zachary, who many think is weird, and also be close to Bailey and join the popular crowd? Ages 10-14
Karen Tei Yamashita - I Hotel - ADDITIONAL EVENT
7 p.m. Dazzling and ambitious, this hip, multi-voiced fusion of prose, playwriting, graphic art, and philosophy spins an epic tale of America's struggle for civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown from 1968-1977. As Yamashita's motley cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, their stories come to define the very heart of the American experience. I Hotel was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award.
Friday, March 18 - Sunday, March 20
POLITICS & PROSE SPRING STOREWIDE MEMBER SALE
Members receive 20% off almost all of our current in-store book inventory and 15% off our DVDs and CDs. Members' online and phone purchases will also receive the same discounts as long as the items are currently on our shelves. Discounts do not apply on specially ordered items.
Members always receive:
• 20% off all titles in our monthly events calendar
• 20% off hardcover fiction and nonfiction bestsellers
• Store-wide discounts during four annual members sales
• Other periodic section discounts and promotions
Friday, March 18
Julie Orringer - The Invisible Bridge
7 p.m. In her second book and first novel, this P&P favorite charted the lives and loves of Hungarians in Paris in the 1930s in such a fresh and compelling way that it made the certainties of World War II surprise readers almost as much as they did the characters. Join us for the paperback release of this vivid and accomplished book.
Saturday, March 19
Alan Paul - Big in China
6 p.m. Combining the American dreams of rock stardom and life in an exotic country, Paul, an erstwhile music and baseball journalist, moved to China when his wife took an assignment there; he teamed up with Woodie Wu to form the band Woodie Alan. How this came about is part of his entertaining memoir, which also includes a tour of today’s booming China.
Sunday, March 20
Jaimy Gordon - Lord of Misrule
5 p.m. Winner of the 2010 National Book Award for fiction, Gordon’s sixth book is set at Indian Mound Downs, a small West Virginia racetrack, in the 1970s. With a flair for language that’s as lyrical as it is colloquial, and a cast of vivid characters who harbor pasts as turbulent as their futures are bleak, Gordon tells a tough and moving story.
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .
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Saturday, March 12, 9 a.m.
Temple Sinai
3100 Military Road, NW
ANNUAL AUTHORS’ ROUNDTABLE
featuring: JOAN NATHAN, JENNIFER NATALYA FINK & RUTH FRANKLIN
Joan Nathan’s latest book, QUICHES, KUGELS, AND COUSCOUS: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France (Knopf, $39.95) explores Ms. Nathan’s decades-long fascination with France and its tumultuous Jewish history. She is also the author Jewish Cooking in America and The New American Cooking, which each won a James Beard Award and the IACP cookbook of the year Award.
Jennifer Natalya Fink, author of THE MIKVAH QUEEN (Rebel Satori, $15.95), a coming-of-age story set in Ithaca, New York, in the ‘80s. Dr. Fink is the winner of the Dana Award and her previous writing has been nominated for the Pulitzer, National Jewish Book, and National Book Awards.
Ruth Franklin is a literary critic and senior editor at The New Republic. Tablet magazine named her “one of our most important critics under 40.” Her provocative book, A THOUSAND DARKNESSES: Truth and Lies in Holocaust Fiction (Oxford Univ., $29.95), has been called a “towering work of criticism and insight” and a “superb study” of the subject.
Click here for more information and to buy your $15 ticket. Deadline for reservations is Saturday, March 5.
Wednesday, March 16, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live
Grosvenor Auditorium
1600 M Street, NW
SYLVIA EARLE
THE WORLD IS BLUE: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One (National Geographic $26/$15.95)
A former chief scientist at NOAA, Earle is founder of the Mission Blue Foundation, chair of the Advisory Council for the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, and a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Called “Her Deepness” by The New Yorker and The New York Times, and a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, Sylvia Earle has led more than 60 oceanographic expeditions and logged more than 6,000 hours underwater. Her hope is to raise awareness of the need to protect the world’s oceans, our life support system, from ourselves. The film Mission Blue highlights Earle’s life’s work, and focuses on the dangers threatening the oceans and the individuals fighting to save them.
Discussion with Sylvia Earle and filmmaker Robert Nixon follows screening.
Presented as part of the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital. Read a profile of Sylvia Earle on our Speakers Bureau website. Visit the Mission Blue website.
To buy $10 Tickets, please click here.
Monday, March 21, 7:30 p.m.
Friendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Ave.
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
STAN HINDEN
HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY: The 12 Most Important Decisions You Must Make Before You Retire (McGraw-Hill, $18.95)
After he retired as a financial writer, Stan Hinden wrote the Washington Post’s "Retirement Journal" column, which discussed the decisions, dilemmas and challenges that confront retirees and those who are planning to retire. The column was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. He currently writes a column for the AARP Bulletin.
This updated edition includes information on Medicare's Prescription Drug Plan and Managed Care Plans, a menu of Medicare Supplemental Insurance Policies, and strategies for maximizing Social Security income- all topics of interest to people already retired as well as those looking ahead to retirement.
Please pre-register for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797.
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.
Wednesday, March 23 at 7:00 pm
 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS
OUR HAGGADAH: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families (HarperCollins, $19.99)
When Cokie and Steve Roberts met in college, they believed their different traditions - she is Catholic, he is Jewish - would prevent them from getting married. Forty-five years later, they have learned to respect, reconcile, and celebrate the religious traditions they once thought might divide them. Cokie and Steve host an annual Passover Seder that has become a Washington tradition. In Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families, they introduce the traditions they have developed to make Passover applicable to all religions.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 the day of the event, or buy the book and two tickets for $25. Click here for more information and to purchase the book and tickets from Sixth & I. More questions? Please call 202.408.3100.
Friday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.
 PEN/Faulkner Reading Series
Folger Shakespeare Library
201 East Capitol Street, S.E.
JOSHUA FERRIS
THE UNNAMED (Back Bay, $13.99)
VICTOR LaVALLE
BIG MACHINE(Spiegel, $15)
Described as "audacious” and "chillingly beautiful," The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris's most recent novel is constructed around one of Emily Dickinson's poems. Ferris is also the author of Then We Came to the End, finalist for National Book Award and winner of the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, New Stories from the South 2007, and The Best American Short Stories 2009, among other publications.
 Praised as a "wry fabulist,” Victor LaValle is the author of a short story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, and two novels, The Ecstatic and Big Machine. His recent work has been published in Granta, The Nation, and The Paris Review. He is the winner of numerous awards, including most recently a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Click here for more information and to buy $15 tickets.
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
- The Wise Man's Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two, by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, $29.95)
- When the Killing's Done, by T.C. Boyle (Viking, $26.95)
- The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain (Ballantine, $25)
- Open City, by Teju Cole (Random House, $25)
- Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (Macmillan, $28)
- Room, by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown, $24.99)
- The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld (Riverhead, $26.95)
- The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown (Amy Einhorn, $24.95)
- Rodin's Debutante, by Ward Just (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26)
- Mr. Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt (Dial Press, $24)
- We, the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28)
- The Fates Will Find Their Way, by Hannah Pittard (Ecco, $22.99)
Click here for our paperback fiction bestsellers.
NONFICTION
- Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, by Douglas Waller (Free Press, $30)
- Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House, $26)
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer (Penguin Press, $26.95)
- Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City, by Carla L. Peterson (Yale Univ. Press, $32)
- I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, by Izzeldin Abuelaish (Walker, $24)
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $27)
- Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster, by Tom Shroder and John Konrad (HarperCollins, $27.99)
- Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown, $29.99)
- Townie: A Memoir, by Andre Dubus III (W. W. Norton, $25.95)
- The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan, by Bing West (Random House, $28)
- The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life, by Bettany Hughes (Knopf, $35)
- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua (Penguin Press, $25.95)
Click here for our paperback non-fiction bestsellers.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT |
Children and Teens’ Department Announces Bookmark Contest
The Children and Teens’ Department is holding its second bookmark contest for 5-18 year olds. The theme is: Your favorite place to visit, real or imaginary, in a book.
Pick up an entry blank in the Children and Teens’ Department or click here to download it.
Submit one paper entry per person to the Children and Teens’ Department; electronic entries will not be accepted.
The winner and runners-up will be featured on our web site and will receive $25 Politics & Prose gift cards.
The winning design will be printed on Politics & Prose bookmarks.
Contest ends April 4, 2011. Politics & Prose will keep all original artwork.
CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through March 9)
While the zookeeper snoozes near the zoo’s open gate, the walrus climbs out of his pen and looks around slyly before making his great escape. Out into the city he goes, blending into his surroundings with the zookeeper hot on his heels. Can you find the walrus hiding on every page? Stephen Savage’s WHERE’S WALRUS? (Scholastic, $16.99) is part seek-and-find, part wordless picture book with a satisfying surprise ending. Ages 2-4 – Dana Chidiac
Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here.
UPCOMING AUTHOR EVENTS
 Friday,
April 15, 7 p.m.
ANTHONY
HOROWITZ
SCORPIA RISING: Alex Rider:
The Final Mission (Philomel, $17.99)
In
his latest–and final—mission, Alex battles Scorpia, the world’s most dangerous
terrorist organization, in one of the most treacherous regions on Earth, the
Middle East. Scorpia was behind the deaths of Alex’s parents, and they’ll stop
at nothing to get him, too. Ages 10 and up
Brush
up on your Alex Rider facts--we’ll have a trivia contest with prizes. And
hold on to your line signing ticket: we’ll have a drawing with one lucky
winner!
Anthony
Horowitz's book SCORPIA RISING goes on sale March 22, 2011. We will be
hosting Mr. Horowitz on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 7 p.m.
When
customers come into the store to pick up their copies of Scorpia Rising, they will also receive one
numbered signing-line ticket per copy. The number on each ticket
corresponds to a spot in line, and tickets are distributed in the order that
books are picked up. Customers must come into the store to get their tickets. No tickets will be
held, mailed, or given out separately.
If
you cannot attend this event, we can accept orders for signed books without
personalization. All Scorpia Rising phone and web orders must be complete by 10 p.m. on
Thursday, April 14. Any purchases made after the store closes on April 14
must be made in person.
Monday, March 28, 3:30-5:30 p.m. - POSTPONED from March 14
VIEW CAL RIPKIN, JR.'S VIDEO ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK
CAL RIPKIN, JR. - HOTHEAD (Hyperion, $16.99)
Connor is an all-star shortstop, but he can’t control his temper. Threatened by the possibility that the school paper will run a story about his behavior, Connor has to learn to control himself. This is a story told from the heart about doing your best and striving to be a credit to your team. Ages 8-12
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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Adam Gopnik’s first book, PARIS TO THE MOON may still be his most popular. A collection of 23 essays on his experiences living, working, and raising a family in Paris, where he was based between 1995 and 2000 for The New Yorker, the book is at once a love letter to the City of Light and a journalist’s more skeptical view of French society. The cafes, parks, and culture are here, but so are the bureaucracy,xenophobia, and strikes. Gopnik is a master at conveying the larger resonance of small moments; his tour of the city as both an insider and a guest brings it into a unique focus. Available in paperback, $5.98.
Before Edmund Morris took up the post-presidential life of Teddy Roosevelt, Candice Millard chronicled Roosevelt’s Amazon adventures in THE RIVER OF DOUBT: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. As a former writer and editor for National Geographic, Millard brings a sure touch to her descriptions of the then uncharted region the men explored. The expedition faced innumerable challenges, from flimsy canoes and insufficient supplies to Indian attacks, injuries, and infections. The adventure proved deadly for some of the crew, and Roosevelt himself grew so sick and weak he told his son to abandon him in the jungle. Available in paperback, $5.98.
Colm Tóibín’s new collection of stories, The Empty Family, is on our bestseller list, and his recent novels, The Masterand Brooklyn, have been P&P favorites (and both are great for book groups). Tóibín is clearly one of the outstanding fiction writers at work today. Several of his books are on hand as remainders, among them the 1999 Booker Prize-nominee, THE BLACKWATER LIGHTSHIP, a powerful story of three generations of an Irish family coming together around a sickbed. They air old grievances—though they try not to—find new ways to reconcile themselves to each other and to the past. There’s history and family history, memories and hopes. The prose has Tóibín’s characteristic steadiness and lyricism. I don’t need to say that it’s a moving and beautifully written book. Available in paperback, $5.98.
SPECIAL REMAINDER ANNOUNCEMENTS
Also, on hand this week: lots of New York Times crossword puzzle books at all levels - from easy to the Sunday challenges.
Stop in the store to see the new clearance section - with books available at 50% off their remainder price. This section will be a permanent addition to the bargains room. Check back often to see what treasures you might find!
Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.
• Laurie Greer
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MUSIC NEWS
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NEW CHRISTINE BREWER CD AT A SPECIAL PRICE
Soprano Christine Brewer has a new CD called ECHOES OF NIGHTINGALES (Hyperion), a tribute to four great sopranos of the past: Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell, Helen Traubel, and Eleanor Steber. She is accompanied by pianist Roger Vignoles.
We are offering the CD at $16.98 (normally $19.98).
Ms Brewer will be in recital on Wednesday, March 23, 7:30 p.m., presented by the Vocal Arts Society, at the Kennedy Center.
NEW CLASSICAL
Alexandre Tharaud, SCARLATTI (Virgin Classics, $16.98) – Tharaud is one of my very favorite pianists, and he excels at translating harpsichord repertoire to the modern piano. His CDs of Couperin, Rameau, and Bach are all highlights from the past few years. Tharaud is also a master at programming his albums, and he chose 18 of Scarlatti’s 555 sonatas with variety in mind: some with “the influence of Spanish folk music and flamenco,” some virtuosic, some based on courtly dances, others “plaintive…veritable operatic arias.” This is another Tharaud must-have.
Christine Pluhar & L’Arpeggiatta, MONTEVERDI: VESPRO DELLA BEATA VERGINE (Virgin Classics, $16.98) – Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine (more familiarly known as the 1610 Vespers), celebrated last year on its 400th anniversary, is unquestionably a masterpiece of the Baroque era. Christine Pluhar’s vocal and instrumental group, L’Arpeggiatta, gives a splendid performance of this monumental work. I also recommend L’Arpeggiatta’s album from last year, Via Crucis.
Madama Butterfly
The Washington National Opera is presenting its Madama Butterfly through March 19. Recently released is the late director Anthony Minghella’s beautiful production of PUCCINI: MADAMA BUTTERFLY (Sony Classical DVD, $27.98) with Patricia Racette, recorded at the Metropolitan Opera as part of their HD Live productions.
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 |
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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!
Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.
Science Fiction &
Fantasy Book Group
Palimpsest, by Catherynne Valent
April 14 selection: Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo
Ishiguro
Monday, March 14, 7:30 p.m.
Women's Biography Book Group
Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov),
by Stacy Schiff
Monday, April 11 selection: Enemies of the People, by Kati
Marton
Tuesday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.
Spanish Language Book Group
El porvenir de mi pasado, by
Mario Benedetti
April 19 selection: Rinas de Gatos, by Eduardo
Mendoza
Wednesday, March 16, 12:30 p.m.
Daytime Book Group
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia
Woolf
April 20 selection: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,
by Mario Vargas Llosa
Sunday, March 20, 6 p.m.
Spirituality Book Group
The Meaning of Life, by the
Dalai Lama
April 17 selection: Nothing Special, by Charlotte
Joko Beck
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE |
For the March art show, Modern Times Coffeehouse is excited to present a unique family collaboration. The show features paintings by Tanya Renne, illustration by Rose Jaffe, and writings by Cindy Morgan-Jaffe. The show is dedicated to the journey of becoming a blended family over the past ten years.
Click here for more news from the Modern Times blog.
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