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Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of May.
Members always save 20% on author event books and titles included in other special promotions. Click here to register!
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Thursday, April 28
7 p.m. Ann Packer - Swim Back To Me
Friday, April 29
7 p.m. Francisco Goldman - Say Her Name
Saturday, April 30
6 p.m. Peter Mountford - A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism
Sunday, May 1
1 p.m. Joe Palca & Flora Lichtman - Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us
5 p.m. Elif Shafak - Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within
Monday, May 2
7 p.m. Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole - Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza
Tuesday, May 3
7 p.m. Manning Marable Tribute Event – Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
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Wednesday, May 4
4 p.m. John Flanagan - Ranger's Apprentice Book 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
7 p.m. David Shipler - The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties
Thursday, May 5
10:30 a.m. Tom Lichtenheld - Cloudette
7 p.m. Michael and Audrey Levatino - The Joy of Hobby Farming
Friday, May 6
10:30 a.m. Robbin Gourley - First Garden: The White House Garden and How It Grew
7 p.m. Alexi Zentner - Touch
Saturday, May 7
1 p.m. Sophia Rosenfeld - Common Sense: A Political History
5 p.m. Miranda Kennedy - Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India
May 8 - Mother's Day - NO EVENTS
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MEMBER DISCOUNTS ON TRAVEL GUIDES, MAPS, AND PHRASEBOOKS |
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As the weather warms, our thoughts turn to vacations. All travel guides, maps, and phrasebooks on our shelves are 20% off for members until April 30th. It's the perfect time to begin your planning, or simply to learn about someplace you have always wanted to visit. Come in and browse our large selection of guides from Frommer's, Fodor's, Lonely Planet, Moon Guides, Michelin, Rick Steves, and Rough Guides for almost anywhere in the world you would like to go. Or call us and we'll help you locate the perfect book to prepare for your journey!
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BOOK NOTES |
HELP US GET A CAPITAL BIKESHARE STATION!
Capital Bikeshare is a project of the DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) that allows users to rent bikes from stations across Washington, DC and Arlington, VA. Bikes may be rented for any length of time and returned to any station. Many of our staff members and patrons use Capital Bikeshare; unfortunately, the closest bike depot is located at the Van Ness/UDC Metro.
The corner of Nebraska and Connecticut is a finalist for DDOT’s planned expansion of 25 new Bikeshare stations. We would love to offer this additional form of transportation to our staff, friends, and patrons who are looking for a convenient and reliable way to travel to and from our store and the neighborhood. You can read more about the Capital Bikeshare expansion here.
DDOT is interested in resident feedback about proposed stations. Please send an email to ddot.bikeshare@dc.gov to say that you support a Bikeshare station at Nebraska and Connecticut! Include a reference to either Politics & Prose or the Modern Times Coffeehouse in your email.
HELP WANTED
Part-time positions are available at Politics & Prose to staff our out-of-store author events and book parties. Candidates should be responsible, resourceful, personable, professional, and must have strong communication skills. A valid driver's license, flexible working hours, and the ability to carry heavy boxes of books are all required. For more information, please contact Bonnie Kogod at bkogod@politics-prose.com.
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PODCAST OF THE WEEK
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What can’t John McPhee write about? With his 28th book SILK PARACHUTE (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15) the Pulitzer Prize-winning McPhee turns the gaze of his examination on himself by shedding light on where the ideas for his books have come from: his experience with canoes as a child, his year at Deerfield Academy and his first glimpse of Bill Bradley playing basketball at Princeton. This book is a perfect copy of The New Yorker where every story is captivating and every word is worth reading. - Conor Moran
Listen to the podcast of McPhee’s talk at Politics & Prose on April 12, 2010.
We record nearly every in-store author event. You can listen to our current selection of author event recordings here, or click here to browse and download more MP3s. If you would like to request a CD or MP3 recording from a past event which is not already posted, send an email to Wendy Brown. |
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TICKETED EVENT ON SALE NOW
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Monday, May 9, 7 p.m.
Geraldine Brooks - Caleb's Crossing @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
As she did in her People of the Book, Brooks again transforms a suggestive historical nugget into a rich, fascinating novel. In 1665, Caleb, a Wampanoag from Martha’s Vineyard, became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. As narrated by Bethia—herself denied an education in her patriarchal Puritan community—Caleb’s is a powerful story of soaring aspirations and constraining realities.
Click here to buy $10 tickets ($12 on the day of and at the door), or receive two free admission tickets with the purchase of each book.
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NEW IN PAPERBACK
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CRISIS ECONOMICS: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm (Penguin, $17)
Studying global history, statistics, mathematical models, and other evidence, Roubini, professor of economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and his co-author Mihm, an associate professor of economic history at the University of Georgia, were the first economists to predict the current economic downturn. The authors argue that although financial crises are part of capitalism, they are both foreseeable and preventable.
THE LAST STAND: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick (Penguin, $18)
Philbrick follows his nautical bestsellers, In the Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory, with this vivid account of General Custer’s defeat. While Custer lost his battle against the Plains Indian tribes led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the event also proved to be the Plains Indians’ own last stand.
OUR KIND OF TRAITOR by John Le Carré (Penguin, $15)
When Perry Makepiece and his girlfriend, Gail Perkins, meet Dmitri "Dima" Vladimirovich Krasnov during a vacation at a posh beach resort in Antigua, the trio fast become friends. What initially seems like easy friendship with a Russian businessman soon turns into a nightmare as Perry and Gail find themselves pawns in an international spy game whose players will ruthlessly exploit them until the tragic end. Le Carré explores the world of shady international finances and corrupt intelligence agents in this compact, intense thriller.
Click here to see more recently released paperbacks, both Fiction and Non-Fiction.
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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
- Field Gray, by Philip Kerr (Putnam, $26.95)
- The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht (Random House, $25)
- Drawing Conclusions, by Donna Leon (Atlantic Monthly, $24)
- The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain (Ballantine, $25)
- The Love of My Youth, by Mary Gordon (Pantheon, $25.95)
- Say Her Name, by Francisco Goldman (Grove, $24)
- The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown, $27.99)
- Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems, by Billy Collins (Random House, $24)
- The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party: The New No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, $24.95)
- She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems, by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion, $24.99)
- An Evil Eye, by Jason Goodwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26)
- The Complaints, by Ian Rankin (Reagan Arthur, $24.99)
Click here for our paperback fiction bestsellers.
NONFICTION
- Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families, by Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts (HarperCollins, $19.99)
- Bossypants, by Tina Fey (Reagan Arthur, $26.99)
- The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, by David Brooks (Random House, $27)
- The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $35)
- Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House, $26)
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House, $27)
- America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation, by David Goldfield (Bloomsbury, $35)
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by Joshua Foer (Penguin Press, $26.95)
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner, $30)
- Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable (Viking, $30)
- Tangled Webs: How False Statements are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff, by James B. Stewart (Penguin Press, $29.95)
- Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown, $29.99)
Click here for our paperback non-fiction bestsellers. |
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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 May.
Thursday, April 28
Ann Packer - Swim Back To Me
7 p.m. Packer’s bestselling The Dive from Clausen’s Pier put individual misfortune in a wider moral context. In her new collection of stories, she deepens her exploration of relationships under pressure, showing how a mother mourns a son, how a rebellious teenager grows into the caretaker of an earlier admirer, and how families are bent, but not broken, by loss.
Friday, April 29
Francisco Goldman - Say Her Name
7 p.m. Goldman, author of the bestsellers The Long Night of White Chickens and The Art of Political Murder had been married for less than two years when his wife broke her back swimming in rough surf and died of her injuries. His response to this loss was to find out everything he could about her; the result is this extended love letter of a book.
Saturday, April 30
Peter Mountford - A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism
6 p.m. Mountford’s debut novel relives the financial bubble of 2005 through Gabriel de Boya, a smart but inexperienced financial journalist. Landing a job with a hedge fund, Gabriel is sent to Bolivia to scam profits out of an upcoming presidential election. Instead, he falls in love, has second thoughts about his mission, and decides to find a way out of his predicament.
Sunday, May 1
Joe Palca & Flora Lichtman - Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us
1 p.m. Slow traffic. One persistent mosquito. Someone humming that awful song. These things get on our nerves, but why? NPR science correspondent Palca and Science Friday’s Lichtman explore the psychology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology behind things that annoy us, and offer tips for managing irritation.
Elif Shafak - Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within
5 p.m. Shafak’s memoir explores creativity and motherhood at the place where they collide. Author of two acclaimed novels, The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love, Shafak stopped writing after having a child. Suffering from postpartum depression and doubting her art, Shafak turned to the experiences of other women writers—Plath, Woolf, Alice Walker—and regained her confidence in literature.
Monday, May 2
Adina Hoffman & Peter Cole - Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza
7 p.m. A geniza is a repository for worn out papers, and in 1896 Solomon Schechter, a Romanian-born Jewish intellectual, discovered in Cairo a remarkable trove of documents—wills, poems, letters, and more—chronicling medieval Mediterranean Jewish life. In their story of these “Living Sea Scrolls,” the Jerusalem-based authors meditate on the importance of the written word to Judaism.
Tuesday, May 3
Manning Marable Tribute Event – Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
7 p.m. Manning Marable was scheduled to appear at Politics & Prose on this night to present his highly anticipated biography, MALCOLM X: A Life of Reinvention. Sadly, Dr. Marable passed away due to complications from pneumonia on Friday, April 1. To honor both his life and his life's work we will hold an event with friends, colleagues, and authors, including Kristen Clarke co-editor (with Marable) of Barack Obama and African American Empowerment: The Rise of Black America’s New Leadership, Bill Fletcher, author of Solidarity Divided, and Dr. Greg Carr, associate professor and Chair of the African-American studies department at Howard University.
Wednesday, May 4
John Flanagan - Ranger's Apprentice Book 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
4 p.m. In the tenth and final book of the Ranger’s Apprentice series, Horace is sent on a mission to the eastern nation of Nihon-Ja. After no word from him for months, Will, Alyss, and Evanlyn set out to discover his whereabouts, eventually finding that Horace has been caught up in a plot by Senji warriors to overthrow the emperor. Ages 10 and up.
Signing line tickets will be given out the day of the event to customers who have purchased The Ranger's Apprentice: Book 10, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja
from Politics & Prose. When purchasing the book, please keep your Politics & Prose receipt. We are providing green bookmarks to protect your receipt until the event. Mr. Flanagan will sign Book 10 and one other book for your home, school or library.
David Shipler - The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties
7 p.m. What happens when we depart from the basic guarantees of the Fourth Amendment? Shipler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Working Poor and Arab and Jew, focuses on the violations of privacy rights accelerated by a decade of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping. In visits to minority neighborhoods, he witnesses how racial profiling regularly flouts the guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Rights of the People is a keen illustration into the loss – and retrieval – of our individual liberties.
Thursday, May 5
Tom Lichtenheld - Cloudette
10:30 a.m. This enchanting book from the bestselling illustrator of Duck! Rabbit! and Shark vs. Train features Cloudette, a smaller than average cloud who longs to grow bigger and throw lightning, show off rainbows, and make enormous storms. When she discovers a world that needs just enough rain, Cloudette turns a mud puddle into a pond to the delight of the resident frogs. Ages 3-6
Michael and Audrey Levatino - The Joy of Hobby Farming
7 p.m. Proprietors of a twenty-three acre farm near Gordonsville, VA, the authors grow vegetables, raise livestock, and participate in local farmers’ markets all while supporting their rural lifestyle with outside careers. Michael and Audrey’s primer offers advice on the nuts and bolts of small-scale, modern agriculture, from compost to tractors, berries to cut flowers.
Buy a copy of the book, attend the event, and enter to win farm-fresh products such as eggs, honey, llamanure soil amendment, homemade jam or flowers.
Friday, May 6
Robbin Gourley - First Garden: The White House Garden and How It Grew
10:30 a.m. Michelle Obama started the White House kitchen garden in 2009, the first vegetable garden on the grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II Victory Garden. Gourley gives a colorful and informative tour of the First Garden in prose and drawings and includes delicious recipes children will love. Ages 5-8.
Alexi Zentner - Touch
7 p.m. An accomplished short story writer, Zentner’s haunting first novel is set in northern Canada. Stephen, an Anglican priest, holds vigil for his dying mother and is overwhelmed with memories of his youth. Zentner’s evocative prose balances the somber occasion with powerful descriptions of logging, woodland spirits, and unforgettable characters.
Saturday, May 7
Sophia Rosenfeld - Common Sense: A Political History
1 p.m. Before the idea of common sense became integral to popular democracy and the American spirit thanks to Tom Paine, it had played a varied role in Europe during the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions. In her history of populist wisdom as a political tool, Rosenfeld, a history professor and author of A Revolution in Language, shows that it has been as manipulable as any other ideal.
Miranda Kennedy - Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India
5 p.m. As a journalist working in New Delhi for five years, Kennedy experienced the fast pace of a vibrant modern city where, beneath the Westernized surface, a traditional culture continued to exert a strong hold, especially for women. Kennedy’s memoir introduces several Indian women she knew and recounts how they negotiated old and new rules of behavior.
May 8 - Mother's Day - NO EVENTS
Come into the store to see our recommendations for Mother’s Day gifts, or click here to see our suggestions online! |
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .
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Thursday, April 28, 6 p.m.
 Laogai Museum
1734 20th St., NW
MARJORIE GANN and JANET WILLEN
FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF SLAVERY (Tundra Books, $27.95)
Slavery has existed throughout human history from ancient Sumeria to Medieval Europe to present day Ghana and beyond. Authors Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen put a human face on the slavery world-wide for readers ages 11 and up. The book’s American launch is at the newly reopened Laogai Museum, which exposes China's vast system of brutal forced labor prison camps.
Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by sending an email to Laogai@laogai.org or calling (202) 408-8300 x300.
Saturday, May 7, 7 p.m.
The 31st Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony
Folger Shakespeare Theater
201 East Capitol Street SE
Celebrate literature in this festive evening packed with literary rock stars! Master of Ceremonies Scott Simon will host the 31st annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony featuring readings by winner Deborah Eisenberg (The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg) and finalists Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad), Jaimy Gordon (Lord of Misrule), Eric Puchner (Model Home), and Brad Watson (Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives). The PEN/Faulkner judging panel, including Laura Furman, William Kittredge, and Helena Maria Viramontes, will deliver individual citations for each honored book, and a seated dinner will follow in the Folger Library's Old Reading Room.
Click here to purchase tickets ($100) or call the Folger Library at 202-544-7077.
Wednesday, May 11, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live
National Geographic, Grosvenor Auditorium
1600 M Street, NW
CAROL BECKWITH and ANGELA FISHER
DINKA: Legendary Cattle Keepers of Sudan (Rizzoli, $75)
Thirty years of work on the African continent have carried Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher across 270,000 miles and through remote corners of 40 countries in exploration of more than 150 African cultures. According to Beckwith and Fisher, “These unique cultures possess a wealth of knowledge that should be celebrated, shared, and honored. It is our life passion to document and create a powerful visual record of these vanishing ways of life for future generations.”
Beckwith and Fisher’s most recent book, Dinka: Legendary Cattle Keepers of Sudan¸ is the fruit of a 30-year study documenting the vanishing people in war-torn Sudan. The pair were recently awarded two prestigious awards, the Image Award of the Spanish Geographical Society for excellence in photography, and the coveted Lowell Thomas Award of the Explorers Club, given only to the world’s most distinguished explorers. A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.
Click here to purchase tickets (National Geographic Members: $16 for individual tickets or $42 for 3-Part Series tickets; General public: $18 for individual tickets or $48 for 3-Part Series tickets).
Thursday, May 12, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live
National Geographic, Grosvenor Auditorium
1600 M Street, NW
ANDREW McCARTHY in conversation with DON GEORGE
A MOVABLE FEAST: Life Changing Food Adventures Around the World (Lonely Planet, $14.99)
Andrew McCarthy, the star of Anything But Love, 2B Perfectly Honest, and St. Elmo’s Fire, is also a contributing editor for National Geographic Traveler magazine, contributor to the Best American Travel series, and was named 2010 Travel Writer of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers. In the Lonely Planet anthology A Movable Feast, McCarthy shares his most memorable travel adventures. Traveler contributing editor Don George will join McCarthy in conversation. The event will be preceded by a reception at 6:30 p.m.
Co-sponsored with National Geographic Traveler magazine.
Click here to purchase tickets (National Geographic Members: $16 for individual tickets or $42 for 3-Part Series tickets; General public: $18 for individual tickets or $48 for 3-Part Series tickets).
Thursday, May 12, 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
 Book Launch Party
1130 Connecticut Ave., NW (Lobby)
FRANCES PARK and GINGER PARK
CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE: The True Story of Two Sisters, Tons of Treats, and the Little Shop That Could (Thomas Dunne Books, $23.99)
“A real life Chocolat set in the nation's capital,” sisters Frances and Ginger Park’s memoir Chocolate Chocolate embraces sisterhood, the Great American Dream, romance, the immigrant experience, and, of course, twenty-five years of chocolate love. Please RSVP at ginger@chocolatedc.com.
Thursday, May 12, 7:30 p.m.
 Friendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Avenue, Chevy Chase
SARAH PEKKANEN
SKIPPING A BEAT (Washington Square Press, $15.00)
Skipping a Beat is the moving story of a marriage and the choices we make as individuals that shape our lives forever. After Michael collapses in his office of a cardiac arrest, he survives and decides to give away his multi-million dollar fortune. His wife, Julia, isn’t ready to leave their affluent lifestyle behind and must decide if she is willing to take a leap into a new life with the man she once loved.
Skipping a Beat has received rave reviews from The Washington Post to People Magazine to Oprah Winfrey. Sarah Pekkanen writes the monthly “Domestic Disturbances” column for Bethesda Magazine, and has been published in USA Today, The New Republic, The Baltimore Sun, Reader’s Digest, and heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She is the author of The Opposite Of Me.
This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797. Copies of the book, provided by Politics and Prose Bookstore, will be available for purchase.
Bookmark this link for future offsite events.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT |
CHILDREN’S BOOKMARK CONTEST WINNER!
Congratulations to our bookmark contest winner, Jamie Stewart-Aday, and to contest runners-up Maddie Wilson and Alex Mountfield! Their entries beautifully depicted their favorite places to visit, real or imaginary, in a book. We’ll have copies of Politics & Prose bookmarks with Jamie’s winning design available at the store soon! In the meantime, you can check out all of the other wonderful entries on the Children and Teens’ Department page. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest!
 CHILDREN’S DEPARTMENT BOOK OF THE WEEK
LITTLE WHITE RABBIT (Greenwillow, $16.99) is curious about what it would be like to fly with the butterflies or to be green like the grass. In his imagination, rendered vividly in Kevin Henkes’s illustrations, Little White Rabbit can transform himself into anything he wants to be. He grows tall enough to see over the trees and turns into a still, quiet rock. Even after all his adventures, Little White Rabbit knows that he can return home to his mother who loves him. Ages 1-3. –Kerri Poore
Don’t forget to visit us and browse our selection of great books for Mother’s Day!
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.
Click here to access the teen blog.
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MARKDOWN BOOKS
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What better way to wrap up Poetry Month than with a collection by the former Poet Laureate, Louise Glück? The poems of A VILLAGE LIFE, her 11th book, are as straightforward as the title suggests. While Glück has often turned to mythology for structure and material, here her speakers aren’t gods or heroes but anonymous villagers living in accordance with natural rhythms and annual rituals. The stuff more of a Hardy novel than of fable or fairy tale, Glück’s men and women work hard and dream of another life in the city, but persevere where they are, believing that “whatever happened in that window / we were in harmony with it.” Available in hardcover, $5.98.
The versatile Edmund White has turned his hand to fiction, memoirs, and biographies. He has a particular interest in French culture and literature, a subject he returns to in RIMBAUD: The Double Life of a Rebel. White was intrigued by this poet at an early age, and his empathy for the man is evident in his masterly translations of the poetry. White vividly evokes Rimbaud’s family and social relations, his restlessness and romanticism, and the young poet’s African wanderings after he abandoned poetry at the age of twenty-one. Available in hardcover, $4.98.
Herta Müller’s THE LAND OF GREEN PLUMS is a powerful evocation of life under a totalitarian regime, and gives a vivid sense of what it’s like to live with repression, fear, and corruption on a daily basis. Drawn from her years living in Ceausescu’s Romania, Müller’s novel tells the story of a group of young people looking for a better life than the one they’re likely to have in their rural village. They head for the city, but instead of finding new opportunities, they’re plunged into a confusing tangle of betrayals. Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009—this novel is eloquent testimony to her skill in transforming an ugly reality into art. Available in hardcover, $6.98.
Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.
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MUSIC NEWS
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NEW FOLK
Woody Guthrie, THE LIVE WIRE (Rounder, $18.98) – A rare bootleg wire recording of a 1949 concert in Newark was given to the Woody Guthrie Archive; no other concert recordings exist. You get to hear some of Woody’s greatest songs—“Grand Coulee Dam,” “Tom Joad,” “Pastures of Plenty”—and also Woody’s stories about the songs.
 Amédé Ardoin, MAMA, I’LL BE LONG GONE: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, 1929-1934 (Tompkins Square Records, $19.98) – Afro-Creole accordionist Amédé Ardoin laid the groundwork for Cajun (and later, zydeco) accordion playing on his bluesy and driving recordings with fiddler Dennis McGhee in 1929. Now, all of his recordings (some surviving in just one copy) are collected in this important historical package. NPR had a piece on the great Amédé
Mike and Peggy Seeger, FLY DOWN LITTLE BIRD (Appleseed Records, $17.98) – Mike Seeger’s last recording before his death in 2009 was this reunion with his sister, Peggy. The collection includes many of the songs they learned as children from their parents (composer and folklorist, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and folklorist Charles Seeger) and other visiting folk greats.
Emmylou Harris, HARD BARGAIN (Nonesuch, $17.98) – Emmylou’s latest focuses on her songwriting, but it’s always her great voice that carries the tunes.
Note: Emmylou Harris will be in concert at Wolf Trap this summer, on July 23.
NEW JAZZ
Bill Frisell, SIGN OF LIFE: Music for 858 Quartet (Savoy Jazz, $15.98) – Guitarist Bill Frisell’s new album reunites him with his “string quartet” of long-time associates: Jenny Scheinman, violin; Eyvind Kang, viola; and Hank Roberts, cello. These new compositions and arrangements showcase the group’s melodicism and telepathic interplay.
James Farm, JAMES FARM (Nonesuch, $17.98) – The new jazz collective, James Farm, is an all-star group composed of Joshua Redman on tenor and soprano saxes; Aaron Parks on piano and keyboards; Matt Penmann on bass; and Eric Harland on drums.
Ambrose Akinmusire, WHEN THE HEART EMERGES GLISTENING (Blue Note, $17.98) – The new generation of trumpeters has arrived, with Ambrose at the forefront.
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BOOK GROUPS |
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Politics & Prose currently hosts eighteen 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.
Thursday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
Fascinating History Book Group
Grand Avenues, by Scott Berg
May 26 selection: Truman, by David McCullough
Monday, May 2, 7:30 p.m.
Classics Book Group
The Nicomachean Ethics, Books 8 and 9 "Friendship" by Aristotle
May 6 selection: TBA
Tuesday, May 3, 7 p.m.
Travel Book Group
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
June 7 selection: The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton
Wednesday, May 4, 7:30 p.m.
Futurist Book Group
Crisis Economics, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm
June 1 selection: World Wide Mind, by Michael Chorost
Click here to learn more about participating in these or other Politics & Prose book groups and to see the entire month of upcoming meetings.
All book-group titles are discounted 20% to participants. Please join us!
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MOTHER'S DAY GIFT BAGS
Marc Freedman's