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Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of August.
Members always save 20% on author event books and titles included in other special promotions. Click here to register!
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Thursday, June 9
6 p.m. Sugar Ray Leonard - The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring (signing only)
8 p.m. Dr. Norman Rosenthal with David Lynch - Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation
at The Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave, N.W.
Friday, June 10
7 p.m. David Ignatius - Bloodmoney
Saturday, June 11
6 p.m. Ann McLaughlin - A Trial in Summer
Sunday, June 12
1 p.m. Jacqueline Davies - The Lemonade Crime
5 p.m. Maziar Bahari - Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival
Monday, June 13
10:30 a.m. Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures - Olé and Play
7 p.m. Lisa See - Dreams of Joy
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Tuesday, June 14
7 p.m. Paul Madonna - Everything is Its Own Reward: An All Over Coffee Collection
Wednesday, June 15
7 p.m. Juliet Eilperin - Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks
Thursday, June 16
5 p.m. Sarah Dessen - What Happened to Goodbye
at the Bethesda Library, 7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD
7 p.m. Pete Hamill - Tabloid City
Friday, June 17
7 p.m. Sam Kean - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Saturday, June 18
6 p.m. Snigdha Prakash - All the Justice Money Can Buy: Corporate Greed on Trial
Sunday, June 19
FATHER'S DAY - No Event Scheduled
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LETTER FROM BARBARA
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UNBRIDLED BOOKS 25 cent EBOOK SALE - JUNE 9-11
 Our website www.politics-prose.com offers electronic books for nearly all reading devices - iPad, Nook, SonyReader, Kobo. And due to contractual publisher agreements, the prices are the same as the "big guys". Come in and consult with our booksellers about how this works!
This weekend, Unbridled Books, a small independent press, is partnering with the American Booksellers Association and Politics & Prose to offer a special - 25 Unbridled eBooks for 25 cents apiece. Usually $9.99, these books will be available through www.politics-prose.com for 25 cents for three days only, June 9 - 11. Try one or buy them all; it's a great way to try out your eReader and sample some great independent literature.
Several of Unbridled's books have been chosen and recommended by a consortium of independent bookstores across the country, for the IndieNext list of the best new releases, including three #1 picks —The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson; The Green Age of Asher Witherow by M. Allen Cunningham; and The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel, which our bookseller, Elizabeth Sher, also chose to recommend as one of her favorites in our 2011 Summer Newsletter!
THE SINGER'S GUN opens with two questions: how well do we really know our colleagues? And more specifically, why is Anton Waker alone on his honeymoon? Through meticulously layered flashbacks that reveal passport fraud, Kafka-esque bureaucracies, and an international crime ring, the talented Emily St. John Mandel does, eventually, give us answers. Moving from the grimy streets of Brooklyn to shiny Manhattan office towers to an idyllic Italian island, The Singer’s Gun happily subverts the conventions of both literary novel and genre thriller. Like Mandel’s wandering, amoral characters, this unique book resides in a netherworld of its own creation. - Elizabeth Sher
Click here to see more books included in this promotional sale. You can click the titles or the book covers featured on our website to sample Google Previews before making your choices. You can also stop in the store to see our display, or bring your digital reader into the store to ask our booksellers for help with the downloads.
SHOP for EBOOKS with P&P GIFT CARDS
In response to your requests, customers now can use P&P gift cards to buy Google eBooks from Politics & Prose! Simply enter the number on the back of the card as your method of payment. As with your other shopping on our website, if there is not enough balance on the gift card to cover the eBook purchase, you will be prompted to enter a credit card as well.
While it is not yet possible to give an eBook as a gift, you now can give a P&P gift card along with a book recommendation so that your gift recipient can use the card to add the book to his or her personal electronic library. If it's not convenient to come into the store to pick up your gift card, we can generate a gift card number to use as an online gift certificate. Call us for more details!
Click here for instructions on downloading an ebook.
BALLOU HIGH SCHOOL BOOK DRIVE RESULTS
Thank all of you who generously donated 60 books to the Ballou High School library during our member sale. School librarian Melissa Jackson joins us in our appreciation. Your participation in these efforts, your votes of confidence as members, and your purchases throughout the year enable us to give back to our community, to help local schools and to encourage the love of reading.
MEMBER DISCOUNTS ON AUDIOBOOKS
During the entire month of June, we will discount all audiobooks to our members. Perfect accompaniment for those trips you will be taking this summer or to make your daily commute more enjoyable.
FATHER'S DAY GIFT BAGS
Father's Day is June 19th this year. Click here to buy a Father's Day Gift Bag.
Click here for other gift suggestions for fathers.
We also recommend the gift of a Book-a-Month or enrollment in our Signed First Editions Club for books that will arrive all year long.
We also have High School and College Graduation Gift Bags.
Click here for recommendations for graduates.
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BARBARA'S BYLINE
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In plenty of time for Bastille Day, LA SEDUCTION (Times, $27), by New York Times Paris correspondent Elaine Sciolino, is full of savoir faire about how the French "play the game of life," and is so avant garde that it contains a photograph of Dominique Strauss-Kahn at a time when he "livened up dinner parties.with some people expressing admiration that such a high-profile political figure can find time for an active social life." Currently, President Obama, Sciolino says, is a grand seducteur with his élégance, intelligence, et beauté, but it's the French who have mastered the art of cunning intellectual foreplay with abundant but subtle use of double entendres or "second degree," as it is known in France.
Nowhere is this conversational style more evident than in French cinema, and Sciolino invokes some marvelous scenes of verbal seduction from such directors as Eric Rohmer and Francois Truffaut to illustrate her argument. And then there's gastronomic seduction: Jean-Claude Ribaut of Le Monde, "the poet of French food critics," describes his fantasy of a French meal cooked to seduce, but Sciolini maintains that there's no food too humble for seduction. It's all great fun and a cornucopia of the French pursuit of pleasure.
- Barbara Meade
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COMING SOON TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE
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Click www.politics-prose.com/event for our author events calendar through August.
For children's and teens' events, see the Children's Department News below.
Thursday, June 9
Sugar Ray Leonard - The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring
6 p.m. A national Golden Gloves champion in 1973 and ’74, and Olympic gold medalist in 1976, Leonard is one of the great boxers of our time. In his autobiography he recounts the challenges he faced both in and out of the ring. This event is a book- signing only. There will be no talk/Q&A.
Dr. Norman Rosenthal with David Lynch - Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation
at The Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave, N.W.
8 p.m. Rosenthal's pioneering work on seasonal affective disorder has brought relief to millions of people. In his new book, the internationally recognized psychiatrist explains transcendental meditation, describing what it is, how it works, and letting practitioners, among them David Lynch, recount their own experiences with TM. This is a ticketed event. $10 tickets will be available at the door or receive two free admission tickets with a purchase of the book.
Friday, June 10
David Ignatius - Bloodmoney
7 p.m. A Washington Post journalist as well as a spy novelist, Ignatius has the facts that give his thrillers the ring of truth. His seventh work of fiction features a young CIA agent, sent to Pakistan to find out who is killing members of an intelligence unit there. As her investigation deepens, she travels throughout the Middle East.
Saturday, June 11
Ann McLaughlin - A Trial in Summer
6 p.m. The seventh novel from this accomplished local author is set in San Francisco in 1939. The daughter of a judge, Lorie is about to follow suit by going to law school, but she’d rather be a photographer. When she takes pictures of longshoremen, and gets romantically involved with a man who’s not what he seems, she jeopardizes the trial of a labor leader over which her father is presiding.
Sunday, June 12
Maziar Bahari - Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival
5 p.m. Of Iranian descent, Bahari, a journalist and filmmaker, returned to his homeland in 2009 to cover the presidential election for Newsweek, only to be arrested during the demonstrations. He spent three months in Evin prison, continuing something of a family tradition: his father was detained by the Shah in 1950, his sister by Khomeini in the 1980s.
Monday, June 13
Lisa See - Dreams of Joy
7 p.m. See’s bestselling novels about Chinese women include Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love. In Shanghai Girls she introduced Pearl and May, beautiful, undaunted sisters. Their story continues in this new novel as they face the consequences of past actions, particularly in regard to Pearl’s daughter, Joy.
Tuesday, June 14
Paul Madonna - Everything is Its Own Reward: An All Over Coffee Collection
7 p.m. This second collection of work from Madonna's San Francisco Chronicle series, All Over Coffee, is continued testimony to the artist’s unique vision. Specializing in pen-and-ink cityscapes, Madonna pairs his haunting graphic work with equally intriguing stories, conversations, and meditations.
Wednesday, June 15
Juliet Eilperin - Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks
7 p.m. A Washington Post reporter specializing in the environment, Eilperin, author of Fight Club Politics, here takes on the ocean’s top predator: sharks. Eilperin has traveled around the world exploring the different ways humans and sharks interact, and her book combines science, cultural studies, and, yes, adventure.
Thursday, June 16
Pete Hamill - Tabloid City
7 p.m. Hamill combines his skills as a novelist, journalist, and keen observer of New York for this fast-paced crime novel, which features a spectacular society murder as well as the final days of the city’s last afternoon tabloid.
Friday, June 17
Sam Kean - The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
7 p.m. There’s more to the periodic table than meets the eye—the elements have some great stories behind them, and Kean, a writer for Science, recounts some of them here, from the parlor trick involving gallium (or Ga31) alluded to in the book’s title, to why Silicon Valley isn’t Germanium Valley. Join us for the paperback release of this witty survey.
Saturday, June 18
Snigdha Prakash - All the Justice Money Can Buy: Corporate Greed on Trial
6 p.m. An investigative journalist, Prakash here expands the series of reports she did for NPR on Merck’s pain medication, Vioxx, withdrawn from the market after a three-year court battle over the drug's role in heart attacks and strokes. Her story illustrates the difficulties faced by ordinary citizens who set out to challenge rich corporations.
Sunday, June 19
FATHER'S DAY - No Event Scheduled
Your dad really doesn't need another tie! Click here for our suggestions for fathers!
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .
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Politics & Prose supplies books to many book signing parties and events. The events below are open to the public; however, reservations and tickets should be acquired from the hosting organization. Please contact offsite@politics-prose.com if you are planning an event and would like us to supply the books.
Monday, June 13, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live!
1600 M Street, NW
ROSS D. E. MACPHEE
RACE TO THE END: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole (Sterling Innovation, $27.95)
Two explorers from different countries, with different goals, and employing very different methods of travel, set off across Antarctica in early 1911 to claim one of the greatest prizes in the history of exploration. Ross MacPhee, curator of the new National Geographic Museum exhibition, will bring to life the dramatic and fateful duel, offering insights based on his own experiences at high latitudes. MacPhee is also a curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
Co-presented with the British Embassy and the Embassy of Norway. See the Museum exhibition “Race to the End of the Earth” along with this presentation!
Click here to purchase $18 tickets (NG Members, $16; Combo ticket with exhibit, $20)
Thursday, June 16, 6:30 pm
 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
Jewish Cooking 101: Farmers' Market Meals
LEAH KOENIG
THE HADASSAH EVERYDAY COOKBOOK: Daily Meals for the Contemporary Jewish Kitchen (Universe, $34.95)
Inspired by the produce at your local farmers’ market? Join Leah Koenig, author of The Hadassah Everyday Cookbook: Daily Meals for the Contemporary Jewish Kitchen and former editor-in-chief of the award winning food blog The Jew and the Carrot to learn how to make eco-kosher portobello mushroom burgers and basil two-bean salad.
Click here to enroll. The class is $30. Books will be for sale at the class. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
Wednesday, June 22, 7 p.m.
 House of Sweden
2900 K Street, NW
EVA GABRIELSSON
"THERE ARE THINGS I WANT YOU TO KNOW" ABOUT STIEG LARSSON AND ME (Seven Stories, $23.95)
An evening of literature with Diane Rehm, NPR anchor, and Stieg Larsson's longtime companion, Eva Gabrielsson. Gabrielsson tells a story that no one else can, about the life she shared with Stieg Larsson - the man everyone wants to know more about, and about whom so little is known.
Click here for $10 tickets, which includes a complimentary rooftop reception at 6 p.m.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT
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 CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through June 15)
Many books are about how famous people lived, but only one tells HOW THEY CROAKED: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous (Walker, $17.99). Georgia Bragg’s fascinating chronology introduces readers to more than a dozen historical figures and their chronic or fatal maladies. From Marie Antoinette’s beheading to Mozart’s septic condition, the gory details may be the main attraction, but these famous people’s lives and contributions to the world are equally interesting. Bragg includes historical notes at the end of each chapter and Kevin O’Malley’s illustrations complement the text with humor. Ages 10-14 –Heidi Powell
For more recommendations, you can browse our catalog of Children's Department Summer Favorites in .pdf format by clicking here. The printed catalogs are available in the store.
Share your favorite books with us and with each other. Keep track of your reading on our Summer Book Log and submit reviews of your favorites to the Children and Teens’ Department. Every week, starting the week of July 4, we will post a review on our website. You may submit more than one review; however, we will post no more than one review per person.
Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here.
EVENTS FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS
Sunday, June 12, 1 p.m.
Jacqueline Davies - The Lemonade Crime
Scott Spencer was introduced in the popular The Lemonade War as the chief suspect in the lemonade stand's missing cash; now he stands trial for the crime. Jessie, Evan and the rest of the fourth grade turn their classroom into a courtroom, with a judge, witnesses and a jury of peers. Ages 8-12.
Monday, June 13
Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures - Olé and Play
10:30 a.m. A Spanish Story Hour with the Spanish language learning program Isabella & Ferdinand. This CD consists of 13 fun and engaging songs about important artists and historical figures from Spain and Latin America. The event will be held entirely in Spanish. Ages 3-11
Thursday, June 16
Sarah Dessen - What Happened to Goodbye
at the Bethesda Library, 7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD
5 p.m. After her parents divorce, McLean is estranged from her mother and moves with her father, living in four different towns in two years. With each uprooting, she recreates herself, even going by different names. Then she meets Dave, someone she can be herself with, and maybe he can help her figure out who that self is. Ages 12-16
For upcoming events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.
Click here to access the teen blog.
Do you want to receive periodic updates about special events and news for children and teens at Politics & Prose?
Click here to change your email preferences, and add "Children's & Teens' News and Events" or "Teen Events and News" to your chosen mailing lists! |
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MARKDOWN BOOKS
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Andrea Wulf’s second book, The Founding Gardeners, is currently getting glowing reviews and has been a P&P bestseller. Wulf made her name, and established her specialty—horticulture in early American history—with her first book, THE BROTHER GARDENERS: Botany, Empire, and the Birth of an Obsession. The eponymous brothers shared an interest rather than a bloodline and lived a continent apart. In England, Peter Collinson, a merchant, eagerly awaited shipments of seedlings and seeds from John Bartram, a farmer in the New World. Wulf chronicles Collinson’s growing enthusiasm for the exotic plants and how he established them-in gardens throughout England. She’s also a spirited guide to the Linnaean classification system, which the Swedish botanist was devising at about the same time. Available in hardcover, $12.98.
With recipes and photographs, 97 ORCHARD: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement is a remarkable treat of a book. Written by Jane Ziegelman, a food writer with ties to New York’s Tenement Museum, the book looks at the multi-cultural life of the Lower East Side at the turn of the century. Immigrants from Germany Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe struggled to maintain Old World traditions while coping with New World realities. Ziegelman looks at what happened in private kitchens as well as with pushcart venders on the streets and in the new Russian tea rooms and German beer gardens. Available in hardcover, $5.98.
A graceful work of historical fiction, THE QUICKENING MAZE, the first novel (and a Man Booker Prize-nominee) by the British poet Adam Foulds, recreates events from 1837. That year the once-renowned, but now out-of fashion, “peasant poet,” John Clare, was committed to High Beach, a mental institution. Also on the scene: the up-and-coming poet Alfred Tennyson, not yet a Lord. As the daughter of the hospital’s administrator falls into unrequited love with Tennyson, her father embarks on a scheme to mass produce carvings that imitate the traditional handcrafts. Foulds’s slim novel captures an England on the cusp of major social and economic change. Available in paperback, $5.98.
Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.
• Laurie Greer
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MUSIC NEWS
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NEW JAZZ
JD Allen Trio, VICTORY! (Sunnyside, $16.98) – Ever since Sonny Rollins popularized the format, the tenor sax trio has been the heavyweight category of jazz. JD Allen’s third album with his trio continues in the tradition, with strong melodic ballads and up-tempo tunes. His interplay with his rhythm section, bassist Gregg August and drummer Rudy Royston, is stronger than ever.
The CD also includes a 10-minute film with scenes from the recording session, from the Bohemian Caverns in DC, and from last summer’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, in Harlem.
Alert: The trio will be featured this Saturday, June 11, at Subterrenean A, as part of the D.C. Jazz Festival’s Loft Jazz Series.
Jane Bunnett & Hilario Duran, CUBAN RHAPSODY (Alma, $16.98) – Soprano saxophonist and flute player Jane Bunnett has immersed herself in the music of
Cuba for over two decades. She and pianist Hilario Duran take on some Cuban classics such as “Lagrimas Negras” and “Son de la Loma” in this duets album.
Craig Taborn, AVENGING ANGELS (ECM, $17.98) – Craig Taborn has been a supportive MVP on both piano and electric keyboards in many bands including those of James Carter, Christ Potter, Roscoe Mitchell, and Tim Berne. He’s just recorded his first solo piano CD. Kevin Whitehead reviewed the album on NPR’s Fresh Air (here, http://www.npr.org/2011/06/02/136885703/craig-taborn-seeping-into-the-consciousness )
SOUNDS FROM THE PAST
Jimmie Dale Gilmore & the Wronglers, HEIRLOOM MUSIC (Neanderthal Records, $14.98) – Texas singer and songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s voice always had an “old-timey,” crooner sound, and on his latest collection, he shines on songs associated with Charlie Poole, the Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills, and the Delmore Brothers. 
Eddie Vedder, UKELELE SONGS (Universal Republic, $13.98) – Singing solo with a ukulele recalls a bygone era as well, even when your voice is as recognizably modern as Eddie Vedder’s. He mixes new tunes, a Pearl Jam remake, and standards“Tonight You Belong to Me” and “Dream a Little Dream.”
There’s also a new DVD from Vedder’s solo tour, recorded at the Warner Theater, WATER ON THE ROAD, directed by Brendan Canty and Christoph Green (the Burn to Shine series, Wilco’s Ashes of American Flags)
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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P&P's book groups meet monthly and are free and open to the public.
Thursday, June 9, 7:30 p.m.
Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Group
The City and the City, by China Mieville
July 14 selection: Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
Monday, June 13, 7:30 p.m.
Women's Biography Book Group
A Woman Among Warlords, by Malalai Joya
July selection: TBA
Tuesday, June 14, 7;30 p.m.
Evening Fiction Book Group
Pictures at an Exhibition, by Houghteling
July 12 selection: Wanting, by Richard Flanagan
Wednesday, June 15, 12:30 p.m.
Daytime Book Group
Beowulf, A New Verse Translation, translated by Seamus Heaney
July 20 selection: The Book of Daniel, by E.L. Doctorow
Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.
Veterans Book Group
Kill or Capture, by Matthew Alexander
Postponed two weeks until June 30
July selection: TBA
Click here to learn more about participating in these or other Politics & Prose book groups.
Did you know that we send monthly updates about suggestions for private book groups as well as news about book groups at Politics & Prose? Click here to change your subscription preferences and add "Monthly Book Group Recommendations and News" to your chosen mailing lists!
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE |
June Photo Exhibit Join us on Sunday, June 12 from 3-6 p.m. for a free reception with the artist. Rick Crockett’s photographic exhibition “Tidal Ways” is an ongoing series which captures and chronicles accidental artistry which the sea creates as it interacts with natural elements along North American coastlines and forms a Rorschach test etched into a canvas of sand.
Click here for more news from the Modern Times blog.
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