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Week of July 21

Author Events Jason Zinoman, Thomas Kaufman, Melanie Benjamin, and Esmeralda Santiago

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New PaperbacksBestsellers
Children and TeensMusic

 

Click here for our events calendar to preview upcoming events through the end of September.
Members always save 20% on author event books and titles included in other special promotions. Click here to register!

 

Thursday July 28, 2011
7 p.m. Jason Zinoman - Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror

Friday July 29
7 p.m. Matthew Swanson & Robbi Behr - Idiots' Books

Saturday July 30
6 p.m. Joby Warrick - The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA

Sunday July 31
5 p.m. Thomas Kaufman - Steal the Show

Monday, August 1
7 p.m. Melanie Benjamin - The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb


 

Tuesday, August 2
7 p.m. Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind

Wednesday, August 3
7 p.m. Esmeralda Santiago - Conquistadora

Thursday, August 4
7 p.m. Kerry Malawista, Anne Adelman and Catherine Anderson - Wearing My Tutu to Analysis: Learning Psychodynamic Concepts from Life



The Scoop from Brad & Lissa

New Classes

NEW CLASSES for the FALL and WINTER

In an effort to better serve our customers, Politics & Prose is in the process of expanding the array of classes it offers. We have hired Susan Coll, an accomplished writer herself, to put together a list of course offerings sure to appeal to a wide range of literary, artistic and other interests.

A few classes, some taught by familiar instructors and others by new ones, have already been posted on our schedule for the fall and winter. But the current list of seven choices is just the beginning. We’ll be announcing more options later in the season, so please make a point of checking P&P’s website regularly for updates. Click here to see our class catalog.

We encourage you to pay special attention to two retreat options, one for readers and one for writers, which are sponsored by friends from our community. We hope these unusual opportunities will carry particular appeal for those in search of enriching getaway experiences. Click here to read about these opportunities.

When you are ready to enroll, you can do so online by clicking the hyperlinks in the titles or at the base of each description. Or just call our store information desk at 202-364-1919, where a staff member will be happy to accept enrollment by phone.

Thanks as always for helping to make Politics & Prose such a lively destination by participating in our classes, book groups, author events, book fairs, and other community activities.

- Brad & Lissa


DAVID'S DELIBERATIONS


Hare

 

Many of you have already discovered The Hare with Amber Eyes (Picador, $16), a rich book of memory and history, due to be released in paperback next week. In it, Edmund de Waal, a highly regarded British ceramicist and potter, retraced his family history through a large collection of netsuke, small Japanese figurines carved from ivory and box wood.

A few weeks ago, during my own family trip to London and Leeds, my cousins Davina and Larry Belling enthusiastically recommended the book to me. I dropped what I was reading and became passionately engrossed. The hardcover was published in the US in at the end of Carla’s illness. If she had read it, I know that we would have conversed about it for many hours and days. . .

Click here to read more about The Hare with Amber Eyes.

- David Cohen


BOOKNOTES

Harry Potter

Harry Potter Parking Lot - October 1999

You may have seen this post on our Facebook page last week. How many of you were there to greet J.K. Rowling when she came to P&P to sign copies of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?

See Jeff Krulik's nostalgic video by clicking here.


EBOOK OF THE WEEK

ebookDon’t miss the last Kurt Wallander novel!

THE TROUBLED MAN (Knopf, $13.99) is the final book in Henning Mankell’s internationally bestselling series.  The Swedish detective, now 60-years-old and suspended from the Ystad police force, is investigating a Cold War case from 1980.  When his source, a retired naval commander, disappears, Wallander is drawn deeper into a mystery that could cause scandal in the current government.  Mankell deftly interweaves international and Swedish politics with Wallander’s own quest.  As any mystery reader knows, Scandinavian crime novels are in their Golden Age, and Henning Mankell started it all. - Anna Thorn

Click here for more recommended ebooks. Note that all of these ebooks are also available as print books. Amazing!

Friday, August 14

7 p.m. eBook Information Session
www.politics-prose.com sells eBooks for most digital reading devices. It's easy to use and, due to agreements with all the major publishers, our prices are the same as through Barnes & Noble, the Mac Store, or Amazon. Learn how to download a Google eBook through Politics & Prose website.

Space is limited. Sign up today by emailing your name (and type of eReader) to
[email protected].


PODCAST AND SIGNED BOOK OF THE WEEK

LadderMaya Soetoro-Ng gave a beautiful reading of her lyrical new book Ladder to the Moon (Candlewick, $16.99). A group from New York surprised the author with a unique performance of her text set to music. During the remarkable Q and A, members of the audience from the Philippines and India asked about the author’s use of moon imagery and shed light on the moon’s symbolism in their own cultures. You can hear the music and questions on the podcast. Also featured is an enlightening discussion of the work of Soetoro-Ng’s mother, Ann Dunham, with women around the world and her commitment to world peace.

We still have signed copies available. Click here to listen to this podcast and to order a book.

Click here to browse more of our recent podcasts available on downloadable MP3s.

All of our author event titles are discounted 20% to Politics & Prose members, who, by registering their commitment to the store, support us in bringing these fantastic authors to your community.


P&P BESTSELLERS

bestsellersAll Politics & Prose Weekly Hardcover Bestsellers are 20% off for Members.
These are our top two titles. Click to see which other fiction and non-fiction books we are discounting this week.

Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America, by Cameron McWhirter (Henry Holt, $32.50)
State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins, $26.99)


STATIONERY ITEM OF THE WEEK

Bookplates

We are proud of our unique selection of bookplates, especially those handmade by Saturn Press ($8), a letterpress printing company founded in 1986 embracing the fine tactile qualities that the craft printing process offers. With their innovative techniques, custom blending of ink colors, and elaborate methods of using old heavy metal letterpress technology, they have been able to expand their color palette and create a tactile impression that modern computer printing can't duplicate. Their printing stands out. Bookplates range in price and we carry a wide variety. See a small selection by clicking here.

Ex Libris: The Art of Bookplates by Martin Hopkinson (Yale Univ., $15) pays homage to the craftsmanship and style of traditional handcrafted printingmaking. You will enjoy both this fascinating treasury and the images that we can provide to make your library one of a kind.

 


COMING SOON TO YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE

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

Events

Thursday July 28, 7 p.m.

Jason Zinoman - Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror
Through a combination of Zinoman’s critic’s eye and dogged reporting, Shock Value looks in depth at the genre of Modern Horror film from the years roughly between 1968 and 1979, when a handful of outcasts and oddballs revolutionized the industry.

NOTE: Jason’s event will feature a screening of two rarely seen short films, Bloodbath (directed by Dan O'Bannon) and Foster's Release (by Terrence Winkless, starring O'Bannon). Both movies are from the USC Film School in the late 60s, a fertile time for genre movies. The screening will follow the Q&A, and last approximately 25 minutes.

Friday July 29, 7 p.m.

Matthew Swanson & Robbi Behr - Idiots' Books
French Explorers, Sacred Cows, and Disappointing Babies: Making and distributing odd, commercially non-viable picture books for adults

Author/illustrator pair Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr of Idiots’ Books will read from their catalog of satirical illustrated volumes and discuss collaboration, running a small press, and their ongoing battle with genre. Their work has been praised by the New York Times, New York Magazine, Slate.com, and BoingBoing, and most recently Michael Dirda in The Washington Post. A selection of their books will be available for sale at the event.

Michael Dirda just wrote about small presses and speciality publishing and this is what he had to say about Idiots' Books. Click here to read his whole article:

More and more, it seems, the new books that really attract me don’t come from the major trade publishers. That doesn’t mean that New York isn’t bringing out good books or that I don’t read plenty of titles from trade houses. But I think that as people grow more sure of their tastes, they often gravitate to those specialized subgenres that particularly appeal to them, or to the more unusual or even minor work from writers they especially care about, and that usually means specialty presses. Let me give some examples.

I enjoy, for instance, the charming little booklets from a Chestertown, Maryland couple who run Idiots Press. He does the words; she does the pictures. Their chapbooks are witty, winsome and original. I suppose their most famous single title is The Baby is Disappointing ($10). It's a delightful treat.

Saturday July 30, 6 p.m.

Joby Warrick - The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA
In a work of investigative reporting that reads like a thriller, Warrick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, tells the story of Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent the CIA had employed to infiltrate Al Qaeda. In December 2009, Balawi detonated a bomb at a secret CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan—thus revealing that he was in fact working against U.S. intelligence.

Sunday July 31, 5 p.m.

Thomas Kaufman - Steal the Show
Kaufman’s first crime novel, Drink the Tea, won awards and introduced Willis Gidney, a man well-versed in D.C.’s juvenile-justice system. In the second Gidney mystery, Kaufman’s anti-hero finds an abandoned baby and, reluctant to surrender her to a life of institutions but unable to afford a child, Gidney gets involved in a small-crime venture that quickly spins out of control.

event

Monday, August 1, 7 p.m.

Melanie Benjamin - The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
After letting Alice Liddell tell her story in Alice I Have Been, Benjamin devotes her second novel to capturing the life and times of Mercy Lavinia Bump, best known for having been two feet, eight inches tall, and for marrying Charles Stratton, aka Tom Thumb, in 1863. But as this spirited story demonstrates, there was much more to Vinnie than that.

Tuesday, August 2, 7 p.m.

Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind
Imagine being accused of a grisly crime and not knowing whether you committed it or not. As Dr. Jennifer White, a retired orthopedic surgeon, describes it in LaPlante’s first novel, her relationship to the murdered Amanda was life-long and complex. But White is suffering from dementia, and may or may not be a reliable witness to her own experience.

Wednesday, August 3, 7 p.m.

Esmeralda Santiago - Conquistadora
Santiago’s colorful historical saga focuses on Ana Cubillas, the eighteen-year-old daughter of aristocrats, as she makes her way from Spain to Puerto Rico in 1844. Helping her husband run their Hacienda, Ana revels in the new challenges, among them hurricanes, illness, and the tides of history that threaten her exotic, privileged life. Available in Spanish and in English.

Thursday, August 4, 7 p.m.

Kerry Malawista, Anne Adelman and Catherine Anderson - Wearing My Tutu to Analysis: Learning Psychodynamic Concepts from Life
Psychodynamic practice is made of stories, and this primer compiled by three practicing psycho-analysts combines personal narratives with five facets of clinical work. The book focuses in turn on psychodynamic theory, the development of ideas, technique, the challenges of treatment, and the experiences of trauma and loss.

There are no weekend events currently scheduled in August.

 

P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .

Politics & Prose sells books at 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 [email protected] if you are planning an event and would like us to supply the books.

Thursday, August 4, 7:30pm

OffsiteFriendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Avenue, Chevy Chase
JOE YONAN
SERVE YOURSELF: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One (Ten Speed, $22)
Serve Yourself is aimed at the food-loving single and includes more than one hundred inventive, easy-to-make, and globally inspired recipes celebrating solo eating. Mr. Yonan is the editor of the Food and Travel sections of The Washington Post, where he writes the award-winning “Cooking for One” column. His work earned for the Post the 2009 and 2010 James Beard Foundation’s award for best food section.

There is no cost for this event. Please sign up in advance by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797.

 

FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT


SUMMER READING DISCOUNTS

Through Labor Day, Politics & Prose offers a 10% discount on books purchased from school summer reading lists. If your school does not provide a summer reading list, check with your public library. All public libraries provide suggested reading lists and we will also honor them with a 10% discount.  Just bring your list; we will be glad to help you make selections for an enjoyable summer of reading.

SHARE YOUR FAVORITES

Share your favorite books with us and each other. Keep track of your reading on our Summer Book Log and submit reviews of your favorites to the Children and Teens’ Department. If your review is posted on our website, you may come in to select a free paperback book! You may submit more than one review; however, we will post no more than one review per person.


ChildrenCHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK

(20% off through August 3)
The biker speeds ALONG A LONG ROAD (Little, Brown, $16.99), curving around tiny villages, racing up hills, and zooming through tunnels. The bold yellow road connects every part of this bright beach community, flowing seamlessly from page to page and from the ocean to the city. Explore each detailed scene as you trace the biker’s path through Frank Viva’s richly imagined world, then go out and check out the view of your own neighborhood from the seat of your bike. Ages 3-6 – Dana Chidiac

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.

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

To receive periodic updates about events and news for children and teens at Politics & Prose, click here to add "Children's & Teens' News and Events" or "Teen Events and News" to your mailing lists!

 

STORY HOUR
Story hour will resume in the Children and Teens' Department on Monday, September 12 at 10:30 a.m., with BearSong and his guitar. Please join us each week for storytelling and music for children birth to 5 years old.

We will also host some special guests for story hour.

On September 19, performers from Isabella and Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures will perform music from their new CD, Ole and Play ($19.99). This event will be held in Spanish.

On October 3, Grammy Award winning artists Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer will entertain us with a variety of musical instruments as they share their new book, Sing to Your Baby (Community Music, $19.95).

Click to sign up here to receive email updates about the Politics & Prose story hour. We will inform you of special story hours, changes or cancellations.

MARKDOWN BOOKS

Markdown

Well, it’s hot. But take a look at Steven Heighton’s novel AFTERLANDS, and you just might appreciate being warm. This literary adventure story (Heighton is a Canadian poet) is based on an actual incident from 1872-73 when a small group of Americans, Germans, and one Inuit were shipwrecked in the Arctic. Heighton’s prose is veritably chilling as he describes the castaways’ struggles to survive the winter on an ice floe. But along with the starvation, illness, and, of course, the cold, the book also includes a love story, rivalries, compassion, and a range of psychological dramas. Available in hardcover, $4.98.

Whether or not your vacation plans include Venice, there’s a great armchair visit in store with Deborah Weisgall’s THE WORLD BEFORE HER. Part historical novel and part look at contemporary life, the book interweaves Marian Evans’s 1880 honeymoon trip to Venice with the stay, a hundred years later, of American sculptor Caroline Spingold. Evans, of course, was the real name of novelist George Eliot, and Weisgall deftly tells the stories of two independent, creative women and how they balance art and love amid the gondolas. Available in hardcover, $4.98.

MONSIEUR LAMBERT is a lovely treat. This little masterpiece by illustrator and cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé is the story of a quiet Frenchman of regular habits, among them, frequent visits to the Restaurant Chez Picard. When one day Monsieur Lambert fails to appear, the other bistro patrons speculate about what may have happened to him. As they try to solve the mystery of their missing companion, the group tells stories about their own lives. Accompanied by Sempé’s charming pen-and-ink drawings, this is a warm tale of friendship and the art of conversation. Available in hardcover, $5.98.

Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.

Laurie Greer


NEW MUSIC

MusicNEW

Eleanor Friedberger, LAST SUMMER (Merge) – Eleanor Friedberger’s Last Summer combines infectiously pop-y tunes with narrative lyrics, some with details worthy of short stories. Half of the brother-sister group, the Fiery Furnaces, Ms Friedberger’s first solo album is tuneful and never over-arranged. There are some great New York City details in “Scenes from Bensonhurst,” “Owl’s Head Park,” and “Roosevelt Island; a side-trip to LA’s “Inn of the Seventh Ray,” as well as a great upbeat break-up song. There are two fun videos here.

This is one of my summer pop favorites (I also highly recommend Red Hot & Rio 2).

 

Mosic

STAFF PICK BY DEB MORRIS

musicTerri Lyne Carrington, THE MOSAIC PROJECT (Concord, $17.98))

When I worked on Sophie’s Parlor at WPFW-FM, I felt it was our duty to find the music of women jazz musicians. It wasn’t hard to find pianists like Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland, or singers like Ella Fitzgerald or Anita O’Day, but it was hard to find the recordings of women musicians playing other instruments. So I spent a lot of time in record stores finding reissues by instrumentalists like trumpeter Valaida Snow, trombonist and arranger Melba Liston, and recordings by guitarist Monette Sundler and saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom.

Being off the air has not dampened my interest in women musicians. New recordings by Regina Carter, Matana Roberts and Cindy Blackman immediately find their way into my collection. So when I first heard about Terri Lyne Carrington’s Mosaic Project, I was excited, and when it arrived, I was not disappointed! From the opening beat of Nona Hendryx’s “Transformation” to the final notes of the re-arranged reprise of the same song, there isn’t a track to be missed.

The album features veterans like Dianne Reeves, Geri Allen, Cassandra Wilson, Sheila E., Patrice Rushen and Dee Dee Bridgewater, and also a host of young musicians, including Esmeralda Spaulding. The horn and reed players Ingrid Jensen, Anat Cohen, Hailey Niswanger and Tineke Postma are outstanding. In the NPR piece (click here), Carrington talks about still finding people are shocked that she can play and play well. She not only plays well but she adds her talents as a composer, arranger and vocalist to her role as bandleader.

Playing well is a gross understatement: If you saw Carrington’s group accompanying Reeves, Wilson and Bridgewater at this year’s Mary Lou Williams Festival tribute to Abbey Lincoln, you know that there is a special relationship between these women. Each of the vocals on the album is stellar, my particular favorite Wilson’s “Simply Beautiful” by Al Green. Bernice Johnson Reagon’s “Echo” maintains all its power in the hands of Diane Reeves, and I can’t leave out my other favorite, Gretchan Parlato’s take on Irving Berlin’s “I Got Lost in His Arms.”

Click here to watch a video about the whole Mosaic Project.

And here’s a video on the recording of “I Got Lost in His Arms,” with Gretchen Parlato.

Click here for more news and reviews.

Please call us at 202-364-1919 or email me at [email protected] to order these CDs.

Andr�s Goldinger



BOOK GROUPS


P&P's book groups meet monthly and are free and open to the public.

Thursday, July 28, 7:30 p.m.

Fascinating History Book Group
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, by Eric Foner
August 25 selection: Paradise of Cities: Venice in the Nineteenth Century, by John Julius Norwich

Monday, August 1, 7:30 p.m.

Classics Book Group
Amphitryon, by Plautus
September 5: No Meeting due to Labor Day

Tuesday, August 2, 7:30 p.m.

Travel Book Group
In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin
September 6 selection: To Hellholes and Back, by Chuck Thompson

Wednesday, August 3, 7:30 p.m.

Futurist Book Group
No Meeting in August
September 7 selection: The Innovator's Way, by Peter Denning

Thursday, August 4, 7:30 p.m.

Capital James Joyce Book Group
Purgatorio by Dante (Canto 20)


Click here to learn more about participating in these or other Politics & Prose book groups.
To receive monthly updates about suggestions for private book groups as well as book groups at Politics & Prose, click here to add "Monthly Book Group Recommendations and News" to your mailing lists!



NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE


Reminding you

Please don't leave your things, whether big or small, plugged in or stuffed under a chair, unattended or out of your sight. This includes walking away to grab a napkin, setting your stuff down to save a seat, ducking into the area by the bathrooms to take a phone call (yes, we all do it). Several folks, including employees, have had items stolen recently.

Click here for news from the Modern Times blog or to follow them on Twitter.



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Sunday: 10 a.m.- 8 p.m.
Modern Times Coffeehouse opens daily at 8 a.m.

 


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