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The Scoop from Brad & Lissa
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AUGUST IS ACTIVE
Conventional wisdom used to hold that it wasn’t worth scheduling much in August because most people in Washington fled the city for cooler climes. So for years, Politics & Prose didn’t bother to hold author events during the dog days. But that has changed. Not only do many people actually stay in town, they also have more time to read in the summer and enjoy coming to hear writers discuss their works. As a result, P&P now offers an active calendar of events throughout August.
Each week this month, from Monday through Thursday, the store will host an author talk about a newly-published book. With August stretching across nearly five work-weeks this year, that amounts to about 20 events.
Among the upcoming highlights:
August 8—Jonathan Yardley, the Washington Post’s book critic, speaks about Second Reading (Europa, $16), a collection of essays he wrote over the past decade looking at books worth going back to. It’s great reading on great reading.
August 9—Bruce Duffy, a local author, discusses Disaster Was My God (Doubleday, $27.95), his second book in the wake of his critically acclaimed fictional biography of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. This time he takes on the 19th century poet-turned-arms-dealer Arthur Rimbaud.
August 10—Tom Scocca, a journalist and Slate blogger, recounts in his book Beijing Welcomes You (Riverhead, $25.95) the stunning transformation of the Chinese capital as it geared up for the 2004 Olympics.
August 15—Rory Stewart examines the challenges and consequences of intervening in foreign countries, expanding on his new book (co-written with Gerald Knaus) Can Intervention Work? (W.W. Norton, $23.95)
August 16—Jennifer Close, until recently a Politics & Prose bookseller, tells how she came to write Girls in White Dresses (Knopf, $24.95), her celebrated debut novel, which chronicles the ups and downs, and heartaches and headaches, of three young women. Funny and warm, this book is a fresh and witty take on romance and friendship.
Finally, don’t miss a couple of fun events at the end of the month. On August 25, Warren Bernard talks about his book Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising (written with Rick Marschall) (Fantagraphics, $28.99), which documents how popular cartoon characters like the Yellow Kid, Little Orphan Annie, and Popeye have figured in advertising campaigns in earlier eras. As part of his presentation, Bernard will have on-hand select original ads and other advertising items from days gone by.
And on August 29, come play Scrabble to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak (Penguin, $16), now a classic.
So if you’re in town in August, please stop by and join us for these great events.
-- Brad and Lissa
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NEW IN PAPERBACK
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REMINDER - Staff recommended titles from our newsletter are on sale to members
Bliss, Remembered (Overlook, $15) by Frank Deford is set against the ominous backdrop of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where the confident, young, and naive American swimmer, Sydney, falls in love with the charming son of a German diplomat. Their passionate affair falters as their nations, and their perspectives, are confronted by war. The novel discusses whether love and politics can co-exist, and whether love once lost can be regained, or even if it should be. Bill Leggett
Bruce Machart’s The Wake of Forgiveness (Mariner, $14.95) is a fantastic debut. An American Western with all the scope that implies, the novel follows the Skala family over thirty eventful, sometimes explosive, years. It is a novel about men, certainly; the Skala boys, led by their merciless father, toil in the fields and plot and scheme to acquire land and influence. It is also a novel about the absence of women, and the impact this has on the men as they grow. Machart blends sparing dialogue with strong emotional undercurrents. Yes, there are horse races, shoot-outs, arson, and other staples of the Western, but there is also a family coming to terms with their identities, as they learn to accept themselves and each other. Bill Leggett
Who are we without our memories? From South Africa to China, Wyoming to Lithuania, the disparate stories in Anthony Doerr’s Memory Wall (Scribner, $14) are linked by their ability to capture the pathos of the human condition in stunning prose. In “Village 113,” a rural Chinese village is marked as one of hundreds to be destroyed in a man-made flood of the Yangtze River. The seed-keeper of the village must make the painful choice either to move to the city where her son, a government official instrumental in the village’s destruction, lives disconnected from his past, or stay in the only home she’s ever known and drown. The fifteen-year-old orphaned evangelical narrator of “The River Nemunas” is sent to live with her grandfather in Lithuania, where she struggles to hold onto memories of her mother by tracing the river paths her mother took as a young child. In the collection’s beautiful title story, the lives of three South Africans are irrevocably linked by the legacies of apartheid and the greater arc that draws us together: our humanity borne through our memories. If you read only one book this summer, make it Memory Wall. - Lacey Dunham
Click here to view the pdfs of our two summer newsletters and our Children and Teens' Department's Summer Favorites. All of the books in the adult newsletters are 20% off to members until Labor Day. |
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STAFF RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
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Preview of a coming attraction, available on August 9:
Move aside Royal Tenenbaums, THE FAMILY FANG (Ecco, $23.99) has arrived! These radical performance artists - Caleb, Camille, and their children, Annie and Buster - are a wonderful addition to the canon of eccentric families. The chapters of Kevin Wilson's novel alternate between past and present; between vignettes of the Fang's various stagings, which created public pandemonium in the pursuit of art, and the story of Annie and Buster, now grown and living at home after personal and professional failures. When Caleb and Camille go missing, Annie and Buster must confront what it means to be a Fang, an individual and an artist. The limits of familial bonds are tested, and the children are confronted with their parents' ideal art form: chaos. Written in stylish prose that is both tender and hilarious, The Family Fang is, like the art of its protagonists, slightly bizarre and completely compelling. - Sarah Baline |
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BOOK NOTES
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99 cent sale on 20 Harper Perennial eBooks
Do you enjoy offbeat humor, sharp dialogue and well-crafted prose? If you have enjoyed the insights of David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Diablo Cody and Miranda July, and you find Jean Shepherd and Denis Johnson compelling, then you'll also like discovering these contemporary, young novelists and memoirists who are adept at exposing the tragic, the comic, and the darkly poignant underside of American life. Other authors love to recommend these authors, and Harper Perennial wants you to try downloading eBooks! Here's a sample:
Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour, by Rachel Shukert (Harper Perennial eBook, $0.99)
Traveling from Vienna to Zurich to Amsterdam, Rachel bounces through complicated relationships, drunken mishaps, miscommunication, and the reality-adjusting culture shock that every twentysomething faces when sent off to negotiate "the real world".
Praise for Everything Is Going to Be Great…
“Shukert is a hugely funny, wildly smart, and menacingly original writer. I don’t much care for leaving the house, but if I were ever to travel, I’d want to do it in book form and alongside Rachel, who has one billion crazy stories set in foreign lands, all beautifully told.” - Julie Klausner, author of I Don’t Care About Your Band
If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.” - Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
Click here to browse more books featured in this limited-time offer from Harper Perennial.
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PODCAST OF THE WEEK
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 On Thursday, July 14, 2011, John A. Farrell presented his newest book Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned (Doubleday, $32.50) at Politics & Prose.
A journalist, biographer of Tip O’Neill and now senior writer for The Center for Public Integrity, Farrell draws on unpublished documents to examine the darker side of the great defense attorney. Famous for his role in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" and his advocacy on behalf of workers and blacks, Darrow also faced charges of bribing a jury; meanwhile, his personal life was riddled with misjudgments concerning women and money.
Click here to listen to Mr. Farrell's talk and buy the book.
Click here to listen to download more event recordings available from the Politics & Prose archive.
During the month of the author's appearance, 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.
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STATIONERY ITEM OF THE WEEK
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Reading can help you recharge, and now your book light can recharge too. This sleek LightWedge 2.0 book light ($50) focuses powerful LEDs down onto your large paperback or hardcover. You get hours of bright, even light on a single charge…without disturbing those around you. Perfect for home and travel.
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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 September.
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.
Monday, August 8, 7 p.m.
Jonathan Yardley - Second Reading: Notable Neglected Books Revisited
7 p.m. It’s hard enough to keep up with all the new books coming out—but when you consider the titles you’ve overlooked through the years, the task is truly daunting. From 2003 until January 2010, The Washington Post’s book critic offered an occasional, selective look at books worth going back to. Now some of these essays have been collected—here’s great reading on great reading. Click to read a longer review on page 4 of our Summer Newsletter.
Tuesday August 9, 7 p.m.
Bruce Duffy - Disaster Was My God: A Novel of the Outlaw Life of Arthur Rimbaud
7 p.m. As he did with Wittgenstein in The World as I Found It, Duffy expertly rides the line between fact and fiction to tell the story of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), who started writing a stunningly new kind of poetry when he was sixteen. By age twenty-one, he’d given up literature forever. Why? What happened? Duffy tackles the first question by way of a powerful fictional dramatization of the second. Click here to read more on page 3 of our Summer Newsletter.
Wednesday, August 10, 7 p.m.
Tom Scocca - Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future
7 p.m. Scocca, a journalist and Slate blogger, decamped to China in 2004, in time to watch Beijing gear up for the Olympics. As he reports on the stunning transformation of the city, which entailed everything from rerouting traffic, planting trees, and outlawing public spitting to engineering the weather, Scocca makes a case for Beijing as the capital of the future.
Thursday, August 11, 7 p.m.
Larrie D. Ferreiro - Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World
7 p.m. The eighteenth century saw heated disputes about the planet’s shape, with Newton arguing that Earth was flattened at the poles, while French scientists thought it was elongated. A joint French-Spanish expedition to Peru from 1735 to 1739 settled the question, and Ferreiro’s account brings the period’s theories, discoveries, and adventures vividly to life.
Sunday, August 14, 5 p.m.
eBook Information Session
www.politics-prose.com sells eBooks for most digital reading devices. They're easy to use and, due to contractual 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 weborders@politics-prose.com
Click here to see some of our current recommended eBooks.
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P&P CUSTOMERS ARE ALSO INVITED TO . . .
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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 offsite@politics-prose.com if you are planning an event and would like us to supply the books.
Thursday, August 4, 7:30pm
 Friendship 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.
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FROM THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT
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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.
 CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through August 10)
MOOMIN’S LIFT-THE-FLAP HIDE AND SEEK (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $6.99) invites children to join Moomintroll, a young troll who looks more like a hippopotamus, in a game of Hide and Seek with his friend Little My. Moomintroll searches high and low throughout his brightly colored world for his mischievous pal. Lifting the book’s flaps reveals a host of friends and family—but where is Little My? Find out in this charming introduction to the Moomins. Explore our collection of classic Moomin books and comic strips for all ages by Swedish-Finnish author Tove Jansson. Ages 1-3 – Janet Minichiello
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).
Sign up here to receive email updates about the Politics & Prose story hour. We will inform you of special story hours, changes or cancellations.
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MARKDOWN BOOKS
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To tell someone how to find your house, you can direct them to go left then right, or you can say “head east for half a mile.” These two options are available to English speakers, that is. For Australian aboriginal speakers of Guuga Yimithirr, only the latter mode is possible, as their language lacks an “egocentric” vocabulary of “left, “right,” “in front of,” and “behind.” In his fascinating trip THROUGH THE LANGUAGE GLASS, Guy Deutscher, author of The Unfolding of Language, investigates how language shapes, expands, and constrains human world views—or doesn’t. Available in hardcover, $10.98.
In the brief, powerful essays of ENCOUNTER the France-based Czech writer Milan Kundera considers the role of art in the modern world. As you might expect from a world-renowned novelist, he looks at the fiction that has made its mark on him, and this book contains illuminating criticism of great writers from Dostoyevsky to García Marquez and Philip Roth. But Kundera’s aim here is larger than any single genre, and he also writes about music, film, the visual arts, and even travel. His description of, and meditation on, a moon-drenched landscape in Martinique adds yet greater scope to an already expansive view of how art can take you by surprise. Available in hardcover, $7.98.
From microscopes to telescopes, science is all about the visuals. That’s perhaps one reason why it lends itself so well to the graphic novel format. Lauren Redniss’s RADIOACTIVE: Marie & Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout, however, isn’t a novel, but a factual account of the lives of the Curies and their groundbreaking work with radium. The team won the 1903 Nobel Prize for physics, and Marie alone was awarded the 1911 Nobel for chemistry. Using collage, brilliant full-page swathes of color, drawings, and photos, Redniss depicts the Curies’ courtship and marriage along with their experiments. The text is studded with quotations from their contemporaries as well as individuals who figured prominently once the nuclear era was up and running. Available in hardcover, $14.98.
Click here to shop for more recently acquired remainders.
• Laurie Greer
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NEW MUSIC
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LISZT BICENTENNIAL
Franz Liszt’s bicentennial year is being celebrated with concerts and new recordings galore; here are three of the best so far:
Marc-André Hamelin, LISZT: PIANO SONATA (Hyperion, $18.98)
Nelson Freire, LISZT: HARMONIES DU SOIR (Decca, $18.98)
Louis Lortie, PLAYS LISZT: THE COMPLETE ANNÉES DE PÈLERINAGE (Chandos, 2 CDs, $18.99)
NEW AND RECENT CLASSICAL
Heinz Holliger, BACH: CONCERTOS & SINFONIAS FOR OBOE (ECM, $18.98) – with the Camerata Bern, Erich Höbarth, conductor and violinist.
Julia Fischer, POÈME (Decca, $17.98)) – Violinist Julia Fischer plays Chausson (Poème), Respighi (Poema autunnale), Suk (Fantasy), and Vaghan Williams (The Lark Ascending), with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Yakov Kreizberg conducting.
SUSANA BACA, CULTURE MINISTER
Peru’s president-elect, Ollanta Humala, has chosen the singer Susana Baca as culture minister, the first Afro-Peruvian minister since Peru’s independence from Spain in 1821. Musicians serving as ministers also include Gilberto Gil’s tenure in Brazil from 2003 to 2008. Listen to Susana Baca’s newest CD, a musical tour of the AFRODIASPORA (Luaka Bop, $15.99), with songs from Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and our own Afro-Atlantic port of call, New Orleans.
NEWPORT FOLK & JAZZ
The Newport Folk Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival have venerable histories, and now members of a new generation of artists are adding their voices.
NPR recorded the Folk Festival last weekend, and has some great concerts archived (here, http://www.npr.org/series/newport-folk-festival/ ) by Gillian Welch, Mavis Staples, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, and many more.
This coming weekend, you can listen to the Jazz Festival live, or catch archived concerts later. Some of the artists to look forward to: Charles Lloyd, Steve Coleman, Esperanza Spalding, Regina Carter, Randy Weston (here, http://www.npr.org/series/newport-jazz-festival/ ).
Click here for more 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, August 4, 7:30 p.m.
Capital James Joyce Book Group
Purgatorio by Dante (Canto 20)
September 1 selection: TBA
Monday, August 8, 7:30 p.m.
Women's Biography Book Group
Wild Swans, by Jung Chang
September 12 selection: Between Two Worlds, by Roxana Saberi
Tuesday, August 9, 7:30 p.m.
Evening Fiction Book Group
The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty
September 13 selection: Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton
Wednesday, August 10, 7:30 p.m.
Lez Read
Landing, by Emma Donoghue
September 14 selection: I Came Out for This, by Lisa Gitlin
Thursday, August 11, 7:30 p.m.
Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Group
Fantasy (6:00 p.m.): Grendel, by John Gardner
Science Fiction (7:30 p.m.): How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu
September 8 selection: Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
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!
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NEWS FROM THE COFFEEHOUSE
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The free samples have been, well... sampled; the crumbs wiped off our shirts and the votes have been cast. The pastries baked by Jacques Poulain of CACAO were an immediate hit with our expert panel of tasters. The croissant and pain au chocolat share that flakey exterior and airy buttery-ness found in expertly baked patisserie. The peach danish was so delicious that I forgot how to share; I'm looking forward to the other seasonal fruits they will be locally sourcing. The biggest surprise and staff favorite was the beignet - fried dough coated in sugar - a perfect accompaniment to our upcoming single origin coffee, the Brazil Cerrado Gold. If you're looking for something smaller, look for a selection of their macarons on the counter; we're expecting mango, chocolate, and raspberry tomorrow.
I'm so happy to have found passionate individuals like Jacques and Vili, to welcome them, and to introduce you to their work - that is, if you haven't tasted it already: Jacques bakes out of the Cleveland Park location just a few block south on Connecticut Ave.
Hope you appreciate the hard work that is sampling pastries; we'll do anything for you!
- Javier Rivas
Click here for news from the Modern Times blog or to follow them on Twitter.
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