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Week of September 22

Daniel Yergin, Caroline Kennedy, Sebastian Barry, Neal Stephenson,
and Ron Suskind

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

 

Thursday, September 22
10:30 a.m. Kadir Nelson
Heart & Soul
(Balzer + Bray, $19.99)
5 p.m. Jack Gantos
Dead End in Norvelt
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15.99)
at the Bethesda Library
7 p.m. Daniel Yergin
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
(Penguin Press, $37.95)

Friday, September 23
Kate and Jules Feiffer
10:30 a.m. My Side of the Car
(Candlewick, $16.99)
7 p.m. Sebastian Barry
On Canaan's Side
(Viking, $25.95)

Saturday, September 24
10:30 a.m. Allen Say
Drawing From Memory
(Scholastic, $17.99)
1 p.m. Lynne Kasper Rossetto & Sally Swift
The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends
(Clarkson Potter, $35)
3:30 p.m. Barbara Babcock
Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz
(Stanford Univ., $45)
6 p.m. Ron Suskind
Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
(HarperCollins, $29.99)
8:30 p.m. Neal Stephenson
Reamde
(Wm. Morrow, $35)

Sunday, September 25
1 p.m. Katherine Paterson
The Flint Heart
(Candlewick, $19.99)
5 p.m. John R. Schmidt
The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27)

Monday, September 26
10:30 a.m. Gary Schmidt
Okay for Now
(Clarion, $16.99)
7 p.m. Jerome Groopman & Pamela Hartzband
Your Medical Mind
(Penguin Press, $27.95)
7 p.m. Caroline Kennedy and Michael Beschloss
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (Hyperion, $60)
at GW Lisner Auditorium
21st & H Streets, NW
7:30 p.m. Top of ForBottom of FormUma Krishnaswami, Tami Lewis Brown, and Katy Kelly
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (Atheneum, $16.99)
The Map of Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99)
Melonhead and the Undercover Operation (Delacorte, $12.99)
at the Takoma Park Maryland Library
101 Philadelphia Avenue
Takoma Park, MD



Tuesday, September 27
10:30 a.m. Uma Krishnaswami
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything
(Atheneum, $16.99).
7 p.m. Amitav Ghosh
River of Smoke
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)

Wednesday, September 28
10:30 a.m. Michael Buckley
Nerds Book 3: Cheerleaders of Doom
(Abrams, $14.95)

September 28 – 29
Rosh Hashanah - No evening events

Friday, September 30
7 p.m. Tomas Sedlacek
Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street
(Oxford Univ., $27.95)

Saturday, October 1
1 p.m. Morley Winograd & Michael Hais - Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America (Rutgers Univ., $26.95)
6 p.m. Joel F. Brenner
America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare
(Penguin, $27.95)

Sunday, October 2
5 p.m. Paul Hendrickson
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
(Knopf, $30)
5 p.m. Michael Moore
Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life (Grand Central, $26.99)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW


The Scoop from Brad and Lissa


Debut Novelists

Debut Novelists

FieldingPolitics & Prose is known across the country for its extraordinary author events, numbering almost 500 in the store each year. We are fortunate to be a preferred destination for many of today’s best-known writers of fiction and non-fiction and are pleased to provide a forum for thoughtful discussion of their books.

Equally important to us is providing a platform for young, emerging authors. Independent bookstores play a special role in giving voice to writers whose works might otherwise go unnoticed or who are not yet known enough to guarantee book sales that can dictate who publishes or perishes in the book industry. Over the years, P&P has introduced many talented debut authors to our community, including Téa Obreht, Eleanor Henderson, Jennifer Close, Josh Ritter, Justin Torres, Amy Waldman, Hannah Pittard, Alexander Yates, Susi Wyss, and Anna North, to name a few who have appeared this year. In so doing, we hope that we have helped affirm their works and given them a wider audience.

We are pleased to continue this trend, with several exciting debut fiction writers scheduled to appear at the store this fall. Chad Harbach will read from his novel, The Art of Fielding (Little, Brown, $25.99), on November 8. A couple of us at the store—notably, our superb chief buyer, Mark LaFramboise, and Lissa – received advance copies of the book last May. Comparing notes each day as we progressed through the book, we were mesmerized. The galleys soon became dog-eared as others on the store’s staff followed suit, each seeming to have the same positive reaction.

NovelistsHarbach spent years working on The Art of Fielding, a tale of teammates on a baseball team at a fictitious liberal arts college in the Midwest who, joined by other campus characters, confront their own shattered dreams, individual frailties, and intertwined relationships. The book is nuanced and thought-provoking, while also accessible, entertaining, and touching in its humanity.

We will host another young talent, Erin Morgenstern, who will read from her book, The Night Circus (Doubleday, $26.95), the day before Harbach’s visit. Morgenstern is a writer and painter (and cat lover) whose works reflect her penchant for fairy tales. In this debut novel, the story of two young magicians and their competitive mentors balances magic and mystery with concrete and universal human emotions and actions. The Night Circus has received rave reviews and promises to be a favorite among P&P customers.

And on October 23, we are pleased that David Rowell, an editor at the Washington Post magazine, will be at the store to read from his first novel, The Train of Small Mercies (Putnam, $24.95). It’s a poignant story about six disparate people in six states and how they are affected by Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral train as it travels from New York to Washington.

We hope you’ll enjoy these exceptional books and many more. Check our calendar, emails, and newsletters in the months ahead for more events with debut authors in the winter and spring. We’re very excited about the upcoming schedule.

Happy reading!

Brad and Lissa

 

Barbara’s Byline


QuestDaniel Yergin
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
(Penguin Press, $37.95)
Tonight we have the pleasure of hosting Daniel Yergin. As Dwight Garner of the New York Times tells us,

Daniel Yergin is America’s most influential energy pundit, and the book that put him on the map was The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power [Free Press, $22 (1991)]. It was a best seller, won a Pulitzer Prize and was tailored into a popular PBS mini-series. In the two decades since, Mr. Yergin, operating as a kind of one-man think tank, has had a virtual monopoly on the subject of energy and geopolitics. Such is his influence that one half expects his competitors to file antitrust litigation against him.

Mr. Yergin is back with a sequel to The Prize. . . . if anything, it’s an even better book. It is searching, impartial and alarmingly up to date. . . . The Quest will be necessary reading for C.E.O.’s, conservationists, lawmakers, generals, spies, tech geeks, thriller writers, ambitious terrorists and many others.

 

 

 

GopnikA Camouflaged Treasure

With little notice, House of Anansi Press, a Canadian publishing company dedicated to fine literature, has issued in trade paperback the transcripts of the 2011 Massey Lectures, an annual series co sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the House of Anansi, and Massey College.  In the previous years, the Massey Lectures have given us such fine books as Wade Davis’s The Wayfinders and Margaret Atwood’s Payback.  This year Adam Gopnik delivered the five lectures in a series he called Winter: Five Windows on the Season (Anansi, $19.95).  Hardly an enticing title, but the essays are beautifully written gems about everything from the Romantic poets, to  the races to the North and South Poles, and the thrills of  Canadian ice hockey. Since these essays are written to be spoken, they are comfortably conversational in tone, but Gopnik is such a wonderful writer, and, dazzlingly, a wonderful thinker, that I was almost hypnotically drawn into his expansive meditations.  Read twenty pages a night for 11 nights and you’ll sleep with uncommon ease.

 

Fall Trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater


 

Falling Water

Falling Water

Sunday, October 16, 8 a.m. - 8 p.m.

Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece of domestic architecture, is one of our favorite fall destinations. Once again, we are conducting a community trip to this wooded area of western Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border, to enjoy the foliage during peak season. The tour will include ample time to explore the grounds, take photographs, enjoy lunch in the café, and visit the gift shop.

The trip costs $125, which includes a continental breakfast at Politics & Prose, bus transportation, entrance fee, guided tour, and a tip for the bus driver. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: The House and Its History (Dover, $14.95), a fascinating and comprehensive guidebook with 118 illustrations, is available as part of the package for an additional $12. Click here to read more about the book and browse through it online.

Seating is limited. If you have any questions, please contact Susan Coll at the store or send an email to [email protected]. Register in the store before October 5 by calling 202-364-1919, or click here to sign up online.

 

Fall Classes


Classes

Politics & Prose is continuing to add to the eclectic mix of classes on offer this fall. With subjects ranging from poetry to Shakespeare to knitting to memoir, and with the launch of the Pen/Faulkner book club, we hope you will find something that inspires!

We are particularly excited to present the opportunity for readers and writers to spend a day working with acclaimed novelist Katharine Weber (Triangle (Picador, $15), True Confections (Broadway, $14)). The New York Times said of her recent memoir, The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities (Crown, $24), “Ms. Weber is able to arrange words musically, so that they capture the elusive, unvarnished melodies that haunt our memories of childhood.” She will lead a two-part workshop on Reading and Writing the Unreliable Narrator on December 6. More information appears below.

Please check back regularly, as there is still more to come this fall, including an afternoon workshop with novelist Elissa Schappell (Blueprints for Building Better Girls (Simon & Schuster, $24)), a hands-on photography class, and an examination of Hemingway’s early years which will include a discussion of a forthcoming volume of his letters as well as the novel, The Paris Wife (Ballantine, $25).


Teen Poetry Workshop
Angela Maria Williams
Three Sundays, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
September 25: Discover the Story Within: Narrative Poetry
October 30: Speak Out!: The Art of Performance Poetry
November 20: Rhyme & Reason: Fun With Form Poetry
$75 ($70 for members)

The Graphic Memoir
Janice Shapiro
Monday, October 3, 7 - 9:30 p.m.

$40 ($35 for members)

Poetry with a Side of Fries - Poetry Workshop
Angela Maria Williams
Six Wednesdays, October 5 - November 9, 6 - 8:30 p.m.

$150 ($140 for members)

Pen/Faulkner Reading Series Book Club
Dr. Frazier L. O'Leary, Jr.
Thursday, October 6, 2 - 4 p.m.
$40 ($35 for P&P members and Pen/Faulkner Reading Series subscribers)

Britain in Fact and Fiction: Our Mutual Friend
Virginia Newmyer and Susan Willens

Thursday, October 13, 1- 3 p.m.
$35 ($25 for members)

Fall Trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater
Sunday, October 16, 8 a.m. - 8 p.m.
$125

Hemingway: The Early Years
Jackson R. Bryer
Wednesday, October 26, 2-4 p.m.
$40 ($35 for members)

Othello:  An Introduction and Analysis
Christopher Griffin
Two Fridays, October 28 and November 4, 6 - 8 p.m.
$
45 ($40 for members)

Documenting Dupont Circle with a Camera
Nancy Libson
Two Tuesdays, November 1 & 15, 7 - 9 p.m.
and Sunday, November 6, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

$95 ($85 for members)

Beginning, Middle or End: Memoir Writing This Holiday Season
Chloe Yelena Miller

Four Thursdays, November 3, 10, 17, December 1, 1-2:30 p.m.
(Note: There willl be no class on November 24)
$100 ($80 for members)

Reading and Writing the Unreliable Narrator
Katharine Weber
Tuesday, December 6, two sessions
Reading the Unreliable Narrator, 10 a.m. - noon
Writing the Unreliable Narrator, 2 - 4 p.m.
$40 per session ($35 for members)
$70 for both sessions ($65 for members)

Click here or click here to learn more about these classes.


Signed First Editions Club


First Editions

It took Chad Harbach 10 years to write and now it is sold out almost everywhere. But the P&P Signed First Editions Club has signed copies -- and they are going fast!

Subscribe this week to receive Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding (Little, Brown, $25.99), along with Michael Ondaatje's The Cat’s Table (Knopf, $26) in October and Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)in November.

Liz Sher

Signed Books of the Week


Signed Book

Habibi
Signed by
Craig Thompson
(Pantheon, $35)
First editions, first printings.
Hardcover – September 2011

Cleopatra: A Life
Signed by Stacy Schiff
(Back Bay, $16.99)
First editions, first printings.
Paperback – September 2011
Cleopatra: A Life
Signed by
Stacy Schiff
(Little, Brown and Company, $29.99)
Not first printings.
Hardcover – November 2010


P&P Bestsellers



All 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.

Bestsellers

The Cut, by George Pelecanos (Reagan Arthur, $25.99)

Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (Hardcover with 8 Audio CDs) Interviews with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Forward by Caroline Kennedy and introduction by Michael Beschloss (Hyperion, $60)

 

Upcoming Ticketed Events



Monday, September 26, 7 p.m.

Caroline KennedyGW Lisner Auditorium
21st & H Streets, NW
Metro: Foggy Bottom/GWU
Caroline Kennedy and Michael Beschloss
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (Hyperion, $60)

In March 1964 Jacqueline Kennedy sat down with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the two recorded a series of interviews, which were then sealed and deposited in the JFK Library. The eight-and-a-half hours of intimate conversation about John F. Kennedy’s life and work are now available on CD and in printed transcript. To mark this special occasion, Caroline Kennedy, historian Michael Beschloss, and others will participate in a panel discussion on the JFK legacy, presented in conjunction with The George Washington University

Two free tickets will be provided with each purchase of the book from Politics & Prose. Additional tickets are $15 (or $20 the day of the event). Books and tickets may be picked up at P&P after September 14 or at the event at GW Lisner Auditorium on September 26.

Sunday, October 2, 5 p.m.

Mooreat Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Michael Moore
Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life (Grand Central, $26.99)
Breaking the autobiographical mode, the author and filmmaker presents twenty-four far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his own early life.

Two free tickets will be provided with each purchase of the book from P&P. Additional tickets are $12 (or $15 the day of the event). Prepayment is required to secure reservations. Books and tickets cannot be held without a confirmed payment.

Books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose beginning September 13, or on October 2, the day of the event, at Sixth & I Synagogue. The event Will Call opens at 4 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 5 with General Admission seating.

Monday, October 17, 7 p.m.

Brysonat Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Bill Bryson
At Home (Anchor, $15.95 / Doubleday, $28.95)

Bryson’s informative and genial chronicle of the evolution of the modern household might be subtitled “a short history of nearly everything in the house.” Moving room by room through his own abode, a 19th-century rural parsonage, he finds in the layout and objects a wealth of history on everything from disease to landscaping to lighting. Join us for the paperback release of this instant favorite.

Two free tickets will be provided with each purchase of the book (paperback or hardcover) from P&P. Additional tickets are $10 (or $12 the day of the event).

Books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose beginning October 4, or on October 17, the day of the event, at Sixth & I Synagogue. The event Will Call opens at 6 p.m.; the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.

Monday, October 31, 7 p.m.

Marriageat Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Jeffrey Eugenides
The Marriage Plot (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)

Mitchell, Madeleine, and Leonard: a classic triangle, but in the hands of the masterful author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex, the story of these three college classmates is much more. Set in the early 1980s, the novel chronicles the characters’ experiences as they finish college and face the “real” world. Given illness, unrequited love, and impossible models like Mother Teresa, of what help to them is semiotics, Jane Austen, or even Darwin?

Two free tickets will be provided with each purchase of the book from P&P. Additional tickets are $12 (or $15 the day of the event).

Books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose beginning October 11, or on October 31, the day of the event, at Sixth & I Synagogue. The event Will Call opens at 6 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.

 

 

Coming Soon to Your Favorite Bookstore


Event

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

Thursday, September 22, 10:30 a.m.

Kadir Nelson
Heart & Soul
(Balzer + Bray, $19.99)
Winner of two Caldecott honors, Coretta Scott King illustrator and author awards, and the Sibert Medal, Nelson combines luminous illustrations with stories of African-American contributions to American history. Here a centenarian looks back to her ancestors’ slavery as she herself watches a black man become U.S. president. Ages 11 and up.

Thursday, September 22, 5 p.m.

Jack Gantos
Dead End in Norvelt
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15.99)
at the Bethesda Library
5 p.m.
This hilarious autobiography begins in the summer of 1962. Jack is grounded for firing a World War II Japanese rifle he didn’t know was loaded. Later, he works as assistant to the local obituary writer, and the two keep busy with documenting, then investigating, a series of deaths. Ages 11-14.

Thursday, September 22, 7 p.m.

Daniel Yergin
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
(Penguin Press, $37.95)
Complementing his Pulitzer-winning The Prize, Yergin’s new book is a comprehensive study of global energy. From the rise of the petro-state to the future of renewable energy sources, from the scramble for the resources in the former Soviet region to peak oil, from geopolitics to climate change, Yergin considers the many ways energy is the key to today’s world, and suggests how to achieve an energy-secure future.

Friday, September 23, 10:30 a.m.

Kate and Jules Feiffer
My Side of the Car
(Candlewick, $16.99)
Every time Kate and her father plan to visit the zoo, something comes up to spoil their plans. When they’re at last in the car and on their way, it rains. Kate, however, is certain it is not raining on her side of the car. The determined little girl convinces her father that the day will be sunny. Ages 3-6.

Event2

Friday, September 23, 7 p.m.

Sebastian Barry
On Canaan's Side
(Viking, $25.95)
Barry weaves Irish with American events for a deftly plotted, richly psychological narrative of the 20th century. Told by Lilly Dunne (sister of Willie from A Long Long Way and the eponymous Annie Dunne) at age 89, the novel intertwines the stories of her two marriages and the fates of her son and grandson with the century’s many wars, from the Irish struggle for independence to the first Gulf war.

Saturday, September 24, 10:30 a.m.

Allen Say
Drawing From Memory
(Scholastic, $17.99)
10:30 a.m. Part memoir and part history, the new graphic book by the Caldecott Medal winner chronicles Say’s apprenticeship with a Japanese cartoonist when Say was twelve. It also tells the story of the difficult years after World War II, and Say’s adjustment to moving to America when he was fifteen. Ages 10-14.

Saturday, September 24, 1 p.m.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper & Sally Swift
The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends
(Clarkson N. Potter, $35)
Kasper, food writer, lecturer, historian, and host of American Public Media’s award-winning radio show The Splendid Table, teams up with producer Sally Swift for a collection of recipes and food writing.  Designed for the more relaxed schedule of the weekends, the book features international menus, history tidbits, wit, and wine pairings.

Saturday, September 24, 3:30 p.m.

Barbara Babcock
Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz
(Stanford Univ., $45)
The first case argued by California’s first woman lawyer was her own. Clara Foltz (1849-1934), rejected from law school because of her gender, sued for and won admission. In her biography of this remarkable woman, Babcock, professor of law emerita at Stanford, recounts Foltz’s struggles and many achievements, which included her work on progressive issues including women’s rights, establishing the role of public defender, and raising five children

Events.

Saturday, September 24, 6 p.m.

Ron Suskind
Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President
(HarperCollins, $29.99)
With the same thorough research, dramatic revelations, and narrative flair that made A Hope in the Unseen, The Way of the World, and The One-Percent Doctrine such important books, Suskind here tells the full story of the recent financial crisis. This compelling report probes both Wall Street and Washington, laying out the actions not only of bankers but of lobbyists, reformers, politicians, and advisors.

Saturday, September 24, 8:30 p.m.

Neal Stephenson
Reamde
(Wm. Morrow, $35)
Stephenson’s fiction is breathtaking in its imaginative range. Like the dazzling Anathem and Cryptonomicon, his new novel starts with established genres and comes up with something startlingly new. A thriller, Reamde follows the fate of a tech entrepreneur as the line between reality and his fantasy online war game disappears.

Sunday, September 25, 1 p.m.

Katherine Paterson
The Flint Heart
(Candlewick, $19.99)
Katherine Paterson is the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and a two-time winner of both the Newbery Medal and National Book Awards. In her new book, Charles Jago’s genial father finds a Stone Age flint heart, which turns him into a cruel, belligerent bully. Charles and his sister do all they can—including seeking help from fairies—to save their father from this horrible charm. Ages 7-12.

Sunday, September 25, 5 p.m.

John R. Schmidt
The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27)
In his thorough and insightful history of Pakistan, the veteran political analyst and career foreign officer focuses on the nation’s “feudal political class” to explain how Pakistan has become “the most dangerous place on Earth.” Schmidt documents how the rulers encouraged radicals and used them to further national interests in Kashmir and Afghanistan—only to lose control of the jihadists after 9/11.

Events

Monday, September 26, 10:30 a.m.

Gary Schmidt
Okay for Now
(Clarion, $16.99)
Doug has no idea he’s a talented artist until his family moves to upstate New York in 1968 and a librarian introduces him to Audubon’s work. As he learns how to draw, he gains confidence and realizes that he can surmount his family difficulties. Ages 12-14.

Monday, September 26, 7 p.m.

Jerome Groopman & Pamela Hartzband
Your Medical Mind
(Penguin Press, $27.95)
In this primer for making medical decisions, Groopman, New Yorker  writer and author of How Doctors Think, and Hartzband, an endocrinologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, use case studies; the expertise of doctors, psychologists, and economists; and their own experiences as physicians and patients to help sort out the bewildering—and often conflicting—range of information about treatment.

children

Monday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.

at the Takoma Park Maryland Library
101 Philadelphia Avenue
Takoma Park, MD
Uma Krishnaswami, Tami Lewis Brown, and Katy Kelly
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (Atheneum, $16.99)
The Map of Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99)
Melonhead and the Undercover Operation (Delacorte, $12.99)
Join Politics & Prose and the Takoma Park Public Library in welcoming Uma Krishnaswami, Tami Lewis Brown, and Katy Kelly. Please call the library at 301.891.7259 or our Children's Department at 202-364-1919 for more information.

Tuesday, September 27, 10:30 a.m.

Uma Krishnaswami
The Grand Plan to Fix Everything
(Atheneum, $16.99)
When Dini and her parents move back to India, she misses her Maryland friends, especially Maddie. She has trouble adjusting to a new school and to a town so rural that monkeys run through her house. But she continues to email Maddie, and the two concoct a scheme to meet a famous Bollywood star that Dini hopes will fix everything. Ages 8-10.

events

Tuesday, September 27, 7 p.m.

Amitav Ghosh
River of Smoke
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
In the second volume of the projected trilogy that began with Sea of Poppies, the Ibis is besieged by a cyclone in the Sea of Bengal. A rich manifest of classes and ethnicities, the ship’s passengers range from indentured servants to rogues to opium merchants, and Ghosh lets their stories play out on an epic scale.

Wednesday, September 28, 10:30 a.m.

Michael Buckley
Nerds Book 3: Cheerleaders of Doom
( Abrams, $14.95)
In Buckley’s latest spy spoof, Matilda “Wheezer” Choi, an asthmatic whose inhalers give her the power to fly, infiltrates the school cheerleading squad. The group has been using a time portal and now faces serious trouble—unless Matilda can come to the rescue. Ages 9-12.

September 28 – 29

Rosh Hashanah - No evening events

Friday, September 30, 7 p.m.

Tomas Sedlacek
Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street
(Oxford Univ., $27.95)
In his bold new approach to the dismal science, Sedlacek, who serves on the National Economic Council in Prague, returns economics to its roots. Adam Smith was a philosopher before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, and Sedlacek frames questions of value in terms of ethics and morality, buttressing his arguments not with statistics but with myriad cultural phenomena, from epics to the Bible to films.

Saturday, October 1, 1 p.m.

Morley Winograd & Michael Hais - Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America (Rutgers Univ., $26.95)
Move over, Boomers and Gen X—it’s time for the Millennial Generation. Characterized by idealism and pragmatism, social tolerance and an eager embrace of social media, Americans born between 1982 and 2003 are already making their mark, as the tech-savvy grassroots groundswell for Obama demonstrated.

Event

Saturday, October 1, 6 p.m.

Joel F. Brenner
America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare
(Penguin, $27.95)
From WikiLeaks to hackers to counterfeit computer chips, cyberspace has emerged as especially vulnerable territory in the post-9/11 landscape. Brenner, former inspector general and senior counsel at the NSA, outlines the problems for governments, corporations, and individuals seeking to preserve both freedom and security on the Internet.

Sunday, October 2, 5 p.m.

Paul Hendrickson
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
(Knopf, $30)
You’ve heard of Hemingway’s wives, but what about Pilar? A thirty-eight-foot motor yacht, Pilar was Papa’s refuge, his escape vehicle, and his occasional muse. Reflecting the boat’s central place and myriad roles in the writer’s life, Hendrickson, author of Sons of Mississippi, focuses this critical and biographical study on Hemingway’s voyages, his on-board entertaining, and the vessel’s effect on his turbulent moods.

 

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, September 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Family MealGW’s Lisner Auditorium
730, 21st Street, NW
Metro: Foggy Bottom/ GWU

Ferran Adrià & José Andrés
The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria (Phaidon, $29.95)
José Andrés, the James Beard award-winning and critically acclaimed chef, welcomes longtime friend and mentor and culinary legend Ferran Adrià to Washington with an exclusive and intimate discussion. Andrés and Adrià, whose friendship began more than twenty years ago in Spain, will share stories and insights on their storied careers, Adrià’s future as one of the most creative chefs in history and now as the head of the El Bulli Foundation, as well as his new cookbook. With introductions from the Washington Post’s Food and Travel editor, Joe Yonan, the event will include a Q & A session, followed by a book signing by Adrià.

For more information on $20 tickets ($40 includes the book; $10 culinary students), contact the Lisner Box Office at (202) 994-6800 or click here to purchase online.

A portion of the proceeds benefit World Central Kitchen, Andres’s international organization to combat food insecurity, and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private initiative that saves lives and resources “by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.”

Tuesday, October 4, 6 p.m.

WesmooreMartin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library
901 G St., N.W., Great Hall
DC Reads Inaugural Event
Wes Moore
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (Spiegel & Grau, $15)
Join New York Times bestselling author Wes Moore for a discussion and book signing. The Other Wes Moore tells the real-life story of two kids with the same name living in the same decaying city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder.  This is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.

At 5:15 p.m., meet local community leaders and enjoy light refreshments made possible by the D.C. Public Library Foundation. Ages 12 and up. Click here to RSVP for this free event.

DC Reads is a DC Public Library literacy program designed to appeal to a wide audience, generate in-depth questions, provoke conversation, and celebrate the joy of reading. In coordination with other city-wide celebrations, P&P will host a public discussion on Sunday, November 6, at 5 p.m. with moderator Kurt Schmoke, Dean of the Howard University Law School and former Mayor of Baltimore, and two special guests -- the mother of the author Wes Moore and the sister of the "other" Wes Moore.

Tuesday, October 4, 7 p.m.

LiteraryThe Arts Club of Washington
2017 I Street, NW

A Literary Evening with Christopher Sten
Literary Capital: A Washington Reader (Univ. of Georgia, $29.95)
A professor of English and American literature at George Washington University, Sten began work on this collection many years ago, when it dawned on him that most of the authors on his syllabus had written of their experiences in Washington, DC. He discovered three significant traditions. One is formed by a group of nationally prominent authors (such as Henry Adams, Walt Whitman, Gore Vidal, and Mary McCarthy) who have written fiction or essays about national issues centered in Washington. A second is composed of native or naturalized writers (such as Jean Toomer, E. Ethelbert Miller, or George Pelecanos) who know the local scene first-hand and write about the lives of everyday Washingtonians. The third tradition overlaps the other two and is made up of a large group of African American writers (including William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Marita Golden and Edward P. Jones). Many in this last group also played a significant role in the “New Negro” movement of the 1920s and 1930s, a movement usually identified almost exclusively with New York.

This lecture and booksigning are free and open to the public. For more information, please call 202-331-7282 or visit www.artsclubofwashington.org

Tuesday, October 4, 7 p.m.

Joan NathanNational Geographic Live
1145, 17th Street NW

Joan Nathan
Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France (Knopf, $39.95)

Enjoy a talk and tastes of French Jewish cuisine guided by Joan Nathan, the host of PBS’ Jewish Cooking in America and author of ten acclaimed cookbooks. Nathan traces her family’s heritage and explores cooking as culture. Lynne Rosetto Kasper, host of NPR’s Splendid Table says, “When Joan Nathan decides to dig into Jewish heritage anywhere in the world, we readers should just fasten our seat belts and get ready for a glorious ride.” Moderated by Traveler Magazine Editor Don George. A reception, sponsored by Royal Wine Corp., will follow the event.

Click here for more information and to purchase $48 tickets. (NG Members: $42)

Thursday, October 6, 6:30 p.m.

Suffering of LightMexican Cultural Institute
2829, 16th Street, NW

A Photographer’s Journey: A Conversation with Alex Webb
Suffering of Light: 30 Years of Photographs (Aperture, $65)

In this artist talk, Webb will present his most recent monograph, which is largely drawn from his work in Latin America; provide insight into his fascinating photographs of the US/ Mexican border, featured in our current exhibition Mexico Through the Lens of National Geographic; and converse with Juan García de Oteyza about the important role of photographs and photographers in shaping our understanding of people and places. Copies of The Suffering of Light will be available for purchase.

[email protected]. (202) 728-1628

Friday, October 7, 7:30 p.m.

OccupantsNational Geographic Live
1145, 17th Street NW

Music on…Photography
Henry Rollins
Occupants (Chicago Review, $35)

For 30 years, Henry Rollins—spoken word artist and former Black Flag frontman—has traveled to the world’s toughest corners, sharing observations through words, images, and music. His new book pairs Rollins’s visceral full-color photographs with powerful writings, creating a testimony to resilience in the face of anger and suffering.

Read Henry’s blog on the Nat Geo Channel site, and read an interview with him on the Nat Geo Music site. Watch a video of Henry Rollins on the Nat Geo WILD channel.

Click here for more information and for $40 tickets. (NG Members: $38)

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From the Children and Teens' Department


 

Children's Book of the Week

Dragon(20% off through September 28)
“‘Prepare to do battle, brave knights!’ cried King Jack. ‘Protect your king’s castle from dragon attack!’” With these epic words, Jack, Zack, and Caspar launch an all-day battle against the beasts and monsters of their imaginations. After retreating to their stronghold (a cardboard box filled with snacks), Sir Zack and young Caspar are whisked away by giants (sometimes known as parents) for bedtime. The only ones left as night falls are King Jack and the Dragon (Dial, $17.99), but luckily the dragon is far more gentle than the four-legged fright Jack imagines. Peter Bentley’s rhyming story about the wonders of make-believe is complemented perfectly by Helen Oxenbury’s classic illustrations. Ages 2-5. –Amy Kane

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

Join the Teen Book Group!
Sunday, September 25, 3:30 p.m.
Politics & Prose Remainder Room

The Teen Book Group, for 7-9 graders, meets on the 4th Sunday of each month at 3:30 p.m. Book group members participate in two activities: they read and review books that haven’t yet been published (Advance Reader’s Copies); and they choose, read, and discuss books as a group.

We'll ring in the new school year with a discussion of Okay for Now (Clarion, $16.99) by Gary Schmidt. Doug has no idea he’s a talented artist until his family moves to upstate New York in 1968 and a librarian introduces him to Audubon’s work. As he learns how to draw, he gains confidence and realizes that he can surmount his family difficulties.

Interested in joining? Email Dana at [email protected].

Mr. Schmidt will also read at Politics & Prose on Monday, September 26 at 10:30 a.m.

Mother Daughter Tea

Tami

 

Join us for our second annual Mother-Daughter Tea on Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 4:30 p.m. Tami Lewis Brown will speak about her new book The Map of Me (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $16.99). Please call the store for details. Seating is limited. The cost is $10.00 per person or $8.00 for members. We will be serving light refreshments.

Story Hour

Sing To Your Baby

 

Story hour with BearSong and his guitar takes place in the Children and Teens' Department each Monday at 10:30 a.m., Please join us each week for storytelling and music for children from birth to 5 years old.

We will host some special guests for story hour on October 3 when 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.

 

Markdown Books


The 2011 Nobel winners will be announced next month. Here’s a review of some past winners whose work has come to the remainder section:

Markdown books

Wislawa Szymborska won the prize in 1996. In her recent collection Here, the Polish poet, now nearly 90, voices an eloquent appreciation for the stuff of everyday life, for memories, for visions of the future. So down to earth that her poem “Metaphysics” comes with “a side of fries,” Szymborska makes abstractions immediate and concrete. Time both expands and disappears, for instance, when she conjures a vision of her younger self and recognizes that the girl wears a scarf “crocheted for her/by our mother”—a scarf Szymborska still owns. If you’re one who believes that poetry is what’s lost in translation, never fear: this edition has both the original Polish and the English translation, done by Szymvborska’s long-time translators, Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak. Available in hardcover, $6.98.

In 1998 the Nobel for literature went to the Portuguese fiction writer, José Saramago. Known for his unique mix of realism and whimsy, as well as for weaving comments about the follies of humanity into his narrative, Saramago took his premise for The Elephant’s Journey from a little-known historical fact. In 1551 the King of Portugal sent an elephant to the Archduke of Austria as a wedding present. Saramago recreates the trip as part fable, part adventure, part history, as Solomon the elephant, his mahut, and a vast retinue of aides and guards march through civil wars, the Reformation, and Alpine blizzards. Available in hardcover, $6.98.

Romanian born and, since 1987 a resident of Germany, Herta Müller was little known by American readers until she won the 2009 Nobel. In her novel The Appointment she recreates life under the repressive Ceausescu regime. As psychological as it is political, this first-person narrative is the harrowing story of a factory worker who is so desperate to escape the oppression that she sews pleas for help into the seams of men’s suits on their way to Italy. When the authorities somehow get wind of these messages, they summon the offender for an interrogation. But before she even appears before the police, she sees things that shock her. Available in paperback, $4.98.

Please call or stop by the store to shop for these discounted titles.

Laurie Greer

 

Music News


 

Miles DavisNew Jazz

Miles Davis Quintet, Live in Europe, 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 (Columbia Legacy, 3 CDs/1 DVD, $45.98) – The mid-1960s Miles Davis Quintet (Miles on trumpet; Wayne Shorter, saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums) recorded some of the most forward looking music of the period, and in their live sets, the quintet took those new tunes and expanded them even further.

As Nate Chinen wrote the New York Times, this new 4-CD/DVD box set “captures Davis’s finest working band at its apogee, straining at the limits of post-bop refinement (click to see the full article).

There’s also a one-disc selection from the box set, Best of the Bootleg Vol. 1 (Columbia, $11.98).

Charles Lloyd Quartet and Maria Farantouri, Athens Concert (ECM, 2CDs, $29.98) – Charles Lloyd is a supremely melodic saxophone, and has played songs from all corners of the world. It was a natural step to collaborate with one Greece’s most iconic singers, Maria Farantouri. Lloyd’s young quartet (including Jason Moran, piano; Reuben Rogers, bass; Eric Harland, drums) and two Greek musicians (Socratis Sinopoulos, lyra; Takis Farazis, piano) accompany Farantouri on folk songs, Byzantine sacred music, and songs by Theodorakis, Karaindrou, and Lloyd himself.

 

Music

Tosca

The Washington National Opera is presenting its production of Puccini’s Tosca for three final performances this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, September 22-24.

Listen to perhaps the greatest recording of Tosca (EMI, 2 CDs, $23.98), with Maria Callas as Tosca, Giusseppe di Stefano Cavaradossi, and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia, with Victor de Sabata conducting the Chorus and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala. (A bonus disc contains synopsis and libretto with translations.)

 

 

WilcoWilco CD Release Party

On Monday, September 26, from 9 to 10 p.m., P&P will host a release party for Wilco’s new album, The Whole Love (dBpm Records), which officially comes out the next day.

We will have posters, calendars, and stickers to give away, and one grand prize for a lucky winner: a limited edition 7”single (“I Might” b/w “I Love My Label”); plus a signed Wilco poster, tote bag, t-shirt, turntable adapter, and yo-yo.

We’ll have the CD, the Deluxe CD (with some extra songs), and a few LPs.

 

 

Music

Ticket Raffle for Madeleine Peyroux & Nellie McKay at Strathmore

Strathmore Music Center is presenting two of the best singer/songwriters (and cover artists) on the scene today when it presents Madeleine Peyroux, with Nellie McKay as opening act, on Friday, September 30.

Strathmore is giving away pairs of tickets to Politics & Prose customers.

Madeleine Peyroux’s latest CD is Standing on the Rooftop, released in June. Nelly McKay’s latest is Home Sweet Mobile Home, released last year (and don’t forget her 2009 tribute to Doris Day, As Normal as Blueberry Pie).

To enter the drawing, please email your name and phone number to [email protected] , and put peyroux in the subject field.

For more information and a listing of future concerts, go to the Strathmore website.

Click here for more news and reviews. Please call us at 202-364-1919 or email me at [email protected] to order these CDs.

András Goldinger

 

Book Groups


 

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

Thursday, September 22, 7:30 p.m.

Fascinating History Book Group
The First Tycoon, by T.J. Stiles
October 27 selection: Rising from the Rails, by Larry Tye

Monday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.

Public Affairs Book Group
Murder City, by Charles Bowden
October 24 selection: Anatomy of an Epidemic, by Robert Whitaker

Tuesday, September 27, 7:30 p.m.

Poetry Book Group
Selected Poetry, by Lord Byron
October 25 selection: Complete Poems, by Dorothy Parker

Wednesday, September 28, 7:30 p.m.

Graphic Novel Book Group
Radioactive, by Lauren Redniss
October 26 selection: The Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman

Thursday, September 29, 7:30 p.m.
Veterans Book Group
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
October selection: TBA


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


 

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



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Store Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sunday: 10 a.m.- 8 p.m.
Modern Times Coffeehouse opens daily at 8 a.m.

 


Politics & Prose Bookstore
5015 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 364-1919 or
(800) 722-0790
Fax: (202) 966-7532

www.politics-prose.com
e-mail: [email protected]
twitter:@politics_prose

Directions to Politics & Prose

Modern Times Coffeehouse
(202) 362-2408
www.moderntimescoffeehouse.com
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