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Week of September 29

Author Events with Michael Moore, Ariel Dorfman,
Stephen Greenblatt, and Jeffrey D. Sachs

Popular Destinations
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Upcoming Events Offsite Events
Bestsellers
Children and TeensMusic

 

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 29
Rosh Hashanah - No 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 Press, $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 Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW

Monday, October 3
10:30 a.m. Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Sing To Your Baby
(Allegro/NewSound, $19.95)
7 p.m. Ariel Dorfman
Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27)


Tuesday, October 4
7 p.m. Stephen Greenblatt
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
(W. W. Norton, $26.95)

Wednesday, October 5
7 p.m. Jeffrey D. Sachs
The Price of Civilization
(Random House, $27)

Thursday, October 6
7 p.m. Laurence Bergreen
Columbus: The Four Voyages
(Viking, $35)

Friday, October 7
10:30 a.m. Mark Pett
The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes
(Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, $14.99)

Friday-Saturday, October 7-8
Yom Kippur - No Evening Events

Sunday, October 9
1 p.m. Mark N. Ozer
Northwest Washington, D.C.: Tales from West of the Park
(History Press, $19.99)
4:30 p.m. Mother-Daughter Tea with Tami Lewis Brown
The Map of Me
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99)|
5 p.m. Jeremy Rifkin
The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
(Palgrave Macmillan, $27)


The Scoop from Brad and Lissa


Daunt BooksVisiting Washington the other day, Thomas Neve, who manages a bookstore in London, stopped by Politics & Prose to compare notes about bookselling here and across the Atlantic. Neve’s store is one of a group of seven operated as Daunt Books. The group is considered among the most successful independent bookselling operations in Britain.

Remarkably, Daunt Books has outperformed much larger chains and other competitors while steadfastly refusing to engage in aggressive sales tactics. You won’t find discounts at Daunt Books. Nor can you get three books for the price of two, as you could at Waterstone’s, the giant British chain whose declining sales precipitated its sale last spring to a fund controlled by a Russian businessman.

Don’t expect to hear loud promotional messages. Or to see in the aisles many non-book items such as clothing or jewelry. At Daunt Books, there are no deals, no gimmicks, no diversions. Just a great selection of books sold by knowledgeable, well-read staff members.

“Our feeling is that books have an inherent value,” Neve explained. “We recognize that a lot of work has gone into them, and we don’t want to cheapen that by knocking 17 pence or something off the price. Once you start discounting, it’s a race to the bottom.”

It helps that Daunt Books stores tend to have charming, pleasant interiors and be located in affluent parts of London, like leafy, family-friendly Holland Park, Neve’s neighborhood. It also helps that the stores keep their size and staff numbers down. The one Neve runs, for instance, is a little smaller than P&P’s main room and has a fulltime staff of only three people, plus several part-time employees.

“We’re sort of jacks-of-all-trades,” Neve said. “We share in putting together displays, in unpacking boxes and in menial tasks. But each of us can also talk about a range of topics.”

Further, the company keeps a tight rein on inventories, trying hard not to over-order and to limit the number of unsold books it ends up returning to publishers. Among the distinguishing features of its stores are large travel sections, where books, organized by country, include not just travel guides but works of history, culture and biography.

Not that Daunt Books, which was founded in 1990, has been entirely impervious to the economic blows of the past few years. Its sales did slump after 2008.

In building back up, the company has tried some new things. Neve, for instance, is looking for ways to sell books at offsite events and has instituted a frequent buyer program. A year ago, Daunt Books opened its first shop away from a family-oriented location, choosing a site on Cheapside Street in the financial district.

Neve was skeptical that a bookstore there would work, expecting that people in the area would be too busy or distracted to buy books. But sales have proven strong, giving Neve fresh hope in the future of bookstores. “There still seems to be a need for places that provide serious books and where people can go to get expert advice,” Neve said.

We here on this side of the pond couldn’t agree more.


Brad and Lissa

 

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.

 

Ticketed Events


 

Sunday, October 2, 5 p.m.

Michael Moore

Michael Moore
Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life (Grand Central, $26.99)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW

Breaking the autobiographical mold, 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).

Books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose, 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.

Click here to pre-purchase your book and tickets online.

Monday, October 17, 7 p.m.

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

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.

Click here to pre-purchase your book and tickets online.

Monday, October 31, 7 p.m.

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

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.

Click here to pre-purchase your book and tickets 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 photography to Hemingway, we hope you will find something that inspires! Click here to register for Jackson Bryer's class, Hemingway: The Early Years, which will include a discussion of a forthcoming volume of Hemingway's letters and Paula McLain's novel, The Paris Wife. We are also excited to present the opportunity for readers and writers to spend a day working with acclaimed novelist Katharine Weber (Triangle, True Confections). She will lead a two-part workshop on Reading and Writing the Unreliable Narrator on December 6. Click here to learn more.

We have also launched a collaboration with Pen/Faulkner that will involve an in-store class to precede each of their reading series events. Class registrants will receive access to exclusive PEN/Faulkner pre-reading receptions attended by the authors. Registration is now available for the first class on October 6, a discussion of authors Ta-Nehisi Coate and R. Dwayne Betts, led by Dr. Frazier L. O'Leary, Jr., who currently teaches English and coaches baseball at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. Click here for more details.

Keep an eye out for three additional sessions in November, which will include discussions of authors Emma Donoghue, Helen Simonson, Chris Adrian, Edith Pearlman, and Gish Jen. Click the titles below to learn more about the diverse classes we are currently offering.

Teen Poetry Workshops

Angela Maria Williams
Two Sundays, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
October 30: Speak Out!: The Art of Performance Poetry
November 20: Rhyme & Reason: Fun With Form Poetry
$50 ($45 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
Wednesday, October 12, 1-3 p.m.
$35 ($25 for members)

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)

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)

 

Sideline of the Week


Calendars

Among many wonderful items we’re offering for the Jewish holidays are two wall calendars that are truly special.

Our calendar from the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam features works from that celebrated institution’s extraordinary collection of paintings, textiles, and metal and ceramic objects of importance to Jewish history and culture. We are also offering a spectacular calendar from the Jewish Museum in New York City showing works that combine the power of different artistic media with the power of the Jewish experience worldwide. Both calendars include the Jewish holidays. Torah portions, blessings, and more.

Along with these unique offerings, you will find Jewish holiday greeting cards, boxed note cards, puzzles, Hebrew magnetic poetry, cook books, and even car mezuzahs.

We hope you’ll enjoy the selection!

P&P Bestsellers


 

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.


Reamde
By Neal Stephenson
(William Morrow, $35)

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
By
Daniel Yergin
(Penguin Press, $37.95)

 

New in Paperback


 

new Paperbacks

 

Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier (Picador, $20)

The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark (Little, Brown, $14.99)

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie (Random House, $15)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (Picador, $16)

 

Click the title links above to purchase these books from our www.politics-prose.com

Coming Soon to Your Favorite Bookstore


 

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

Events

Thursday, September 29

Rosh Hashanah - No 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.

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.

Event 2

Monday, October 3, 10:30 a.m.

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Sing To Your Baby
(Allegro/NewSound, $19.95)
Join us for a special Music/Story Hour with the two-time Grammy award-winning duo. Marxer and Fink will present their new book, which explains the importance of music for babies and includes tips parents can use when they play the CD of eleven songs. Up to 3 years.

Monday, October 3, 7 p.m.

Ariel Dorfman
Feeding on Dreams: Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27)
In his powerful memoir of politics and exile, the Chilean novelist, essayist, playwright, and human rights activist looks back to 1973. After the military overthrew Allende, Dorfman stayed one step ahead of death squads, moving from his homeland to Buenos Aires, Paris, Amsterdam, and finally the U.S, where he is now a professor of literature and Latin American studies at Duke.

Tuesday, October 4, 7 p.m.

Stephen Greenblatt
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
(W. W. Norton, $26.95)

Could a book change the world? In Greenblatt’s illuminating study of the Renaissance, the answer is yes, and the book is On the Nature of Things by the Roman philosopher Lucretius. Greenblatt, a Harvard Shakespeare scholar and author of the bestselling Will in the World, presents Lucretius’s ideas, shows whom they impressed and why, and demonstrates their pivotal and ongoing influence.

Wednesday, October 5, 7 p.m.

Jeffrey D. Sachs
The Price of Civilization
(Random House, $27)
Sachs, internationally renowned economist and author of the bestselling Common Wealth and The End of Poverty, argues that for the U.S. to regain sound fiscal health the country must also reform its politics. While economic recovery necessitates coming to terms with global realities, America must also rein in lobbyists’ power and political spin and limit corporate contributions.

Events

Thursday, October 6, 7 p.m.

Laurence Bergreen
Columbus: The Four Voyages
(Viking, $35)
With chronicles of Marco Polo and Magellan under his belt, Bergreen is a proven master of the history of adventure. Here he moves on to Columbus, telling the story not just of the famous 1492 expedition, but of the three other trips the Genoan made to the New World. All undertaken within a ten-year span, these voyages together reveal Columbus as both brilliant and deluded, strong yet fallible.

Friday, October 7,10:30 a.m.

Mark Pett
The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes
(Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, $14.99)
Beatrice lived in constant fear of making a mistake, until a juggling fiasco taught her that a mistake is not the end of the world—and that it can even be funny. Ages 4-7.

Friday - Saturday, October 7 - 8 - Yom Kippur

No Evening Events

Sunday, October 9, 1 p.m.

Mark N. Ozer
Northwest Washington, D.C.: Tales from West of the Park
(History Press, $19.99)

Author of Massachusetts Avenue in the Gilded Age and Washington, D.C.: Politics and Place, Ozer is the city’s unofficial resident historian. His new book offers a guided tour of the densely populated sector that includes Georgetown, Tenleytown, and Cleveland Park, communities rich in history, grand architecture, and colorful figures.

Sunday, October 9, 4:30 p.m.

Mother-Daughter Tea with Tami Lewis Brown
The Map of Me
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.99)

Twelve-year-old Margie is the daughter of a woman who loves things that have to do with chickens. When her mother leaves one day, Margie knows just where to find her, and she drives her father’s Ford to the International Poultry Hall of Fame to bring Momma home. Ages 8-10.

Sunday, October 9, 5 p.m.

Events

 

Jeremy Rifkin
The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
(Palgrave Macmillan, $27)
The latest book from the visionary author of Empathic Civilization, The European Dream, and others, presents an innovative outline for energy self-sufficiency. Based on projects already under way in Europe, Rifkin’s plan uses the way information is generated and shared on the Internet as a paradigm for how individuals will form a new green-energy grid.

 

 

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, 7:30 p.m.

The 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 the head of the El Bulli Foundation, as well as on 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.

Other Wes MooreMartin 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.

Literary CapitalThe 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 at 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’s 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 the 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 National Geographic Channel site, and read an interview with him on the National Geographic Music site. Watch a video of Henry Rollins on the National Geographic WILD channel.

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

Thursday, October 13, 7:30 p.m.

Dana PriestFriendship Heights Village Center
4433 S. Park Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD

Dana Priest
Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State (Little, Brown, $27.99)

The two-year investigation revealed that the government has built a national security and intelligence system so large, complex, and difficult to manage, that nobody knows if it is actually keeping citizens safe.

Dana Priest is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post. She has won numerous awards, including the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for public service for "The Other Walter Reed" and the 2006 Pulitzer for beat reporting for her work on CIA secret prisons and counterterrorism operations overseas. Ms. Priest and her co-author, William M. Arkin, won a George Polk Award for National Reporting for the July 2010 Post series "Top Secret America.” 

Please sign up in advance for this FREE event by calling the Village Center at 301-656-2797. Copies of the book, provided by Politics & Prose, will be available for purchase.

From the Children and Teens' Department


 

Children's Book of the Week

(20% off through October 5)
123Sil
One guitar, five tigers, and many toucans populate the pages of 1 2 3 Sí!: An Artistic Counting Book in English and Spanish (Trinity Univ., $7.95). Count to ten as you tour the San Antonio Museum of Art in this bilingual board book. The museum’s diverse collection includes everything from modern paintings to ancient jewelry. Each page features a question to spark conversation about each image’s details, and an appendix gives more information about the art. Ages 1-5. – Dana Chidiac

Una guitarra, cinco tigres y muchos tucanes pueblan las páginas de 1 2 3 Sí!: An Artistic Counting Book in English and Spanish (Trinity Univ., $7.95). Cuenta a diez en inglés y español mientras visitas el San Antonio Museo de Arte en este libro bilingue hecho de carton. La diversa colección del museo incluye desde pinturas modernas hasta joyería antigua. Cada página figura una pregunta para animar una conversación sobre los detalles de cada imagen, y el apéndice contiene más información sobre el arte. Años 1-5. – Javier Rivas

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

Mother Daughter Tea

Tami Lewis Brown

 

Sunday, October 9, 4:30 p.m.

Mothers and daughters, join us for tea with author Tami Lewis Brown, who will discuss her first novel, The Map of Me (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $16.99). Twelve-year-old Margie is the daughter of a woman who loves things that have to do with chickens. When her mother leaves one day, Margie knows just where to find her, and she drives her father’s Ford to the International Poultry Hall of Fame to bring Momma home. Ages 8-10.

This mother-daughter tea is a ticketed event. Please call the store at 202-364-1919 for details. Seating is limited. The cost is $10 per person or $8 for members. We will be serving light refreshments.

Story Hour

Story Hour

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 and 10. 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 book, Sing to Your Baby (Community Music, $19.95).

On Monday, October 10, Rocknoceros will visit to celebrate the release of their newest album Colonel Purple Turtle (Allegro/NewSound, $14.98) and companion book Colonel Purple Turtle’s Purple Turtle Journal (Rocknoceros, $9.98).

"Having already released three award-winning records, Rocknoceros will be releasing their first kid-friendly concept album, "Colonel Purple Turtle". This album tells tales of the Colonel and his friends in their make-believe home of Soggy Bog. The theme of "Colonel Purple Turtle" is one of friendship and working together, a subject that matters to Coach, Boogie Woogie Bennie, and Williebob, as the three members of Rocknoceros have been best friends since they were children.

The three band mates "grew up" (if they ever did) in Northern Virginia.  Boogie and Coach, best friends since they were four years old, remember endlessly spinning Beatles records in Boogie's suburban bedroom while "waiting for Williebob" who appeared on the scene in high school.”

For more information, please check out their website: www.rocknoceros.com.

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Markdown Books


 

Markdown

The 18th century didn’t have GPS—not did they have longitude. We take global orientation for granted today, but figuring it all out was a lot of work. In Dava Sobel’s Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, this puzzle makes for fascinating reading. For years scientists thought the answer lay in the stars; they mapped the heavens in order to understand the earth. But John Harrison, a Yorkshire clockmaker, had other ideas. He turned out to be correct, and Sobel’s narrative of the quest for longitude has all the excitement of an adventure tale, along with the substance of succinct histories of horology, astronomy, and navigation. This was Sobel’s first book—don’t miss her appearance at P&P for her most recent one, A More Perfect Heaven (Walker, $25), on October 27.

Available in paperback, $5.98.

Some writers burn out early, others, like John Updike, continue to get better. My Father’s Tears and other Stories was one of Updike’s last books, and in these eighteen works he revisits many of the themes and landscapes of his earlier fiction, but views them here through the sharp lens of valediction. His characters are aging, their priorities are changing. Trying to assess the sum total of their lives, they remember, reevaluate, and come to fresh understandings of people and experiences.

Available in paperback, $5.98.

Seamus Heaney’s poetry is loved for many reasons. “Like a nest/of cross hatched grass blades, “ it offers the textures of nature, down to the soil and roots; it explores history, with special attention to the past encapsulated in words’ etymologies; it endows the everyday with touches of myth and magic; and it coaxes some amazing rhythms and sounds from English. Human Chain, the Nobel laureate’s most recent collection, features all this and more

Available in hardcover, $5.98.

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

Laurie Greer

 

Music News


 

Ticket Raffle for Indigo Girls at Strathmore 

Music

Strathmore Music Center is presenting the Indigo Girls on Sunday, October 9 Strathmore is giving away pairs of tickets to Politics & Prose customers.

The Indigo Girls’s new CD, Beauty Queen Sister (Vanguard Records), is coming out next Tuesday.

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

New

Wilco

Wilco, THE WHOLE LOVE (dBpm Records/Anti, $16.98) – Wilco is back with 12 new songs: a variety ten-pack of pop songs, book-ended by the guitar workout of “Art of Almost” and the delicate, 12-minute epic, “One Sunday Morning.”

We also have the deluxe CD (with bonus cuts and a 52-page booklet, $19.98) and a few double-LPs, with the CD included ($25.98).

To hear many of their new songs, listen to last Sunday night’s concert by Wilco (and Nick Lowe) at Merriweather Post on NPR (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/21/140669742/live-sunday-wilco-in-concert ).

Music

Miles Español (E1 Entertainment, 2 CDs, $19.98) – Three years ago, on Miles in India, producer Bob Belden lined up Miles Davis band alumni and Indian musicians to explore the modal improvisations, drones, and “exotic” colors in Miles’s music. Belden now returns with an extended view into Miles’s Sketches of Spain, and beyond. Again, jazz giants who played with Miles—Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Ron Carter—are featured with an all-star cast of Spanish, Latin, and North African musicians, including Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chano Dominguez, Jerry Gonzalez, and Edsel Gomez.

Bill Frisell, All We Are Saying: Music of John Lennon (Savoy, $16.98) – Guitarist Bill Frisell and his quintet (violin, pedal and lap steel, bass, drums) shine on tunes from Lennon’s Beatles and solo period. This is an inspired match between songwriter and improviser.

Barbara Cook, You Make Me Feel So Young: Live at Feinstein’s (DRG, $17.98) – Barbara Cook was will receive the Kenned Center Honors this December. Her brand new CD, recorded this past June at Feinstein’s in New York, includes 13 songs new in her repertoire as well as some old favorites.

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 29, 7:30 p.m.

Veterans Book Group
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
October 20 selection: TBA

Monday, October 3, 7:30 p.m.

Classics Book Group
16 Satires, by Juvenal
November 7 selection: The Travels of Marco Polo

Tuesday, October 4, 7 p.m.

Travel Book Group
The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron
November 1 selection: Empires of the Indus, by Alice Albinia

Wednesday, October 5, 7:30 p.m.

Futurist Book Group
Physics of the Future, by Michio Kaku
November 2 selection: Future Babble, by Dan Gardner


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

 


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