|
Week of October 20
Julian Barnes Wins Man Booker Prize;
Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 - Release Party;
Author Events with Sarah Bakewell, Tony Horwitz, David O. Stewart,
and Robert H. Frank
Popular Destinations
Click a link below to skip down to the relevant section
Upcoming Events • Offsite Events
• Bestsellers
Children and Teens •
Music
|
|
|
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, October 20
4:30 p.m. Maggie Stiefvater
The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, $17.99)
7 p.m. Sarah Bakewell
How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Other Press, $25/$15)
Friday, October 21
7 p.m. Richard Thompson & Ben Hatke
Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists (First Second, $18.99)
Saturday, October 22
1 p.m. Gordon S. Brown
The Captain Who Burned His Ships: Captain Thomas Tingey, USN, 1750-1829 (U.S. Naval Institute, $28.95)
Saturday, October 22
6 p.m. John Summers, Andrew Ferguson, and Franklin Foer discuss
Dwight Macdonald’s Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain (NYRB, $16.95)
Sunday, October 23
1 p.m. Google eBooks Information Session
5 p.m. David Rowell
The Train Of Small Mercies (Putnam, $25.95)
Monday, October 24
7 p.m. Tony Horwitz
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (Holt, $29)
Tuesday, October 25
7 p.m. David O. Stewart
American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America (Simon & Schuster, $30)
|
Wednesday, October 26
7 p.m. Robert H. Frank
The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good (Princeton Univ., $26.95)
Thursday, October 27
10:30 a.m. Linda Urban
Hound Dog True (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15.99)
7 p.m. Dava Sobel
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (Walker, $25)
Friday, October 28
7 p.m. Gilad Sharon
Sharon: The Life of a Leader (HarperCollins, $29.99)
Saturday, October 29
1 p.m. Paul Starr
Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform (Yale Univ.,$28.50)
3:30 p.m. Christine Jahnke
The Well-Spoken Woman: Your Guide to Looking and Sounding Your Best (Prometheus Books, $19)
6 p.m. Justin Frank
Obama On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (Free Press, $26)
Sunday, October 30
1 p.m. Josh Rolnick
Pulp and Paper (Univ. of Iowa, $16)
Will Boast
Power Ballads (Univ. of Iowa, $16)
5 p.m. Amos Oz
Scenes From Village Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22)
|
|
The Scoop from Brad and Lissa
|
The Politics in Politics & Prose
There’s a reason the word “politics” is in our store’s name. Hardly a week or two goes by without us featuring a new political book or hosting a discussion on a subject of political interest. And as the 2012 presidential campaign heats up, we’d like to reaffirm P&P’s commitment to carrying the best political literature available and to promoting serious dialogue about political issues.
Earlier this week, we hosted a panel discussion with Michael Takiff, author of A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton As Told By Those Who Know Him (Yale Uniiv., $23), and Mike McCurry, a veteran political strategist and consultant who served as Clinton’s White House press secretary. (Lissa, who wrote speeches for many years for Bill and Hillary Clinton, moderated the discussion.) We have already received numerous requests for Bill Clinton’s new book, due out November 8, called Back to Work (Knopf, $22.95). And yes, we carry This is Herman Cain: My Journey to the White House (Threshold, $25) by the Republican candidate and former pizza magnate who has recently surged in the polls, as well as Fed Up (Little, Brown, $21.99) by Rick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas who hopes to regain his early campaign momentum.
Many more political titles will be coming out in 2012, but already in stock are books about all manner of things political and presidential by authors who have appeared at P&P in recent months: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind; The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics by Kathryn F. McGarr; Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain by Jim Lehrer; American Dreamers: How the Left Changed A Nation by Michael Kazin; Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama by Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb, and The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father by Sally H. Jacobs. The paperback edition of Chris Hedges’s Death of the Liberal Class will be arriving soon.
Not out yet but eagerly anticipated in early next year are: Rachel Maddow’s Drift, Thomas Edsall’s The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics, David Brock’s The Fox Effect, Theda Skocpol’s The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, Drew Westen’s The Undecided Brain, and Van Jones’s Rebuild The Dream, among others. Current and former politicians and office-holders are also writing books of their own. Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, has already published A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future (PublicAffairs, $27.99), and former congressman Harold Ford, Jr.’s More Davids Than Goliaths: A Political Education (Crown $25.99) came out a few months ago. Soon to be published are books by Arlen Specter, Condoleezza Rice, Michele Bachman, George McGovern, and Russ Feingold.
These are just a sample of several dozen political titles that you can find at P&P during the campaign season. Whether you are a political junkie or a passive observer, check out our American politics section to appreciate the full array of books we carry. You can also place an order on our website (www.politics-prose.com) or by calling our information desk at 202-364-1919.
We also want to bring your attention to a new source for political literature. Politico Bookshelf has just launched an online bookstore operated by Random House that will sell a range of titles by various publishers. Starting next month, they will also release a special line of eBooks, published jointly by Random House and Politico. P&P is featured on the site as one of the few suggested vendors (along with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes) where readers can buy these titles online. Please visit their site, see what they have to offer, and shop with us through their links!
Brad and Lissa |
|
|
Book Notes
|
 Julian Barnes Wins Man Booker Prize
A master of both the novel (Flaubert’s Parrot, Arthur & George) and the short story (The Lemon Table, Pulse, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters), Julian Barnes may have found his perfect genre with the novella. His brief, conversational, and Man Booker Award winning The Sense of an Ending (Knopf, $23.95) is a moving meditation on time; it’s also a meticulously constructed work that repays immediate rereading, each incident and conversation gaining meaning and resonance when seen in terms of the whole story. That story focuses on Tony Webster, retired, yet suddenly swept up again in the events of some forty years before. As he recounts his youthful friendships and an early, fraught relationship with a woman who later took up with his best friend, Tony begins to question what happened and how well he really knew the people he was involved with—let alone himself. As he revises his memories, the novel becomes a deft, subtle study of the elusive effects of time, Tony’s stream of reminiscences akin to a succession of photos of himself, some comforting, others shocking, that constantly show him as a new and different person, yet also, somehow, the same one.
Laurie Greer
|
|
|
Haruki Murakami
|
Monday, October 24, 8 p.m.
 Rorschach Theatre
at Atlas Performance Arts Center
1333 H Street NE
After the Quake: A play adapted from the stories of Haruki Murakami
followed by a 1Q84 Book Release Party
Rorschach Theatre will host an exclusive performance of After the Quake in celebration of release of Haruki Murakami’s latest novel 1Q84 (Knopf, $30.50). Join them on Monday night for a very special event hosted in partnership with Politics & Prose. See After the Quake and then be among the first to purchase 1Q84 when the play ends.
About After the Quake - In the aftermath of a terrible earthquake, a writer fueled by heartbreak heals a broken little girl, while a menacing frog saves Tokyo from an enormous worm. Adapted from the short stories of Haruki Murakami, Rorschach's performance of Frank Galati's play "enchants us like a dream and kicks us like a nightmare." - Washington City Paper
 About 1Q84 - The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.
“Murakami is like a magician who explains what he’s doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves.” —The New York Times Book Review
Click here to purchase $25 tickets to the play! Or call the box office at 202-399-7993.
Click here to reserve your copy of 1Q84 ($30.50) to pick up at the show! Or call the store at 202-364-1919.
|
|
|
Fall Classes
|
|
Monday, November 14, 12 – 2 p.m.
The Fiction MFA Clinic: an Insider’s Insights on Applying, Getting in, and
Making the Most of Your Time in Graduate School
American University, UVA, George Mason, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland all offer master’s degrees in fiction writing, and with deadlines coming up at the latter four schools, now’s the time to apply. If you’re planning to, or even if you’re still thinking about it, you’re in good company! Sign up for this two-hour lunchtime class, and together we’ll go over the major steps involved in getting an MFA in literary fiction. You’ll get practical advice on essential questions like how to decide if an MFA is right for you, how to apply, and how to craft a strong submission, plus you’ll get the inside scoop on what it’s like to go back to school if you’re a mature student, what funding opportunities exist, what it’s like to teach while taking classes in the evening, and how to make the most of your MFA program once you’re enrolled. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask the questions which most concern you—all in a friendly and supportive setting. Everyone is welcome, whether you’ve just started writing or you’ve already published work. Come join us!
Price: $30 ($25 members) Click here to register and for more information.
The following classes are still enrolling for the Fall: The MFA Fiction Clinic, Hemingway: The Early Years, Documenting Dupont Circle with a Camera, The Unreliable Narrator, and the PEN/Faulkner Bookgroup.
Click here to learn about these classes.
|
|
|
Notes from the Field - Travel Opportunities
|
Politics & Prose is currently engaged in conversations about creating literary-themed tours with an original bent. I was fortunate to be part of a small contingent invited to Cairo by Academic Travel. They are a DC-based tour company that wanted to test-drive a new Egypt program aimed at exploring the country more deeply than offered by the usual tourist itinerary. A tour of Egypt would surely include a comprehensive survey of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s haunts---not to mention dinner in his namesake restaurant. It might include walking tours of Lucette Lagnado’s pre-Nasser-era Cairo, made famous in her wrenching memoir The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, with visits to the old synagogues and perhaps even the luscious patisseries of her youth. We’d do a Nile riverboat dinner cruise and witness a whirling dervish, but we’d also arrange coffee with contemporary Egyptian authors, and would build a reading list and day trips accordingly.
We’re eager to know what might interest you, as well as to know your thoughts about timing, pricing, and accommodations. Click here to read more and to participate in a survey about your travel interests.
Susan Coll
Editorial and Programs Director
|
|
|
Ticketed Events
|
Monday, October 31, 7 p.m.
 Jeffrey 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).
Pre-purchased books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose beginning October 11. On October 31, the day of the event, books and tickets may be collected at the event Will Call at Sixth & I Synagogue. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.
Click here to purchase the book and tickets.
Monday, November 7, 7 p.m.
 The Honorable John Paul Stevens
Five Chiefs (Little Brown, $24.99)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
John Paul Stevens knew the Supreme Court under five Chief Justices: He clerked for Vinson; practiced before Warren; was a circuit judge and junior justice for Berger; and was a colleague of Rehnquist and current Chief Justice Roberts. His tenure on the High Court from 1975 to 2010 was the third longest in history. That unparalleled experience informs his remarkable memoir. Justice Stevens will be in conversation with Judge David S. Tatel, who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1994.
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).
Pre-purchased books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose through November 6. On November 7, the day of the event, books and tickets may be collected at the event Will Call at Sixth & I Synagogue. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.
Click here to purchase the book and tickets.
Wednesday, November 9, 7 p.m.
 Umberto Eco
The Prague Cemetery (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Eco’s historical novel dramatizes some of the most shocking ideas and events of nineteenth-century Europe. His protagonist, a montage of actual figures, is the man behind The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and numerous conspiracies of a like nature. The challenge Eco set himself here was to invent a character who’s “the most cynical and disagreeable in all the history of literature.” Eco will be in conversation with the novelist Keith Donohue (Centuries of June, Crown, $24, May 2011)
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).
Pre-purchased books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose on November 8. On November 9, the day of the event, books and tickets may be collected at the event Will Call at Sixth & I Synagogue. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.
Click here to purchase the book and tickets.
Thursday, November 10, 8 p.m.
 Joan Didion
Blue Nights (Knopf, $25)
at The Avalon Theatre
5612 Connecticut Avenue, NW
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might - about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?”
Didion’s spare yet richly stylized prose made The Year of Magical Thinking a haunting chronicle of grief and love. Her new memoir returns to these themes, this time to chronicle the loss of her daughter. As Didion remembers the young woman’s life, she also looks back on her own, meditating on parenthood, aging, and identity.
Joan Didion will be in-conversation with NPR's Susan Stamberg.
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).
Pre-purchased Books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose from November 1 - 9. On November 10, the day of the event, all remaining pickups will be at Will Call, at The Avalon Theatre. The doors - and the event Will Call - open at 7:30 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 8 with General Admission seating.
Click here to purchase the book and tickets.
Wednesday, November 16, 7 p.m.
 Michael Ondaatje
The Cat's Table (Knopf, $26)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Set on a ship bound from Colombo to England in the 1950s, the haunting new novel by the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient is the coming-of-age story of an eleven-year-old boy. Finding unlikely tutors on jazz, literature, and women among his fellow passengers, the boy also glimpses things he doesn’t understand, from a mysterious shackled man to the elusive Miss Lasqueti.
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).
Pre-purchased books and tickets may be picked up at Politics & Prose until November 15. On November 16, the day of the event, books and tickets may be collected at the event Will Call at Sixth & I Synagogue. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the event begins promptly at 7 with General Admission seating.
Click here to purchase the book and tickets.
|
|
|
| |
eBook Special Offer
|
|
In celebration of National Reading Group Month this October, HarperCollins is offering 12 eBooks for just $2.99 each. Each of these authors has been interviewed on Book Club Girl on Air about his or her book so there's a built-in conversation with the author to listen to before or during your book club meeting. Each eBook is available for purchase at this special low price for the month of October only and can be purchased for your iPad, SonyReader, or Nook via Google books!
Click here for more information and then click the book covers to learn more about each book.
|
|
|
Sideline of the Week
|
In keeping with the spirit of protest that has spread from Wall Street to far corners of the globe, we call your attention to our very politically correct sideline of the week: A six-eraser set, as well as a set of pencils, eraser, and sharpener, from Fabrica that offers an new mode of protest during these Occupy Wall Street times. Each eraser is emblazoned with a single word -- censorship, corruption, pollution, discrimination, slavery, or dictatorship. The other set includes five enviro-friendly pencils, sharpener, and one eraser imprinted with "waste".
The company’s motto is "consume with responsibility." They believe that the products "show how a simple message can communicate a powerful meaning by its use." The words begin to vanish the more the eraser is used. Who knew it was so easy to eliminate all those evils?
Leslie Bradshaw and Lissa Muscatine
|
|
|
Coming Soon to Your Favorite Bookstore
|
|
Click www.politics-prose.com/event for our author events calendar through December.
Thursday, October 20, 4:30 p.m.
Maggie Stiefvater
The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, $17.99)
Known for her Shiver series, Stiefvater here takes readers to an Irish island where horses live under water part of the year. When they surface on November 1, they want to eat flesh, but the townspeople capture and race them. It’s a dangerous tradition, and Sean, the returning champion, faces the challenge of his life. Ages 14 and up.
Thursday, October 20, 7 p.m.
Sarah Bakewell
How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Other Press, $25/$15)
Bakewell’s presentation of Montaigne’s life and work demonstrates why classic writing lasts. Winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and now available in paperback, this genial study looks at the great essayist’s ideas and how they helped him cope with the Big Questions we still wrestle with today.
Friday, October 21, 7 p.m.
Richard Thompson & Ben Hatke
Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists (First Second, $18.99)
This ingenious pairing of fifty classic nursery rhymes with pictures by today’s leading comic artists puts a colorful spin on Mother Goose. Join us for a reading and discussion by Thompson, illustrator of “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” and Hatke, who took on “Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been?” All ages.
Saturday, October 22, 1 p.m.
Gordon S. Brown
The Captain Who Burned His Ships: Captain Thomas Tingey, USN, 1750-1829 (U.S. Naval Institute, $28.95)
A former diplomat and author of Toussaint’s Clause, The Incidental Architect, and other studies of early American history, Brown has written the first biography of Captain Thomas Tingey. Tingey served in the Royal Navy before jumping ship for America, and was instrumental in the growth of the U.S. Navy. In 1814, rather than see the Washington Navy Yard fall into British hands, he ordered it burned.
Saturday, October 22, 6 p.m.
John Summers, Andrew Ferguson, and Franklin Foer discuss
Dwight Macdonald’s Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain (NYRB, $16.95)
In his title essay, originally published in 1960, Dwight Macdonald, the writer, critic, and prominent member of the New York Intellectuals, argued that mass culture posed a grave threat to high culture. How have his ideas held up since his death in 1982? Join us for a discussion of Macdonald and the fate of culture with John Summers, editor of this edition, Andrew Ferguson, columnist, author, and senior editor at the Weekly Standard, and Franklin Foer, author and former editor of The New Republic.
Sunday, October 23, 1 p.m.
Google eBooks Information Session
This will be less formal than the last session. Stop by at your convenience; P&P booksellers will be ready to assist you in trying various devices and learning how to download eBooks from politics-prose.com. It's not hard to sign up for an account while you're at the store, and we can help you through the steps. Once your account is set up, you can store all your ebooks in the cloud on your own personal bookshelf which you can access whenever and wherever you log into politics-prose.com.
Click here to read more about buying Google eBooks from Politics & Prose.
Please click here to RSVP and tell us the type of eReader that you prefer to use.
Sunday, October 23, 5 p.m.
David Rowell
The Train Of Small Mercies (Putnam, $25.95)
In his first novel, The Washington Post Magazine editor tells several small stories against the backdrop of one overwhelming national event. Set in June 1968, the day Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral train made its way to D.C. from New York, the narrative follows the lives of four individuals and the different meaning the occasion has for each.
Monday, October 24, 7 p.m.
Tony Horwitz
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (Holt, $29)
From recreating Captain Cook's experience of sailing in Blue Latitudes to reenacting Civil War battles in Confederates in the Attic, Horwitz’s history is always vivid and immediate. His new book presents a detailed account of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and captures the country’s tension on the eve of the Civil War.
Tuesday, October 25, 7 p.m.
David O. Stewart
American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America (Simon & Schuster, $30)
Had things gone according to his plans, in 1805 Aaron Burr would have established a new nation in the western portion of North America. Stewart, whose previous works of American history include Impeached and The Summer of 1787, presents Burr as a complex figure, talented and divisive, and always at odds with Jefferson.
Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.
Robert H. Frank
The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good (Princeton Univ., $26.95)
Staking out a middle ground between libertarians and left-wing thinkers, the Cornell professor and author of The Economic Naturalist argues for a view of the marketplace that replaces Adam Smith’s ideas of competition with Darwin’s. Frank proposes new systems of taxation designed to balance the interests of individuals and groups.
Thursday, October 27, 10:30 a.m.
Linda Urban
Hound Dog True (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15.99)
Mattie, shy, fearful, and once again the new kid at school, tries to avoid her fellow fifth-graders by spending recess helping the janitor. But when things don’t go according to plan, she learns that she can trust others and make friends. Ages 8-11
Thursday, October 27, 7 p.m.
Dava Sobel
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (Walker, $25)
As she did in her acclaimed Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, Sobel again brings science to life with vivid depictions of its groundbreaking figures. Her portraits of Copernicus, the Polish cleric who articulated a heliocentric universe, and Georg Joachim Rheticus, a German mathematician who saw Copernicus’s writings into print, flesh out this history of astronomy from Aristotle to the 1530s.
Friday, October 28, 7 p.m.
Gilad Sharon
Sharon: The Life of a Leader (HarperCollins, $29.99)
This biography of Ariel Sharon by his youngest son, a columnist for an Israeli newspaper and an advisor to his father before and during his term as Prime Minister, draws on the elder Sharon’s diaries from all phases of his political and military career, offering insight into Sharon’s decisions on events ranging from the Yom Kippur war to the Gaza settlements.
Saturday, October 29, 1 p.m.
Paul Starr
Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle over Health Care Reform (Yale Univ.,$28.50)
Why is America’s health-care system so difficult to reform? In his history of recent health-care battles, Starr offers both an insider’s perspective, drawing on his experience as a senior advisor on health care policy to President Clinton, as well as that of a Princeton academic, analyzing Gingrich’s response to Clinton’s proposed reforms, Mitt Romney’s overhaul of the Massachusetts health-care system, and the debates over Obama’s 2010 legislation.
Saturday, October 29, 3:30 p.m.
Christine Jahnke
The Well-Spoken Woman: Your Guide to Looking and Sounding Your Best (Prometheus Books, $19)
Jahnke profiles ten great women speakers from former Texas Governor Ann Richards and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, and tackles the things you need to know about public speaking and presentation. The book provides behind-the-scenes tips, easy to follow exercises with illustrations, and advice on everything from messaging to hair and hemlines -- all anyone needs to know to look and sound their best.
Saturday, October 29, 6 p.m.
Justin Frank
Obama On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (Free Press, $26)
As he did for the previous president in Bush on the Couch, Dr. Frank applies his psychoanalytic skills to Obama, offering new ways to understand the chief executive’s achievements and shortcomings. What does Obama’s turbulent childhood, for example, suggest about how he makes decisions? Are there clues in his past to his current handling of the economy or health-care reform?
Sunday, October 30, 1 p.m.
Josh Rolnick
Pulp and Paper (Univ. of Iowa, $16)
Will Boast
Power Ballads (Univ. of Iowa, $16)
Join us for a reading by two up-and-coming young writers, both winners of the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Rolnick’s moving and powerful stories, set in New Jersey and New York City, explore the nexus between loss and compassion. Boast’s narrative, a sequence of ten pieces, profiles the lives of working musicians and their often fraught relationships with associates, audiences, and the music itself.
Sunday, October 30, 5 p.m.
Amos Oz
Scenes From Village Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22)
In Tel Ilan, things may not quite be what they seem. One man hears mysterious digging sounds. Another finds a cryptic note from his wife. In his new novel of linked stories, Oz, the renowned Israeli author of A Tale of Love and Darkness, Rhyming Life and Death, and many other works of fiction and nonfiction, profiles a multi-faceted community, facet by facet.
|
|
|
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 offsite@politics-prose.com if you are planning an event and would like us to supply the books.
October 23–November 2
Washington DCJCC
1529 16th Street NW at Q Street
Metro: Dupont Circle
The Washington DCJCC’s Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival celebrates the year’s best in Jewish writing. Whether you enjoy history, art, politics, fiction or great family programming, this festival has something for everyone. During the 11-day event, audiences will engage with critically acclaimed authors, such as Lucette Lagnado and Ursula Hegi, and enjoy talks, readings and provocative panels.
For tickets and info, please visit www.washingtondcjcc.org/litfest or call (202) 777-3251.
Tuesday, October 25, 7:30 p.m.
National Geographic Live!
1600 M Street, NW
Wade Davis
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest (Knopf, $32.50)
Based on newly discovered documents, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis’s new book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest tells the story of the legendary and ultimately tragic 1924 British Everest expedition. Linking Mallory and his comrades’ determination to gain glory in the Himalayas to their bitter experiences in the trenches of WWI, Davis offers a compelling fresh take on history.
Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.
Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.
National Geographic Live!
1600 M Street, NW
Jared Diamond
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Penguin, $18)
Why do humans make decisions the way they do? And what does that mean in the context of the current threats to our species’ survival? Daniel McFadden, the 2000 Laureate in Economics Studies, whose work focuses on how people make choices and sort themselves into groups, will discuss questions of human choice and their repercussions with National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the bestseller Collapse, which analyzed the phenomenon of societal failure. The conversation will be moderated by National Geographic Weekend host Boyd Matson.
This event is sold out. Click here for more information.
Thursday, October 27, 7 p.m.
Sixth & I
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
Justice Stephen Breyer
Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View(Vintage, $16)
Charged with the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution, the Supreme Court has the awesome power to strike down laws enacted by our elected representatives. Why does the public accept the Court’s decisions and follow them, even when those decisions are highly unpopular? What must the Court do to maintain the public’s faith and help make our democracy work? In Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View—the bestseller now in paperback—Justice Stephen Breyer tackles these questions.
Tickets are $22 and include one (1) copy of the book. Purchase here. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
Wednesday, November 2, 7 p.m.
 Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
Meir Shalev
My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir (Schocken, $25.95)
My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir is a lighthearted tale of family ties, over-the-top housekeeping, and the sport of storytelling in the village of Shalev’s birth, where his Grandma Tonia wrestles with the family’s biggest enemy in their adoptive land: dirt. Shalev, one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, illuminates the pioneers who gave his childhood its spirit of wonder and the grit and humor of people building new lives.
Click here to purchase $10 tickets ($12 the day of the event) or receive two (2) FREE tickets with the purchase of the book. If you have questions, please call 202.408.3100.
Wednesday, November 2, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live!
1600 M Street, NW
Dr. Spencer Wells
Pandora's Seed: Why the Hunter-Gatherer Holds the Key to Our Survival (Random House, $16)
Since 2005, Dr. Spencer Wells, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and director of the Genographic Project, has led scientific teams in collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of participants, creating a genetically based map of human migration from our African beginnings 60,000 years ago. Get an up-to-the-minute report, and look over the horizon at the next steps to be taken in this groundbreaking research.
Click here to purchase $18 tickets. (NGMembers: $16)
Thursday, November 3, 7:30 p.m.
 National Geographic Live!
1600 M Street, NW
Scott Wallace
The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes
(Crown, $26)
In 2002, National Geographic sent journalist Scott Wallace into the deepest recesses of Brazil’s Amazon with Brazilian explorer Sydney Possuelo to track an isolated indigenous tribe—the People of the Arrow – on an expedition to ensure that they are left uncontacted by ethnographers, miners, and loggers alike. Hear his first-person account of adventure and survival, and his description of the the work of the Department of Unknown Tribes (Departamento de Indios Isolados) at the FUNAI (National Indian Foundation of Brazil).
Follow Scott Wallace’s blog on National Geographic’s News Watch site.
Click here to purchase $20 tickets. (NG Members: $18)
|
|
|
From the Children and Teens' Department
|
Children's Book of the Week
(20% off through October 26)
Grandpa Green (Roaring Brook, $16.99) was born a very long time ago. His great grandson knows he grew up loving storybooks and horticulture, and says he never, ever fought with his wife. But as Grandpa became older, some of his recollections began to fade. Luckily, his expansive backyard is full of hedges that he can trim to create beautiful reminders of the really important memories. Lane Smith’s simple, clever illustrations bring to life a gentle and touching story about growing older and sharing ourselves with the ones we love. Ages 4-6. –Amy Kane
This week is Teen Read Week!
Check out our new Blast from the Past! section in this email, which features Markus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger (Knopf, $10.99) this week.
Join our Teen Book Group to discuss Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor (Simon & Schuster, $17.99) on Sunday, October 23.
And, don’t miss Maggie Stiefvater’s visit to Politics & Prose today, Thursday, October 20, at 4 p.m., when she’ll introduce her latest novel, The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, $17.99).
We’re excited about the release of Colin Meloy’s new middle grade novel, Wildwood (Balzer + Bray, $17.99). Better known as the lead singer of the Decemberists, Meloy has stepped into his new role as novelist with aplomb. Click here for reviews of Wildwood and the Decemberists’ latest album, The King is Dead.
 Blast from the Past!
This peek into the P&P archives will feature one title from years past that we still love today.
(20% for members through October 26)
The first ace arrives and Ed Kennedy’s whole life changes. A 19-year-old cab driver in Australia, Ed feels stuck in one place. Then, mysterious playing cards begin arriving, each sending him to three different locations. At each place Ed has to figure out who needs his help and how he should intervene. Suddenly his days have excitement and purpose, especially as the people he’s sent to help become important figures in his life. But who is behind the cards? Marcus Zusak’s fast-paced yet sensitive novel will have readers on the edge of their seats, waiting for someone to finally come forward and announce I Am the Messenger (Knopf, $10.99). Ages 14 and up. – Amy Kane
Read about - and buy - more of our favorite books for children and teens by clicking here.
Documentary Film about the 50th Anniversary of The Phantom Tollbooth
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Phantom Tollbooth (Yearling, $6.99), a book that has influenced kids and adults alike through its imaginative and thought-provoking story and its marvelous illustrations. To mark the occasion, a documentary is in the works featuring creators Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer, and Leonard S. Marcus-and includes a spot filmed at Politics & Prose with interviews of two of our very own children's booksellers, Jewell and Elivia!
Click here to learn more about the film project.
Sunday, November 13, 4:30-6 p.m.
Father-son Tailgate party
You're invited to our father-son tailgate party on Sunday, November 13, 4:30-6 p.m. Authors Fred Bowen and Katy Kelly will be talking about their newest books, Quarterback Season and Melonhead and the Undercover Operation (Delacorte, $12.99).
This is a ticketed event; please contact the store for information.
Katy Kelly
Melonhead and the Undercover Operation (Delacorte, $12.99)
Adam Melonhead and Sam Alswang join the FBI for the summer as Junior Special Agents, outfitted with FBI t-shirts and official FBI badges. Spotting criminals is tough work, but they’ve already got that lady down the street under surveillance. Ages 8-10.
Fred Bowen
Quarterback Season (Peachtree, $5.95)
Matt expects to be the starting quarterback for his team, but finds a rival in a talented newcomer. Meanwhile, Matt has to keep a journal for his English class, but has nothing to write about—except football. As his writing develops, he tells a story more complicated than he’d imagined. Ages 8-10.
Please call the Children's Department at 202-364-1919 to register. Tickets are $5 for members and $7 for non-members. Refreshments will be served!
Signing line tickets available now for . . .
 Wednesday, November 16, 3 p.m.*
Jeff Kinney
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Amulet, $13.95)
In the sixth installment of the Diary, Greg is in big trouble for damaging school property. He's innocent this time - sort of. He gets a reprieve when a blizzard closes school, but he knows that when the storm is over, he'll have to face the authorities. Ages 9-12.
* Join us at 3 p.m. when we start our own blizzard with a snow-making truck; Jeff Kinney will speak at 4.
Tickets are required for the signing line; please see below.
Customers wishing to have their books signed must come into the store to pick up their signing line ticket, and must have proof of purchase from Politics & Prose. The tickets will be distributed in the order of pickup in the store. If you purchase early by phone or online, we will not hold an early signing line ticket. You receive the color sequence that is available at the time you pick up your order. If you are ordering from out of town, we can mail you a signed book after the event, but we cannot mail a ticket; you must collect it when you arrive at the store. Due to the size of this event, Jeff Kinney will not be able to provide personalizations with his signature.
Phone and online orders must be completed by 9 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15. On the day of the event, sales only will be available to customers who come into the store.
Click here to purchase your book online.
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.
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
|
|
Every fall the remainder section is blessed with a batch of great titles from New York Review Books, a publisher of top-quality fiction and nonfiction that specializes in bringing back books that have unjustly been allowed to go out of print. Here is a sampling of the NYRB selections currently available.
Most famous for his epic Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman’s later, shorter novel, Everything Flows, also encompasses a vast swath of twentieth-century Soviet history. Ivan Grigoryevich spent thirty years in the gulag. When he’s finally released, the world has changed. As he struggles to comprehend what has happened to himself and to his country, Ivan learns the stories of various collaborators with the Stalinist regime. Some make excuses, others are unapologetic. Through these different experiences Grossman asks over and over how the nightmare could have happened. Available in paperback, $7.98.
Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy, originally published in the 1960s, offers another view of Europe’s turbulent midcentury. A British couple relocates to Bucharest in 1939. They’ve moved there so Guy Pringle can accept a teaching position at the university, but instead the pair is caught up in the early stages of World War II. Romania joins the Axis, German soldiers are everywhere, and the Pringles become refugees, fleeing to Greece. Manning writes about war and upheaval from the civilian perspective, and her insights about individuals’ responses to the trauma complement her larger social, cultural, and political points. Available in paperback, $8.98.
Bruce Duffy’s third novel, Disaster Was My God, has been getting a lot of attention since it was published last August. Reviews never fail to note Duffy’s amazing first novel, The World as I Found It, a fictional life of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Centering on Wittgenstein’s academic life at Cambridge, it vividly evokes the lives of Wittgenstein’s colleagues and sparring partners, G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell—brilliant thinkers all, but very different men. The novel roves in time from 1930s Britain to fin de siècle Vienna and young Wittgenstein’s wealthy, strange upbringing, and to his and Europe’s experiences in World War I. Full of action, ideas, and outsize personalities—this novel will leave you with a new understanding of history and philosophy. Available in paperback, $8.98.
Please call us at 202-364-1919 or stop by the store to shop for these discounted titles.
Laurie Greer
|
|
|
Music News
|
|
WILDWOOD BY COLIN MELOY OF THE DECEMBERISTS
The Decemberists, led by Colin Meloy, put out one of the best CDs of the year, The King is Dead. They will have a followup 5-song EP, Long Live the King on November 1.
But Meloy has also produced a brand new YA book, Wildwood, reviewed below by Janet Minichiello of our Children’s Department.
Decemberists lead singer Colin Meloy branches out into a new medium with Wildwood (Balzer & Bray, $17.99), the first book in his young-reader series, The Wildwood Chronicles. The novel opens in a magical version of Portland, Meloy’s hometown, in which the Impassable Wilderness (known to its denizens as Wildwood) borders the community of St. John’s. After a girl named Prue witnesses her baby brother Mac being kidnapped by a murder of crows, she follows them towards the forbidden forest; little does she know that her friend Curtis is following her. Once they penetrate Wildwood, Prue and Curtis discover a world in which animals talk, and a great battle is about to be waged. They are swept up into the troubles of the Impassable Wilderness, as they discover that Mac’s fate is inextricably linked with that of this strange land—and with their own. Fans of the Decemberists will recognize Meloy’s narrative prowess from songs like “Leslie Ann Levine” and “Red Right Ankle.” “This Is Why We Fight” could well be the Bandit King Brendan’s battle anthem. Illustrations by Carson Ellis, Meloy’s wife (and Decemberists cover artist extraordinaire), combine with the text to make Wildwood into a modern legend that will entrance young and old readers alike. Ages 10-13. Janet Minichiello
NEW
Yo-Yo Ma, The Goat Rodeo Sessions (Columbia, $13.98) – In the 1990s, Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with fiddler Mark O’Connor and bassist Edgar Meyer on Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey. He returns to his Americana collaborations on the Goat Rodeo Sessions, which reunites him with Meyer, and brings in two other string virtuosi, Chris Thile on mandolin, and Stuart Duncan on fiddle. Vocalist Aoife O’Donovan guests on two tracks.
MORE VOICES
My Brightest Diamond, All Things Will Unwind (Asthmatic Kitty Records, $15.98) –Shara Worden is the powerful voice behind the chamber-pop group, My Brightest Diamond. There are intricate string and woodwind arrangements on songs by Worden, played by members of yMusic. This is an ambitious pop CD, and highly recommended.
Anonymous 4, Secret Voices (Harmonia Mundi, $18.98) – The Codex Las Huelgas is an anthology of European polyphony and monophonic Latin songs from the 13th and early 14th centuries. The four singers of Anonymous 4 revisit this manuscript, and from it, construct a “day” of music in honor of the Virgin Mary, as well as songs referring to convent life.
CONCERTS: BARTÓK, SCHUBERT, AND EAST MEETS WEST
Next Tuesday, October 25, at the Library of Congress, pianist Jenő Jandó and members of the Budapest Festival Orchestra will present an all-Bartók program, entitled “The Liszt Legacy and Bartók.” The program will be introduced by the conductor of the BFO, Iván Fischer.
The next night, Wednesday, October 26, maestro Fischer will lead the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, playing Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, and more Bartók, the Hungarian Peasant Songs, and the Piano Concerto No. 2, with András Schiff.
On Friday, October 28, at the Library of Congress, violinist Daniel Hope (formerly of the Beaux Arts Trio) will present a program called “East Meets West” playing works by Ravel, Takemitzu, Bartók, and playing with sitar and tabla, honoring the spirit of the great collaborations between Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar.
Politics & Prose will be at the Library on the nights of the concerts, selling copies of Jandó’s Bartók recordings (all titles on Naxos), the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s Schubert: Symphony No. 9 (Channel Recordings), and Daniel Hope’s East Meets West (Warner Classics).
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
|
|
|
Pen/Faulkner Reading Series Book Club
|
|
The PEN/Faulkner Reading Series consists of nine public readings held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the National Cathedral.
The Book Club is held in conjunction with the series, and will feature discussion of work by featured authors approximately one week before their public readings. (Please note: The authors will NOT be in attendance at the discussions at Politics & Prose.) These sessions will be led by members of the PEN/Faulkner Board of Directors and affiliated writers, and will cover work by a broad range of invited authors, including Gary Shteyngart, Ann Patchett, Emma Donoghue, and Allegra Goodman, among others.
Book club members will receive access to exclusive PEN/Faulkner pre-reading receptions attended by the authors. Learn more about PEN/Faulkner's roster of authors here. http://www.penfaulkner.org/reading_series.
Wednesday, November 2, 1-3 p.m.
Emma Donoghue and Chris Adrian
(NB: This is a discussion of the authors' work -- Emma Donoghue and Chris Adrian will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)
 Join a literary conversation on two novels: Room, by Emma Donoghue (Back Bay, $14.99), and The Great Night, by Chris Adrian (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26). The Washington Post called Donoghue's novel "one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year," and readers have agreed---Donoghue imagines a captive five-year-old whose room is his world. Adrian is a celebrated author who was not only just chosen one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40,” but is also a practicing pediatric oncologist in San Francisco. His novel places A Midsummer Night's Dream smack in the Mission district, as Titania and Oberon cope with their changeling child's leukemia.
The discussion will be led by award-winning novelist Mary Kay Zuravleff, who is the author of two novels, The Bowl Is Already Broken and The Frequency of Souls, and serves on the board of PEN/Faulkner.
Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers) Click here to register.
Emma Donoghue & Chris Adrian will read at PEN/Faulkner on Monday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. Click here for $15 tickets and more information.
Monday, November 21, 1-3 p.m.
Edith Pearlman
(This is a discussion of the author's work -- Edith Pearlman will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at  the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)
Join a board member of the PEN/ Faulkner Foundation for a literary conversation on the short story collection Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories, by Edith Pearlman (Lookout, $18.95). Pearlman is this year’s recipient of the PEN/Malamud award for excellence in the art of the short story. She has written more than 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction and has been published in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Collection, New Stories from the South, and The Pushacart Prize Collection: Best of the Small Presses.
Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers) Click here to register.
Edith Pearlman will read at Pen/Faulkner on Friday, December 2 at 7:30 p.m. when she receives the 2011 PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction. Click here for $15 tickets and more information.
Wednesday, November 30, 1-3 p.m.
Gish Jen and Helen Simonson
(This is a discussion of the authors' work -- Gish Jen and Helen Simonson will not be appearing at Politics & Prose, but will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library as part of the PEN/Faulkner Speakers Series.)
 Join PEN/Faulkner board member Tracy McGillivary, and PEN/Faulkner’s Deputy Director, Emma Snyder, for a literary conversation on two novels: World and Town, by Gish Jen (Vintage, $15.95) and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson (Random House, $15). Jen is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Simonson, a graduate of the London School of Economics and former travel advertising executive, is the author of a bestselling debut set in her native England.
Price: $40 ($35 P&P members and Reading Series subscribers) Click here to register.
Gish Jen & Helen Simonson will read at PEN/Faulkner on Monday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m. Click here for $15 tickets and more information.
|
|
|
Book Groups
|
P&P's book groups meet monthly and are free and open to the public.
Thursday, October 20, 7:30 p.m.
Veterans Book Group
The Triple Agent, by Joby Warrick
November selection: TBA
Monday, October 24, 7:30 p.m.
Public Affairs Book Group
Anatomy of an Epidemic, by Robert Whitaker
Monday, November 28 selection: Physics for Future Presidents, by Richard A. Muller
Tuesday, October 25, 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Book Group
Complete Poems, by Dorothy Parker
November 22 selection: News of the World, by Philip Levine
Wednesday, October 26, 7:30 p.m.
Graphic Novel Book Group
The Sandman: The Dream Hunters, by Neil Gaiman
November 23 selection: The Filth, by Grant Morrison
Thursday, October 27, 7:30 p.m.
Fascinating History Book Group
Rising From the Rails, by Larry Tye
November 17 selection: The Perfect Spy, by Larry Berman
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
|
|
Please don't leave your things, whether big or small, plugged in or stuffed under a chair, unattended or out of your sight. This includes walking away to grab a napkin, setting your stuff down to save a seat, ducking into the area by the bathrooms to take a phone call (yes, we all do it). Several folks, including employees, have had items stolen recently.
Click here for more news from the Modern Times blog or to follow them on Twitter.
|
|
|
|
