Week of December 22

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

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Upcoming Events • Offsite Events
Children and Teens • Music

Store Holiday Hours

Our daily hours are:
Monday - Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Holday Hours:
Sunday, December 18, we will stay open an extra hour until 9 p.m.
Saturday, December 24, Christmas Eve we will close at 5 p.m.
Saturday, December 31, New Year's Eve we will close at 5 p.m.

P&P will be closed all day:
Christmas Day, Sunday, December 25
New Year's Day, Sunday, January 1

Our regular hours will resume on Monday, January 2 and our daily author events will resume on Thursday, January 5 at 7 p.m. when we host Roger Rosenblatt for Kayak Morning.

There are no author events scheduled for the rest of December.

Click here for our online events calendar to preview January events.
The January Events Calendar will be mailed to our subscribers soon.

Members always save 20% on our author event books.
They also save on all the titles in our Holiday Newsletter.
Click here to register!

The Scoop from Brad and Lissa

As 2011 comes to a close, we’d like to wish all of you a joyous holiday and a happy new year. In recent days, we’ve seen the store bustling with people shopping for gifts, for trips, and for leisure reading at home. All of us at Politics & Prose are heartened to see such continued enjoyment of physical books, especially amid the recent hoopla over electronic books—further evidence that for all the advantages of the internet, there’s still nothing quite like browsing the aisles of a bricks-and-mortar store and seeking the in-person advice of expert booksellers.

Most importantly, the busy holiday season has reinforced the sense of P&P as a vital center of community. Every day we happen upon old friends searching for books and gifts, and we also have had the chance to meet scores of other customers for the first time. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to introduce yourselves and to wish us well in our new venture as owners. After six months on the job, we’re as excited as ever about carrying on in the footsteps of P&P’s founders, Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, and ensuring the store’s long-term survival.

Looking ahead, we expect 2012 to bring fresh challenges, but P&P won’t be standing still. We’ll continue to provide a great selection of fiction and non-fiction works, an outstanding line-up of author talks, a first-class children’s section, an expanding list of classes, a wide array of book groups and a range of special services, including signed first editions and our popular Book-A-Month gift program. With our recently-installed book-printing machine, nicknamed Opus, authors can now have their works published at the store, and customers can obtain out-of-print books within minutes. If you’re interested in learning how to download e-books or order physical books online, our staff can instruct, and we’re taking steps to improve the design and content of P&P’s website.

On behalf of the entire staff at P&P, we want to express our gratitude for your continued support and for helping to keep the store successful. Here’s hoping for a new year filled with good health, much happiness, and lots of terrific books.

--Brad and Lissa

Announcing Three Ticketed Events

Thursday, January 12, 7 p.m.

Politics & Prose hosts
Jodi Kantor
The Obamas (Little, Brown, $29.99)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
(Metro: Gallery Place - Chinatown)
A Washington correspondent for The New York Times, Kantor has been covering the Obamas since 2007. Her portrait of the First Family is a detailed look at what residence in the White House has meant for their personal lives, their public roles, their work, and their hopes.

This event will take place at Sixth & I Synagogue and is ticketed. Two tickets come free with each purchase of the book ($29.99) or tickets can be purchased separately for $8 each in advance of the event ($10 on the day of). Jodi Kantor will appear in conversation with David Brooks. Click here to pre-order the book and/or tickets.

Sunday, January 29, 3 p.m.

Politics & Prose hosts
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Strategic Vision: Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power (Basic Books, $26)
at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street NW
(Metro: Gallery Place - Chinatown)
In his latest book, the former National Security Advisor looks back to the optimism following the fall of the Communist bloc and outlines a strategy by which the United States can reassert its position of strength. His analysis focuses on the changing distribution of global power and America’s place in that new arrangement, especially in relation to China. 

Two tickets come free with each purchase of the book ($26) or tickets can be purchased separately for $10 each in advance of the event ($12 on the day of). Zbigniew Brzezinski will appear in conversation with his daughter, Mika Brzezinski. Click here to pre-order the book and/or tickets.

Holiday Newsletter

The P&P 2011 Holiday Newsletter and the Children and Teens' Department 2011 Favorites are our suggestions for reading and gift-giving. Click here for a sample of the reviews.

Don’t forget, P&P members receive discounts on all of our suggested gifts in the Holiday Newsletter all month long. Click here to download the pdf or visit the store to pick up your copy. Take a look at the entire publication, there is something for everyone!

Still don't know what to give? Feel like being more extravagant? Try one of our subscription book programs for your favorite reader or book collector. The Signed First Editions Club or the Book-a-Month Program let you to rely on our superb choices and suggestions all year long! And we send selections to readers of all ages!

Supporting the Community

Book Angels for Unity Health Care Pediatrics

Every winter Politics & Prose invites you to participate in our annual Book Angel Program.

This year, we are collecting new books to donate to pediatric patients at Unity Health Care. Unity Health Care, Inc. operates a network of 30 sites and provides primary and specialty healthcare services to underserved populations throughout D.C., including 13 community health centers, and two school-based centers. Unity has a strong commitment to the promotion of literacy and serves approximately 18,000 pediatric patients from birth to 18 years old. 

The Book Angel Program runs through December 31, 2011.  Each book that is purchased for Unity Health Care is discounted 20%.  Take a look at the display in the children's department or click here for a selection of suggested books. If you shop online, please indicate in the order comments field if you are donating a book to Unity Health Care Pediatrics.

Holiday Gift-wrapping

Our ongoing relationship with the Washington Literacy Council continues this holiday season. WLC volunteers will be in the store every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas, from open until close, offering a selection of attractive holiday-themed wrapping papers. The service is free, but donations to support the work of the organization are welcome. For volunteer opportunities (wrapping, or otherwise) please contact Cheryl Kariya at wlcreads@gmail.com.

Calendar of the Week

Need a new year’s resolution for 2012? How about getting that brain of yours in tip top shape? Stay sharp every day this coming year with one of our many puzzle and brain teaser page-a-day calendars. From wit-working crossword puzzles to brain-brightening Mensa brain teasers, our selection of brainy page-a-days will keep your mental muscles flexed.  Your personal trainer may have six-pack abs, but can he figure out the fifteen letter word for 38 across: “an anti-inflammatory drug to treat arthritis”? (It’s oxyphenbutazone).

• Mark Moran

Sideline Novelty of the Week

One of my family’s favorite Christmas traditions was introduced by our English aunt.

Dinner began with a bang with the opening of the Christmas cracker.

Insert a little British POP! into your own family’s Christmas with Caspari’s Christmas Crackers (Caspari, $19.96). This boxed set contains six elegantly designed crackers each filled with a joke, a trinket and a hat!  Oh what fun!

• Leslie Bradshaw    

From the Children and Teens' Department

Children's Books of the Week
(20% off for everyone through December 21)

A young boy follows his father from tree to tree, watching him collect tears of sap to sell at the market. Finally, the boy is allowed to collect a tear himself. Carefully, he pulls the fist-size drop of sap from the tree and carries it to the spice merchant’s shop, where three wise men are searching for a gift for a baby who has just been born. The boy’s myrrh is The Third Gift (Clarion, $16.99), the perfect complement for the wise men’s gold and frankincense. Linda Sue Park imagines another side to the Christmas story in this picture book illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Ages 4 and up. - Dana Chidiac

Author Michael J. Rosen and pop-up artist Robert Sabuda celebrate the eight nights of Chanukah in Chanukah Lights (Candlewick, $34.99). Each page in this expertly constructed pop-up book explores a segment of Jewish history, from the lights of the Temple to the dark of the shtetl, from the tenements of New York to the olive groves of the Promised Land. In each image, the light of a menorah in a window stands for the hope and faith of the Jewish people. Ages 5 and up. - Dana Chidiac

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

Click here to see the Children and Teens' Department 2011 Favorites.

Story Hour
The Politics & Prose story hour with BearSong and his guitar offers storytelling and music for children from birth to 5 years old. Story hour is on hiatus during the holiday season.
It will resume on Monday, January 9 at 10:30 a.m. in the Children's Department.

Click here to sign up to receive email updates. We will inform you of special story hours, changes or cancellations.

Music News

SPECIAL VISIT BY ANONYMOUS 4 & THE FOLGER CONSORT

PLUS CONCERT TICKET OFFER

Special News:

Anonymous 4, the world renowned early music vocal quartet, will visit Politics & Prose on Saturday, January 7, from 11 a.m. to noon to sign their new album, Heavenly Voices: Chant & Polyphony from the Las Huelgas Codex (Harmoni Mundi, $18.98).

We will also host Robert Eisenstein and Christopher Kendall of the Folger Consort to sign their new CD, A New Song: Celebrating the King James Bible (Bard Records, $11.98).

Signing only.

Anonymous 4 and the Folger Consort are in concert on Friday, January 6, and Saturday, January 7 in Heavenly Revelations: Hildegard von Bingen and Medieval France, which pairs the music of the 12th-century mystic with that of the “Notre Dame” composers of 13th-century France.

The Folger Consort is offering Politics & Prose customers discounted tickets to these concerts.

Save $10 per ticket (regularly $30-$50) to the concert at Washington National Cathedral on Friday, January 6 and Saturday, January 7 at 8 p.m.

To purchase discounted tickets, visit www.folger.edu/consort and click on Heavenly Revelations, click “buy tickets,” select a performance and enter coupon code CNCATH12, then click “continue.” The ticket discount will be automatically applied.

DUKE ELLINGTON’S NUTCRACKER SUITE

One of my favorite holiday albums is by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Three Suites, featuring The Nutcracker Suite (Columbia, $6.98)—you can listen to it all year round, and I recommend it for anyone. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote complex and witty arrangements for the best-known pieces from Tchaikovsky’s grand ballet score, bringing out new tonal colors and adding a lot of swing. Highlights include “Sugar Rum Cherry” (a reworking of “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies”), “Arabesque Cookie” (“Arabian Dance”), and “Danse of the Floreadores” (“Waltz of the Flowers”). The other two works on the CD are the Peer Gynt Suite and Suite Thursday.

This year there’s a children’s book about this wonderful work, Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite (Charlesbridge, $19.95) by local author Anna Harwell Celenza, and illustrated by Don Tate. The book includes a CD of the The Nutcracker Suite.

NEW

Doric String Quartet, Schumann: String Quartets, Op. 41 (Chandos, $18.99) – The young English Doric String Quartet has received raves for their albums of Korngold and Walton quartets. Their new Schumann disc of the three Op. 41 quartets is Gramophone Magazine’s Disc of the Month for December, and also was one the best the year selections on BBC Radio 3.

BILLY ELLIOT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

The touring company of Billy Elliot: The Musical is at the Kennedy Center through January 15. It was the winner of the 2009 Tony for Best Musical, as well as nine other Tonys. Listen to the original cast recording Billy Elliot: The Musical (Decca, $19.98), with the score by Elton John.

HOLIDAY CDs

Click here to view a complete catalog of Holiday Music 2011, with reviews of my all-time favorites, favorites from recent years, and a few Hanukkah suggestions.

Also, click here for my Best of the Year Music Gift Guide 2011.

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

• 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

Book Groups

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

Click here to learn more about what our in-store book groups are reading.

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!

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.

Now through January 7, 2012

Shakespeare Theatre Company
Sidney Harman Hall
610 F St., NW
Much Ado about Nothing
Directed by Ethan McSweeny

'Tis the season for holiday cheer, a special date with a loved one, an outing with friends and great theatre at the Shakespeare Theatre Company! Much Ado about Nothing is the ultimate battle of the sexes, Shakespeare style, where young lovers woo and old enemies fight (before finding their true loves). Set against a backdrop of hot and sultry 1930s Cuba, passions and temperatures will rise this winter at Sidney Harman Hall in this classic tale of love and wits.

P&P patrons receive 10% off tickets. Click here to purchase or call the Box Office at 202.547.1122, option 1 with promo code: POLITICSPROSE.

News from the Coffeehouse

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

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: books@politics-prose.com
twitter:@politics_prose

Directions to Politics & Prose

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