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Thursday, April 12, 10:30 a.m.
Norton Juster - The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth and The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition (Knopf, $29.99/ $24)
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this beloved classic, two new editions have been released. The Anniversary Edition includes new essays by authors such as Suzanne Collins and Mo Willems and reprints Maurice Sendak’s 35th-anniversary tribute. The Annotated version includes notes and interviews with Juster by Leonard Marcus. Ages 8-11.
Thursday, April 12, 7 p.m.
Richard Zacks - Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York (Doubleday, $27.95)
Appointed police commissioner of New York City in 1895, the young Theodore Roosevelt vowed to clean up a metropolis teeming with gambling, prostitution, and police corruption. Zacks, author of The Pirate Hunter, paints vivid scenes of Gilded Age mischief and shows Roosevelt doing battle with Tammany Hall. As his mission succeeded, however, TR became less popular.
Friday, April 13, 10:30 a.m.
Neela Vaswani - Same Sun Here (Candlewick, $15.99)
Meena is an Indian immigrant living in New York City; River is from Kentucky. Yet their seemingly distinct worlds present few obstacles to their pen-pal friendship, and the two discuss everything from grandmothers to environmentalism. Vaswani and co-author Silas House interweave Meena’s and River’s voices in this tale of two children facing life’s difficulties. Ages 11-13.
Friday, April 13, 7 p.m.
Dale Carpenter - Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (W. W. Norton, $29.95)
This narrative history of Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court decision that invalidated America’s sodomy laws, vividly brings to life the people involved in both sides of the case. A professor of civil rights and civil liberties law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Carpenter places this landmark case within the larger framework of the persecution of gays and lesbians in the U.S. Carpenter will be in conversation with The Dish blogger Andrew Sullivan.
Saturday, April 14, 1 p.m.
Tim Wendel - Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--and America--Forever (Da Capo, $25)
America’s pastime was as caught up in the turmoil of 1968 as everything else in the country was. In his account of that year’s World Series, Wendel, founding editor of USA Today Baseball Weekly and author of nine books, puts the ball games into the wider social context, vividly conveying what it meant to Detroit—the scene of riots the previous year—to root for the Tigers against the defending champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Saturday, April 14, 3:30 p.m.
David Corn - Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Fought Back Against Boehner, Cantor, and the Tea Party (William Morrow, $26.99)
Drawing on extensive interviews with White House and congressional insiders, the veteran political journalist and commentator details the political, economic, and foreign policy challenges Obama has faced since the 2010 midterm elections. Corn argues that Obama has proven himself a leader willing to take risks and make tough choices in order to gain long-term goals.
Saturday, April 14, 6 p.m.
Simon Johnson - White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You (Pantheon, $26.95)
As they did in 13 Bankers, Johnson, MIT professor and former IMF chief economist, and co-author James Kwak, fellow at Harvard Law School, take on thorny economic problems and offer compelling analyses. Here they trace the history of America and national debt, looking back to the Founding Fathers’ arguments about taxation, showing how the strength of the dollar has made borrowing easy, and outlining future consequences of continuing high national debt.
Sunday, April 15, 12 noon
Timothy Snyder – Tony Judt: Thinking the Twentieth Century (Penguin Press, $36)
History is more than a series of events, and in his final book, the late Tony Judt discussed pivotal ideas of the twentieth century. In a series of conversations with his friend and fellow-historian Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands, Judt covered topics including the role of the intellectual in public life, the task of the historian, and the case for social democracy.
Sunday, April 15, 5 p.m.
Rachel S. Cox - Into Dust and Fire: Five Young Americans Who Went First to Fight the Nazi Army (NAL, $26.95)
Before Pearl Harbor drew the U.S. officially into World War II, a few Americans joined the conflict on their own. Cox, contributing writer for CQ Researcher, recounts the lives and experiences of five New England men who went to fight with the British in the spring of 1941.
Monday, April 16, 7 p.m.
Christopher Moore - Sacré Bleu (William Morrow, $26.99)
The latest novel by the reliably funny and surprising author of Lamb, Fool, Bite Me, and others, involves art, magic, and mystery, and starts with the death of Vincent Van Gogh. Skeptical of the suicide scenario, the baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard enlists the help of fellow artists (including Toulouse Lautrec) to discover the truth.
Tuesday, April 17, 7 p.m.
Stuart E. Eizenstat - The Future of the Jews: How Global Forces Are Impacting the Jewish People, Israel, and Its Relationship with the United States (Rowman & Littlefield, $35)
From U.S. Ambassador to the European Union to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury to Chairman of The Jewish People’s Policy Institute, Eizenstat has been at the forefront of world events. In his new book he analyzes current global trends in geopolitical thinking, technology, and demographics with an eye to how they will affect Israel and Israeli-U.S. relations.
Wednesday, April 18, 7 p.m.
Sadakat Kadri - Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
This history of Islamic law by the London-based criminal and human rights lawyer and author of The Trial, delves back through centuries of thought and reinterpretation throughout the Muslim world to present the Shari’a as an ongoing intellectual achievement.
Thursday, April 19, 7 p.m.
Ross Douthat - Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, $26)
What's the opposite of Christianity? In his provocative social critique, the New York Times columnist and author of Privilege argues that Christianity is most threatened not by atheism but by heresy. Once the moral center of mainstream America, Christianity, in Douthat's view, has been trivialized by pop culture, political appropriation, and other trends.
Friday, April 20, 7 p.m.
Ben Anderson - No Worse Enemy: The Inside Story of the Chaotic Struggle for Afghanistan (OneWorld, $24.95)
In this boots-on-the-ground view of the conflict in Afghanistan, the London–based journalist and documentary filmmaker details the string of IED explosions and sniper fire he experienced during the periods over the last five years when he was embedded with the U.S. Marines and British forces in Helmand Province.
Saturday, April 21, 1 p.m.
Edward Luce - Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (Atlantic Monthly, $26)
Like a British Tocqueville touring today’s America, Luce, The Financial Times Washington commentator, offers fresh insight into this country’s political and economic woes. Drawing on a wide range of interviews with politicians, lobbyists, new graduates, and the unemployed, Luce has eschewed abstractions to fashion a comprehensive picture of how lives are actually being lived.
Saturday, April 21, 3:30 p.m.
Philip Auerswald - The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy (Oxford Univ., $29.95)
Auerswald, coeditor and cofounder of Innovations and a public policy professor at George Mason, argues that globalism means opportunity and progress, not inequality and fear. He illustrates his thesis with examples of entrepreneurs from all over the world, including the man who founded Afghanistan’s first mobile phone company and the woman who started the world’s first not-for-profit pharmaceutical concern.
Saturday, April 21, 6 p.m.
Michael Lind - Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (HarperCollins, $29.99)
Once again, “it’s the economy,” and Lind’s history of America’s economic growth helps put the recent downturn into perspective. The author of The Next American Nation and Hamilton’s Republic, Lind looks at the roots of our past prosperity and suggests how they can be nurtured for the future.
Sunday, April 22, 1 p.m.
Lucette Lagnado - The Arrogant Years: One Girl's Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn (Ecco, $14.99)
Join us for the paperback release of Lagnado’s second memoir. Having introduced readers to her father in The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, here she focuses on her mother. But the story of her mother’s privileged life in Cairo leads Lagnado to observe other models for women’s lives as she struggles to position herself between her family’s past and her own future.
Sunday, April 22, 5 p.m.
Gary Krist - City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago (Crown, $26)
Nearly 100 years ago, city planners were poised to make Chicago the “Metropolis of the World.” Then a series of disasters nearly turned the dream to a nightmare. In his fast-paced narrative history of the momentous events of 1919, Kris, novelist, journalist, and author of The White Cascade, recounts that summer’s riot, transit strike, blimp crash, and child murder.
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Politics & Prose hosts
Politics & Prose hosts
Human Rights Campaign - Equality Talks: A New Speaker Series from HRC
