Our first dinner in our new program Dinner with the Author was a roaring success. We roared with laughter with Ron Suskind when he did his Nixon imitation. But Ron, whose latest book is THE WAY OF THE WORLD, can also bring you close to tears of frustration when he tells about how the Bush administration cooked the evidence of Al Qaeda involvement in Iraq. Ron talks the way he writes, with passion and empathy. Just as much fun was the opportunity to sit and talk with other P&P customers over a delicious dinner at Rock Creek Restaurant, just up the street at Friendship Heights. One participant said, “The people are so interesting.”

We are moving full steam ahead on the next two events: Tom Gjelten, NPR Pentagon correspondent, will join us on Thursday, October 29 to discuss  his book BACARDI AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR CUBA, a history of Cuba though one influential family. He is now working on a series on national security and extractive resources that he will be glad to discuss. The November dinner (date not yet fixed) will feature Rick Atkinson discussing his reissued history of the West Point Class of 1966, THE LONG GRAY LINE, which describes the class that carried a great deal of the burden in the Vietnam War. Rick has written a new forward. Each dinner costs $65 per person or $115 for a couple and includes a paperback book. Please let Bonnie Kogod know if you would like to come: bkogod@politics-prose.com.

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September 26 - October 3 is Banned Books Week.

From Deb Morris: If you come into the store, you will find a display of books ranging from Their Eyes Were Watching God to The Grapes of Wrath that have been banned at some time during the course of their publishing life. THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL by Anne Frank is one book I'd like to highlight. In 1983, members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for its removal from school reading lists because it was “a real downer.” If that’s the way you choose to see it, then I suppose it is. Obviously, being confined to a relatively small space with 7 other people for over 2 years would not be fun. However, this very young woman told her story with wisdom and humor that imbue her writing with so much life. When we realize that Anne would have been 80 had she lived, it makes us wonder what she might have accomplished had she survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

Read more about Anne Frank, and browse other Banned Books by clicking here.

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If you can’t attend a talk, but would like to reserve a signed copy,
click the title links to pre-purchase online. Members save 20% off on these titles.
Click here if you would like to buy a recorded author talk.

Thursday, September 24

10:30 a.m. Sharon Robinson and Kadir Nelson present their book, TESTING THE ICE: A True Story about Jackie Robinson. When his children want to go ice skating on their pond, Jackie Robinson, who cannot swim, tests the ice first. This episode encapsulates the courage Robinson needed to break the color barrier in major league baseball. Kadir Nelson, Caldecott Honor illustrator, brings the story to life with beautiful, sensitive paintings that capture the emotion behind the events. Ages 7-10

7 p.m. Lorrie Moore returns to P&P with A GATE AT THE STAIRS, a novel focused on America’s unease at the start of the 21st century. Tassie Keljin grew up in a Midwest hick town and now attends a prestigious and sophisticated state university. To make ends meet, she takes a position as nanny for a newly adopted, part African-American two-year-old. Moore explores continuing racial unease through the reactions the adoptive mother receives. Meanwhile, Tassie’s brother enlists in the army just as American forces are being sent to Afghanistan.  Moore has a distinctive voice; she jokes and puns at the same time she tackles serious issues.

Friday, September 25

10:30 a.m. In THE MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD TREASURE HUNT, the new installment in the Judy Moody & Stink series by Megan McDonald, the Moody family is surrounded with pirates while on vacation near Ocracoke Island. As Judy and Stink go on the treasure hunt to win a pirate-ship cruise, readers will see that pirate clues can be tricky and sometimes silly. Full-color illustrations by Peter Reynolds add to the fun. Ages 7-9

7 p.m. In FORCES OF FORTUNE, Vali Nasr, one of the most informed and level-headed Middle East experts and author of The Shia Revival, points to the growing business sectors in Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan as the groups the West needs to cultivate in order to ease tensions in the region. He argues for a reversal of Bush-era initiatives and believes that an alliance with the pragmatic middle class can undermine Islamic extremists.

Saturday, September 26

1 p.m. Linda Perlman Gordon, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, and Susan Morris Shaffer, an educator and parenting expert, collaborate on parenting and relationship issues.  In TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT?, they explore the need for boundaries in mother-daughter relationships, and examine complexities that extend into adulthood.

6 p.m. Since she first spoke at P&P in 1995, Kay Redfield Jamison, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, has attained national prominence for her pioneering research in the field of manic-depressive illness. In this deeply personal book, NOTHING WAS THE SAME, she explores her grief following the death of her husband, Richard Wyatt. They met which he was 45 and she 38. They had 20 years together before he died from lung cancer. In one of the most interesting sections, she analyzes the difference between grief and depression.

Sunday, September 27

1 p.m. THE WYRM KING, the last book in Toni DiTerlizzi & Holly Black 's Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles series, finds Nick Vargas and his stepsister, Laurie, facing huge, multi-headed hydra monsters known as Wyrms which are destroying south Florida. Even with the assistance of the son of the giant slayer, Noseeum Jack, can the siblings win this last battle? Ages 7-10.

Yom Kippur - No Evening Event

Monday, September 28

7 p.m. From his long and varied experience with international diplomacy in general and Iran in particular, John W. Limbert, ambassador to Mauritania in 2000-03 and a former hostage in Iran, presents a detailed proposal for renewing an American dialogue with Iran. Four case studies make up the body of this book, in which Limbert draws 14 principles for NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN.

Tuesday, September 29

7 p.m. BORN ROUND, a memoir by the New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni recounts a lifelong love-hate relationship with food that began when he was a bulimic baby and progressed to eating in his sleep and bingeing. As Bruni reveals his battles with eating disorders, his account is both painfully honest and funny. He will be joined by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

Wednesday, September 30

7 p.m. Journalist Peter Maass has written a concise and hard hitting book about oil politics - CRUDE WORLD. He starts by noting that to the nations that have oil - Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and Ecuador - comes " trouble rather than prosperity." The obvious solution is to make the minerals less valuable, and this is where a convergence occurs between the answers to global warming, dwindling oil supplies, and the inability of oil-rich nations to establish democratic institutions.

Thursday, October 1

7 p.m. What is it like to be involved with a man obsessed with a 1980s singer-songwriter? JULIET, NAKED, the sixth novel from the author of High Fidelity, explores the twin phenomena of fandom and the internet as Nick Hornby tells the story of Anne and Duncan, together for 15 years in a triangular relationship that includes the music Duncan lives for. As always, Hornby is witty and perceptive about music and its place in ordinary lives.

Friday, October 2

7 p.m. Peter Yarrow, of the wonderful trio Peter, Paul and Mary, wrote DAY IS DONE as an anti-war song during the Vietnam era. With colorful illustrations by Melissa Sweet, the lyrics make a beautiful picture book, which comes with a CD. Yarrow will join us to sing some old favorites and sign his book. All ages.

Saturday, October 3

1 p.m. In THE CURSE OF THE GOOD GIRL, her latest study of adolescent girls, Rachel Simmons, founder of the Girls Leadership Institute and author of Odd Girl Out, argues that girls are more concerned with being liked than with being themselves. By struggling to conform to the unrealistic image of an always congenial, obedient, and unobtrusive person, many girls fail to communicate their real needs and grow up unhappy and poorly adjusted. Simmons offers exercises and other tools parents can use to help their daughters gain confidence.

3:30 p.m. THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS, Jess Walter’s third novel (Citizen Vince, The Zero), tells the story of a week in the life of Matt Prior. Prior is unemployed and in debt; his website offering financial journalism in blank verse is a failure; and his marriage is teetering on the edge. As Prior hits bottom, Walter paints a devastating and yet funny picture of the American dream struggling for its life.

6 p.m. In FIVE TO RULE THEM ALL, a portrait of the U.N. Security Council and its five permanent members, David L. Bosco, former Foreign Policy senior editor, examines the body’s notable successes as well as its failures. Bosco concludes his analysis of the Council’s inner workings with suggestions on how it can better reflect political realities.

Sunday, October 4

5 p.m. World War II morphed quickly into a Cold War with a race for new and more deadly weapons. Neil Sheehan does a masterful job explaining the politics, science, and historical scenario in A FIERY PEACE IN A COLD WAR, which follows an Air Force officer named Bernard Schriever from his boyhood in Germany through his Air Force years to his responsibility for deployment of the Minuteman Missile.
           

Tickets on sale now for these offsite events

Monday, October 5

8 p.m. @ Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
Congressman Barney Frank & Stuart Weisberg  BARNEY FRANK: The Story of America's Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman (Univ. of Mass., $29.95)
Tickets are $6, or receive two free with the purchase of the book.
Click here to purchase or call the store 202-364-1919 to reserve your spot now.

Friday, October 9

7 p.m. @ GW Lisner Auditorium
Michael Chabon MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS (HarperCollins, $25.99)
Tickets are $7, or receive two free with the purchase of the book
Click here to purchase or call the store 202-364-1919 to reserve your spot now.

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Sunday, September 27, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market   
1500 block of 20th St., NW
between Massachusetts Ave. and Q St.
(in the parking lot adjacent to PNC Bank).
Metro: Dupont Circle (Red Line)
SUSAN PINKARD
A REVOLUTION IN TASTE: The Rise of French Cuisine 1650-1800 (Cambridge Univ., $32)
Modern French habits of cooking, eating, and drinking were born in the Ancien Regime, radically breaking with culinary traditions that originated in antiquity and creating a new aesthetic. This new culinary culture saw food and wine as important links between human beings and nature. Authentic foodstuffs and simple preparations became the hallmarks of the modern style. Pinkard, a visiting Professor at Georgetown University, explores the evolution of French cooking and how food went from necessity to a work of art. She includes over 80 historical recipes adapted for today’s kitchen, and will offer a cooking demonstration at 11 a.m. (Check at the booth to confirm the time.)

Saturday, September 29, 7 p.m.

The River School, 10th Anniversary Speaker Series
4880 MacArthur Blvd. NW
LEE WOODRUFF
PERFECTLY IMPERFECT: A Life in Progress (Random House, $25)
In her acclaimed first book, In an Instant, Lee Woodruff wrote, along with her husband, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, eloquently and honestly about the struggles they faced together as Bob recovered from a traumatic brain injury sustained in Iraq. Now, with the same candor and clarity, Lee Woodruff chronicles her life as wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.
For $25 tickets, contact Bob Jones at bjones@riverschool.net

 

Thursday, October 1, 7 p.m.

National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
(Enter at 2100 C Street)
Photo ID required
Smithsonian Resident Associates present
DEBORAH TANNEN 
YOU WERE ALWAYS MOM’S FAVORITE! (Random House, $26)
Sisters can be mirrors in which we see ourselves, yardsticks by which we measure our lives, or - in the case of older sisters - everything we can't be, because they got there first. Sisterspeak can be straight talk, close and supportive, or talk that keeps you in your place. Tannen a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, notes that although sisters are inevitably in competition, theirs is one of the most powerful and precious human relationships. $25 tickets (NAS and Smithsonian members, $15) may be purchased through the Smithsonian Associates or call 202-633-3030.

Thursday, October 1, 7 p.m.

Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
A.J. Jacobs
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment (Simon & Schuster, $25)
The man who spent a year reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica (The Know-It-All ) and another year following every rule prescribed by the Bible (The Year of Living Biblically) chronicles his recent adventures in extreme living. With fearlessness, Jacobs immerses himself in nine month-long exercises in self-illumination and self-improvement, dealing with every aspect of modern life: Love, work, fame, truth and, of course, nudity. The results are equal parts funny and insightful. $6 tickets can  be purchased at www.sixthandi.org or receive two (2) free tickets with the purchase of the book. Questions? Call 202.408.3100.

Friday, October 9, 6:30 p.m.

Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
600 I Street, NW
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown
JOY LADIN
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL: A Jewish Journey Between Genders
Ladin, poet and professor of literature at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, will tell her powerful story of two visits to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem - the first as a man, the second as a woman - that highlight the complex ways in which Jewish identity is entangled with gender identity. Ladin is the author of Transmigration, Alternatives to History, The Book of Anna, as well as the forthcoming The Other Side of the Wall. $6 tickets can be purchased at www.sixthandi.org.

Sixth & I’s 6th in the City Shabbat is a musical and interactive service for young professionals that includes hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, and a social hour before the 7:15 pm service and dinner afterwards. Questions? Call 202.408.3100.

Thursday October 15, 6:30 p.m.

One Washington Circle Hotel
One Washington Circle NW
Metro: Foggy Bottom
SUZANNE BRAUN LEVINE
FIFTY IS THE NEW FIFTY: 10 Life lessons for Women in Second Adulthood (Viking, $25.95)
In our society, the assumption is that youth -- or at least "younger" -- is the ideal state, and that given a choice, no woman in her mind would relinquish it, but Levine has discovered the opposite to be true. She tells us what women do want as they explore this new stage of life and how they are defining it for all of us. $38 tickets ($30 for TTN members) include dinner and cash bar, and may be reserved through www.thetransitionnetwork.org.  Questions, call Virginia Sorkin at 703-243-1523.

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BLOOD'S A ROVER
Signed by James Ellroy
(Knopf, $28.95)
First edition, first printing.
Hardcover - September 2009

HARDBALL
Signed by Sara Paretsky
(Putnam, $26.95)
First edition, first printing.
Hardcover - September 2009

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Our top twelve hardcover FICTION and NON-FICTION bestsellers are always 20% off for P&P members. For our complete lists, click on the titles below.

#1 FICTION:  The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

#1 NONFICTION: True Compass: A Memoir by Edward M. Kennedy

 

 

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Click FICTION or NON-FICTION to browse a complete list of recent paperback releases.

The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam

6 Billion Others: Portraits of Humanity from Around the World by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

 

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BOOK OF THE WEEK
(20% off through 9/30)
Jacob thinks he’s a big boy since he is two plus two plus two years old, but his two older brothers and two older sisters make it clear that he‘s just a little boy who can’t do ANYTHING.  When Jacob’s father relents and sends Jacob off on his first solo errand, there is a misunderstanding and Jacob is accused of the high crime of insulting a grown-up.  He flees and finds that he has entered a foggy system of juvenile injustice where JACOB TWO-TWO MEETS THE HOODED FANG (Tundra Books, $12.95), a ghastly gaol guard with a sweet tooth and a soft heart.  Mordecai Richler’s funny tale heralds the return of a repetitious hero with a vivid imagination. This Canadian classic has been reprinted with illustrations by Dusan Petricic.  Enjoy this and all the other Jacob Two-Two tales. Ages 7-10  - Dara LaPorte

25 Years of Children's Favorites

A FEW MORE THAN 25 BOOKS THAT REFLECT
OUR SPIRIT IN THE CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT

Winnowing down this list was a very difficult process.  Each of us in the department could name at least 25 more beloved books that are not included.

Click here to view our list!

September 27, 2 - 3:15 p.m.

Capitol Letters Writing Workshop: Flash Fiction

If you've only got one sentence to tell your tale, what will you say? Learn how to pick the perfect word, say what you mean, and write a complete short story with a beginning, middle and end in just one line. Join Capitol Letters Writing Center for its free monthly workshop at Politics & Prose on the last Sunday of every month from 2 - 3:15 p.m. Ages 10 -18 are welcome. Admission is free, but space is limited to 15, please RSVP to kira@capitolletters.org

For September events and more from the Children and Teens' Department, click here.

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This week brings some remarkable and diverse fiction to the Remainder section.
These are just some of the new arrivals.

Geraldine Brooks’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, MARCH, fleshes out the character of Jo’s father from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. What happened to Mr. March while he was away in the Civil War? Brooks chronicles the experiences, illnesses, hardships, and reunions that March left out of the cheerful letters he wrote to his family in Alcott’s novel. She also gives Marmee a louder, bolder voice than Alcott’s readers heard; we get her side of a sometimes difficult marriage to an impractical, impoverished idealist. Available in hardcover, $5.98.

It’s the digital age, but does that mean we get rid of our entire paper legacy? In DOUBLE FOLD: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, the novelist Nicholson Baker (author of the bestselling The Anthologist) makes an impassioned plea that we take a second look at what we think is obsolete. From card catalogs to stacks of newspapers to old letters and postcards, Baker shows that original documents offer a wealth of information above and beyond their face value - details of inking and marginalia, for instance, fail to come across on microfilm. By jettisoning original paper archives, we lose a whole history of production and usage practices. Available in paperback, $5.98.

•  Laurie Greer
For more recently acquired remainders, click here.

 

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TIM PAGE & GLENN GOULD

Last Saturday at P&P, I introduced former Washington Post music critic Tim Page and his new book, Parallel Play. Mr. Page read two excerpts from the book, and he had an invigorating Q and A with the audience, both about his life in music, and his lifelong battle with Asperger’s Syndrome. He mentioned his many conversations with pianist Glenn Gould, and their immediate bond. You can hear Mr. Page and Mr. Gould discuss the two versions of the Goldberg Variations on a bonus disc that comes with A STATE OF WONDER: THE COMPLETE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS, 1955 & 1981 (Columbia, 3 CDs, $15.99).

Click here to read more reviews:

Monsters of Folk, Rufus Wainwright,
Simone Dinnerstein & Zuell Bailey,David Taylor

R.I.P. Ali Akbar Khan

 

• András Goldinger

 

 

MODERN AMERICAN DRAMA, 1947-1969: SIX PLAYS
Wednesdays, October 7 - November 11, 1 - 2:30 p. m.
Class taught by Prof. Jackson R. Bryer
Price: $100, or $80 for P&P Members, limited to 25 participants.
Please call the store at 202-364-1919 to register or click here to register online.

 

SMALL PRESS EXPO 2008 will be held the weekend of September 26-27 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. Now in its 14th year, SPX is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comic books and the discovery of new creative talent, bringing over 400 artists and publishers together to meet their readers, booksellers, distributors, and each other. SPX will be open to the public on Saturday, September 26, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. More information is available at www.spxpo.com.