Our Next Event

Eleanor Clift - Selecting a President

May 24 2012 7:00 pm
May 24 2012 8:00 pm

The first in a series of civics primers designed for students, this volume clearly and cogently describes the U.S. presidential electoral system. Clift, political commentator and reporter for television and print media, with Matthew Spieler, a former social policy analyst for Congressional Quarterly and current political writer for Voterpunch.org, looks at both the history of America’s elections and their future in the Twitter and Facebook world.

$19.99
ISBN-13: 9781250004499
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Thomas Dunne Books, 4/2012

Location: 
Street:
5015 Connecticut Ave NW
City:
Washington
,
Province:
District Of Columbia
Postal Code:
20008
Country:
United States

Next Events

God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage into the Heart of Medicine

May 24, 2012

God's HotelAs the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hand down its decision on the constitutionality of the Obama health care law, one book should be required reading for all nine justices: God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage into the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet.

In this unvarnished, humane, and brilliant writing debut, doctor and medical historian Sweet traces her own evolution as a physician assigned to care for society’s poorest and most downtrodden. Her 20 years as a doctor at one of America’s last almshouses—an antiquated facility in San Francisco called Laguna Honda—coincides with her work as a graduate student exploring pre-modern medicine. These parallel experiences shape her own evolution as a practitioner, forcing her to consider more honestly and openly what the modern health care system has come to mean for hospitals, and more specifically, for the doctor-patient relationship.

Told through the stories of her patients, and with Laguna Honda itself as a lead character, Sweet’s book exposes how basic tenets of medicine—diagnosing, treating, and caring for patients--have become distorted as our nation’s health care system demands greater “efficiency” from doctors and facilities alike. Most entertaining, and poignant, are her portraits of individual patients, who become sources of inspiration for her as a practitioner.

But equally fascinating and provocative is her discussion of the changes imposed on Laguna Honda after a team of health care consultants is called in to transform the place into a “modern” health care facility. Gone are the outdoor gardens and animals tended by patients, the daily interactions of doctors, staff, and patients, and most of all, the time that Sweet believes is necessary to fully care for patients. Is it really more efficient, she wonders, to order batteries of expensive tests for patients, or to sit with them, observe, and ask lots of questions to try to get to the bottom of what is ailing them? Indeed, as she learns from working with her patients, greater “efficiency” often results in more costly, inefficient, and ineffective ways of delivering health care.

Although not a writer by background, Sweet has a natural gift for story-telling, for conveying the quirks and nuances of characters she writes about, and for weaving it all together with a singularly important message. This book is a plea for “slow medicine” and for a re-examination of the real costs and benefits associated with the choices we make about how we care for people in our society. Not only should our Supreme Court justices read it, so should every doctor, lawyer, politician, and policy expert involved in thinking about how to reform our health care system.

--Brad and Lissa

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Father's Day Gift Bags

Fathers Day

Give the gift of Politics & Prose!

Show Dad your appreciation by treating him to a gift that he can enjoy all year with a gift bag of five superb books!

Father’s Day is June 17th this year. We’ve selected ten exceptional books that we think are perfect for dads. To tailor the gift for the father or grandfather in your life, pick any five books that you know he’ll love from these ten selections, and then add a tote or P&P cap. (Click the titles to learn more about each book.)

  1. The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes
  2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A George Smiley Novel, by John le Carré
  3. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, by John McWhorter
  4. Ill Fares the Land, by Tony Judt
  5. The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes
  6. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
  7. I Found This Funny: My Favorite Pieces of Humor and Some That May Not Be Funny at All, by Judd Apatow
  8. Pulphead: Essays, by John Jeremiah Sullivan
  9. The Best American Sports Writing 2011, edited by Jane Leavy
  10. Silk Parachute, by John McPhee

We will wrap each book individually and will ship your gift wherever you need.

Price: $100 – five books and tote bag or P&P cap of your choice
$80
– P&P member price

Click here to order a bag today.

Ticketed Events

 

Tuesday, June 19, 7 p.m.

CollinsGail Collins
As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda (Liveright, $25.95)
at Sixth & I Synagogue
600 I Street NW

Gail Collins declares that "what happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas anymore." Not until she visited Texas, the state of big oil and bigger ambitions, did Collins, the best-selling author and columnist for the New York Times, realize that she had missed the one place that mattered most in America’s political landscape.

Through its vigorous support of banking deregulation, lax environmental standards, and draconian tax cuts, and through its fierce championing of states rights, gun ownership, and sexual abstinence, Texas has become the bellwether of a far-reaching national movement that continues to have profound social and economic consequences for us all. According to Collins, like it or not, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets. One general admission ticket is $12 or receive two free tickets with the purchase of the book from Politics & Prose.

 

 

Literary Travel

Travel

 

Politics & Prose has long been regarded as a civic forum and community gathering spot, a place where serious readers and lovers of books can attend author talks, take classes, join book groups, and exchange ideas about the salient issues of the day. Now we are excited to expand on the store’s tradition of bringing people together around books and literally take readers and authors on the road. We invite you to join us this fall on a Politics & Prose Literary Tour to France or Ireland. Travel with Folger Poetry Board President Gigi Bradford to Ireland, or with P&P’s senior book buyer Mark LaFramboise to Paris and the French Riviera. Please visit www.politicsandprosetravel.com for detailed itinerary and price information.

  • Susan Coll

Graduation Gift Bag

Graduation Gift Bags

 

This spring, give your graduate something not only to use, but to treasure. Our unique graduation gift bags, tailored for either high school or college graduates, combine practical reference guides with essential classics handpicked by the Politics & Prose staff.  Also, don't forget to check out our awesome selection of graduation cards!

Everything comes individually gift-wrapped and carefully packaged in a sturdy P&P tote. We can ship to you or directly to the recipient, so please add a message, if desired.

Click here to see the options, and then click the title links to read more about the books. Also see other suggestions for grads by clicking here.

 

 

P&P Classes

Classes

 

It’s not too late to enroll in a P&P class this spring.

Planning a trip to Italy? Join us on May 21 for coffee, cookies, and a two-hour travel primer in Andiamo!

On May 23, author Carol Wallace will help you get started in framing your history project, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, in The Lure of History.

On May 30, author Melanie Choukas-Bradley will lead a discussion about DC’s arboreal history, followed by a guided Capitol walk on June 3, in This Green City.

Other summer classes include:

Children and teen classes

P&P is also introducing these three summer classes for children and teens:

 

Click here for the full list of current and future classes. Click the images online to register for the classes.
  • Susan Coll

Signed Books

Signed Books

Woolgathering, autographed by Patti Smith
(New Directions, $18.95)
First edition, second printing
Hardcover - November 2011

Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel, autographed by Charlaine Harris
(Ace, $27.95)
First edition, first printing
Hardcover – May 2012

Click here for more signed books.

Bestsellers

All Politics & Prose Weekly Hardcover Bestsellers are 20% off for Members.
Click here to see what the community is reading and the top twelve hardcover
fiction and non-fiction books we are discounting this week.

These are our top two titles.

Bestsellers

Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad, by Peter L. Bergen (Crown, $26)

Home, by Toni Morrison (Knopf, $24)

Click here for all 24 of our discounted bestsellers.

eBooks of the Week

Caps

The Politics & Prose hat just got a makeover: introducing the new, more colorful P&P cap! (Embroidme, $15). Featuring a simplified version of the P&P logo with some pop (!), these new caps make a great father’s day gift for the Politics & Prose enthusiast in your life. In addition to featuring a redesigned logo, the new hat also comes in a range of colors: sky blue, red, tangerine, and purple. Show everyone that you support your local independent bookstore with the new, improved P&P cap.  

Click here to order!

  • Mark Moran

 

Markdown Books

Markdowns

The age of exploration replaced the quest for the Holy Grail with a long search for El Dorado. Many, including Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett (see his fictionalized appearance in Conan Doyle’s Lost World), thought they might find it in the Amazon. Instead, Fawcett disappeared in the jungle in 1925 and became something of a legend himself, pursued in turn by scores of later explorers. David Grann tells the whole, fascinating, cliff-hanging story in his gripping The Lost City of Z. Available in paperback, $7.98.

Nadine Gordimer, the South African Nobel laureate, is nearly ninety and as sharp-eyed and prolific as ever. Her recent collection of short fiction, Life Times, is a sampler of work from throughout her career up to 2007, and it gives a wonderful overview of Gordimer’s scope as well as the many and dramatic changes she has witnessed in her country over the course of her long life. Gordimer excels at crystallizing the complexities of a society riven by racism, but the characters she presents take on lives of their own, independent of social hierarchies. Her fiction is art, not polemic, and you come away from her stories with a powerful sense of apartheid’s dreadful toll . Available in paperback, $8.98.

A novelist who can work wonders with the stuff of daily life, Stewart O’Nan created the seemingly ordinary Emily Maxwell, recently widow,  in his acclaimed Wish You Were Here;  in Emily, Alone he resumes her story—and though his heroine is now 80, there is plenty still to tell. Semi-dependent on her sister-in-law, Emily regains a measure of her old independence when her companion is taken ill. She keeps up relationships with her children, grand-children, and dog, finding fresh joys in life even as she grapples with new challenges of aging. O’Nan might have called this book “Emily, Indomitable”; his depiction of the life of the elderly emphasizes the life. Available in paperback, $5.98.

Please call us at 202-364-1919 or stop by the store to shop for these and other discounted titles.

  • Laurie Greer

 

Next Offsite Event

Suzanne Braun - Levine How We Love Now

Tuesday, June 5, 7- 9 p.m.

OffsiteDC Chapter of The Transition Network (TTN) and Civic Ventures
1331 G St, NW Conference Center
Metro: Metro Center (1/2 block), Gallery Place/Chinatown (5 blocks)
Suzanne Braun Levine
How We Love Now: Sex and the New Intimacy in Second Adulthood (Viking, $25.95)
Suzanne Braun Levine (the first editor of Ms. Magazine, 1972-1988) will share her groundbreaking, funny, poignant stories, interviews and research on the many ways women over 50 are finding love and redefining their relationships. Her new book is “the third chapter” in her ongoing conversation with women in second adulthood, the stage she celebrated in two popular books: 50 Is the New Fifty and Inventing the Rest of Our Lives.

The cost of tickets is $10 for TTN members, $15 nonmembers, and, if seats are available, $20 at the door (cash and checks only).

Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event. Click here to reserve online.

For more information, e-mail ttn.dcarea@gmail.com.

Promotional Period: 
Jun 5 2012

Offsite Events

Music News  

CDs are now searchable on our website, but stock status is not always currently visible. Please call the store at 202-364-1919 with questions or to order. You may also continue to email me at agoldinger@politics-prose.com to order.

 

NEW

 

Music
Guillermo Klein & Los Guachos, Carrera (Sunnyside, $16.98) – Pianist, composer, and arranger Guillermo Klein writes some of the most rhythmically intricate and swinging tunes around, and has a small big band to bring them to life. The eleven-member Los Guachos includes such luminaries as Miguel Zenon, Bill McHenry and Chris Cheek on reeds, Jeff Ballard on drums, Ben Monder on guitar, and Diego Urcola on trumpet and trombone.

 

Vivaldi: Sonate da Camera a Tre, Opus 1 (Naïve, $16.99) – The latest release in the ongoing Vivaldi Editions features the composer’s first published work. It’s played by members of L’Estravagante, featuring violins, cello, and harpsichord/organ.

 

Music
THE MUSIC MAN AT ARENA STAGE

 

After their great successes with Sophisticated Ladies and Oklahoma!, Arena Stage brings in a new production of anothre musical gem, The Music Man. The very mention of Harold Hill and River City brings to mind the great Meredith Willson songs (Willson wrote the music, lyrics and the book): “Ya Got Trouble,” “Til There Was You,” “76 Trombones.” Listen to the 1957 original cast featuring Robert Preston and Barbara Cook on The Music Man: Original Broadway Cast (EMI, $10.98).

NOTE: The Music Man is at Arena through July 22.

DAN TEPFER AT THE ATLAS

One of my favorite recordings from last year was an ambitious improvisational take on an iconic Bach work by jazz pianist Dan Tepfer. His Goldberg Variations/Variations (Sunnyside, $16.98) added Tepfer’s own variations to Bach’s.

On the jazz side, Tepfer leads a trio, has recorded duets with alto master Lee Konitz, and is a busy side man, who was in town recently for the Mary Lou Williams Festival in Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom quartet.

NOTE: The Dan Tepfer Trio will be playing next Wednesday, May 30, at the Atlas Arts Center, on H Street. His trio will include Ben Street on bass, and Ted Poor on drums.

 

  • András Goldinger

CHILDREN AND TEENS' DEPARTMENT 

Childrens

Children's Book of the Week
(20% off for everyone through May 30)
Can a fish be shy? Is it possible for a fish to be shocked? How about Happy (Lemniscaat, $17.95)? With Dutch author and illustrator Mies Van Hout, a fish can indeed be all of these things— and more. Each turn of the page offers a different emotion ranging from furious to delighted to curious to shy. On each opposing page, a brightly scribbled fish stands out against a background of deep-sea black, its face clearly reflecting its emotion. Ages 2-6 - Kerri Poore

Children’s Blast from the Past
(20% off for Members through May 30)
Swimmy (Random House, $6.99) is a little black fish who lives in a big family of little red fish. After tragedy strikes and a giant tuna eats all Swimmy’s crimson relatives in one gulp, he begins to travel the ocean. Soon his sadness turns to wonder as he sees all manner of creatures, including a rainbow jellyfish and “an eel whose tail was almost too far away to remember.” One day he comes across a group of little red fish just like the family he lost. When they tell him they are too afraid of being eaten to go exploring with him, he finds a solution that enables them to see the wonders of the ocean together. Leo Lionni’s trademark collage illustrations and simple text combine to create a tale whose beauty has endured for decades. Ages 2-4 - Janet Minichiello

Story Hour
Each Monday at 10:30 a.m., BearSong offers storytelling and guitar music for children from birth to 5 years old.

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

Baby Gift Bags

Customized Baby Gift Bags

Ask the booksellers at Politics & Prose to custom design a one-of-a-kind new baby gift.
Our experienced Children's Department booksellers will hand-select books based on the information you provide and put them in a gift bag of your choice. Your gift bag can also include non-book items. We offer an array of CDs, DVDs, puppets, and colorful, purposely mismatched, hand-knit socks from Vermont.

Order a baby gift bag from our website by clicking here, by calling 202-364-1919, or by visiting our staff in the Children’s Department.