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May 8, 2008

I know that the election is interfering with my reading. The drama of the primary is consuming my energy and time.

I watch television about 1000% more than I normally do. It’s not enough to see Mark Shields and David Brooks and Washington Week in Review once a week. I have to watch Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann and John King’s magic map. I regret to say that I often even listen to the endless discussion.

Oh, and it’s not just television that is consuming my reading time. I read blogs praising and condemning and emails with up-to-date commentary. And I even view the videos on My Space and send them to all of my friends. 

The drama is palpable – I don’t think it’s just the campaign or pundits spit. Here in one corner is the vibrant and attractive first woman candidate. Here in the other, the elegant and cool first serious African American candidate. Both are obviously intelligent and focused.  Recently, the epic quality of the clash is spoofed in a satire based on Star Wars. While obviously touting Obama, the video is very clever.

In the background is the failing and flailing Presidency of George Bush. A British friend asked how the United States could elect George Bush in one election and (possibly) Barack Obama in the next. I said that maybe it is the abject failure of Bush that makes Obama possible.  America can start a new chapter.

Meanwhile, the reading that I get done in preparation for introducing the authors at the store just gets me more concerned about the need for a change in direction. There are books about America’s changing place in the world and others about how we go about improving life for our citizens.  Many of these are aimed at contributing to agenda setting for the new administration. 

Hopefully, we can all get back to reading once the primary is over, or will it all start again with the young knight who is jousting with the battle scarred veteran?

April 16, 2008

Hello from a very cool and often rainy April week in London.

I am here with a group of American booksellers attending the annual London Bookfair. The fun of being here is thinking about books and selling them with my colleagues. There are some wonderful hard-working store owners here with me.

The convention spotlights Arab writers this year and, thanks to Mark LaFramboise, I brought The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa Al Aswany, who is a featured writer tomorrow at the Fair. (Mark’s Evening Fiction bookgroup is reading the book next month.) It's a first rate novel—beautifully written and witty. It is also a depressing look at contemporary Egyptian culture.

I walked through the convention center floor today, and there actually was very little for an American bookstore representative to do. We can't order from British publishers and some of the forthcoming books will not be published in the U.S. for six months or a year.

But London is amazing. There are scores of languages being spoken on the bus and in the tube. There are concerts and art exhibitions, only a little of which we can take advantage of. It's a very stimulating environment and we are all grateful for the chance to be here.

See you at the store next week,

Carla

April 9, 2008

Letter from a Friend

Lisa Newman went to the microphone after Daoud Hari spoke last week about his extraordinary book, THE TRANSLATOR. Daoud saw his home destroyed and many members of his family killed in Darfur. Nevertheless, he returned from a safe haven in Chad to become a translator for news organizations because he felt that he had to let the world know what was happening in Darfur. Everyone who attended Daoud’s reading was moved, and particularly so when Lisa spoke about the book. In a recent letter, Lisa wrote:

Carla,

Thank you for coming up to me to mention that you appreciated my comments at the Daoud Hari reading last night. It was a wonderful event, and it made me proud to be a member of the Washington community. It was so important to welcome a genuine hero to a warm and creative environment, and at the same time help him (and a great bookstore) sustain the good work that can be done in the world.

As I was leaving, a couple told me they bought the book based on what I said alone. Well, that felt good, but the book stands on its own. I hope it wins a prize, and gets the recognition it deserves worldwide. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye last night, but since I study at the cafe at least twice a week, I'll catch you another time.

Best,

Lisa Newman

London

I am off to London for a week, as part of a delegation of American booksellers attending the London Bookfair. Some nice events have been arranged for us, like a tour of the Globe Theatre and of the Tate Museum. I will, of course, report back.

4/2/08

One of the reasons that Barbara and I like to introduce the authors as much as we do, is that it gives us the opportunity to have a more detailed look at a wide range of books. We do not (cannot) read them all, cover to cover, but the ones that we have not read, we look through, read chapters of, and get a sense of whether we can recommend the book.

This past week and the one before, three important books were presented at the store: Parag Khanna’s SECOND WORLD, Jeffrey Sach’s book COMMON WEALTH, and Aaron Miller’s THE MUCH TOO PROMISED LAND. And I also want to talk about a lovely new book by Jonathan Rosen called, THE LIFE OF THE SKIES.

The Second World is a book that will change the way you think about the future of our own country and of the world that is emerging. It’s a book that the young Thomas Friedman could have written. Khanna went around the world, surveying at least 100 countries. Second World refers to many nations where there is a mixture of rich and poor, of urban complexity and rural isolation.

No longer is the United States the lone superpower. Rather, Khanna sees that already we are sharing markets with the European Union and China. He sees Europe as a model that we could do more to emulate in our own hemisphere. Prosperity and peace are spread across Europe, even as it integrates more nations into the union. China is apolitical in its demands on resources and markets, and supports many authoritarian regimes (as does the United States). But it is also a source of stability, because its needs are intertwined with the rest of the world.  

I read Second World while I was in Chiapas, in Mexico, and really appreciated the analysis as a way of explaining Mexico’s tangled politics as well as its intriguing mixture of sophistication and extreme poverty.

(order an audio cd of this talk here.)

Two weeks ago, Jeffrey Sachs gave a world class talk on Common Wealth to a packed audience of young and old (for an audio CD click here). No, we cannot depend on the invisible hand of the market to solve the gaps between rich and poor countries. No, we cannot depend on the good sense of the world’s corporations to restore the earth and the seas after they are plundered. We must develop new governmental mechanisms to prevent a global disaster that is looming, given the exponential increases in the world’s population, the economic rise of Asia, competition for the world’s remaining resources, and the degradation of the earth’s environment.

Aaron David Miller is frank about the failure of the United States to help Israel and Palestine negotiate peace in The Much Too Promised Land. As a participant in talks for over twenty years when he worked at the State Department, he presents each set of discussions, showing what went right and what went wrong. This is one of the best books that I have ever read about the nitty gritty of negotiations. It is also a thorough assessment of the credibility of the nations and their capability to deliver what they promise.

Because Milller’s book is so personal, it is much more entertaining than a simple history of Middle East negotiations would be. Aaron talks about his own background; he talks about the players at the table; and he is very open about the Americans who have been successful and those who have not. He says that only the United States has the credibility to bring an end to the struggle. Precisely because the U.S. has a special relationship with Israel, it can lean on Israel to make the changes that are necessary to win concessions from Palestine.

(order an audio cd of this talk here.)

Finally, I want to tell you about a book that is not about changing the world – at least not directly: The Life of the Skies, by Jonathan Rosen. Some of you may know Jonathan Rosen from his essays in The Talmud and the Internet, or from Joy Comes in the Morning, his first novel. Life of the Skies is about his passion for birding, and is an extended reflection on the interaction between humans and other species. We learn about Audubon and Thoreau when their worlds were much more intertwined with nature, and we learn what is happening to nature as man squeezes it out. We see some birds in Central Park and Louisiana and Israel, and we learn about what it is that drives Jonathan to spend his time pursuing birds. We are also reintroduced to Edward O. Wilson, the great biologist, and to Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s brilliant contemporary, and we meet some new remarkable men like Henry Baker Tristram.

(order an audio cd of this talk here.)

3/26/08

Staring at the Sun

I went to a funeral last Friday for Josephine Woll, our friend and customer. The brilliant and lively Dr. Woll was a Russian expert who had fought breast cancer for three years. She was only 57 years old.

I couldn’t help thinking about Josie when Dr. Irvin Yalom spoke to a full house on Sunday about his new book, STARING AT THE SUN.  Dr. Yalom recommends two principles for living life in a way that diminishes anxiety about death: rippling and connectivity. Rippling is like the stones you drop in the water and watch as the ripples spread out. Everybody who spoke at Josie Woll’s funeral talked about how much of herself, her ideas, and her good sense she imbued others with. And they talked about the joy she gave to her many friends and relatives. 

Nobody wants to die; nobody wants their friends and beloved family to die, especially not prematurely. But it is a comfort to all of us to know that our lives matter. And that our death can be managed with grace.

In that vein, Eleanor Clift has written about her husband’s last weeks before he died of cancer. Tom Brazaitis was a masterful journalist and a warm and funny man who died two years ago. Tom’s service at the National Press Club had many of the same elements that Josie Woll’s did—testimony to the warmth and caring that he imbued in his journalistic and personal life. Eleanor turned her grief into a lovely memoir, TWO  WEEKS OF LIFE, which describes Tom’s last days in hospice care, juxtaposed against the unpleasant political circus over Terry Schiavo that was occurring in the same two weeks. Eleanor will be at P&P on Saturday, April 5 ,at 1 p.m.

posted March 12, 2008

Every year Politics and Prose sponsors a trip to Mexico. We started these annual trips for two reasons: 1) Americans are too Europe-centric, I thought, and we have an opportunity to increase their association with and loyalty to Latin America. A friend of mine said that he didn’t believe that Mexico could compare to Europe as a place to visit.  He now admits he was wrong. He loves the art, architecture and crafts of Mexico.  2) It is not easy to navigate Mexico without knowing Spanish. Driving alone is somewhat iffy because the police are not always protectors and they sometimes shake down drivers. Driving in Mexico City is a horror because of the traffic. Public transport is excellent but some of the sites we want to visit are difficult to get to, especially without sufficient language skills.

Why not other parts of Latin America? Mexico is easy to travel to and extremely diverse. The graceful architecture is a combination of Spanish and Moorish. Each town has a central square surrounded by shops and restaurants, perfect for sitting in or along. The architectural splendors of the indigenous peoples are stunning. Huge pyramids that served as ceremonial centers are gradually being uncovered. No one is certain why and even how the Mayans or earlier Olmecs disappeared although there are theories related to climate and food supply.

Our 2008 trip was primarily to the southernmost state of Chiapas. Chiapas, where the majority of the citizens are descendents of the Mayans, had been bypassed by the periods of reform that came periodically to Mexico.  The people eked out subsidence on rocky land – the best land was all farmed by a few big haciendas. There were few schools and many people were illiterate.  The Zapitista uprising sought to correct the inequities. Many of us read a thoughtful (though very academic) book called Understanding the Chiapas Rebellion by Nicholas Higgins that put the Zapitista movement in perspective.

It does appear that the attention brought to Chiapas by Commander Marcos and his associates has made an impact. The region appears less isolated and public improvements are evident.  Roads are improved and the dire poverty that had been described by other travelers is less apparent.  This is not to say that there is not far more to do. Pressure will have to continue to be applied on the state and the national government to promote more even development.

In San Cristobal de Casas, the lovely old capital, we met with Sergio Castro an agronomist who treats burn victims among the poor. Through his ministry and raising money to build schools, he has earned the confidence of the local population.

(To watch a movie about this remarkable man click here)

We spent two days visiting one of Chiapas’ great attractions, the Mayan city of Palenque, which is already substantial, even though only a small fraction has been excavated. We were in the jungle and saw rare birds and howler monkeys. We took a ride on the Sumidoro River which has mile high canyons on both sides. We saw egrets and crocodiles. In Tutzla Guiterrez we visited a zoo with native animals and birds.

In Mexico City we saw Rivera murals, including extraordinary ones in the waterworks which we had not viewed before. We visited the new Museo de Artes Populare.  At last, the brilliant craftsmen of Mexico are receiving recognition for their arts. Many of the craftspeople that we had visited in other years are represented in the museum: including, the devil makers in Ocumicho in Michoacán; the whimsical Irma Blanco of Oaxaca; the Castillo family’s inventive trees of life in Izuckar de Matamoros, Puebla; and Gorky Gonzales of Guanaquato and his blend of new and old in ceramics.

Each year we learn more about the beautiful country on our southern border with its unique blend of Spanish and indigenous people and culture.  This year I was reading the immensely provocative The Second World by Parag Khanna (who will be presenting his book at P&P next week).  The second world is characterized by uneven development, some first world characteristics and some third world.  Here is some of what Khanna says about Mexico.  After NAFA went into effect the Zapatistas began an insurgency (including assassinating two government leaders) revealing that Mexico is more third-world than first. He says that "it will require more than laissez-faire NAFTA-nomics to make one country out of Mexico. It will take the United States to offer what the EU is required to offer Turkey: membership, citizenship, members of parliament, open migration, massive subsidies, and language rights within a parliament border. “

Those of us who love Mexico (and those who do not want illegal immigrants in the U.S.) have a special obligation to ensure that some or all of these actions are taken by the next Administration.

Photos by Janet Hoveland

Posted March 5, 2008

Letter from Mexico

This is our sixth annual P&P trip to Mexico, and this one has been in the far south, near Guatemala.

We have only two more days of our bright sunshine and the stimulating visits to museums, zoos, and, particularly, archeological sites. Once again, we have fallen under the sway of the early peoples who built great monuments. We have seen the flora and fauna of southern Mexico and visited with individuals who are trying to improve the position of the indigenous peoples. It does seem as though there has been some improvement in the economy here in Chiapas, undoubtedly thanks, in part, to the uprising led by the Zapatistas.

I will be back in the store on Thursday and I will be eager to tell you more about our trip.

Posted February 20, 2008

This weekend I am off to Mexico for the annual twelve-day Politics and Prose trip to our neighbor to the south. Our Investigative Tourists* are both old and new friends, twenty-two in all. Half have come on a trip previously and half are first timers.

Every year for the last six we have led a late-February trip to sunny, dry Mexico. We have explored Oaxaca, the Colonial cities north of Mexico City, and the Gulf state of Vera Cruz and its marvelous Pyramid of the Niches. We almost always start in Mexico City, which we all love. The grand and sprawling city has extraordinary museums, markets, restaurants—more than we ever have time to explore, especially because we always want to return to the Museum of Anthropology and the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

This year we will explore Chiapas and Tabasco in the south of Mexico. Abutting Guatemala, Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico and almost completely Mayan. It is the center of weaving as well. There are a number of NGOs who are working with the villages in Chiapas—Grameen, Habitat for Humanity—and we hope to meet with some of them. We will be escorted to some of the villages and see the weaving cooperatives.

High on the list of sites in this part of Mexico is the great Mayan “ruin” Palenque. I put ruin in quotation marks because many of Mexico’s archeological treasures are in surprisingly good condition. Some had been buried under mud and jungle growth for centuries, awaiting excavation in the twentieth century.  Palenque was built in the early years of the first millennium and serious excavation did not start till the 1920s.

Of course, I will want to report more when I return—certainly about the zoo in Tuxtla Gutierrez and the Olmec heads in Villahermosa and much else.

* So named on our first P&P trip to Central Europe in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Posted February 5, 2008

Carla Comments: Continuing Discussion on the Future of Israel

I am very pleased that my letters on my trip to Israel have provoked such a fine discussion. Readers will get a good cross-section of the thinking in the American Jewish community if they follow the comments.

At one extreme is the occasional letter from a customer saying he will not return to the store because I am anti-Israel. In this case, I told the man that if criticizing the government of Israel makes me anti-Israel, then I am also anti-American, because I am a strong critic of the U.S. government. I love Israel, which is why it pains me when its policies are an impediment to a lasting peace or even to long-term security.

But our friend Michael Feuer takes issue with Merrill
Leffler and the authors of Lords of the Land:

Leffler's letter cites Amos Elon's assertion that there are "500,000 Israelis in 226 authorized and 'unauthorized' settlements..." That number is contested—current estimates are closer to 400,000, the vast majority of whom are not in those small, largely religious outposts that cause the most trouble with Palestinian neighbors. 

Leffler suggests that Israel's parliamentary system is responsible for policies that "have consistently stymied liberal reforms..."  There are many flaws in the coalition system in Israel, but it is worth noting that by most indicators of economic, social, and medical well-being the condition of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously since the so-called occupation.

I cite Efraim Karsh, a distinguished historian at Kings College (London):  "Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000. Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000.” These improvements are perhaps not sufficient to compensate for lack of political sovereignty; but it is simply wrong, and a bit mean-spirited, to perpetuate the myth of Israeli (Jewish) indifference to Arab suffering when so much data are readily available that demonstrate the counterfactual. 

The deeper issue is one that constrains and has always constrained the prospects for real peace. It is true that the overwhelming majority of Israelis still favor land concessions for peace—as they have since the first moments after the Six-Day War and, indeed, as they have in response to every one of the multiple partition plans that have been proposed in the 20th century—but there is also growing evidence that the issue is not the 1967 borders. The problem, it seems, if you read carefully the words of distinguished Palestinian leaders like Hanan Ashrawi, is the "catastrophe," the "naqba" of 1948, which suggests rather eerily that all of these debates about the 1967 borders may miss the point entirely. Persistent, intransigent opposition to Israel's very existence, regardless of its borders, is the root cause of the seemingly endless conflict.

Does this mean Israel should just hold on to all the settlements and forget about the dream of land concessions for peace?  Certainly not. It just means that Mr. Leffler's somewhat casual review of the situation is inadequate as a basis for understanding Israeli (and Arab) policy options and their likely consequences.

From Carla Cohen:
Thank you, Michael. But I do not agree.
I find LORDS OF THE LAND (published in Israel in 2005 and here by Nation Books in 2007), an excellent and well-organized history of the Settlement movement. The authors are Idith Zertal, an Israeli historian, and Akiva Eldar, a political columnist with Ha’aretz, the liberal Israeli daily newspaper. They open by reminding readers that “for approximately two-thirds of its history, Israel has been an occupying state.” Lords of the Land “charts a two-pronged development. On one hand, there is the settlement movement, which from its very inception was imbued with a sense of sacred national-religious mission. On the other hand, we have seen the gradual collapse of the state’s institutions, whether by choice or out of weakness in the face of the messianic zeal that burst into the public sphere after June 1967.” Americans have to understand what the authors call “the malignancy of occupation.”

Their information and conclusions are not welcome, but I certainly saw nothing in my brief stay in Israel that contradicted their findings.

Posted January 29, 2008

Carla Comments: More on Israel and Its Future

I received a number of comments about my letters from Israel. One of the most thoughtful was from our friend Merrill Leffler, a local publisher, which I want to quote part of:

Dear Carla,

I read your two-part Letter from Israel, after reading Amos Elon’s review-essay in the current New York Review of Books, “Olmert and Israel: The Change,” which includes the Haaretz map you refer to—apparently, there are some 500,000 Israelis in 226 authorized and “unauthorized” settlements—250,000 in the West Bank alone. Wherever the number comes from, Elon writes that 150,000 would have to be moved if there is to be a chance of peace with the Palestinians. By whom? The settler communities grew 5-1/2 percent from Jan-June in 2007, according to Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories (translated from the Hebrew of Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar). Drawing on this book, Elon writes that 40 percent of the settlements have been “built on private Palestinian land.”

Why these statistics? Nearly 70 percent favor land for peace and security but, as you write, because of the parliamentary system, minority parties are needed for coalitions and thus exercise such an incredible influence on Israeli policy that they have consistently stymied liberal reforms, both domestic ones and with the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palestinians under Arafat—and Hamas since— turned to violence and suicide bombings, which have in turn elicited, and continue to elicit, massive Israeli retaliation, which in turn leads to more Palestinian violence which in turn…. A feedback loop with only an occasional timeout for negotiations which have gone nowhere.

You point to social action programs by many conscionable Israelis who are working to break down the walls (an ironic metaphor now) between Jews and Arabs. It is making the difference, no doubt, in the lives of participating Israeli and Arab youth and those who are working (you write) “to expose the pernicious effect that the settlement movement has had in Israel.” These are all crucial efforts but can they be enough to make a difference, given the history of occupation, without a massive commitment by Israel, let alone the U.S., which has backed, if only by silence, much of the illegal territorial grabs that Israeli governments have supported since 1967?

And what would it really take to dismantle those settlements? And would a civil war ensue? And American Jews have—it’s only in recent years that American Jews have had the courage of progressive Israelis (e.g., Ha’aretz) to oppose those Israeli policies they disagree with and not feel that in doing so they were betraying Israel and all, by extension, the Jewish people(s). It still takes courage to speak out and not be labeled a dupe of the anti-Israeli forces or a self-hating Jew, etc.

Like many of these Jews, I have been conflicted between a heartfelt support of Israel with its incredible achievements in all realms (let alone what it's meant to the Jewish people) and then the reality, at least as I see it, of what’s happening on the ground, Israeli policy and the attitudes of those right-wing Israelis—not your friends—the hardliners of all kinds and the miserable impact they have had and continue to have on foreign policy. (I write this and am not unmindful that there is a real enemy. However, it’s Israel that has 600 checkpoints, not Arabs, that humiliate ordinary Palestinians and who are subjected to harassment every day. It’s Israel that has sanctioned the appropriation of private lands and has done the same awful things to Arabs that Arab extremists have done to Israelis— at least if you are an ordinary Palestinian, a working man who is trying to get by.) Of course Israel has to take precautions against terrorists and suicide bombers and so the ante keeps getting raised—and now that Hamas has shown walls don’t need patient negotiation to be brought down but that they can be blown up, those precautions and preemptive actions will be stepped up.

When I was in Israel 20 years ago, while I loved being in Israel and felt such a comfortableness as a Jew there, there was a discomfort I felt after we had met and spoke with Gush Emunim settlers and then visited an Arab-Israeli village and spoke with leaders there. The first were intractable and spoke of Arabs in the same way that virulent anti-Semites speak of Jews, while the second were marginalized and obviously treated by the government as second-class citizens. Despite this, there are Arab-Israelis in the Knesset.

Neither Israel nor the Palestinians have been blessed with far-seeing leaders, at least ones who have been in decision-making powers with regard to the settlements after the 1967 war. And this is not in retrospect—even Ben Gurion, who was no longer prime minister, “advocated a quick withdrawal.” (Elon).

So Carla, thanks for the provocation of your letters.

Posted January 22, 2008

A Letter From Israel part two

David and I were in Israel when President Bush visited Israel and Palestine. The President’s trip to the Middle East brought into focus the difficulties ahead for the United States in trying to bring peace to this troubled region. The Israelis we spoke to were not very optimistic about what the President could achieve, although they were happy that the U.S. was finally focusing again on peace in the region. And the press reports since then show that the Arabs are even more skeptical.

Israeli politics seem gridlocked. Public opinion data (very sophisticated in Israel) consistently show that 2/3 of Israeli Jews favor land for peace with security. At the same time, the political system is incapable of responding to that. As one friend pointed out, the parliamentary system designed to represent multiple positions has proportionate seating with a minimal threshold. The effect is that small political groups hold veto power over ideologically divisive issues, including issues important to the majority of Israelis and American Jews, such as peace and religious pluralism. Governing coalitions are built with representatives of several parties—religious, secular, nationality-based groups. In the case of Olmert’s current coalition, threats from right- wing settler groups to leave the coalition can, and may, prevent solutions to the issues in the West Bank.

The President was greeted with many ads in The Jerusalem Post, an English-language paper. Many came from right-wing American Jews who have come to live in Israel. Their tenor was, “We cannot return any of Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank territory that Israel took over after the 1967 Six Day War). “God wants us to have the land. The Palestinians have to resettle elsewhere.”

What is encouraging is that there are many examples of people working to expose the pernicious effect that the settlement movement has had in Israel. We heard many stories about the dehumanization of the Palestinians in the territories. Fences around the settlements necessitate long, sometime arduous, journeys for Palestinians because of security zones that are created for the settlers. Soldiers at the crossings are the least well-paid and trained of Israeli soldiers and sometimes treat the Palestinians with disdain. Groups of Israeli women actually monitor these border crossings to improve fair treatment at the borders.  

And there are many Israelis trying to make the country work as a pluralistic and democratic nation. We visited a group in the Galilee where Israeli Arabs and Jews are working with citizen groups to draw up a land use plan for that part of the Galilee. They have to overcome strident opposition from those Israelis who don’t believe in pluralism.

The right wing gets confirmation of its position by the absence of leadership among the Palestinians and the other Arab nations in the region. It appears that every time there is a chance for a breakthrough to peace, there is another shelling by Hamas or a suicide bomb. All of this creates what one friend called the “fatigue factor” among peace- minded Israelis, and indeed, the peace movement has been weakened. .

Our conclusion is that the only way the problems in the Middle East can be solved is with the U.S. leaning heavily on Israel, the Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors. This view is shared by many of the Israelis we spoke with. American policy has to support dismantling the settlements and negotiating border settlements that are closer to the 1967 borders. At the same time, the U.S. has to assist in a security force that will enforce borders, prevent terrorism, and stop creating new facts on the ground by settlement expansion. That means the U.S. has to stay engaged, support civil society organizations, and oppose Arab governments that clamp down on democracy—governments that do not distinguish between anti-democratic forces and democratic criticism of their rule.

Posted January 8, 2008

A Letter From Israel

David and I have been in Israel for almost one week, attending what has turned out to be an intense seminar in Middle East politics. We actually made this trip to visit with friends (and see my niece who is here for one year). Our friends represent those Israelis who hope for a nation that lives in peace with its neighbors. They in turn have invited other friends who represent a greater variety of viewpoints. So we have had many conversations about the present and future.

Many people do not seem aware of the physical beauty that this little country possesses. First is the old city in Jerusalem with its exquisite Arab architecture and small winding streets. It gives one a sense of what a medieval city was like. We are staying in a suburb of Tel Aviv, only two blocks from the Mediterranean. A couple of nights ago we watched the sun set on the sea while we drank cappuccinos. Tomorrow, we drive north toward the Galilee, through rolling hills dotted with houses. There is desert, mountains, and much fertile flat land.

Of course, what gives Israel its special character is the accomplishment and intensity of its multi-ethnic population. Many of the people we have spoken to continue to be involved in organizations promoting a better nation, one more equitable for Palestinians and Jews, poor and rich. Many of them acknowledge the difficulty in making change here and some are very discouraged.

I have had a privileged look at Israel and its relationship with the Palestinians, with other Arab nations, and with the U.S. because I just finished Aaron David Miller's forthcoming book, THE MUCH TOO PROMISED LAND. Aaron Miller, who is a Chevy Chase resident, worked on this issue for 20 years at the State Department. His personal, detailed history of the negotiations between Israel and its neighbors is an intriguing historical record.

Aaron's book assesses what it takes to bring the countries together. United States involvement is critical. We need to be present to lean on the parties who need leaning on and to ensure that the agreement can be implemented. We need to be tough, but also caring. We need to respect the domestic situation of the leaders back home. Now more than ever, the U.S. needs to find a way to make peace in "this neighborhood."

I have lots more to say, but I will save it for when the book is published in the last week of March and Aaron makes his presentation at P&P.

With the history that Aaron recounts, it is easy to say "you should have come to an agreement a long time ago." But it is also easier to see why it hasn't happened.

Many of the Israelis will give their classic shrug when you ask them how they see the country 20 years into the future. And they will put the blame on "them" as though Israel has not made mistakes. But many of the Israelis that we have met are eager to move forward to ensure that their nation can live in peace with its neighbors.

It's really a funny coincidence that the President is going to be here at the same time we are here. We can tell you more about that next week. Most Israelis believe in "land for peace," 2/3 according to the most recent polls. Today, in preparation for Bush's visit, Haaretz (the NY Times of Israel) printed a map with all of the outposts on the West bank. The incursions are immensely provocative—some far into Palestinian territories, and there are some 4,000 settlers there. But what the map does not show is that huge suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been built across the Green Line, containing many more thousands of people.

What Miller says, what the Israelis that are involved in social action say, is the settlements have to be dismantled. The U.S. will have to help with resettlement costs and to ensure that there is a security system in place. This is the agreement that everybody knows has to be put in place, and why it has taken so long to get there, is something of a mystery.

Posted December 18, 2007

In spite of all the signs that there is a decline in book readers against population, books continue to show their power.

When I read Barack Obama’s first book DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, I was awe stricken by his vision and hoped that he would run for president.

My bumper sticker, printed by a friend long before he announced, reads, “Obama; He’s Ready; Why Wait?” When David and I listened to THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, we were again impressed by his understanding of the political process, its strengths and weaknesses. There is a section where he talks about the seduction of the private plane as opposed to a common carrier.

Several customers have emailed us saying that the most powerful arguments against the Iraq War were made in book form first, not the newspapers nor (of course not) television. George Packer’s THE ASSASSINS’ GATE presented sad details about how botched our Iraq efforts were; Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY showed that the Americans in Iraq were out of touch with the daily lives of Iraqis. Martha Raddatz presented poignant evidence of the young American lives that have been badly affected by their valiant efforts in Iraq in THE LONG ROAD HOME.

This week I have conducted a correspondence with a Washington-area activist who was deeply upset that P&P provided a forum for John Mearshimer and Steven Walt and their book THE ISRAEL LOBBY. I answered that I found most of their views far fetched, but it is important for people to hear the arguments of the Israel critics and people who think that Jews have too much power. We don’t bring in other people to debate the authors’ views because our customers can ask questions and draw their own conclusions.

All of these experiences point to the fact that books still have amazing powers to move, communicate, and, yes, to anger.

And we haven’t even discussed the effect that fiction can have on us.

Posted November 27, 2007

We visited WETA this afternoon for filming a new internet program called Author, Author. Our interviews will run later this month. We will let you know when you can see us online. Carla had prepared something in writing which she shares here.

The 2007 books very much reflect the ways in which the world is changing and our growing concern about Islam and the Middle East.

THE LOOMING TOWER by Lawrence Wright was published last year and received the Pulitzer Prize, but I just read and listened to it and it altered my view of the world. I am going to give it to everybody I know. Wright does a brilliant job of documenting the rise of Al Qaeda from its beginnings in Sadat’s Egypt to its participation in the liberation of Afghanistan from the USSR to the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the embassies in Africa. Meanwhile there was an obsessed FBI agent named John O’Neill who understood what was happening but could not get any help from other intelligence agencies in the U.S. or abroad.

One of my favorite novels of the year, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST by Mohsin Hamid, takes place in Lahore, Pakistan. In the book, Changez, a Pakistani, sees an American in the market and asks him to sit with him and hear his story of disillusionment with America. There’s an ominous feeling in the book and the reader never knows whether the American will be executed or the Pakistani abducted.

We continue to be fascinated by Winston Churchill and his outsized personality. Three recent books of history put Churchill into perspective, and offer not always positive glimpses of the great man.

TROUBLESOME YOUNG MEN by Lynne Olson is about the group of Tories that in opposition to their party finally forced Neville Chamberlain from power. Churchill was loosely allied with them but did not risk his leadership by joining with them. This wonderfully engaging book describes Chamberlain’s dictatorial methods and the young men who risked their political futures to topple him because they did see Hitler’s ambitions and his xenophobia accurately.

THE DAY OF BATTLE by Rick Atkinson about Churchill's insistence on the Allied campaign in Italy and what it cost. Atkinson’s magisterial book shows how the Allies crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa and crawled up the boot. That the intelligence was faulty is a massive understatement. The Americans did not even know there were mountains in Italy. It was the British who insisted on bombing Monte Cassino because they insisted there were Germans hiding in the old church. And so it went until they entered Rome just four days ahead of D-Day.

INDIAN SUMMER by English historian Alex Von Tunzelmann is about the final days of Britain's leave-taking from India and South Asia against the furious opposition of Churchill. We learn about Gandhi and Nehru, the kind of men they were and their campaign for independence and the compromises they made. We learn about the British royal family and their emissary Dickie Montbattan who oversaw the final arrangements. And we learn about Dickie’s wife Edwina who had a deep regard for India and especially for Nehru. All along Churchill fought Indian independence on what has to be seen as racist grounds.

TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS is the brilliant imaginative Ryszard Kapuściński's last book. Kapuscinki was always way ahead of the rest of the world in identifying places we would be hearing about. This book traces his steps throughout the world carrying the 2500 year old Histories by Herodotus and seeing the relationship between now and then. He starts the book by telling us that the Polish edition of Herodotus was translated several years before it was published because the Poles were scared of Stalin’s reaction. Why? Because all of the nations who opposed the Persian invasion were always severely punished.

In the same vein is Cullen Murphy's ARE WE ROME?, a marvelous discussion of the difference between the American empire and the Roman two thousand years ago. Murphy is well versed in the ways in which the Roman empire conquered and ruled. Relying heavily on Gibbon, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the arrogant ignorance of the world outside and the weakening of the body politic through various forms of “privatization.” There is hope, he writes, drawing on the Roman historian, Livy, “An empire remains powerful so long as its subjects rejoice in it.”

There are two remarkable books from the Caribbean that evoke the pulls of home and the hopes for a better life: BROTHER, I’M DYING by Edwidge Danticat, a memoir of her young life in Haiti and her family in Haiti and the U.S., and THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, a novel by Junot Díaz, which tells about a Dominican family, and also takes place in the U.S. and in the Dominican Republic.

BROTHER, I’M DYING is a heartbreaking book about Edwidge’s young life when she and her brother were left behind in Haiti in the care of her Uncle Joseph and Aunt Denise. She did not join her parents and American-born brothers until she was 11. The title of the book comes from an effort by Uncle Joseph to seek medical treatment in the U.S. where he was blocked by racist immigration restrictions. This beautifully composed book moves back and forth from Edwidge’s childhood to her pregnancy with her first child.

I approached Junot Díaz and THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO with trepidation since I am rather old for his hipster writing, full of references to pop culture (which went over my head) and expletives (which I think I understood). His writing is so engaging and his portraits of the women—his mother, grandmother, and sister—are gorgeously full of life. The trauma for the Dominican Republic is the rule of Trujillo and even though El Jefe died forty-five years ago, it is impossible, apparently, to write about Domincan life in the U.S. or D.R. without references to the savagery of his rule. So Trujillo appears in copious footnotes to the main story about the loser Oscar and his sister Lola and mother. 

Finally, just for fun, people will enjoy the little book by Alan Bennett about The Queen discovering reading for pleasure. It's called THE UNCOMMON READER. The Queen one day finds a bookmobile on her grounds at Windsor Castle and wandering in she thinks that she ought to select a book. She likes the book so much she asks for a recommendation for a second and then another and pretty soon she is neglecting her official duties in order to have more time to read. Alan Bennett’s little fable is an antidote to this busy, media saturated world.

Posted November 13, 2007

This Friday, November 16, we are hosting one of the nation's preeminent American historians, David Blight. His new book, A SLAVE NO MORE, has not been widely reviewed yet, but you will be disappointed if you miss his presentation. He was fortunate to come into possession of two slave narratives by John Washington and Wallace Turnage detailing their lives in slavery and their escapes to freedom during the Civil War. He has written a long introductory essay setting their moving narratives in perspective, comparing them to other slave narratives.

David Blight learned as much as he could about each man in the years following the war until they died. He provides a background about what was happening during the war and afterwards. He tells us all that he has found about each man, about their masters and their early lives, about their escapes—in Turnage's case four tries before he made it through to the Union troops on the fifth try.

It is important for every American, particularly white Americans, to revisit this most terrible time in our nation's history, when men were held as property by other men. We cannot know what it means to be a slave—how movement is restricted, how relationships are interrupted and severed, how owners become arrogant and their slaves humiliated, unless we read into history and literature.

David Blight, who now teaches at Yale, has written about how the meaning of the Civil War was forgotten for decades as the United States made attempts to cover over the chasm that was created by succession and war. The casualty of the distortion of meeting was full rights for African Americans.

Posted October 30, 2007

I have been listening to THE LOOMING TOWER by Lawrence Wright on CD. This book should be required reading by every public official in America and many other people.

I had read a little of the book last year and never gotten back to it because I was on to reviewing books for the next season. For the same reason, now I am listening to it while driving. I don’t love the narrator of the audiobook, but I love Lawrence Wright and I am learning enough to make my hair stand on end. The botched intelligence operations on the part of the FBI and CIA alone is enough for my hair.

The reason why everybody should be required to read the book, however, is to learn more about the Islamic National movements. We need to know about their obsessive hatred of all things Western, the fighting among different groups about who is most pure, the links to Arab nations, the financing of the movements, and most of all how clumsy efforts have been to clamp down on these groups among the Middle Eastern nations (Egypt, for example) and by the United States. For every effort to eliminate the ultra-nationalistic, ultra-religious groups, there is a much more pervasive reaction that has strengthened them. The men are extremely clever and will not be deterred. Humiliation by the West is a consistent theme. The reestablishment of the Caliphate is another. We in the United States must learn from our previously futile and counterproductive actions in the past decade.

Posted October 23, 2007

Books, Books

As I was working on the holiday catalogue, I was reviewing many new young writers (under 40) who are changing writing. They bring a new sensibility or take us to new places. I have reviewed four of my favorites (all of which are 20% off to members).

THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Díaz combines Spanish and English to introduce a richer language in a way that we have not seen since the mid-century since the Jewish writers ere in ascendancy and used Yiddish, and their exuberant manner to send American writing in new directions. His story of the Dominican immigrant family is at once particular to the family with the mother’s fierce pride and drive and at the same time Dominican culture and the Trujillo era affects every character.

I have just finished reading Shalom Auslander’s biting and witty memoir FORESKIN'S LAMENT. Some of you may remember the New Yorker piece a year ago that is part of the book, when Shalom walks across the George Washington Bridge from Teaneck New Jersey to midtown Manhattan so that he can keep God on his side (it was abbath) while he also gets to see an important hockey game. The book is about Shalom’s wrestling with the Lord as he tried to free himself from the severe strictures of Orthodox Judaism.

Mohsin Hamid is another very talented young writer, author of the disturbing novel THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. Pakistani-born Hamid has lived in the U.S. and U.K. and is trying to figure out where he and other well-educated young people stand when the world is divided between Islamic rage and Western obtuseness. In this brief and elusive novel an unnamed narrator encounters a western-educated Pakistani in the market in Lahore who wants to talk.

Rutu Modan, just over 40, is a brilliant Israeli graphic artist. Her novel EXIT WOUNDS is about the search for place in modern Israel. Koby, a taxi driver, is asked by Numi, a young woman soldier, to help search for Koby’s father Gabriel, from whom he is estranged. Numi is a bruised young woman who reaches out to Koby, with uncertain results.

Posted October 16, 2007

Nobel Prize for Literature

Doris Lessing personified the mid-20th century. When we first discovered her books, we women were beginning to see ourselves as possible equals to men in our objectives, our rights, and our desires. THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK was emblematic of this assertion. I read it at the end of the ’60s. The book, originally published in 1962, was about a fiercely independent woman, Anna Wulf. She kept different notebooks for the different parts of her life. She was intensely political; she joined the Communist Party in Southern Rhodesia during World War II and still was a member. Her notebooks included a black one about Anna’s years in colonial Africa; a red one about her political experiences; a yellow one with the fictional story of her alter ego, Ella; and a blue one with her diary. The golden notebook was her effort to bring these experiences together.

Before I read The Golden Notebook, I was completely absorbed by her Martha Quest series, a bildungsroman that hewed closely to her own experiences in Africa. Here, too, she was Anna Wulf. Later, she published The Summer Before the Dark about late middle age and although I read it before I got to the same place myself, I could feel its authenticity.

Doris Lessing was also deeply interested in fantasy and wrote several fantasy novels, which were cited in her Nobel nomination.

She is a leading intellectual in Britain, writing often for magazines.

Posted October 9, 2007

LISTENING IN THE CAR—OR WHILE WALKING OR EXERCISING, OR JUST LISTENING SITTING STILL

Ever since I sat in the supermarket parking lot thirty years ago listening to Garrison Keillor read Russell Baker's Growing Up, I have been an aficionado of listening to books.

Since we have been recording the talks at the store, I can often choose to listen to the author presenting the book, and sometimes the book as well. Alan Alda was so beguiling when talking about his book, THINGS I OVERHEARD WHILE TALKING TO MYSELF,  two weeks ago at the event that we co-sponsored at 6th & I Synagogue that I decided to buy the CDs. All of his entertaining talk is contained in the CDs and much more, of course. This recording is perfect for doing errands. You can pick the CDs up at any point and they don't have to be listened to in sequence. (They are a little repetitive—whose graduation and the final peroration should have been edited out of the recording and book.) But Alda's self-deprecation and his Gee Whiz, look how happy I am in spite of my not-so-wonderful childhood, is so impressive and affirming that you want to know the guy as much as you can.

I read so many books each year that I can listen to the CDs and hear many details that I have forgotten. And once you have read a book, you are able to enjoy and appreciate its unfolding even more in the telling. Such a book is THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Kiran Desai, which won the 2006 Booker Prize. It's a brilliant book that bears reading more than once.

Finally, I am about to start listening to THE LOOMING TOWER because I had the good luck to hear Lawrence Wright in his one-man show at the Kennedy Center two weeks ago. There he sat on the stage for 75 minutes and talked about the nature of Al Queda and the Islamic world. There were occasional slides and video behind him, but it was his words and his sensibility that made the show riveting.

Comments? Email: carla@politics-prose.com

Posted October 2, 2007

Each year we select perhaps a dozen books as the Politics and Prose Books of the Year for our holiday newsletter. It’s always an agonizing choice. Not only do we want the book to be wonderful—readable, gripping, informative— but we want each to have fairly wide appeal. We would love to hear what your favorite books this year have been. Just remember, in order to be included in our holiday newsletter, it must have been published during the calendar year 2007.

Those of us who participate in the buying at Politics and Prose—Mark Laframboise, Deb Morris, Barbara and Carla—and Laurie Greer, our newsletter editor, will all have a say about the books we choose as our favorites.

My favorites this year might not make it to the top of the holiday newsletter. They might be too quirky or my colleagues have not had a chance to read them and recommend them.

Here are the books that I have loved this year:

SACRED GAMES by Vikram Chandra
That’s the blockbuster Indian novel alternating between an Indian Godfather and a dedicated policeman. It’s a massive book and will do much better in paperback (end of Jan. 08) when readers can pick it up.

FIELDWORK by Mischa Berlinski
This unusual novel is about an American anthropologist who went native in Thailand.

THE POST-BIRTHDAY WORLD by Lionel Shriver
A clever and absorbing novel with alternating scenarios between an ordinary live-in partner Lawrence and her fantasy (?) lover, a pool champion.

LOVING FRANK by Nancy Horan
Horan’s first novel focuses on lover Mamah Cheney, who left her husband and family for architect Frank Lloyd Wright. They both risked much for their adulterous love.

EXIT GHOST by Philip Roth
All of Roth’s concerns and subjects are on display in his final Zuckerman novel. That man can write wonderful prose even when you have a hard time sympathizing with Zuckerman.

A MUCH MARRIED MAN by Nicholas Coleridge
This is frothy fiction about the scion of the Anscombe Bank and his multiple wives. Okay, it’s not a book that will last over time, but it’s a lot of fun.

HOUSE OF HAPPY ENDINGS by Leslie Garis
This exceptionally well-told memoir is about her father’s mental illness and the family’s inability—and indeed the mental health profession’s inability—to help her father, a talented writer.

A PIGEON AND A BOY by Meir Shalev
This new novel by the famous Israeli writer is my favorite fiction of the year. A romantic lush story of Israel on the eve of independence as told 45 years later.

TROUBLESOME YOUNG MEN by Lynne Olson
This is a wonderful little bit of history—how a group of brave Tory politicians risked their political lives to fight Neville Chamberlain and his all-but-support of Adolph Hitler.

That’s enough for now. I will list more at a later time.

Comments? Email: carla@politics-prose.com

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