Events

*THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL TUESDAY, MARCH 2 AT 10:30 A.M.*

In his round-the-world voyage of1830, Darwin observed huge turtles and an earthquake’s after-effects. Schanzer uses Darwin’s words—from his letters and journals—and her own colorful drawings to tell the story of this history-changing adventure.

*THIS EVENT WAS CANCELLED WITH NO RESCHEDULED DATE* 

A journalist born in Kashmir, Peer chronicles the devastating effects of the region’s conflict that since 1989 has killed some 70,000 people. From terrorist training camps to villages planted with land mines, from peasants to politicians, Peer’s book is a comprehensive and vivid account of a war-torn land.

*THIS EVENT WAS CANCELLED*

The author of River Town and Oracle Bones completes his trilogy on contemporary China with a report on that country’s love affair with cars. Hessler, Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, got a Chinese driver’s license in 2001 and spent six years driving some 7,000 miles around China.. His narratives of driving lessons, use of the horn, and traffic violations are funny and frightening.

*THIS EVENT WAS CANCELLED*

The anthem for the Civil Rights movement and a rallying cry for the Vietnam War protests, “We Shall Overcome” today is familiar around the world. Stotts’s history of the song goes back to its origins in hymns and gospel music and its roles in demonstrations against many different injustices.

*THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH AT 1 P.M.*

In 1886 Alexander Ulyanov, a brilliant biology student, joined other students at St. Petersburg University to plot the assassination of Russia’s tsar. The mission failed, and its leaders, Alexander included, were executed. His younger brother, Vladimir, was deeply affected by these events and later led the October Revolution of 1917 under his revolutionary pseudonym “Lenin.”

*THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED* 

A fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings, Felbab-Brown argues that the “narcoguerilla” premise—which assumes a symbiotic relationship between drug trafficking and terrorist organizations—that underlies much U.S. policy is mistaken and counterproductive. She draws on specific case studies from around the world as evidence for effective sequencing of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and counternarcotics efforts.

In his examination of the brief war between Russia and Georgia of August 2008, the former Assistant Deputy Secretary of State presents evidence that Moscow had been planning such an action for some time. He argues that it was intended to alert the West that Russia is a force to contend with in the 21st century. 

Legends now, the Founding Fathers in their day were as fallible as
anyone else. Kranish’s investigation into Jefferson’s actions during a
British military incursion in the Revolutionary War reveals the
then-governor of Virginia as a deficient military leader and poor
planner.

Cohen, a Jewish-Irish Protestant former Maine Senator, collaborates with his wife, an African-American Southern Baptist former television personality from Indiana, to argue for  an open dialogue on racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice. In 2008 the couple convened a multicultural group, which included Douglas Blackmon, Deepak Chopra, Sam Donaldson, Louis Gossett, Jr., and the Honorable John Lewis, to start just such a discussion.

In 1886 Alexander Ulyanov, a brilliant biology student, joined other
students at St. Petersburg University to plot the assassination of
Russia’s tsar. The mission failed, and its leaders, Alexander included,
were executed. His younger brother, Vladimir, was deeply affected by
these events and later led the October Revolution of 1917 under his
revolutionary pseudonym “Lenin.”

A biography of Joseph Pulitzer and a history of modern journalism, Morris’s book charts Pulitzer’s life from his birth in Hungary and his emigration to the United States in 1864,  to his involvement in journalism, which began when Pulitzer moved to St. Louis after the war. In 1879 he bought two newspapers, combined them into The St. Louis Post- Dispatch, and proceeded to transform the landscape of American news and politics.

In his startling examination of indigenous populations and global climate change, Davis, a prominent anthropologist, adds human cultural losses to the list of endangered plants and animals. Wade fears that 50% of the world’s 7,000 languages may disappear in our lifetime, along with the values, myths, and meanings they embody.

To put her family’s business—art theft—behind her, Katarina Bishop leaves home for boarding school. Then someone steals a mobster’s priceless collection of masterpieces, and Kat’s father is the prime suspect. With help from her friends, Kat sets out to solve the case and clear her father’s name. Ages 10-14.

Ally Carter will also appear for an evening book event hosted by P&P at the Bethesda Public Library, 7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD at 7 p.m.

To put her family’s business - art theft - behind her, Katarina Bishop
leaves home for boarding school. Then someone steals a mobster’s
priceless collection of masterpieces, and Kat’s father is the prime
suspect. With help from her friends, Kat sets out to solve the case and
clear her father’s name. Ages 10-14.

Event hosted by P&P at the Bethesda Public Library, 7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD.

When nineteen people are murdered in the Swedish town of Hesjovallen, Judge Birgitta Roslin is especially drawn to the case because her grandparents are among the dead.  While the police insist that the massacre is the work of a lone madman, Birgitta suspects that it’s more complicated.  Mankell again shows why he’s among the top international crime writers.

Veteran reporters, the authors chart the erosion of traditional news media.  Print and broadcast news bureaus have shrunk or disappeared entirely, meaning that matters of importance, local and national, go uncovered.  The authors call for an “era of experimentation,” where old and new media together might fill the news vacuum.

Weber’s wit comes to the fore in her new comic novel about the Ziplinsky family and its candy business. Like any family, this one has secrets, and as Alice, recently married into the clan, tries to understand her new relatives, she uncovers a story involving Hungarian immigrants and a runaway slave from a cacao plantation.

With co-editor Manning Marable, Clarke, a civil rights attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has assembled a roster of distinguished thinkers to consider the evolution of black leadership and politics from the Civil Rights movement to the election of President Obama. Kristen will be joined by contributors Sherrilyn Ifill and Bill Fletcher.

Irvin served for 15 years as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Sidwell Friends School. Her guide to D.C.-area public and private schools—now in its third edition—has long helped parents find the right schools for their children. This updated edition includes reviews for 82
preschools, a feature that has been missing from school guides in the past and
will be of particular interest and value to parents today.

A newspaper reporter, Aukofer covered the major events of the second half of the twentieth century, from the 1960s Civil Rights movement to President Clinton’s impeachment. This is his account of the adventure that was his life as a journalist and the extraordinary people he encountered along the way.

In her powerful debut novel, Perkins-Valdez revisits pre-Civil War America. Centering on an Ohio resort that caters to Southern plantation owners and their slave mistresses, the book presents a complex, polarized society from the perspective of three slave women; seemingly resigned to their situation, they’re jolted into a new sense of possibility when a newcomer talks about running away.

As participants in INTERSECTIONS: A New America Arts Festival, we are presenting Steve Roberts, who
will explore the contemporary immigrant experience through the accounts of
thirteen families from various backgrounds. Tickets are $5, and may be purchased either at the
door or by calling  202-399-7993, ext. 2.The first 5 people to call
202-363-7738 can receive free tickets to this event.

Admission to this event provides the ticket holder to 50% off any
other performance the same day. If you take your ticket stub to 5
participating
restaurants on H Street (Granville Moore's, Sticky Rice, the Argonaut,
The Country Club and The Rock
and Roll Hotel), you can get 10% off your meal the day of the
performance. 

For more information about the festival, and to purchase tickets, visit the
Intersections web
site.

In her moving and inspiring memoir, Lambert recounts her upbringing in the rural, segregated South, her menial jobs in New York and Washington, and the hard work that made her the first black woman to earn an MBA at Harvard Business School. This rags-to-riches American success story charts Lambert’s rise from maid to CEO of a $20 million maintenance company.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, buried in an unmarked grave, but her cells continue to outlive her. Taken without her knowledge and cultured by scientists at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s, they led to a lucrative industry in biological materials. Skloot’s account of this outrage looks at its effects on Lacks’s family and considers the larger history of experimentation on African Americans without their consent.

Butturini’s husband was shot and wounded while reporting on an uprising in Romania,  and as she helped him recover from the depression and psychic trauma that  accompanied his injury, she learned that the physical damage of war is only the beginning.

Olson follows Troublesome Young Men, her account of the renegade Tories who put Churchill in power, with another fine history of the period. She focuses on three resolute Americans who supported the Brits and helped bring the U.S. to their rescue: Edward R. Murrow; Averell Harriman, the millionaire politician; and John Gilbert Winant, American Ambassador and an admirable diplomat, whose crucial role has been forgotten until now.

In the sequel to My One Hundred Adventures, Jane’s new stepfather, Ned, is fired from his job teaching French and, at loose ends, takes the family on more adventures in the United States. Horvath, a Newbery Honor and National Book Award-winner, focuses on the many meanings of family as her characters meet new relatives.

Harris, an expert on intelligence matters who writes for National Journal, sounds an alarm about how our government has developed sophisticated surveillance spyware in the last thirty years.  Looking back to Admiral Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness program, he charts the growth of covert intelligence systems that make it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on citizens.

After surviving an emergency plane landing at age 28, Leonsis (now the owner of the Washington Capitals), already a successful entrepreneur, realized he wasn’t happy. Applying his analytical skills to the question of personal fulfillment, he studied satisfaction in fellow business executives, successful entertainers, and professional athletes, as well as typical Americans.

Description

According
to Albert Schweitzer, "Happiness is the key to success." Here, Leonsis,
a business, sports, and media mogul, proves Schweitzer's point,
explaining that success may or may not make one happy, but happiness
will almost always make one more successful.

About the Author

Ted
Leonsis is an Internet industry pioneer who helped build AOL into a
global phenomenon. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold
multiple successful businesses over three decades, culminating with the
recent sale of Revolution Money to American Express. He owns the NHL’s
Washington Capitals and other sports properties. He is an award-winning
producer of documentaries, and the founder and chairman of SnagFilms.
Originally from Brooklyn, New York, and later, Lowell, Massachusetts,
he now lives in McLean, Virginia, and Vero Beach, Florida, with his
wife and two children.

Two author event admission tickets are free with book purchase from P&P (use the checkout comments field to indicate how many tickets are required) - or are $12 each without book purchase. Tickets and books will be held for pickup at the venue Will Call on the day of the event. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the event begins at 7 p.m. with General Admission. The booksigning will take place after Ted Leonsis speaks.

Please select Credit Card as your Payment Method as selecting Pay in Store will NOT provide you with a confirmed admission.

The latest novel from the author of The Mistress of Spices is a collage of stories that demonstrates narrative’s power to unite people and help them endure. When an earthquake traps nine strangers in an office building, they cope with the stress of waiting for rescue by taking turns relating something they’ve never told anyone before. This event is co-sponsored with Asia Society Washington, DC. For more information visit www.AsiaSociety.org.

Banville, winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Sea, returns to read from his 15th novel.  An elegant fiction about mortality and the immortals who may surround us, the book tells the story of the final days of Adam Godley, a renowned mathematician, the family who has gathered to see him off—and the invisible spirits hovering to make mischief.

Exploring  questions such as how much we are in control of our actions and how large a role the unconscious plays in our decisions, Vedantam, Washington Post columnist (“Department of Human Behavior”), combines cognitive science and psychology for a fascinating and illuminating look at why we do what we do.

*THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO TRAVEL DELAYS. AT THIS TIME THERE IS NO RESCHEDULED DATE* 

Litigation director of the Texas Defender Service, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, and a staunch opponent of the death penalty, Dow has written a powerful account of capital punishment. His memoir offers an intimate look at all parties involved, from the overworked legal aid lawyers to their clients.

In her important study of psychotherapeutic drugs for children, Warner, our friend, neighbor, New York Times “Domestic Disturbances” columnist, and author of Perfect Madness, explores questions surrounding over- and under-medication for learning and emotional problems, the power of the pharmaceutical industry, and the anguish of parents wanting to do what’s best amid confusing advice.

From well known creators to fresh talent, Act-I-Vate.com has long functioned as one of the most renowned collectives of webcomix on the internet. Now, with their first print anthology, The Act-I-Vate Primer, the collective expands their ever increasing pool of original comic art.  Dean will be joined by contributors Jim Dougan, Simon Fraser, and Joe Infurnari.

Set in 1940, this rich, historical novel opens with Frankie Bard, a radio journalist covering the war in Europe. Meanwhile, Iris James, a middle-aged postmistress on Cape Cod, falls in love.  Their paths cross when Frankie returns to the States determined to deliver a letter from a doctor killed during the Blitz.

In his second novel, Mullen, author of The Last Town on Earth, counterpoints the bleak realities of the Depression-era Midwest with a trio of daring bank robbers who are legends in their own time. The Fireson brothers become folk heroes as they pull off daring capers, elude capture, and repeatedly evade certain death at the hands of the law.

In his round-the-world voyage of1830, Darwin observed huge turtles and
an earthquake’s after-effects. Schanzer uses Darwin’s words—from his
letters and journals—and her own colorful drawings to tell the story of
this history-changing adventure.

Conover, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winner for Newjack, here guides readers through six of the world’s key roads, including one that links Israel and Palestine and another that serves as a trade route over the Andes. His study shows that, like the ancient Roman Empire, the new globalised world is both connected and imperiled by these arteries.

In the first seven weeks after JFK’s assassination, his widow received some 800,000 condolence letters from people all over the country. Two years later, the total was well over a million. In her selection of 250 of these messages, Fitzpatrick, a historian, has composed a fascinating picture of a pivotal historical moment.

Fred Bowen, who writes a weekly sports section for The Washington Post Kidspost, will be here to read and discuss three new books:

Mnookin, the head of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, explores the many challenges of  conflict resolution, including the temptation to vilify the enemy. His book offers illuminating case-studies from politics, business, and family life along with practical tools for defusing antagonism.

By turns charming, funny, and terrifying, this novel tells the story of 16-year-old Little Bee, an orphaned Nigerian girl. She meets a British couple vacationing in her country and, after an unexpected, violent incident, she goes to Britain, a place of abundance unimaginable in her home village.

Helen Gahagan Douglas served three terms in Congress, her career as an elected official ending in 1950 when Nixon, using smear tactics, defeated her in a Senate race. Denton’s biography fleshes out the multi-faceted woman (singer, actress, progressive activist) who had the infamous run-in with Tricky Dick.

Perry, a military, intelligence, and foreign-affairs analyst, has spent some 20 years in and out of the Middle East, where he sometimes engaged in secret meetings with members of terrorist groups. His new book argues that face-to-face dialogue with representatives of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah can define specific and addressable grievances.

Taking his title from the violent character played by Michael Caine  in Zulu, Birkenhead recounts growing up with an erratic, abusive father. More than just combative, Birkenhead père was also an anti-war activist and a popular economics professor. His cruel, contradictory behavior left deep scars on his family, and his son’s memoir is a harrowing look at memory, trauma, and healing.

Strongin’s powerful account of her son’s rare, usually fatal heart disease is a moving story of a family’s struggle to save a life and a strong argument for stem cell research. Strongin is the founder and executive director of the Hope for Henry foundation and a regular panelist on Clear Channel’s Sunday radio program Women Talk.

The second novel from the former Washington Post journalist opens with a fighter pilot losing control of her plane over the Potomac and crashing into Roosevelt Island.  What follows is a taut story of Washington intrigue as the pilot and an investigative reporter search for the truth behind the plane’s downing.

A famous author, Lewis Scribson, visits Thompson Brook School, but Lunch Lady and her sidekick Betty know something is wrong when the PE teacher goes missing. The pair head for their secret headquarters behind the cafeteria refrigerator and, armed with high-tech cooking gadgets, serve justice while serving lunch.

With prescient statistical predictions and entertaining articles, Baseball Prospectus has become the ultimate guide to baseball players and teams. Come hear baseball’s leading analysts when Clay Davenport, Steve Goldman, and other editors make their annual pre-season visit.

A prolific essayist, columnist, and fiction writer, Theroux also leads writing and creativity seminars. All this—plus writer’s block—figures in her new memoir, a dual narrative chronicling her life on the page and the one as daughter, wife, lover, citizen. 

Phyllis Theroux will also give a seminar on the art of journal keeping at 5 p.m.  The cost is $30 ($27 for P&P members), which includes a copy of the book. Click here for more information about the seminar.

4 p.m. Come
and meet the creator of the irrepressible Max;
his bossy big sister, Ruby;
Noisy Nora; and
Queen Janet of the
Bunny Planet. With board books, picture books, and unforgettable
creations, this author has delighted millions of children with her art and
humor. Please note: The time has been changed to 4 p.m. so that fans can
come and see her after school.

Author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft, Lee focuses in his fourth novel on a trio of battered survivors. June Han, age 11, is alone and starving in war-torn
Korea when she's rescued by an American soldier who has recently lost his
father. June recovers at an orphanage where she comforts the director's wife,
whose parents were killed in Manchuria. Lee's narrative sweeps across times and
places, exploring the lasting emotional consequences of trauma, loss, and
violence.