Colum McCann – Thirteen Ways of
Looking: Fiction
Friday,
October 23rd at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and
Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Colum McCann’s ninth
book of fiction is a virtuoso collection of a novella and three stories, one of
which has been selected for the 2015 edition of The Best American
Short Stories. He explores
questions of mortality and meaning as he follows a retired judge through his
last day, chronicles a mother’s grief over a lost son, describes a nun’s shock
at reliving an old trauma, and relays a soldier’s bittersweet call home on New
Year’s Eve. McCann won the National Book Award for Let the Great World
Spin and the
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and a Chevalier des Arts et des
Lettres award from the French government. Free admission.
Bob Woodward - The Last
of the President's Men
Friday, October 23rd
at 7 pm
Sidwell Friends
3825 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC. 20016
Currently an associate editor at The
Washington Post, Bob Woodward has been an investigative reporter
for more than four decades. He won the first of his two shared Pulitzer Prizes
for coverage of the Watergate scandal, a story that he, with Carl Bernstein,
turned into the classic All the President’s Men.
In The Last of the President's Men, the new
chapter of the Nixon story, Woodward draws on extensive interviews with
Alexander Butterfield, the Nixon aide who first revealed the existence of the
secret White House tapes. Woodward
deftly gets Butterfield to answer lingering questions about the scandal and
flesh out its principal figures—including Nixon himself. 1 Ticket: $10; 1 Book and 1 Ticket: $30;
$28 for P & P members; 1 Book and 2 Tickets: $35; $33 for P &
P members
Forrest Pritchard - Growing Tomorrow
Friday,
October 23rd at 7 pm
Upshur
Street Books
827
Upshur St NW
Washington,
DC 20011
Hear Forrest Pritchard talk about the sustainable food movement and the
process of creating his beautiful new cookbook, Growing Tomorrow. This event will be catered by Slow Food
DC. Meet the local farmers who feed America—in stories, photos, and 50
recipes. When Pritchard went looking for the unsung heroes of local,
sustainable food, he found them at 18 exceptional farms all over the country.
In Detroit, Aba Ifeoma, of D-Town Farm, dreams of replenishing the local “food
desert” with organic produce. On Cape Cod, Nick Muto stays afloat and
eco-friendly by fishing with the seasons. And in Washington State,
fourth-generation farmer Robert Hayton confides, “This farm has been rescued by
big harvests. For every one great season, though, you’ve got ten years of
tough.” With more than 50 mouth-watering recipes and 250+ photographs, this
unique cookbook captures the struggles and triumphs of the visionary farmers
who are Growing Tomorrow. Free
admission.
Kevin
Costner, Jon Baird, Rick Ross - The
Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage To Shambhala
Saturday, October 24th at 1 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Novelist Keith Donohue, author of four
novels, including The Boy Who Drew Monsters,
will moderate a lively discussion with actor,
director, and producer Kevin Costner and his co-collaborates. Costner created
The Explorers Guild with his Horizon co-writer, Jon Baird, former editor of Harvard
Lampoon and author of Day Job and Songs From Nowhere Near the Heart. The book
includes illustrations by Rick Ross, creator and publisher of the online
anthology Agitainment Comics, the
book introduces a group of twentieth-century questers as they comb the known
world for the lost cities of legend. Free admission.
Dan Jones
- Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty
Saturday, October 24th at 3:30 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore
and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Dan Jones marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna
Carta with a narrative as suspenseful and colorful as any of the dynastic feuds
recounted in The Plantagenets and The Wars of the Roses. In the third
installment of his riveting saga, Jones returns to 1215, and what was
originally a peace treaty between King John and the landed barons fed up with
his wars and taxes. Although the agreement was initially weak, it eventually
became a revolutionary document in proving that a monarch could be held to his
own laws. Free admission.
Paul Murray - The Mark and the
Void
Saturday, October 24th at 6 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore
and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Paul Murray’s first book, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was nominated for the Whitbread Prize
and his second, Skippy Dies, was
long-listed for the Booker—and came in at number three in Time’s list of Best Books of 2010. In his third novel, the talented
Irish writer charts the mayhem that ensues when a novelist named Paul dreams up
a fiction based on the life of Claude, a young financier with the Investment
Bank of Torabundo. Both men experience some unexpected excitement, and the Bank
is headed for a little crisis of its own. Free admission.
Nerds! Trivia Night
Saturday, October 24th at 8 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore
and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
How many rings were forged by Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkein’s
Middle Earth? Excluding monuments, what is the tallest building in D.C.? Put on
your thinking cap, grab a drink, and join us for our monthly trivia night!
Enjoy the grilled cheese sandwich special at the P&P Coffehouse from 7 to 8
p.m., grab a latte (with a lid!) and trek upstairs for four rounds of
mind-bending trivia questions. Prizes will be awarded. Trivia night is open to
all ages. Free admission.
The Great Children’s Read
Sunday, October 25th from 10 am to 1 pm
Washington DC Jewish Community Center
1529 16th St NW
1529 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20036
Part of the Jewish Literary Festival. Bring
books to life with story time with Lesléa Newman, author of My Name is Aviva and winner of the 2015
Sugarman Family Children’s Book Award. Make crafts, sing songs, and watch a
puppet show. Don’t, of course, miss the book fair featuring a wide selection of
Jewish and general interest children’s books. Plus, a special guest: Clifford
the Big Red Dog! Please bring a new or gently used book to donate to children
in need. Best suited for children up to age 5. $12/family, Discounted $10.
Douglas
Waller - Disciples: The World War II
Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought For Wild Bill Donovan
Sunday, October 25th at 1 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore
and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Douglas Waller, a former
correspondent for Newsweek and Time, and the author of A Question of Loyalty and other books of
military and intelligence history, follows up his biography of Wild Bill
Donovan with this portrait of some of the men who followed in Donovan’s
footsteps. Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey were
all involved in the OSS during World War II, and Waller details their
courageous wartime missions as well as their later CIA leadership and Cold War
operations, which sometimes reflected questionable judgment. Free admission.
Susan
Muaddi Darraj and Baron Wormser
Sunday, October 25th from 2 pm to
4 pm
The Writer's
Center
4508 Walsh
Street
Bethesda, MD
20815
Visiting poet Baron Wormser reads from his
new collection, Unidentified Sighing
Objects. He is joined by Susan Muaddi Darraj, who reads from A Curious Land: Stories from Home. The
reading will be followed by a reception and book signing. Free admission.
Judith
Viorst - Wait For Me: and Other Poems
about the Irritations and Consolations of a Long Marriage
Sunday, October 25th at 5 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore
and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Judith Viorst’s verse journey through the
decades, from When Did I Stop Being Twenty
to Unexpectedly Eighty, reveals a dry
wit and unflinching perseverance in the face of passing time. As Viorst
considers her fifty-five years of marriage, she offers us an affectionate and
playful look at the ways deep familiarity breeds both irritation and comfort. This
book is a tribute to shared domestic life and a look at what comes next. Free
admission.
Jerry
Gabriel and Peter Malae
Sunday, October 25th at 5 pm
Upshur Street Books
827 Upshur St NW
Washington, DC 20011
Join Peter Malae, Oregon-based
novelist, poet, playwright, and short story writer and author of Our Frail Blood, and Jerry Gabriel, local
short story writer and author of The Let
Go, for a night of reading and discussion. Free admission.
Sherie M.
Randolph - Florynce Flo Kennedy: The Life
of a Black Feminist Radical
Monday, October 26th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th &
V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
An associate professor of history and African-American
studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Sherie Randolph has written
the first full biography of black feminist Florynce “Flo” Kennedy (1916–2000).
Drawing valuable lessons from both the Black Power and white feminist
movements, Kennedy empowered black women to act against both sexism and racism.
Randolph’s deep research chronicles Kennedy’s upbringing, Columbia Law School
experience, and traces her involvement in groups such as the National
Organization for Women and the National Black Feminist Organization; her
influence remains a factor in today’s progressive movements. Free admission.
Dan Ephron - Killing a King: The
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking Of Israel
Monday,
October 26th at 7 pm
Dan Ephron,
a former Newsweek Jerusalem bureau
chief, covered the rally at which Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated as well
as the ensuing trial of his killer, Yigal Amir. Marking the twentieth
anniversary of what has proven to be a defining moment in Israel’s history,
Ephron traces the parallel tracks of Rabin and Amir for two years prior to the
killing. Drawing on official archives as well as interviews with Amir’s family,
Ephron explains how the assassination was planned and how Rabin’s death
continues to affect events—including stalled peace talks and relations between
Israel and the United States. Ephron will be in conversation with Nancy Updike,
award-winning writer and producer for American Public Radio’s This American Life; the presentation
will feature video footage and audio clips from their adaptation of Ephron’s
book for radio documentary. Free admission.
David Green – Midnight in Serbia
Monday,
October 26th at 6:30pm
Kramerbooks
1517 Connecticut
Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20036
Travels
with NPR host David Greene along the Trans-Siberian Railroad capture an overlooked,
idiosyncratic Russia in the age of Putin. Far
away from the trendy cafes, designer boutiques, and political protests and
crackdowns in Moscow, the real Russia exists. Free
admission.
Intrepid Time Travelers: New Fiction with Novelists Jessamyn Hope, Jami Attenberg, and Mary Morris
Monday, October 26th from
7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Washington DC Jewish Community Center
1529 16th St NW
1529 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20036
As part of the Jewish Literary
Festival, novelists Mary Morris (The
Jazz Palace), Jami Attenberg (Saint
Mazie), and Jessamyn Hope (Safekeeping)
sit down with author Michelle Brafman to discuss the common themes of their
celebrated new works. Go on journeys through space and time through their
readings, and hear them reflect on their experiences as writers in the 21st
century. General Admission $12; Discounted $10.
Monday Night Open Mic Poetry hosted by Shelly Bell
Monday, October 26th from 8 pm to 10
pm
Busboys and Poets (Shirlington location)
4251 South Campbell Avenue
Arlington, VA 22206
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians,
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
Monday Night Open Mic Hosted by Drew Land
Monday, October 26th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Brookland location)
625 Monroe St. NE
Washington, D.C. 20017
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians,
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
Ron Childress – And
West is West
Tuesday, October 27th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012
Winner of the 2014 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction,
Childress’s debut novel looks at how we use technology to do our dirty jobs for
us. Childress, who has worked in a variety of communications and marketing
capacities, focuses on a drone pilot in Nevada and a big-data worker on Wall
Street. As the two narratives unfold, both characters find that they not only
use the new technology but are also used by it, and that the algorithms are as
treacherous as the remote weaponry. Childress will be in conversation with Tope
Folarin, winner of the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing for his story
"Miracle." In 2014, he was named to Africa39's list of most promising
African writers under forty. Free admission.
Ian F. Svenonius - Censorship Now!!
Tuesday, October 27th at 6:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. K20009
Former host of VBS.TV’s “Soft Focus,”
the multi-talented Ian Svenonius was frontman for Chain & the Gang and has
performed with numerous other bands, cutting nearly twenty albums. He’s also
the author of cult favorites, including Supernatural
Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group and The Psychic Soviet. His well-honed satirical wit is on full display
in this new collection of essays, which takes on subjects ranging from Apple
and Ikea to Marion Barry, hats, tipping, and weather. Free admission.
John Kelly – Never
Surrender
Tuesday, October
27th at 6:30pm
Kramerbooks
Kramerbooks
1517 Connecticut Avenue,
NW
Washington, DC
20036
A remarkably vivid account of a key moment in Western history: The critical six months in 1940 when Winston Churchill debated whether the British would fight Hitler. Free admission.
Sonia Purnell - Clementine:
The life of Mrs. Winston Churchill
Tuesday, October 27th
at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and
Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
In this long-needed supplement to Mary
Soames’s profile of her mother, Clementine Churchill, Sonia Purnell details the
crucial role Winston’s wife played throughout the Second World War-era. Of
noble lineage but limited means, Clementine turned her insecurities into a
strong partnership. Focusing on her husband’s career, she tempered his letters,
rewrote speeches, smoothed relations between Churchill and Roosevelt, and
helped ease the way for U.S. entry into the war. Purnell is a London journalist
formerly with The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph and author of Just
Boris, Free admission.
Haunted D.C.
Tuesday, October 27th
at 7 pm
Upshur
Street Books
827
Upshur St NW
Washington,
DC 20011
Spend a spine-tingling Halloween evening during Upshur Street Books’
series with History Press. Authors, historians, and D.C. experts Robert Pohl
and Tim Krepp will tell us all the sinister stories about our city. Refreshments
will be available. Free admission.
Local Author
Fair: Discover a New Book
Tuesday, October 27th from 7:30 pm to 9 pm
Washington D.C .Jewish
Community Center
1529 16th St NW
1529 16th St NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tuesday Night
Open Mic hosted by Gowri K
Tuesday, October 27th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (14th & V location)
2021 14th St, NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians,
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
Busboys and
Poets & @Beltwayslamdc Present: The Beltway Poetry Slam
Tuesday, October 27th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Brookland location)
625 Monroe St. NE
Washington, D.C. 20017
D.C.'s only Poetry Slam, Inc certified slam event meets the last Tuesday
of every month at Busboys and Poets' Brookland location. $5 cover.
Tuesday Night
Open Mic hosted by Drew Anderson
Tuesday, October 27th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians,
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
Hal
Niedzviecki - Trees on Mars
Wednesday, October 28th at 6:30 pm
Kramerbooks
1517 Connecticut
Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20036
What is it like to live in a society utterly focused on what is going to happen next? In Trees on Mars: Our Obsession with the Future, cultural critic and indie entrepreneur Hal Niedzviecki asks how and when we started believing we could and should "create the future," arguing that the short-term purview of innovation is not always as effective as we think. Free admission.
Noga Kadman - Erased
from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages
of 1948
Wednesday, October 28th
from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Busboys and Poets (Takoma location)
235 Carroll St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20012
Middle East Café Presents a
conversation with Noga Kadman, author of the new book, Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated
Palestinian Villages of 1948. Free admission.
Lisa Randall - Dark Matter and the
Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
Wednesday, October 28th
at 7 pm
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Lisa Randall
is the first tenured woman theoretical physicist at both MIT and Harvard, where
she is currently the Frank J. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science. She is also
adept at translating her complex field for a general audience—writing the
bestselling Warped
Passages and Knocking
on Heaven’s Door. Her fourth book uses
original research to propose that while a comet is the likely cause of the
dinosaurs’ extinction some sixty-six million years ago, it was a band of dark
matter that sent the comet hurling Earthward. Free admission.
Wednesday Night Open Mic hosted by
Dwayne B
Wednesday, October 28th from 9 pm to 11 pm
Busboys and Poets (5th
and K location)
1025 5th St NW
Washington, DC 20001
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
Keith Donohue - The Boy Who Drew Monsters
Wednesday, October 28th at 7 pm
Upshur
Street Books
827
Upshur St NW
Washington,
DC 20011
Bring on the Halloween chills with Keith Donohue for The Boy Who Drew Monsters, the story of
a young boy trapped inside his own world, whose drawings blur the lines between
fantasy and reality.
Ever since he nearly drowned in the ocean three years earlier, ten-year-old Jack Peter Keenan has been deathly afraid to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine. Instead, Jack Peter begins to draw monsters, and when those monsters take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean. When she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, they fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange apparition running wild in the dunes. And the boy's only friend, Nick, becomes helplessly entangled in the eerie power of the drawings. While those around Jack Peter are haunted by what they think they see, only he knows the truth behind the terrors that lurk in the outside world. Keith Donohue's The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a mesmerizing tale of psychological terror and imagination run wild. Free admission.
Ever since he nearly drowned in the ocean three years earlier, ten-year-old Jack Peter Keenan has been deathly afraid to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine. Instead, Jack Peter begins to draw monsters, and when those monsters take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean. When she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, they fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange apparition running wild in the dunes. And the boy's only friend, Nick, becomes helplessly entangled in the eerie power of the drawings. While those around Jack Peter are haunted by what they think they see, only he knows the truth behind the terrors that lurk in the outside world. Keith Donohue's The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a mesmerizing tale of psychological terror and imagination run wild. Free admission.
Simon Winchester - Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs,
Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's
Superpowers
Thursday, October 29th at 7 pm
Busboys and Poets (Hyattsville location)
5331 Baltimore Ave
Hyattsville, MD 20781
For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a
vast array of professional spoken word performers, open mic rookies, musicians,
and a different host every week. $5 cover.
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