#amreading

Looks like summer decided to stick around for a while longer, and this would be a perfect time to find a bench, a spot by the river, or just bring a blanket to the park and enjoy some time in the sun with a good book by your side. Our booksellers made sure you have a good selection, and just in time—when you’re done with a book you can meet some of the authors we’re hosting at two of our locations. This week choose between a music memoir, a history on piracy off the American coast, a collection of short stories, a novel, and a graphic novel. Enjoy the weather and some good reads!

Night Moves-Jessica Hopper

Upcoming Event Monday, October 8, 2018 - 7 p.m. at 5015 Connecticut Ave

As a longtime fan of Jessica Hopper’s vigilant, fearless music criticism, Night Moves is the book I’ve been pining for. A series of vignettes about her coming of age in the Chicago music scene, the pieces are as shaky with youth as a Ferlinghetti poem, and they come together to form one jagged love poem to a city and a way of life. There’s something markedly elegiac about the life Hopper describes, a roiling, breathing cityscape where the escape from the robotic crawl of gentrification seemed still possible. Can young adults still live like this in a city? Riding bikes through electric summer nights? God, I hope so. Night Moves made me feel very young and very old at the same time: a painful, singular elation. Liz H.  

Black Flags, Blue Waters-Eric Jay Dolin

Upcoming Event Thursday, October 11, 2018 - 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose at the Wharf

You may be thinking you’ll want to read this book with a ‘Yo Ho Ho! And a Bottle of Rum, for it’s a Pirate’s Life for Me!’ But you’ll reconsider after reading this epic retelling of the Golden Age of American piracy in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. Black Flags, Blue Waters is a definitive history on piracy off the American coast, as well as by Americans over in the Indian Ocean. Filled with colorful biographies of all the famous pirates, such as Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, this book also examines the social, political and economic reasons so many men turned to piracy in those days. This is a fascinating look at how piracy was encouraged by many Americans, so long as it didn’t affect their pockets, and how the tide then turned against the buccaneers after a prolonged government campaign and crackdown. You’ll never look at Captain Jack Sparrow the same way again. Keith V. 

Your Duck is My Duck-Deborah Eisenberg 

With her first new collection in 12 years Your Duck is My Duck, Eisenberg gives us a true, funny, and troubling picture of our world. “Merge” is an indelible close-up of the 1%, focusing on the son of a corporate despot who’s been cut off but gamely follows in dad’s footsteps with impressive displays of self-justification. In the title story art strikes back with a puppeteer’s “simple moral fable” of a grasping monarch oblivious to the fact that “the serfs and donkeys are already inflamed with rage.” Sure enough, the island explodes. In the magnificent “The Third Tower,” a woman prone to spells of “words heating up, expanding, exploding into pictures of things,” is sent to a hospital/prison. Her bad case of imagination can be cured if she learns cooperation. Laurie G. 

A Kind of Freedom-Margaret Wilkerson Sexton 

A Kind of Freedom, multi generational story focuses on three generations of family members that come from the first black doctor in Louisiana. We are introduced to Evelyn, her daughter Jaclyn, and Jaclyn’s son, T.C. who all have to find their own kind of freedom. Much changes over the years while other things stay much the same. Some of the topics brought up in this novel include class, colorism, and the toll drugs and addiction can take on one family. Morgan H. 

Home After Dark-David Small 

Few can blend lines and words into heartfelt storytelling like David Small. In his latest work Home After Dark readers follow thirteen year old Russell Pruitt as he grows up in the 1950s. Abandoned by his mother, Russell is forced to live with his emotionally abusive father. His circumstances only deteriorate from there for this isn’t a story of a teenager boldly overcoming life’s obstacles. This is a tale of a boy struggling to tread the murky waters of an uncertain and tragic adolescence. Beautifully rendered, masterfully told, this is a book you won’t be able to resist reading when you’re home after dark. Michael T. 

This week we are excited to announce a highly anticipated science fiction début, a spellbinding thriller, and a novel that’s a darkly comic shadow version of our own turbulent world. And for those who prefer non fiction, our science pick is a collection of 33 marvelous essays on the history of astronomy and a political read gives an answer to what White House Chiefs of Staff actually do and how big of a role they play. We hope you enjoy our picks!

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing-Hank Green

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing contains many absolutely remarkable things, from the delightful characters to the unexpected, exciting plot. Hank Green uses his intimate knowledge of perks, hazards, and peculiarities of Internet fame to paint a fantastical yet surprisingly plausible portrait of his protagonist as she endures the fallout of making one of the most remarkable discoveries in the history of humankind. In accordance with his belief to “imagine others complexly,” Green never oversimplifies his plot or his characters, trusting readers to come to their own conclusions. (P.S. Be sure to take the book out for a quick flip-through and a delightful surprise!) Katie W. 

Dispatches from Planet 3-Marcia Bartusiak 

Dispatches from Planet 3 is a collection of 33 elegant essays. Bartusiak gives a thorough grounding in the history of astronomy, tracing its revolutions from heliocentrism to the discoveries of double stars, supernovae, spiral galaxies, black holes, dark matter, and the whole expanding universe. Each discussion traces the science and charts the impact of the ideas, showing how our evolving understanding of affected our sense of our place in the universe and led to subsequent forays into the unknown. As she traces the evolution of cosmology, Bartusiak chronicles the major questions scientists asked and how they answered them, details the necessary technological advances, summarizes the debates surrounding revelations that were often as unsettling as they were thrilling, and profiles the key thinkers involved—many of whom were women, only now getting their due. Laurie G.  

Foe-Iain Reid 

Foe is an unsettling blend of a psychological thriller with an examination of the structure and support of a marriage, all the while set in a creepy near-future with hazardous advances of technology. Junior and Henrietta live isolated on a rural farm, when a stranger, Terrence, shows up to announce that Junior is being considered for an involuntary mission into space aboard the Installation. As Terrence burrows into their quiet domestic life, and Junior is ever closer to departure, the real reasons for Terrence’s intrusion into their marriage become cloudy and creepy as the thriller builds to a climax flipped on its head. Keith V.

The Gatekeepers-Chris Whipple 

What do White House Chiefs of Staff actually do? How important are they really? What makes a good Chief of Staff? Chris Whipple’s highly informed and deeply engrossing book The Gatekeepers answers these questions and many more. Beginning with Richard Nixon’s first Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, Whipple chronicles the tenures of every White House Chief up until John Kelly. His detailed account reveals the incredibly significant roles that the Chiefs have played in influencing events as major as Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal, the Lewinsky affair, the invasion of Iraq, and the DACA rollout. Lew G. 

Dog Symphony-Sam Munson 

When Sam Munson’s new novel Dog Symphony opens, our protagonist Professor Pushkin, a specialist in prison architecture, is travelling to an overseas conference in Argentina, all with the ulterior motive of meeting up with the fellow academic he has a crush on. When he arrives, she’s nowhere to be found, and the town is crawling in roving packs of dogs by night and sinister blue-clad workers by day. Borges and Cortazar get name-checked toward the end, but Dog Symphony is much more than a tribute to their mind-bending stories (not to mention those of Bruno Schulz, Thomas Bernhard, and—of course—Franz Kafka). It’s a darkly comic shadow version of our own turbulent world, with its embattled humanities, student uprisings, and hope that a better existence might live on in our dogs. Jonathan W. 

This week’s round up of staff pick has something to offer for everybody’s taste. A couple of brilliant fictional débuts, one set in the present the other in the past, and the final installment of an internationally celebrated series will have you occupied for hours not wanting to put them down until you finish. You will learn, as we did, of actual physical violence on the floor of the U.S. Congress, and how our immune system works in protecting us from harm. With so many great new titles we can safely say that autumn is off to a good start. 

Crudo-Olivia Laing

Upcoming Event, Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose at Union Market

Crudo, Laing’s fictional début, is a read in one sitting kind of book you won’t be able to put down. It’s 2017. The American president is tweeting the world towards nuclear war, Britain has decided to leave the EU, and the world has turned upside down. Kathy is 40, about to get married, obsessed with the daily news and worried about everything going on in the world. She is a loner who learns how to love. The narration is frantic and fast, at moments almost dizzying, but then you realize hers are exactly your thoughts, her feelings exactly your feelings and you keep on turning the pages. Marija D.  

The Field of Blood-Joanne B. Freeman

Upcoming Event Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 7 p.m. at 5015 Connecticut Ave NW

Though today’s Congress seems combative, all the filibusters and name-calling are nothing compared to when Congressmen actually stabbed and shot one another. From the infamous caning of Charles Sumner to endless duel challenges, in The Field of Blood historian Joanne Freeman shows that these frayed tensions were practically destined to erupt into Civil War. Remembering the Congress of the past solely as hallowed halls and dignified men is dangerous, she argues, as the real history reveals uncomfortable yet necessary truths about a union on the brink of collapse. Written with wit, flair, and a hint of cheek, Freeman presents these Congressmen as petty, triumphant, stoic, and vengeful—or, as she puts it more simply, human. Katie W.  

Whiskey When We’re Dry-John Larison

From a fantastic new voice in literature, Whiskey When We’re Dry is a historical adventure novel that redefines the typical American Western epic. Growing up on the frontier with her father, Jessilyn is a gifted shooter used to being fiercely independent. So when her father dies, rather than succumb to life as a wife and mother, Jessilyn becomes Jessie, and sets off west in search of her outlaw brother, Noah. Told in three parts, and exploring issues of gender identity, sexual identity, family and alcoholism, the novel has themes that are quite timely, yet is also still made mesmerizing by Jessilyn’s unique voice and complex character. Her quest takes on America as a whole, and the history that has stayed with this country all along. Keith V.   

The Beautiful Cure-Daniel M. Davis

Science began to realize the complexity of how the body fights disease only in 1989, and this fascinating book tells both the story of the science at work and what the research has revealed. In The Beautiful Cure Davis takes us into the minds and labs of the pioneering biologists, highlighting what led to various discoveries, from the initial puzzle of how immune cells know what foreign particles to attack (germs, not food) to whether, and then how, the immune system can fight cancer. Emphasizing that “no scientist is an island,” Davis follows the achievements that have led to reinterpretations of how the immune system works. His explanations are detailed and clear: as he recreates the revelatory moments, he puts the reader right there, on the edge of discovery. Laurie G.  

My Struggle: Book Six-Karl Ove Knausgaard

This sixth most challenging and ambitious volume of My Struggle, begins with the fallout following publication of Book One. We are then plunged headlong into the nature of self, with juxtapositions between Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the writings of Jack London, Paul Celan, Karl Marx and others – as well as dense commentary on the Old Testament. The third, harrowing and deeply moving part of this book deals with his wife’s nervous breakdown. But “Sacrifice is never merely a loss. For something is always gained by sacrifice,” Knausgaard writes about Abraham and Isaac.  He might be writing about himself. “What he gained,” Knausgaard observes, “was the innermost meaning of life.” Amanda H.D.  

Hope you will forgive us for being away for a while. We were busy getting the store in order for the busy season and we were at the National Book Festival— Politics and Prose serving as the official bookseller for the fifth time—and we are getting ready for the member sale this upcoming weekend. Picks of the week are back and we can’t wait to share with you amazing new titles we come across every day. Hope you enjoy this week’s selection.

Flights-Olga Tokarczuk

Upcoming Event, Monday, September 24, 2018 - 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Politics and Prose at The Wharf  

Tokarcuk’s wunderkammer of a novel is structured by themes rather than plot lines, and in place of character development, she builds collections—of travellers, places, bodies, and ideas. Flights is a constant surprise, moving from history to modern airports, from fables to myths to stories within stories. “Am I doing the right thing by telling stories?” Tokarczuk asks, and as if expressing her own ambivalence, she completes some tales, serializes others, and leaves others incomplete. Even open-ended these narratives support her belief that “what makes us most human is the possession of a unique and irreproducible story,” all the better to defeat the tyrants who want “to create a frozen order…to pin down the world with the aid of bar codes.” Laurie G.   

Cherry-Nico Walker

Cherry is advertised as a novel. It’s not a novel.  The inside cover tells you it’s a work of fiction. It’s not. If it was, it would be called “well researched” “highly imaginative” and “ripped from the headlines”. It’s just an incredible memoir. From the long and bizarre acknowledgment section you may infer that this book is heavily edited. I doubt that too. This raw and occasionally, morbidly, and even sickeningly humorous book tells the story of an Iraq vet turned opioid addict turned bank robber turned prisoner. Through each of these roles Walker gives a uncomfortably casual look into caustic masculinity. Jack B.   

The Wreckage of Eden-Norman Lock

When Lutheran minister Robert Winter proposes to Emily Dickinson she replies that she fears her muse would balk. Then the two begin a long correspondence, as he pursues his career as army chaplain, travelling the continent from the Mexican War, to the Mormon Rebellion and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry. Winter loses his faith, but he encounters various historical figures of the day: Abe Lincoln, a young Sam Clemens, John Wilkes Booth and others. The Wreckage of Eden is a beautifully written novel that provides a new perspective on the 19^th century and it’s charming to imagine the character of Emily Dickinson as Norman Lock has written her. Amanda H.D.

Cræft-Alexander Langlands

Langlands’ tenacious curiosity about the Old Ways gains eloquence and momentum in Cræft a deft, engaging meditation on utterly misunderstood but once critical pursuits such as hay-making, weaving, and fence-mending, pursuits that continue to leave their mark on our language, culture, and landscapes, if no longer our bodies and minds. Craeft should not be understood as some commodified, heirloom mark of human hands for which you pay more at the farmer’s market stall, but is itself power and agency, traditionally understood. Not to be missed are Langland’s thoughts on skep bee-keeping and their similarities to modern day obstetrics. Lila S.   

Praise Song for the Butterflies-Bernice L. McFadden

Bernice L. McFadden is a writer who needs more credit. In her latest novel  Praise Song for the Butterflies, she discusses the trokosi, who are slave girls in Africa handed over to a ‘priest’ in order to clear their families of bad luck. We follow Abeo Kata and see how she deals with her unfortunate fate.  Even while writing about a seemingly hopeless situation, McFadden restores our faith by showing how there is life after hardship and forgiveness. Morgan H.   

The psychotherapist notable for exploring the tension between the need for security and the need for freedom in human relationships, the master of science fiction and horror, and so much more in between: this week’s picks are just a fraction of great titles we’re surrounded with.    

The State of Affairs -Esther Perel 

In this groundbreaking book, Esther Perel, innovative author of Mating In Captivity explores the subject of infidelity and the role of the ‘third’ in the life of a couple. She calls for new definitions of monogamy and new ways of thinking about trust that will enhance active engagement and intimacy in marriage. She covers it all - from sexual alchemy, hook ups, the nature of desire and emotional affairs to the cataclysmic feelings of betrayal and loss experienced by a jilted partner. She also guides the reader through different ways couples come back from crisis and redefine their marriages. The State of Affairs is for everyone - single or married, gay or straight in committed relationships or looking for new ways to navigate them. Amanda H.D.  

Upstate-James Wood 

Like John Banville’s elegant fictions, Wood’s second novel Upstate is less about action than about character and language. The plot is spare:  Alan, a developer, and his daughter, a Sony executive, travel from Britain to see Alan’s expat daughter, a philosophy professor as Skidmore in Saratoga Springs. Told from Alan’s point of view, the narrative is a fluid weave of memories, questions, complaints, and wry humor. But while his social critiques are sharp, he’s on less certain ground with psychology. Are his daughters happy? As this deceptively quiet book shows, navigating the shifting currents of family life is difficult, rewarding, and demands every bit of intellectual and emotional energy we can muster. Laurie G. 

The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower #2)-Stephen King 

Alright now, I could praise every book that makes up the Dark Tower series, because they are some of my most favorite Stephen King novels. Narrowing down one out of seven was difficult, but The Drawing of the Three shows some of King’s strongest characters at their most desperate points of need. The book picks up right after Gunslinger, progresses seamlessly as new characters are introduced, and the setting shifts from desert to New York City. The books are a mix of western and science fiction, and can be considered King’s Lord of the Rings. Phil R.

Fox-Dubravka Ugresic

Like a mirror version of Patti Smith’s M Train, no description of Fox will contain it all, not with an author as wily as her titular character. Over six chapters, you meet Russian radical authors, Croatian landmine removers, Vladimir Nabokov’s butterflies, late-in-life first-time writers, amusingly callow kids, and Ugresic herself. And Ugresic is an amazing character: a Croatian exile as approachable and funny as she is erudite and politically reflective. Every episode in this book is unforgettable, and while they all stand alone as perfect mini-novellas, it’s the force of them together (and the moments of revelation that span stories) that makes this book so moving. Read now and tell all of your friends: Dubravka Ugresic is one of the world’s best writers. Jonathan W.  

The City of Brass-S. A Chakraborty

Hark! If you yearn for fantastical stories set elsewhere besides the snowy peaks and lush green forests of medieval Europe, if elven kin and dragonkind no longer interest you, I implore you to read this book. The story begins by following the travails of Nahri, con artist extraordinaire living on the streets of 18th century Cairo. While executing a scam, Nahri briefly taps into a knowledge and power she thought didn’t exist. This catapults her into a magical journey filled with adventure and danger, with surprises at every turn. Journey into The City of Brass, if you dare. Michael T.