Will Rast of Funk Art
@ Fort Reno
Q:What's your song for summer?
A:"'I Ain't Nobody's Baby' by Sharon Jones."
TUESDAY: Though we just had a memoir about William F. Buckley penned by his son, author Richard Brookhiser apparently thought the market was ripe for another remembrance of the famed conservative. "Right Time, Right Place" tells the story of Brookhiser's relationship with Buckley, his hero, who later fired him from his post as editor of the National Review. No hard feelings?
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Tues., June 30, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919, Politics-prose.com. (Van Ness)
Photo from The Washington Post
PETER CARLSON'S "K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist," may be the most entertaining historical account you'll ever read. After being accidentally invited to the United States by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the height of the Cold War, the Soviet leader ambled through a two-week cross-country visit in 1959, an episode aptly termed "a surreal extravaganza" at the time.
While the book teems with strange comic incidents — K throwing a tantrum before an audience of stunned Hollywood stars after being told he couldn't go to Disneyland (bellowing, "What must I do, commit suicide?") the set pieces are the tip of the iceberg. The book's funniest sections are due to K's own remarkable wit. Carlson sees the heroically benevolent dictator as a "giant among men" who was alternately terrifying and hilarious.
» EXPRESS: Do you see Khrushchev as a giant among men?
» CARLSON: He was. He took over for one of the worst dictators in human history. Compared with Stalin, he was Mother Teresa. He denounced Stalin and he released hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million, people from the Gulag.
Continue Reading "A Giant Among Men: Author Peter Carlson" »
TUESDAY: P.J. O'Rourke, noted conservative humorist, has proved himself to be a savvy political satirist and writer. Now he turns from the machinations of Washington to those of a sweet 5-cylinder engine in "Driving Like Crazy," his latest book of essays. It's about cars, his own obsession with them — and America's. You can find out what he thinks about the future of the automobile industry tonight.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Tues., June 9, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images
TUESDAY: Not up on your Pakistani history? You're not alone. Nicholas Schmidle spent two years in Pakistan observing the way life works there, in the cities and in Taliban camps.
His new book is "To Live or to Perish Forever," in which he attempts to explain what led to the current situation in this somethings-confusing, always complicated region of the world.
He'll be at Politics and Prose tonight, speaking about it.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Tue., June 2, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by The Washington Post
TUESDAY: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, who covers the religion beat for National Public Radio, puts her investigative experience to use in "Fingerprints of God," a book about the measurable physical effects of spirituality and prayer.
This isn't an indoctrination thing, though — Hagerty is one of very few journalists working today who is able to cover religion without showing bias or condescension, and she won't try to convert you.
» Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Tue., May 19, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo courtesy NPR
COLSON WHITEHEAD SPENT many of his teenage summers at his family's house in Sag Harbor, a predominantly black beach community in the Hamptons. But that doesn't mean new novel, about a 15-year-old misfit who spends his summers at his family's house in Sag Harbor, is autobiographical.
"If you do a first-person narrator who has a similar background to yours, people assume it's completely real and autobiographical," says the author. "For me the fun part of writing is making stuff up."
By that standard, Whitehead has been having a blast the past 10 years, writing three previous novels — all ambitious, all highly praised — about elevator inspectors, magazine writers, steel-drivin' men, and marketing consultants.
"I hadn't done this kind of book before," he explains. "I try to keep myself from getting bored. I'd never written about teenagers or the '80s or Sag Harbor."
In fact, the setting for "Sag Harbor" was a primarily draw for the author.
FRIDAY: Christopher Buckley lays aside his sardonically funny poison pen to confront his charismatic, troubled family with the memoir "Losing Mum and Pup." It doesn't sound as if growing up the son of William F. Buckley and Patricia Taylor Buckley was easy, but Buckley approaches his fraught history with honesty and warmth.
» Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Fri., May 8, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Written by Express' Arion Berger
THURSDAY: Ruth Reichl, formerly a restaurant critic for the New York Times and currently the editor of Gourmet magazine, has had an enormous amount of successful as an author. Her books are a mixture of memoir and cookbook, introducing the different foods that shaped her life and then teaching you how to make them. It's a winning formula.
Her latest book delves into territory that's a bit more serious. "Not Becoming My Mother" is one long, extremely well-written and poignant backhanded compliment: a book dedicated to Reichl's mentally ill and in many ways extraordinary mother. She'll be speaking about the book on Thursday at Politics and Prose.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., May 7, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness)
Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
THURSDAY: Politics & Prose will host author Arthur Phillips. His latest novel looks at romance in the age of the iPod — music is a constant in the lives of his strange, damaged lovers, a New York ad man and an Irish singer. Phillips reads from and discusses his buzzed-about novel.
» Politics & Prose.5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., April 30, 7 p.m., free; 202-364-1919. (Van Ness-UDC)
Written by Express' Eric Anderson
KATE FEIFFER'S CHILDREN'S book "Which Puppy?" landed on bookshelves right as the Obamas adopted Bo, the dog the president promised his daughters during his acceptance speech last November. She and her father, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, have been working on the book for months, but the pictures of the Portuguese water dog have been the best promotional campaign imaginable.
» EXPRESS: What made you think to write a book about the Obamas' puppy?
» FEIFFER: The day after the election, my editor e-mailed me and said, "What does it take to get chosen as a presidential puppy?" I said, "This is right up my alley — politics and pets, two things I care a lot about. This should be a lot of fun to write," and indeed it was. It's fun to think about the different ways we go about picking things — through lotteries, through elections, obviously, through races and competitions.
» EXPRESS: The timing seems perfect.
» FEIFFER: It's coincidence. We didn't know when they would be getting the puppy. Obviously, no one knew. The timing was perfect for us.
Continue Reading "Big Woof: Kate Feiffer's 'Which Puppy?'" »
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