Before my trip to Washington DC, I sent out a twitter message requesting recommendations for bookstores to visit and review. The resounding favorite was Politics and Prose. Thomas Heath of the Washington Post wrote a terrific article describing the store, so I’ll just add my personal insights. I resisted visiting Politics and Prose during previous trips to DC because it felt difficult to get to from the directions on the website, at least to a person relatively unfamiliar to the area. So here’s the most important fact I can add about Politics and Prose, it’s easy to reach from the closest Metro stop. While Keith and I took a taxi to the store, due to my directions concerns, we enjoyed a lovely stroll back to the Metro station, it’s a quick walk through a nice area of the city.
Heath described the event calendar at Politics and Prose as jammed packed and ”hardly a week goes by when a Washington Post journalist isn’t reading from his or her book.” I thought it was an exaggerated comment until I pulled up the event calendar for the week I was in town and found a reading every night. We attended a discussion by Bradley Graham, former military and foreign affairs reporter for the Washington Post, and author of By His Own Rules, a biography of Donald Rumsfeld. Walking in 10 minutes before the talk, Keith and I took two of the last four available seats. I estimated at least 80 people attended. Graham started his talk by noting that people in favor of Rumsfeld tended to think the book was too harsh, while those who weren’t fans felt it was too gentle. Presumably, Graham knew where the Politics and Prose audience would fall.
Graham spent most of his talk describing Rumsfeld’s early years. Interesting to a certain extent, I didn’t know his greatest disappointment was not being picked to fly fighter jets, or about his Congressional career, or his corporate successes (NutraSweet and HD TV). But, it’s likely the reading public is interested mostly about the Iraq years and the audience at Politics and Prose wanted Rumsfeld held accountable, I could almost say condemned. I haven’t read the book (I don’t read books over 500 pages unless their worth is proven and this one is 800 pages long), but the reviews indicate just what I saw in Graham’s response to the audience, a sense of equivocation, of “well, yes, but” leaving few people in the room satisfied. In the end, I didn’t buy the book and I wondered how many people wanted the tome.
I left without By His Own Rules, but not without a deep appreciation for a bookstore that attracts a reading public eager to discuss current issues. The week I visited the top seller was Henry Waxman’s The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works. I live in Waxman’s district and asked my local bookstore if The Waxman Report was ever the top seller in the store. It wasn’t, although many copies were sold the first week it appeared.
I spent an hour meandering around Politics and Prose and could have spent much more, the set up and the book choices invite poking around. There are tables dedicated to themes and genres allowing me to connect books I read and enjoyed with new finds. In a sports/baseball area, my husband found, bought, and read immedately The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball by my favorite sports commentator, Frank Deford, and Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America by S.L. Price. I left with The Book Shopper: A Life in Review by Murray Browne. I’m looking forward to reading the thoughts of a professional book buyer and comparing them with my hobbyist approach.
Politics and Prose celebrates its 25th anniversary this month; stop by and congratulate them!
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
T: 800.722.0790
F: 202.966.7532
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Sounds a lot more interesting to me than waiting in all those lines!
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