Politics and Prose Presents

In the tradition of Matthew Desmond's  Evicted  and Andrea Elliot's  Invisible Child ,   Disposable   is a poignant exploration of America's underclass, left vulnerable by systemic racism and capitalism. Here, Sarah Jones delves into the lives of the essential workers, seniors, and people with disabilities who were disproportionately affected by COVID-19--not due to their age or profession, but be...

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles o...

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen's books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more. But Austen wasn't a lone genius. She wrote at a time of grea...

David Levering Lewis — The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story, 1790-1958 - with Steve Inskeep — at Conn Ave Sitting beneath a stained glass window dedicated to his grandmother in the Atlanta church where his family had prayed for generations, preeminent American historian David Levering Lewis was struck by the great lacunae in what he could know about his own ancestors. H...

Please join  Tamika Mallory  in conversation about her coming-of-age memoir  I Lived to Tell the Story  with veteran journalist and Black Press USA Washington Bureau Chief and WH Correspondent,  April D. Ryan  and former First Lady of DC,  Cora Masters Barry . In this candid and defiant memoir, a follow-up to her "masterful" (Marc Lamont Hill,  New York Times  bestselling author) respons...

Amid the ongoing reckoning over America's history of anti-Black racism, scores of monuments to slaveowners and Confederate soldiers still proudly dot the country's landscape, while schools and street signs continue to bear the names of segregationists. With poignant, lyrical prose, cultural commentator Irvin Weathersby confronts the inescapable specter of white supremacy in our open spaces...

A lifetime of stories to tell.  Growing up, Marita would listen to bedtime stories of Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and many other champions of Black history. Now a champion herself in the literary world, she shares her story in a motivational autobiography you will never forget.   How to Become a Black Writer  details Marita Golden's life, career, and the most cherished memories she ma...

Pick-Up -  Harkening to the witty and swoon-worthy rom-coms of Christina Lauren and Kate Clayborn, a new enemies-to-lovers romp whisking us from the stress of city life to lush Caribbean beaches. Sasha Rubinstein is not on her game. Parenting with an absent (and objectively douchey) ex has never been easy, but, lately, the judgmental side-eye from people at school pick-up feels extra. It doesn&#39...

Taking over her parents' estate-sale business is not the life's work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people's nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest "get"--the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because...

Rich Benjamin's mother, Danielle Fignolé, grew up the eldest in a large family living a comfortable life in Port-au-Prince. Her mother was a schoolteacher, her father a populist hero--a labor leader and politician. The first true champion of the black masses, he eventually became the country's president in 1957. But two weeks after his inauguration, that life was shattered. Soldiers took D...

Prudence Wright seems to have it all: a loving husband, Davis; a spacious home in Washington, D.C.; and the former glories of a successful career at McKinsey, which now enables her to dedicate her days to her autistic son, Roland. When she and Davis head out for dinner with one of Davis's new colleagues on a stormy summer evening filled with startling and unwelcome interruptions, Prudence has...

Jennifer Finney Boylan's  She's Not There  was the first bestselling work written by a transgender American. Since its publication twenty years ago, she has become the go-to person for insight into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we eat to the dreams we dream, both for ourselves and for our children. But  Cleavage  is more than a deep dive into gender identity; it's al...

Books can seduce you.   They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect "Life Ruiners". Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison's  The Bluest Eye,  became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race expose...

When the jolly Italian peasant-turned-cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli of Venice was elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, change was in the air. The Church, many said, had refused to enter the twentieth century. In response, Pope John launched Vatican II, an "ecumenical council" that summoned hundreds of church leaders to Rome. It marked one of the most progressive turns the Church had take...

In September of 1890, the academic year begins at the Carlisle School, a military-style boarding school for Indians in Pennsylvania, founded and run by Captain Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt considers himself a champion of Native Americans. His motto, "To save the man, we must kill the Indian," is severely enforced in both classroom and dormitory: Speak only English, forget your own language...

Tom Rosshirt, like millions of people chasing peace, put his faith in the scripture of our culture: we find peace by becoming who we want to be. So Tom aimed high, worked hard and excelled. But instead of peace, he experienced debilitating anxiety, depression, and discouraging bouts of brain fog that forced him out of his life. He was one of a rising number of people now getting sidelined by condi...

What do artworks look like in extreme cases of collective experience? What signals do artists send when enemies are at the city walls and the rule of law breaks down, or when a tyrant suspends the law to attack from inside?  Art in a State of Siege  tells the story of three compelling images created in dangerous moments and the people who experienced them--from Philip II of Spain to Carl Schmitt--...

This event is in partnership with  The Atlantic . What happens to American democracy if Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends? In this provocative book, the award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch--a lifelong atheist--reckons candidly with both the shortcomings of secularism and the corrosion of Christianity. Thin C...

In the 1950s Tropical Republic, a boy lives amid opulence and privilege, spending days at the beach or in the cool hills above the sweltering capital, enjoying leisurely Sunday lunches around the family compound's swimming pool. That is, until the reign of The Mortician begins, unleashing unimaginable horrors that bring his childhood idyll to an end. Narrowly escaping the violent fate visited...

Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she's thrust into a conflict and history she's tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter--introducing Arabella to the very eligible grandson of an old flame and stirring up buried family history. Naya is keeping a secret from her family that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old A...

The early 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st...

During the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, an estimated 20,000 children were forced to join the fighting. As villages were raided and youths rounded up, it was not uncommon for a child to be ordered to kill a friend, relative, or neighbor under threat of being killed themselves. The goal was to make it impossible for the captives to return home and be accepted back into thei...

In 1945 the United States and Japan fought the largest and most devastating land battle of their war in the Pacific, a month-long struggle for the city of Manila. The only urban fighting in the Pacific theater, the Battle of Manila was the third-bloodiest battle of World War II, behind Leningrad and Berlin. It was a key piece of the campaign to retake control of the Philippine Islands, which itsel...

Nearly seven million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, a tragedy that is already projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs keep coming up short, investigative journalist Charles Piller's  Doctored   shows that we've quite likely been walking the wrong path to finding a cure all along--led astray by a c...

In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single mother who'd had to drop out of Howard University. She was working at Washington, DC's Rape Crisis Center when she got a letter from a man in prison saying he wanted to learn how to not be a rapist anymore. At first, she was furious. As a survivor of sexual violence, she wanted to write back pouring out her rage. But instead, she made a different choice,...