Politics & Prose
Bookshops and Christmas – and good bookshops are Christmas
December 2024
My father-in-law used to give books for Christmas.
He was good at it. He bought me books that I wouldn’t have bought myself, but I liked his choices. He bought me Peggy Guggenheim’s biography and Alexander Fuller’s book about her father.
Mike liked non-fiction. A former Sociology professor, his house was bursting with the best-reviewed books about politics, social issues and history. He kept a pile of joke books in the loo.
One December, Dave and I followed Mike’s lead and pushed a trolley around Exclusive Books, choosing titles for all the grown-ups in the family.
When you give a book as a gift it’s a way of showing you’ve noticed someone’s mind. Not just noticed it, but liked it. You’re saying Hey you, with your interest in horror stories or decor or military history, here’s something to feed that passion.
Mike would have loved Politics and Prose. He would have spent hours browsing the shelves. He might have pulled up a stool at Current Affairs or Periodicals.
Politics and Prose is one of the most famous independent bookshops in the world. For more than 40 years it’s stocked everything new and good – with a spotlight on groundbreaking literature and rigorous non-fiction.
I first visited Politics and Prose 20 years ago.
It imprinted itself on my memory: the basement level overflowing with the best selection of childrens books I’d ever seen and the upstairs with its large, book-lined rooms and wide archways.
Politics and Prose did then, and does now, exude an air of moral, intellectual and literary correctness.
It’s busy though – not stuffy or precious. It’s full of mums and toddlers, professionals – old and young – and creatives.
There’s a coffee shop downstairs and six days a week there’s an evening talk.
Yup, six days a week.
I went to see President Obama’s speechwriter and the civil rights activist John Lewis’s biographer.
I’m kicking myself for missing Richard Powers, author of Overstory, talking about his new book, Playground.
The book events are held at the original Friendship Heights branch on Connecticut Avenue, or in the new, smaller branches at The Wharf and Union Market.
Politics and Prose also offers online courses. I did an excellent one with Aaron Hamburger about the Lucy Barton novels of Elizabeth Strout. More recently, I did a course on contemporary novels involving love triangles.
An unadvertised bonus of both courses were the guest appearances.
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, the author of Alice Sadie Celine – one of the love triangle books – popped into our Zoom to answer questions.
Elizabeth Strout’s editor, Benjamin Dreyer, joined us to answer questions about the Pulitzer prize winning author’s process.
Politics & Prose also goes on trips, would you believe? I toyed with joining the group that was off to New Mexico to explore the world of Willa Cather. I didn’t need to look at the price to know I wouldn’t be able to afford the cooking trip to Tuscany.
Recently, Politics and Prose published pics online of President Barack Obama shopping at the original store with his daughters Sasha and Malia.
This is a truly special shop. I might not be P&Ps stereotypical customer – perusing the shelves of newly-released tomes on US life and politics – but I’ve decided I’d prefer to read the best new romantic comedies as they’re released, not when they’re ten years old.
I know Politics and Prose get in new rom-coms all the time – and they display them up-front. Is it possible there are more readers like me and fewer politics boffins in trenchcoats buying books at the Connecticut Avenue branch? It could be that consumers of commercial fiction are the best spenders here.
Just saying though, if Politics and Prose needed someone to tip the balance, Mike Savage would be their man. For sure. Especially at Christmas.
