Tad Stoermer — A Resistance History of the United States - with Karen Attiah

Dara Levan — Shaken to the Core - with Abby Maslin

When life is cut short, what do we do with the time we have left? Joy Stern, a free-spirited photographer, thought she had it all together. She built a traveler’s life with her husband, Andre, an architect who designed their days like the buildings he created. Children weren’t part of the plan. When Joy’s mom dies suddenly, everything changes. Being behind the lens, capturing photos of families, doesn’t feel like enough anymore—until Joy discovers a hidden key to her mother’s diary. One entry inspires a choice that could transform the trajectory of her life. Then the unthinkable happens: Andre receives devastating news, which upends their carefully constructed world. As Joy struggles to pursue her own dreams while supporting the man she loves, Joy wonders: Can she do it all? An uplifting story of hope amid heartbreak, Shaken to the Core [https://politics-prose.com/book/9798895652534] explores motherhood, chosen family, and love that transcends life’s greatest hardships. Dara Levan is an author, speaker, and the founder of Every Soul Has a Story, an inspiring podcast in which she interviews guests from around the globe. Dara is the author of the award-winning novel, It Could Be Worse, and a contributor to the USA Today bestselling anthology, On Being Jewish Now. She is a graduate of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in English and certificate in journalism. Dara earned her master’s degree in communication sciences and Disorders at Nova Southeastern University. Actively involved in her community, Dara is a board member of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation/Memorial Foundation, board trustee of Interlochen Center for the Arts, and involved in several other organizations. She is a founding member of the Circle of Friends for the Alvin Sherman Library at Nova Southeastern University and a member of the Authors Guild and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. When she’s not writing in South Florida, you’ll find Dara with her family and fur babies, traveling, capturing moments through photos, and talking to strangers who become friends. Levan is in conversation with Abby Maslin, is the Washington Post bestselling author of Love You Hard and a contributing essayist in Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Kids. A writer and national speaker on caregiving and resilience, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Sunday Paper, and other outlets. She also serves as COO of Amore Learning, where she supports young writers and learners.  PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798895652534?ic_referral=keCWYB18VWf6c7WEqDBLC20qmP4P0QbaVr3_E0G8RF8wMx2nZUxPNqQT826FSnExTQeMAD43xT2hNjkGhISejALwGB-LpiBTCKuHUwyYF2nauZE-LqoSM0HCyVBOx0IVq3KWBkw

Tad Stoermer — A Resistance History of the United States - with Karen Attiah

Revisit the Salem Witch Trials, the Underground Railroad, and other resistance movements of American history to get a bold new understanding of how resistance shaped our past—and how its principles can change our future. The United States was shaped by resistance—but not in the way we’ve been taught. The Revolution did not secure liberty; it opened the door to either liberty or oppression, where only white men enjoyed all of the benefits and protections of citizenship. In A Resistance History of the United States [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781586424367], public historian Tad Stoermer shows how from the very beginning, that tension—between the ideals of resistance and the realities of power—has defined America more than the Enlightenment ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Utililizing powerful storytelling to focus on key—and often lesser-known—moments in American history, this book reveals the truth of how resistance movements from Colonial times have opposed the powers that be. Stoermer covers an impressive roster of pivotal movements, with each chapter identifying a key resistance movement and principle meant to inspire contemporary readers, including:   * Bacon’s Rebellion/Metacomet’s War (1676) * Salem Witch Trials (1692) * The Black Loyalists (1783) * The Underground Railroad (1850) Through these and many more examples, Stoermer dismantles the mythologies that pass for American history—exposing the curated nostalgia, moral evasions, and institutional silences that have long protected abusive power. What emerges is an essential look at how we can take lessons from the past to understand, and effectively respond to, the injustices we face today. Tad Stoermer is a public historian who trained at the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard, with a particular focus on Colonial and Revolutionary America. He is also a former congressional staffer and speechwriter, and he served in the US Army and Reserves as a reconnaissance scout. He lives in Denmark. Stoermer is in conversation with Karen Attiah, an award-winning journalist, editor, and global thought leader whose work explores the intersections of race, culture, gender, media, and international affairs. A graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Northwestern University, Attiah is a former adjunct lecturer at Columbia, where she brought global expertise and academic rigor to her teaching. A former Fulbright Scholar to Ghana, she has reported from across the world, including Nigeria, Germany, and Curaçao. Her commentary and reporting have appeared in major international outlets such as the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and Voice of America. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Journalism from Dickinson College. Attiah was formerly a columnist and the founding Global Opinion Editor for The Washington Post. She founded the Resistance Summer School in 2025, a learning community of over 1,000 students focused on subjects currently being banned or cancelled in the current political climate. She writes on Substack at The Golden Hour. She can be found on X, Instagram at @KarenAttiah. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781586424367?ic_referral=eGa1HIaXnwTcMkyr2NiK45xyagoZjoBwr_Vcf3Zuo6swMy00LNsjV-8xmSdW9yd2wluPDfDf0AzQQKahsO7jmGBFLl0bxXcB9DWH5yLNBqw2cn_v5fbNmatvEajo1fL8ElH1Teo

Jessica M. Goldstein — Retro - with Alexandra Petri

An out-of-work actress gets a job as a tour guide for an ultra-luxury time travel company—only to discover her trips to the past could upend her present—in this sharp, speculative debut novel. When Ash spots an ad for Retro during a depressing Instagram scroll—she’s in debt and unemployed; everyone else is, evidently, thriving—she’s surprised the algorithm sent it her way. She’s heard of recreational time travel, but it’s way out of her budget. Then she sees the caption: Come away with us! We’re hiring. So begins Ash’s life as a Time Travel Agent, leading wealthy tourists on vacations to historical hotspots. She takes bachelorette parties to live out their cowboy-romance fantasies in the Old West and throws “'20s for your twenties” birthday bashes at speakeasies; she smiles politely as rich Wall Street guys give prospecting a shot in the Gold Rush. It's all thrilling, outrageous, and totally surreal. Bygone America is just a Retro Metro ride away.  Despite Ash’s tendency toward cynicism, she finds herself swept up in her dazzling new job. Sure, Ash isn’t the actress she always dreamed she’d be. But isn’t this so much better? It’s like Ash’s life is a movie, complete with an impossible love triangle. How is she supposed to choose between her mysterious office crush and the handsome private eye pursuing her in 1937?  For the first time in years, Ash’s life feels enviable—so she’d really rather not pay attention to the strange things happening to her memory and relationships outside Retro. But as her trips threaten to unravel her real life, she confronts an unsettling truth: “escaping” into the past was never really an escape at all. Jessica M. Goldstein is a journalist and humorist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vulture, Marie Claire, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and more. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she was born and raised in New Jersey and currently lives in Washington, D.C. Retro is her first novel. Goldstein is in conversation with Alexandra Petri, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Before joining The Atlantic in 2025, she wrote a humor column for the Washington Post. She won the 2025 Thurber Prize for American Humor for her book AP’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up) [https://bookshop.org/a/12476/9781324074762]. She is the author of two other books, Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why: Essays [https://bookshop.org/a/12476/9780393867374], and A Field Guide to Awkward Silences [https://bookshop.org/a/12476/9780451469618]. Her writing has also appeared in McSweeney’s, the New Yorker’s Daily Shouts and Murmurs, and elsewhere. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798217091362?ic_referral=gIo2q7eg6rnloeW_hfozvl2XozOstHFg0ozKRfY2G1UwM4LUDodb2fmPtPujDBfLOlUCubM0w7-os-rnApazZXf7zHZR_lsrYOconQ0vD7u0B3KulcJ9ljZkC3NTJ7iBOATiWQk

Yotam Marom — For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness - with Keya Chatterjee

The essential guide to establishing an effective opposition movement in the age of Trump, from the leading activist and organizer "I consider Marom] one of the most generous and important thinkers for the activist left, for anyone who cares about where we are and how to get to where we should be." --Rebecca Solnit There is no way to stop the descent into authoritarianism, nor win a world in which all people can thrive, without massive numbers of people organizing for social, political, and economic change. Yet experienced movement leader Yotam Marom delivers a hard truth: progressive and left movements too often get in their own way. They can be ambivalent about power, choosing insularity and purity over winning. This amounts to what Marom calls the "politics of powerlessness," which has kept movements small, weak, and defeated. In For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness [https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850857?ic_referral=55X0vLsRdmhKbGGLG-ZfdzOcKaTA71gt2t3ol23bcAYwM3Cgii0POF5fT3JWJEIF4jnggl3cOthLOUjwDoFz_2IjmRX92qBR41Ybkp8J1QDAEJ3VyfzuUrb9_t6QrQOXTpjZnhE], Marom offers a brilliant, lyrical clarion cry for a more honest, more strategic, more loving approach to progressive activism and movement building. Grounded in decades of experience in movements, from leading at Occupy Wall Street and other movement moments to supporting some of the most important climate, racial justice, and democracy movements of our time, Marom dives deep into the challenges that hold movements back, and offers stories, tools, and paths toward real power and enduring change. Published at the most perilous time in our modern political history, For Louder Days comes not a moment too soon. It is essential reading for committed activists as well as the wider public concerned about the state of our world and hoping to change it for the better. Yotam Marom has been in movements since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has played leadership roles at Occupy Wall Street and other movements before and after, and co-founded IfNotNow and the Wildfire Project. Yotam has trained and facilitated many of the leading social justice organizations of these times, from Sunrise and the Dream Defenders to Uncommitted and Hands Off NYC, and more. He lives in Brooklyn, and this is his first book. Marom is in conversation with Keya Chatterjee, the Executive Director and cofounder of Free DC a renewed movement to protect Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of DC. Free DC is a five year campaign focused on seeding a culture of joyful defiance, training DC residents on noncooperation as jurors, workers, consumers, and more, and responding to dozens of attacks on DC-- from military occupation to the takeover of our public spaces and cultural centers. Keya is also a cofounder of Freedom Trainers, a loose network of trainers teaching about the powerful tools of collective noncompliance and mass noncooperation like boycotts and strikes. Keya started her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. She served as a Presidential Management Fellow at NASA, in the Science Mission Directorate for four years. After NASA, Keya worked at USAID and WWF as a Climate Change specialist. Keya also ran US Climate Action Network for almost a decade, a network of US Climate-focused organizations, where her tenure was bookended by the network’s efforts to secure the Paris Climate Agreement and pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Keya was elected and served two terms as a hyperlocal neighborhood commissioner, and currently serves on the boards of Sunrise Movement and Evergreen Action. She is the author of works of both fiction and nonfiction, including her October 2025 romance novel about taking down fascism, The Revolution Will Not Be Rated G. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850857?ic_referral=hk7X368T1HbVgsLKhFefdTeYTDjgbMLn7oHVD8kVN0owMwpi2_Yt4mSkMpdl_PO8W_tOVxAl1e4TyTnoPxmJm_fbMNHQYMnrgb3iFMdU_c5xI7l78ZUwP5V6UTZ7QPS0ExgUREQ

Aggie Blum Thompson — The Neighbors Are Watching - with E.A. Aymar

From the "master of suburban scandal" (Samantha M. Bailey) comes a scandalous twisty thriller about obsession, betrayal, and the price of perfection Just outside Washington, DC, sits Eastbrook, Bethesda—a leafy suburb with top schools, pristine landscapes, and perfect neighbors. It’s not the kind of place where nannies are shot during robberies gone wrong. And in this picture-perfect neighborhood, someone is desperate to plaster over the cracks in that façade. A year after the unsolved neighborhood murder, Caren, nearing fifty and staring down an empty nest, has one too many drinks at a graduation party and blacks out on her way home. At least, that’s what everyone says happened. Caren suspects she was drugged by someone. But who? When Caren teams up with a new neighbor who is desperate to figure out who murdered his best friend last year, they start to uncover what Eastbrook has tried to forget. But in a place where appearances are everything, their search for the truth means not only shattering carefully curated perfection — but putting themselves squarely in the crosshairs of a killer. Before turning to fiction, Aggie Blum Thompson covered real-life crime as a newspaper reporter for a number of papers, including The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. Aggie is a member of Mystery Writers of America. She lives with her husband and two children in the suburbs of Washington DC. Blum Thompson is in conversation with E.A. Aymar. Booklist wrote, of multiple Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar’s most recent thriller, When She Left, “This would appeal to fans of Elmore Leonard…with high-stakes violence tempered by humor and disarmingly sympathetic antiheroes.” In 2025, When She Left was chosen by PEN/Faulkner as one of three books for their prestigious DC Reads program. His previous thriller, No Home for Killers, received praise from the New York Times, Kirkus, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and was an instant Amazon Bestseller. They’re Gone was published to rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus (starred), and named one of the best books of 2020. A frequent contributor to the Washington Post, Aymar is a former member of the national board of the International Thriller Writers and an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Sisters in Crime. He was born in Panama and now lives and writes in the DC/MD/VA triangle. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250412553?ic_referral=a-hSuXJB0zvjpwupoMAeZHDjTvgMVnf3OWkfIDaGlMgwM8RyLPxWeWMeRtMAFEhDW1cJOsEcjEaTcO5IZ8gJbyTyKSNk2MGAx_atGs1CFx764L8jKUXaSGaui0Q9UAmMD2ecnkA