Laura Zigman — The Author Weekend - with Nora Krug

James Verini — The Theater: Courage and Survival in the Defining Atrocity of the Ukraine War - with William B. Taylor Jr. - and special guest Kateryna Smagliy

In the tradition of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, a terse and piercing look at a critical episode in the Ukraine War, from the award-winning author of They Will Have to Die Now. In March of 2022, three weeks after invading Ukraine, Russian forces bombed the shelter housed in the Donetsk Regional Academic Drama Theater, in the city of Mariupol. The bombing stands, to this day, as the single worst act of mass civilian killing of the war. This book tells the story of the group of ordinary Ukrainians—workers, teachers, actors—who built that shelter, giving succor to thousands of their countrypeople, before it was destroyed. Their audacity and humor and humanity in the midst the siege of Mariupol, against impossible odds, will leave readers inspired, amused, and devastated. Their story is the story of a young republic and its struggle to survive. James Verini writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and National Geographic, among other publications. His journalism has received a National Magazine Award and a George Polk Award. He is the author of They Will Have to Die Now, about the battle that brought down ISIS. Verini is in in conversation with Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr., a distinguished American diplomat and former U.S. Army officer, known for his work in foreign policy, specifically in Ukraine, the Middle East, and former Soviet states. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (2006–2009) and later as Chargé d'Affaires in Kyiv (2019–2020) Verini and Taylor Jr. are introduced by Kateryna Smagliy, Ph.D., who has been serving as a Counselor for Political Affairs and Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA since February 2022. Prior to her arrival to Washington DC, Kateryna served at Political Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and led the International Cooperation Department at the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine.  Smagliy is a Fulbright scholar and a graduate of The McCain Institute Next Generation Leaders program. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668062203?ic_referral=46AIO-TRCtAGBGqQxNV8EEc-n59OEwIfbCtmk67lGLQwM2sSGf-XI7hnjxT7Z-XLp0pMne3rVGicogUkJiLA_AJKMfoFeCPhX_N-PVvllWWoNZk6ar4cGcIDS1urT6QUys4yywI

Robin Broad & John Cavanagh — The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed (Latinographix) - with Tope Folarin

In their acclaimed book The Water Defenders [https://politics-prose.com/book/9780807055403], Robin Broad and John Cavanagh told the story of activists in San Isidro, El Salvador, who fought multinational mining corporation OceanaGold and won—protecting their drinking water and environment from irreparable harm—despite great personal danger. Now, Jon Sack’s captivating graphic adaptation brings the story to new audiences and with new urgency, as environmental progress and human rights remain under assault around the world. The book is also updated to address Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele's ascent and the subsequent arrests of five water defenders. Initially excited by the company’s promises of jobs and prosperity, farmer Vidalina Morales, brothers Marcelo and Miguel Rivera, and others soon realized that the trade-off was catastrophic contamination of El Salvador’s main source of fresh water. Facing corporate machinations and violence, the ordinary people of San Isidro and surrounding communities built a transnational coalition that prevailed over powerful adversaries to score an environmental victory with worldwide repercussions. Broad and Cavanagh draw on over a decade of research, interviews, and experience as allies and experts in international development to recount the harrowing saga. A blueprint for civic bravery and local-to-global activism, as well as a rich history of Central America’s political conflicts and people’s fights against environmental and economic exploitation, this story will inspire anyone who feels helpless against corporate malfeasance. Robin Broad is a two-time MacArthur fellow and won a Guggenheim fellowship for her work surrounding mining in El Salvador. A research professor at American University, she served as an international economist in the US Department of the Treasury, in the US Congress, and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Broad and her husband, John Cavanagh, helped build the network of global allies that spearheaded the fight against mining in El Salvador. They have coauthored several books together. John Cavanagh is senior advisor for and former director of the Washington, DC–based Institute for Policy Studies, an organization that collaborates with the Poor People’s Campaign and other dynamic social movements to turn ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment. Previously, he worked with the United Nations to research corporate power. Cavanagh and his wife, Robin Broad, helped build the network of global allies that spearheaded the fight against mining in El Salvador. They have coauthored several books together. Jon Sack (Illustrator) Jon Sack is a US- and UK-based artist and writer. His comic books include La Lucha, which is about violence in Juárez and the lawyers working to combat it, and Iraqi Oil for Beginners, about the complicated history of oil in Iraq, as well as My Fairy Godfather and Windows on the World. Broad and Cavanagh are in conversation with Tope Folarin, a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, D.C. He serves as Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Whiting Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards. His debut novel, A Particular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon & Schuster. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780814259689?ic_referral=EIX6IdwkvUutYHxga1dADe106Vq71zL4UREZmFSDefIwM6oyb8bkpNXSn2ii0MXL-zc6vAb6Y6vmeO16nnf3eyRcsYyBBEw83JAw7UyP7GtGkyoAAarflK6OpGD2S7IljIsi2Yw

Deborah Kalb — Everything She Most Admired: A Mystery Novel - with Susan Coll

Lauren Green never expected to be a suspect in a murder investigation on her first day at D.C.-based Lens magazine. But then again, nothing had been going well lately. Dumped by her fiance, her academic career floundering, and her living situation up in the air, she's barely holding things together. She knows she didn't kill reporter Tony Mandel. But who did? Surrounded by murder suspects-including one whom she finds surprisingly intriguing-Lauren tries to piece the clues together, not only about Tony Mandel's death but also about her own life. Deborah Kalb is a freelance writer and editor. She spent about two decades working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for news organizations including Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill, mostly covering Congress and politics. Her book blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb [https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/], which she started in 2012, features hundreds of interviews she has conducted with a wide variety of authors. Kalb is in conversation with Susan Coll, the best-selling author of eight novels, including The Literati, Real Life and Other Fictions, Bookish People, and The Stager, a New York Times and Chicago Tribune Editor’s Choice. Her novel Acceptance was made into a television movie starring Joan Cusack. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, Moment Magazine, NPR.org, and Atlantic.com. She is the events advisor at Politics and Prose Bookstore. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781627206426?ic_referral=ei73PTKl6loUw63pU6Vkyh0A-65zb0ysorHeN2ipJ9wwMyw5ch6OyoKhiXIpb5WSaq3QV2VDgB-YTGfVYIjqgUbSU6qb9vfIVifCNxcxu8-1Yqq_pZPTZ_JBNKS9IuyOfmxCfkk

Danielle Crittenden — Dispatches from Grief: A Mother's Journey Through the Unthinkable - with Mary Haft

On a February morning, Danielle Crittenden's world cleaved in two: the life before her daughter Miranda was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment, and the life after. With unflinching honesty and unexpected grace, she chronicles the shattering impact of a child's death and the strange afterlife of grief itself: how it infiltrates grocery stores and dinner parties, transforms friendships, and ultimately reshapes the mourner as fundamentally as the world. Here is grief in all its terrible specificity: the police call that changes everything, the surreal task of choosing a burial dress, the well-meaning friends who "griefsplain." But here too is love distilled: a mother's meditation on a daughter who commanded dinner tables at twelve, who interviewed Dick Cheney with a child's notebook, who transformed into a luminous young woman living her dreams in New York. She writes of joining "the world's worst club"--parents who have lost children--and the terrible wisdom its members share. Written with the narrative power that has made Crittenden one of our most incisive observers of family and culture, Dispatches from Grief [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781964378114] brings a journalist's eye to the landscape of loss. For those walking through grief, for those who love someone grieving, and for all who dare imagine how precious and precarious our time together is, this book stands as both singular portrait and universal truth. Danielle Crittenden is a journalist, author, and former host of the podcast The Femsplainers, known for her incisive and original commentary on women, family, and modern life. In addition to writing a popular monthly newsletter on Substack, her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and more. She is the author of four previous books, including What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman, praised by Vanity Fair as the work of "one of the most important new thinkers about women and family." Born in Toronto, she now lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, journalist and author David Frum. Crittenden is in conversation with Mary Haft, a writer, producer, and founder of HAFT PRODUCTIONS, LLC, specializing in documentaries for nonprofits. A Vice President of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and Co-Founder of the Nantucket Book Festival, she is the author of Nantucket: Portrait of an American Town, and a recently completed memoir: Staying the Course: The Making of a Marine Mom. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781964378114?ic_referral=EX2Qg-4fY39AbNtpZ0fGHMiebqen6rvfewaaXhriklswMxiIOg8YRcXWWE6hxe_uAW2pn_E85vgPHOr_UAdeUt60PEACG_U0j45xYQ_OhrV0YkMOflB4duKhTNxu8wbV_PMpcaU

Laura Zigman — The Author Weekend - with Nora Krug

The Devil Wears Prada meets The White Lotus in a story of colliding egos and shocking betrayal, as intoxicatingly ice cold as the pink prosecco that flows all weekend. Everything needs to be just right for bestselling mystery writer Faye Wader's first-ever fan weekend. Her sales might be slipping--only a little --but her readers still love her enough to pony up for three days and two nights on Great Misery Island. The retreat is precisely planned, from the small-batch artisanal doughnuts to the perimenopausal Mermaid Meditation, by Faye and her beleaguered assistant, Jade--an aspiring author who can't seem to finish her own novel. Faye's longtime agent and editor will be there, as well as Faye's number one fan, Peggy Mercer, who has been first in line at every one of Faye's events. When news comes that the weekend will be crashed by glamorous, charismatic rival novelist Abby Schuss, Faye thinks things can't get worse ... until one of the attendees is found dead in her room, setting off an unexpectedly murderous chain of events that makes prepub anxiety seem like a day at the beach. How far is Faye willing to go to get exactly what she wants from her Author Weekend? The Author Weekend [https://politics-prose.com/book/9798228330412] is a thrilling and hilarious dive into the dark heart of envy, and a glorious exploration of a woman of a certain age desperate to survive the dog-eat-dog world of publishing and control her own narrative. Laura Zigman is the author of Small World (a New York Times Group Text pick and Editor's Choice), Separation Anxiety, Animal Husbandry (which was made into the movie "Someone Like You," starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd), Dating Big Bird, Her, and Piece of Work. She has collaborated on several works of non-fiction--including Eddie Izzard's New York Times bestseller, Believe Me--and has been a contributor to the New York Times and other publications. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zigman is in conversation Nora Krug, a writer and editor based in Washington, DC. For nearly two decades she worked at The Washington Post, primarily as an editor in Book World. Prior to that she was an editor at The New York Times, Architectural Digest and Little, Brown.  PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798228330412?ic_referral=Tj6AQlm6_2Vb20sykRAlDkXuYgCbSlOaNYHeIslra9gwMzivd3CWiAH4HJx0QF61p1Gcx5V-FkH6qcqBj_REtCIK2ZuCTTJ2Dbz-3ePccBghSRXZHQK1-lJJUOYcf2VPpj6UlBk