Politics and Prose Presents

Politics and Prose
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Calling all book lovers: experience our renowned author talks in podcast form. Politics and Prose Presents allows you to visit our legendary independent bookstore from anywhere in the world. Listen to top authors and journalists discuss their latest books- ranging from topics like biography, politics, science, poetry, fiction, and everything in between. Make sure to like and Subscribe and visit us at www.politics-prose.com

  1. 6h ago

    Ebony Walden — Where I'm From: A Poetic Journey Across Five Continents - with Robert J. Patterson

    Perfect for fans of Eat, Pray, Love, this soulful travel memoir blends poetry, global adventure, cultural connection and personal transformation with reflections on race, identity, and belonging.In 2010, twenty-nine-year-old poet Ebony Walden quits her job to go to on an eight-month solo journey across fifteen countries and five continents. Propelled by a sense of purpose and adventure, she moves from teaching English and volunteering in places like Guatemala and India to conducting poetry workshops in Kenya, walking the ruins of Machu Picchu, and paragliding over the Swiss Alps.Along the way, Ebony writes “Where I’m From” poems with the people she meets—intimate reflections that capture family, identity and culture, weaving their voices into her own unfolding journey. But each destination also challenges her in unexpected ways, forcing her to reckon with the hardships of growing up in New York in the ’80s and ’90s. Through breathtaking landscapes, unexpected setbacks, and profound encounters with strangers, Ebony begins to understand that travel is not just about seeing the world—it is about allowing the world to change you.Part travel memoir, part coming-of-age story, Where I’m From invites readers to take their own journey beyond borders and come home to themselves. Ebony Walden is an author, filmmaker, and speaker who has traveled to nearly fifty countries and all fifty US states. She is the founder of Ebony Walden Consulting, a racial equity–focused consulting firm, and the creator of Black Beyond Borders, a documentary series and podcast exploring culture, creativity, connection, and cuisine across the African diaspora. Ebony also writes Beyond Borders, a weekly Substack newsletter on travel and transformation. She lives in Richmond, Virginia. Walden is in conversation with Robert J. Patterson, a professor of African American Studies and served as the inaugural chair of the Department of African American Studies at Georgetown University (2016-2019). He is the author of Destructive Desires: Rhythm and Blues Culture and the Politics of Racial Equality (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and Exodus Politics: Civil Rights and Leadership in African American Literature and Culture (UVA Press, 2013), co-editor of The Psychic Hold of Slavery: Legacies in American Expressive Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2016), and editor of the award-winning Black Cultural Production After Civil Rights (University of Illinois Press, 2019). Currently, he is working on a book titled Black Equity, Black Equality: Reparation and Black Communities and US Slave Narratives: A Very Short Introduction, which is under contract with Oxford University Press.  PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798896361381?ic_referral=Zbpdg8F-XY9K_pbk8NugPKzX_JGuZF35VwNhaNmIHCowM0w1bRiDlMv2fB-SJhYnKAI0bIQa1ybg0Yq4-6Xuwah9YocbrJ4o92cBQa2MAm1B5nnKkbfO8tUk_Gv5f42Njm9CYpQ

  2. 1d ago

    Leah C. Stokes — The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet - with Gerry Petrella, Maxine Joselow, & Christy Goldfuss

    The true, inspiring story of the new parents who spearheaded an unlikely climate victory.From the rising climate advocate named to the Time100 Next list, for political junkies and anyone who cares about the environment.They were perhaps an unlikely trio: the professor Leah Stokes, the policy wonk Sonia Aggarwal in the White House, and the DC insider Adrian Deveny in the Senate, but together, they crafted the boldest climate legislation of our times. In The Carbon Wave, Stokes chronicles the turbulent path of their climate bill as it veered between breakthrough and collapse—from the hopeful beginnings of the Green New Deal in 2018 to the bill’s near-certain defeat by Senator Joe Manchin in the winter of 2021 to the surprise passage of the landmark legislation in August of 2022. During this critical time, the author was pregnant or in the NICU by the side of her premature twins, and Aggarwal and Deveny were new parents too.Interlacing personal narratives with stories from Congress, the White House, and outside activists, Stokes shows how dogged perseverance and collective action can still bend the course of history. The book concludes with an update from the second Trump administration, explaining the parts of the bill that were—and were not—rolled back, and why we should remain hopeful that progress is still being made.Everyone has been told to shrink their carbon footprint and lighten their load on our planet by changing their behavior. But what if instead of making ourselves smaller, we joined with others to maximize our impact? That’s the carbon wave. And this book shows us how to make it.“I have said before, and I will probably say again, that Leah Stokes understands the details of our energy policy dilemmas better than anyone.” —Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun Leah C. Stokes is Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at UC Santa Barbara. As a leading climate advocate, she has championed climate policy in the United States at all levels of government and was selected for Time Magazine’s Time100 Next list and Business Insider’s top 30 global climate leaders. A recipient of a Harvard University Radcliffe Fellowship, she is the author of the award-winning Short Circuiting Policy, which was listed as one of the top 5 climate books in 2020 by The New York Times. Stokes is in conversation with Gary Petrella, Maxine Joselow, and Christy Goldfuss.   Gerry Petrella was the Policy Director for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, where he played a central role in legislative planning, negotiating, and executing landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Over the course of his career, he has advised members of Congress, the White House, and companies on issues ranging from technology and environment to infrastructure and health care. Maxine Joselow, a climate policy reporter for The New York Times, where she writes about how governments address climate change. Before joining The Times, she worked at The Washington Post, where she helped launch a daily climate newsletter and then served as the newspaper’s lead climate policy reporter. Before that, she worked for E&E News, an environmental publication owned by Politico.  Christy Goldfuss, the Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Before that, she served as the Center for American Progress's senior vice president for Energy and Environment Policy, where she convened a broad range of stakeholders to develop a climate investment strategy enshrined in the Inflation Reduction Act. She was formerly the managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)..  PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780262054775?ic_referral=NNdYjyeJzqUKYjOOXlreAXsXnX7L2U6x4frXDgwGpwcwM5Jd306gbm4n7nVQLUMmqtPszVhJKTR3kM8LERIJowXW0uMfFSNhqLN-ZXJ1F37OwLO1u-0fAMLoV6guZ41M5WcKKoM

  3. 2d ago

    Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz — The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America - with Nikki M. Taylor

    For fans of Master Slave Husband Wife and Django Unchained comes the extraordinary forgotten story of an event known in its day as “the first shots of the Civil War,” from the New York Times bestselling author of Dr. Mütter’s Marvels.The year, 1851. The place, a Quaker farming community turned Underground Railroad stronghold, where a Maryland enslaver had journeyed in pursuit of four men who’d fled his plantation years before. In a few hours, he’d be dead…and twenty-seven men from the village of Christiana would be rounded up and put on trial. Not for his murder, but for treason—for waging war against the United States, at a time when it was a crime against the government to obstruct an enslaver looking to reclaim his “property.”This is story of what happened in Christiana that September morning—and in the ensuing “trial of the century,” which saw the president himself advise the prosecution on strategy and a sitting congressman serve as lead attorney for the defense. But The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker is also a much larger tale, one spanning decades, following a whole startlingly diverse community of abolitionists in their fight to convince their fellow Americans of the subversive idea that now found itself on trial: that the nation ought to live up the ideals it was founded on, and respect all men as equals.It’s a story that whisks readers from the quiet farmlands of Lancaster County—where a self-emancipated man named William Parker, whom legend had it bullets could not kill, rallied his neighbors to ride out each night to battle the slavecatchers who stalked their countryside—to Philadelphia’s genteel Society Hill, where socialite Harriet Forten Purvis had the ear of the mayor (and a cellar filled with fugitives). It’s stylish, propulsive, intimately human tale of bravery, ingenuity, and hope—and of ordinary people with little in common who came together to stand against injustice…and won. Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is the New York Times bestselling author of Dr. Mütter’s Marvels, as well as eight collections of poetry. A seventh generation Pennsylvanian, she lives in Philadelphia with her husband, the novelist Ernest Cline, and their children. Aptowicz is in conversation with Nikki M. Taylor, a professor of history at Howard University. Her research focuses on African-American history in the nineteenth century, particularly in Ohio and Kentucky. Her sub-specialties are in Urban, African American Women, and Intellectual History. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University. She served as the Chair of the Department of History from 2017-2023. Taylor has won several fellowships including Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, and Woodrow Wilson. She is also the Principal Investigator of two institutional grants, including the $5 million Mellon Just Futures grant (2021) and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program Grant ($480k in 2017). PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668035931?ic_referral=xFZZpqr-DcAZKetzjP8bf2pOPpCnPqQepH6W_8R7tFowM0xHWqAdnTCCOrCoRxe6n1Z2TaZaJSPreHI7M6gwoit5vR0csJ2s2IyXBoSpoRX5Iad08svOpLU9xSdLdAH8CNGJUg8

  4. 3d ago

    Alona Wartofsky, Charles C. Stephenson, Jr., Kato Hammond — Crankin!: Power and Resilience in Washington DC's Go-Go Culture - with Natalie Hopkinson

    The definitive history of go-go music and culture Go-go is the heart and soul of Washington, DC's African American culture--a source of resilience for the community and a way to celebrate Black lives. As the soundtrack of the District since the mid-1970s, go-go was designated the official music of Washington in 2020, and it has been incorporated into music genres such as hip-hop and R&B for decades. Crankin offers a rich narrative packed with photos that highlight go-go's key figures, bands, and moments--spanning fifty years from its beginnings all the way to its central role in the #BLM protests in 2020 and the #DontMuteDC and Moechella movements. This sweeping history of go-go music culture details the life of Chuck Brown, the "godfather of go-go," and documents the history of the genre's early pioneers, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, and Experience Unlimited (EU). The book also covers EU's 1988 number one hit, "Da Butt," go-go's gospel and grown 'n' sexy subgenres, go-go's international impact, the bouncebeat sound, go-go lifestyles, activism, and, finally, the homecoming as go-go artists brought Chuck Brown's African-inspired beat to Africa. Crankin will entertain and inform fans of go-go as well as African American and American-created music; musicologists; scholars of American culture and subcultures; and readers interested in DC history. Alona Wartofsky is a former culture editor and reporter for The Washington Post. She has been reporting about go-go since the mid-'80s, and her stories about go-go culture have appeared in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, the Village Voice, Spin magazine, and LA Weekly.  Charles C. Stephenson Jr. is the coauthor of The Beat: Go-Go Music from Washington, DC, the original manager for Experience Unlimited, and former chairman of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Kato Hammond is a go-go musician, author, publisher, and journalist. He is the owner and creator of Take Me Out To The Go-Go, Inc. (TMOTTGoGo)--the first website, magazine, and online radio station covering the go-go music culture. Wartofsky, Stephenson, and Hammond are in conversation with Natalie Hopkinson. PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781647127367?ic_referral=fYdGRS02Vb3JfOLXxqoTbGbNEBJiSkim1XqT4OXP3xMwM2eOiszilhJDkd5gZhu1FGxujMcg_PQVptGs0LSBk60IosdT5U2tUFKFzHK-l28bQLuR_tgYRBVlyaEeNvQcl2Dmn3g

  5. 3d ago

    Marlon James — The Disappearers - with Lily Meyer

    In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gay―a “battyman” in Jamaican argot―and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare. One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical. As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution. In The Disappearers, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s. Marlon James is the Booker Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Seven Killings; the bestselling and National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; as well as the bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; The Book of Night Women; and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, James’s novels have won the American Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, and have been finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. In 2019, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. Born in Jamaica, James lives in New York City. James is in conversation with Lily Meyer. Meyer is a translator, a critic, and the author of the novels The End of Romance (Viking, 2026) and Short War (Deep Vellum, 2024). She is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her stories and translations can be found in The Dial, The Drift, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals. PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593717202?ic_referral=OQwG3SYX3GexNIaKumt6uedFQwLpbchSB7011UfgtH0wMxDxa-SmSvsCsnLBWXKC3Nvk9G8T6hmcKj9XrqIFajsyr-M1nUqyvMFBavYRzQhjyUF0FkV-WQ_C1sH3hvNe-9W1jGA

  6. 4d ago

    Steve Feldstein — Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Big Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare - with Marcus Weisgerber

    New tech is changing the contours of geopolitical stability—America must act now, or risk losing its global standing forever.Technology has always driven political competition. For decades, the US set the international rules on innovation, standards, and export regulations, using soft power and federal funding to both develop cutting edge tech and prevent its rivals from acquiring it. But in the digital era, major breakthroughs in everything from AI systems to autonomous drones now come from private companies, not government labs. It is already too late for superpowers to stop the outward flow of research and expertise. The fallout from this shift could dramatically reshape our world, and America is running out of time to act.Bytes and Bullets is an analytically rich account of how technology is upending global competition. Through engaging stories and original research, Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Steve Feldstein explains how America's primacy is being undercut at every turn by commercialization, China's growing capabilities, and new regional powers building their own spheres of influence. He offers eye-opening insights from modern conflicts and proposes concrete strategies that democracies must adopt to shape the future. Steven Feldstein is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. An international expert on technology, democracy, and national security, he previously served as a senior official at the State Department and USAID. His first book, The Rise of Digital Repression, won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He has appeared on CNBC, CSPAN, NPR, and BBC, and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Lawfare, among others. Feldstein is in conversation with Marcus Weisgerber, a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, where he covers the Pentagon and defense industry. For nearly two decades, Marcus’ reporting has focused on the intersection of business and national security. He spent nine years as the business editor of Defense One, where in 2018 he won a Jesse H. Neal Award for his coverage of the Pentagon and defense industry. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250394088?ic_referral=9_Eoc_u1Zk05ugADc6srQkqMMkHFjxPasq3XzQETAagwM-OHjZS00WeVodPb8xZAlEwgziRlHkcZpXhJiUFaTFhmYTF5ySLdZNs1jn5ldSyCKFSUefx0dE4JxSjyJzG9_faUM00

  7. 4d ago

    Adam Jentleson — Supermajority: How Democrats Can Build Lasting Power - with Jerusalem Demsas

    From the leading political advisor and best-selling author, a revelatory account of how power is built and a blueprint for Democrats in 2026 and beyond. Supermajorities used to be the norm in American politics, yet today it seems unimaginable that our nation could break hard for one party or the other. But as Adam Jentleson demonstrates in Supermajority, his follow up to the “truly excellent” (Ezra Klein) Kill Switch, periods of stasis almost always break and give way to dominant one-party rule. For most of the twentieth century, Democrats held overwhelming control of Congress—supermajorities so commanding that Republicans could do little more than mimic Democratic positions. These supermajorities didn’t just enable sweeping legislation, such as Social Security, but also made that legislation stick. Jentleson argues that today’s Democrats let interest groups and activists hold them back from building a supermajority, and that they forget that politicians need to be attentive to public opinion even as they seek to shape it. He shows that the party must learn the correct lessons from the successes of FDR, LBJ, and Barack Obama if they hope to usher in a new liberal realignment and forge lasting change. Adam Jentleson is the former chief of staff to Senator John Fetterman, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid, and founder and president of the Searchlight Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to sparking a realignment through innovative policy ideas. A frequent contributor to the New York Times and political commentator on MSNBC, he is the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. He lives in Takoma Park, Maryland. Jentleson is in conversation with Jerusalem Demsas, CEO, founder, and editor-in-chief of The Argument, a new magazine revitalizing liberalism through evidence-driven journalism and debate. The Argument covers politics, policy, and culture with original polling, and rigorous analysis. She was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, a policy journalist at Vox, and author of On the Housing Crisis. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324092193?ic_referral=ATG3KJWSijG_DnDzmgnDcKx3XkrpJIf39AuLOy22kGwwM73GLtT5GcgAAsyU0iGbsUaILURtwRsO9M6G03FKfSLt2BzxX2SPdW3wFPKcw6tDIaiG_ytryRIOZRNHyb3TgcnY0H0

  8. 6d ago

    Rebecca Blumenstein & Diana Kapp — The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America - with Andrea Mitchell & Mursal Rahim

    An inside account of the extraordinary effort by The New York Times to evacuate more than 200 Afghans after the fall of Kabul, highlighting four exceptional young women as they forge a new life in America. Kabul; August 15, 2021: The Taliban were coming.  The world watched in shock: After the longest war in American history, the Taliban swept into Kabul in a morning. Desperation reigned as the US pulled out. Some clung to the wheels of departing airplanes, only to fall to certain death. Reprisal was near-certain for anyone who had worked with Americans. Marwa, the 21-year-old sister of a Times reporter, was in the vanguard of a fast-modernizing Afghanistan. That morning, she had ironed her pink dress for the first day of medical school. Instead, she had 30 minutes to pack her life into a backpack and flee. Across the world, Rebecca Blumenstein, a top Times editor, and a determined team scrambled to evacuate Kabul bureau’s Afghan employees and families. After a harrowing two-week ordeal, the FIRST WAVE OF refugees landed in Houston, and became part of the largest wave of refugees since the Vietnam War.THE LAST FREE WOMEN is an intimate portrait of the journey of four brave young women as they seek to rebuild their lives. Marwa, Maryam, Mursal and Samira try to make the most of their precious freedom in America. They start over -- learning English, repeating college and forging identities – while back home, the Taliban bans the education of girls past sixth grade and women from leaving their homes alone. “Why is it always about the women?” Mursal despairs. Their gripping account wrestles with women’s rights to basic freedoms and aspirations. It is also a meditation on duty – what we owe to those who work with Americans abroad, those who seek freedom, and the humanity that links us all. Rebecca Blumenstein spent 22 years at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, rising to Deputy Editor-in-Chief, before joining THE NEW YORK TIMES in 2017 as Deputy Managing Editor. She served as deputy editor, Publisher’s Office, from February 2021 to May 2022, working closely with NEW YORK TIMES Publisher A.G. Sulzberger to support the paper’s rapidly growing journalism operations. In 2023, she moved to NBC, where she is President, Editorial, of NBC News. She was named chair of the board of the Columbia Journalism Review in August 2022, and also serves on the board of the Wallace House/Center for Journalists at The University of Michigan and as a final judge of the Gerald Loeb Awards. She led the team that won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and received the New York Newswomen’s Award in 1993, the Gerald Loeb Award in 2003, and was named to the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellowship for 2009. More information is available here: https://www.nbcuniversal.com/leadership/rebecca-blumenstein. Diana Kapp is a journalist who writes frequently about the intersection of women and modern culture, and has traveled in Afghanistan to report on the education of girls in the country’s rural northern provinces. Blumenstein & Kapp are joined in conversation with Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ Chief Washington and Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. A veteran political correspondent, Mitchell has covered every presidential campaign since 1980 as well as reporting on national security issues across all NBC News platforms. From 2008 to 2025, Mitchell hosted Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC. Mursal Rahim is a Cornell MPA graduate with a concentration in Human Rights and Social Justice and a bachelor’s degree in law from Afghanistan. She works in Immigration and Refugee Services. Her work focuses on human rights, refugee protection, and advocacy for Afghan women and girls.  PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781538779002?ic_referral=HvC14qDJC3jn1oDXLitzajJyXlaiflsDfygkX_7E3cswM9s5ILeaiiVSYSPvDrJEfss68MapyB97Ww5-GKKUtjNosj5tZmqtNbPJinJ4OtaEwIGilxiVLugS8vWH7Iy_zsq9nnc

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About

Calling all book lovers: experience our renowned author talks in podcast form. Politics and Prose Presents allows you to visit our legendary independent bookstore from anywhere in the world. Listen to top authors and journalists discuss their latest books- ranging from topics like biography, politics, science, poetry, fiction, and everything in between. Make sure to like and Subscribe and visit us at www.politics-prose.com

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  • Creator
    Politics and Prose
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    795
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Politics and Prose
  • Show Website
    Politics and Prose Presents

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