Politics and Prose Presents

Lithium, a crucial input in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has the potential to save the world from climate change. But even green solutions come at a cost. Mining lithium is environmentally destructive. We therefore confront a dilemma: Is it possible to save the world by harming it in the process?

Having spent over a decade researching mining and oil sectors in Latin America, Thea Riofrancos is a leading voice on resource extraction. In Extraction, she draws on groundbreaking fieldwork on the global race for lithium. Taking readers from the breathtaking salt flats of Chile's Atacama Desert, to Nevada's glorious Silver Peak Range, to the rolling hills of the Barroso Region of Portugal, she reveals the social and environmental costs of "critical minerals." In Washington, DC, and Brussels, she tracks the escalating geopolitics of green technology supply chains. And she takes stock of new policy paradigms in the Global South, where governments seek to leverage mineral assets to jumpstart green development. In the process, Riofrancos uncovers surprising links across history, from colonial conquest to the 1970s energy crisis, to our still uncertain green future.

While unregulated mining could inflict irreversible harm, Riofrancos offers optimistic proposals to transform the governance of mining while also reducing the sheer volume of global extraction. A rigorous and hopeful call to action, Extraction shares how we can harmonize climate goals with social justice--and set the planet on a course to ecological flourishing.

Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, a Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute, and a fellow at the Transnational Institute. Previously, she has been an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard, and a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame, as well as holding research positions at institutions in Santiago, Chile and Quito, Ecuador. The author of Resource Radicals and coauthor of A Planet to Win, her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics, Cultural Studies, World Politics, and Global Environmental Politics, and her essays in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, n+1, and Jacobin, among other outlets.

Riofrancos is in conversation with Dharna Noor. Noor is the fossil fuels and climate reporter at the Guardian US. Before joining the Guardian, she helped launch the Boston Globe's climate team as a writer and producer. Previously, she was a staff writer at Earther, Gizmodo's climate vertical, where she also co-produced a season of the podcast Drilled on the fossil fuel industry's influence on education. Dharna began her career in media at the Real News Network, where she launched and led the climate team. Her multimedia reporting has also appeared in various publications and was also featured in the 2021 book The World We Need and the intro for the 2022 book Future on Fire. She has been interviewed on an array of shows such as PBS News Hour, Democracy Now, and NPR’s Living on Earth. She lives in Baltimore.

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781324036760?ic_referral=YS8uCTGgiuYWRyJGQBOfhKi3cfA_6agTTIaXz9RxnbAwM748gjT0enSDKxh6ow7DyJCu5pbIEgrLj00sKO2rC9QxdzHqsR_DEuRUypyMk4AsOUAtmWix-jXcHS48ZN4RgqxFTWA

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to living longer is not just about eating well, exercising, or getting regular checkups. Instead, successful aging depends on the nature of your relationships and your social connections. If you want to live a healthy and rewarding life, you need to start with social health.

In Healthy to 100, longevity expert Ken Stern takes us on a journey to some of the longest-lived countries in the world--Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Spain--places that have achieved great advances in longevity by intentionally strengthening social connections. Science shows that physical and mental health outcomes are all improved by the intergenerational connectedness, sense of purpose, and respect enjoyed by older people in these countries.

Their example offers us all a personal and societal guide for how we can better the second half of life. Weaving in surprising, colorful stories from around the world, Stern shows that the key to healthy longevity involves a mindset shift and purposeful building of social connections. Healthy to 100 offers a hopeful, attainable, research-backed model for anyone seeking a longer and healthier life.

Ken Stern is a nationally recognized expert on longevity and aging. He is the founder of the Longevity Project and hosts the popular “Century Lives” podcast from the Stanford Center on Longevity. Stern is the author of With Charity for All and the national bestseller Republican Like Me.  He has been a frequent contributor to a wide variety of publications including Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and Slate. He is also the former CEO of NPR. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Beth, and son, Nate.

Stern is in conversation with Michel Martin. Emmy-winning journalist Michel Martin is a host of Morning Edition. Previously, she was the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast.  Martin currently serves as a contributor for PBS’s Amanpour & Company. Her previous credits include ABC News, Nightline, as well as covering politics for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Martin has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Candace Award for Communications from The National Coalition of 100 Black Women. Martin graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at Harvard University in 1980 and earned a Master of Arts from Wesley Theological Seminary in 2016. In 2019, Martin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism.

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For three decades following World War II, the Great Lakes overtook Europe as the epicenter of global economic strength. The region was the beating heart of the world economy, possessing all the power and prestige Silicon Valley does today. And no ship represented the apex of the American Century better than the 729-foot-long Edmund Fitzgerald--the biggest, best, and most profitable ship on the Lakes. 
But on November 10, 1975, as the "storm of the century" threw 100 mile-per-hour winds and 50-foot waves on Lake Superior, the Mighty Fitz found itself at the worst possible place, at the worst possible time. When she sank, she took all 29 men onboard down with her, leaving the tragedy shrouded in mystery for a half century. 
In The Gales of November, award-winning journalist John U. Bacon presents the definitive account of the disaster, drawing on more than 100 interviews with the families, friends, and former crewmates of those lost. Bacon explores the vital role Great Lakes shipping played in America's economic boom, the uncommon lives the sailors led, the sinking's most likely causes, and the heartbreaking aftermath for those left behind--"the wives, the sons, and the daughters," as Gordon Lightfoot sang in his unforgettable ballad. 
Focused on those directly affected by the tragedy, The Gales of November is both an emotional tribute to the lives lost and a propulsive, page-turning narrative history of America's most-mourned maritime disaster.

John U. Bacon has authored fourteen books on sports, business, health, and history, the last seven of which are critically acclaimed national bestsellers, including five New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Ann Arbor and northern Michigan with his wife and son.

Bacon is in conversation with Robin Wright, a contributing writer for The New Yorker.

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June 2011: a man fleeing the Arab Spring on a refugee boat surrenders himself to Italian authorities. He claims that, as a terrorist, he is responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. This unexpected surrender sets off an unlikely chain of events and one of the most significant, but little-known, cases in American history.

When federal prosecutors Dave Bitkower and Shreve Airial get the call from the FBI that the Italians have known terrorist Spin Ghul in custody, they immediately recognize the stakes of the situation. They must traverse the globe, uncovering facts and evidence from thousands of miles away on a remote battlefield in Afghanistan. They know there's little if any precedent for their case, but they are determined to deliver justice for the American soldiers killed in combat--no matter the cost.

Through intense reporting and meticulous recreation, Jake Tapper takes us behind the scenes of a gripping story that reveals the true costs of the War on Terror.

Jake Tapper has written two New York Times bestselling novels, The Hellfire Club and The Devil May Dance, as well as the bestselling nonfiction books The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor and The Terrorist Detectives. He is the lead Washington, DC, anchor and chief correspondent for CNN. A Dartmouth graduate and Philadelphia native, he lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, daughter, and son.

Tapper is in conversation with David Ignatius, a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for four decades. He has written several New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Washington, DC.

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This event will be in partnership with Free DC.

Attacks on schools and teachers have long been a hallmark of fascist regimes: One of Hitler's first tasks after taking power was to force every teacher in the country to pledge fealty to the Nazi Party. Fascists fear teachers because teachers foster an educated and empowered population that can see past propaganda and scare tactics. Fascists fear teachers because they teach young people how to think for themselves.

As the head of one of the largest teachers' unions in America, Randi Weingarten is among the last lines of defense for American public education. For decades, she has sounded the alarm that attacks on teachers are part of a larger, darker agenda--to undermine democracy, opportunity, and public education as we know it. After the Trump administration declared its intention to dismantle the Department of Education, that alarm became undeniable. This book tells the story of what teachers do and why those who are afraid of freedom and opportunity try to stop them. It explains why all Americans should care about attacks on schools and teachers--whether they have school-aged children or not. In the past as today, the fate of the United States is inexorably intertwined with the fate of public education.

Drawing on history, stories from teachers on the front lines, and decades of experience with America's public schools, Weingarten argues that teaching students to think critically is the key to defeating would-be dictators. She encourages teachers to continue focusing on their vital mission to help young people thrive--creating opportunity in safe and welcoming classrooms, promoting tolerance, and teaching problem solving, critical thinking, and healthy debate. She cautions against censorship and complacency, looking to the past to warn us all about what can happen if we devalue teachers and public schools.

A manifesto for our time, Why Fascists Fear Teachers is necessary reading for every American worried about the future of our democracy.

Since 2008, Randi Weingarten has served as the elected president of the AFT, a union of 1.8 million educators, health care professionals, and public-service workers. For ten years prior, she headed the United Federation of Teachers, the union representing educators in New York City's public schools, and before that taught social studies at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, New York. She has degrees from the Cardozo School of Law and the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Weingarten is in conversation with Valerie Strauss is an education writer. She wrote at The Washington Post on local and national education for 30 years and authored The Answer Sheet blog, which chronicled the most vital issues in the world of education. Strauss started at the Post as assistant foreign editor for Asia after stints at Reuters serving as national security editor, and at United Press International as assistant foreign editor and reporter. She was also an editor at the Los Angeles Times. Born and raised in Miami (when it was believed being excessively exposed to sun was good for you), she lives in Washington D.C. with her husband, Marc, an attorney. They have two daughters.  

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We're living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It's frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying.

Enshittification identifies the problem and proposes a solution.

When Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification, he was not just finding a funner way to say "things are getting worse." He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not for the better).

The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users--and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die.

Doctorow's argument clearly resonated. Once named, it became obvious that enshittification is everywhere, so much so that the American Dialect Society named it its 2023 Word of the Year, and was cited as an inspiration for the 2025 season of Black Mirror.

Here, now, in Enshittification the book, Doctorow moves the conversation beyond the overwhelming sense of our inevitably enshittified fate. He shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and--most important--how they can be undone.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, including The Lost Cause, a solarpunk science-fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His nonfiction book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation is a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Doctorow is in conversation with Rohit Chopra. Chopra served as the 3rd Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2021 to 2025 and as a Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission from 2018 to 2021. In these roles, he led a slew of efforts to reform practices across the economy that harmed consumers and businesses. His work helped to eliminate tens of billions of dollars in junk fees, improve customer service, and ensure accountability for Wall Street, Big Tech, and other dominant firms in the economy.

https://politics-prose.com/book/9780374619329?ic_referral=dNI5AxnJufKpqsxGXgiocI2lgPNzB7-mtM1D48V2awIwM4oHWUusZJZ7L_r5LBUa0R6po1HYPqoIvHcjzhpjFhKUsRdn3FH5f2BcXes9DwO8JxtEnVXqDLdThK_p7xMdIyd8-XY

In eight unflinching and stunningly crafted stories, Kanza Javed unspools the lives of characters desperately trying to forge a path for themselves on the margins of society. An addict teaches his young son to shoot feral dogs on the streets of Lahore. A Christian nurse gets drawn into a plan to trap the ghost of her patient's former lover. A Pakistani student in a small Appalachian town grapples with a startling act of violence that shatters her illusions of safety and freedom. A lonely wife becomes increasingly obsessed with a cloth worry doll left behind by a previous tenant.

Written with sharp insight and remarkable empathy, these stories reach across divides of class, gender, and religion as Javed deftly examines questions of identity and agency, belonging and loss. What Remains After a Fire is a moving portrayal of fiercely resilient characters who desire more than what their circumstances can offer them--and what these desires ultimately cost them.

Kanza Javed is a Pakistani author with an MFA from West Virginia University, where she received the Rebecca Mason Perry Award. She is also the winner of the 2020 Reynolds Price Prize for Fiction. Her writing has been published in the American Literary Review, Punch Magazine, Salamander, and Greensboro Review, among other publications.

Javed is in conversation with Natasha Japanwala, a DC-based journalist turned educator by way of London and Karachi. She is a member of Bol, a cooperative bookstore with the mission of connecting local communities in the D.C. area to global projects for justice. Natasha holds a BA in English Literature from Princeton University, an M.Ed in International Education Policy from Harvard University, and a Level 2 Award in Wines from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. In her free time, she loves open-water swimming, baking, and throwing seasonal parties.

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Jodi’s path was anything but ordinary. ONE FROM EACH COLUMN: My 46-Year Trek From Abusive Childhood To Elusive Motherhood is an extraordinary memoir that chronicles her tumultuous journey through psychological and emotional abuse as a child, sometimes life-threatening choices, and three marriages in eight years before turning forty. With grit, humor, and an indomitable spirit, Jodi defied the odds long after fertility faded to become a mother three times over—through natural conception, adoption, and IVF from a donor egg. From her turbulent beginnings in Pittsburgh to the wild ’80s in L.A. and NYC, Jodi navigates life's challenges with raw determination and impeccable comedic timing. Her story—part hilarious, part harrowing—is a testament to the promise of healing, proving that the abused need not become the abuser and that love knows no limits. Join Jodi as she illustrates that no matter how our children find their way home and into our heart, the bond is the same. Exactly the same. This inspiring story of transformation and hope illuminates the power of resilience and the true meaning of motherhood, all while reminding readers that laughter is an essential part of the journey.

Jodi Mitchel Tolman has lived many lives—each one adding depth to her voice and wisdom to her perspective. From her early days as a singing server at the legendary Improv in LA and NYC; to her stint as Larry David's girlfriend; to her work as an actor, singer, and long-time voiceover artist, Jodi has always embraced hilarity and been rooted in creative expression. Her career also spanned work as a marketing consultant for a national franchise, and years as an advisor supporting seniors and their families. Now, Jodi brings her passion to her current work as an author, keynote speaker, online course creator, and podcast guest. To this day, she considers building her beautiful family both her greatest challenge and proudest achievement. Jodi's ardent mission is to help those in the throes of infertility to navigate the turbulent waters to safe harbor where they can create the family of their dreams. As they say, life is good—and in Jodi’s case, they’re right.

Tolman is in conversation with Leslie Morgan Steiner. Steiner is an author, consultant and thought leader on women’s leadership, work-life balance, inspirational parenting, overcoming adversity and surviving violence against women. She lives in Washington, DC. She recently completed her fourth nonfiction work,The Naked Truth, a memoir which explores female aging and sexuality after motherhood and divorce. Her corporate experience includes The Washington Post, Johnson & Johnson, Leo Burnett and Seventeen Magazine. Follow her on Facebook or LinkedIn via Leslie Morgan Steiner, or via @lesliebooks on Instagram and Twitter.

https://politics-prose.com/book/9781967424030?ic_referral=u8Ok-_b9QffwdLSidiyUoMx3CYmdmHfLdGs3P7ndzKMwM7hxhJau814cfa0rgNRYDOywfcUz-TCMTPqef7KS6OHDIZICvIqDMIpbIRjgSa-HkK1g12l_M8BVmncgmGrHBkrG_2I

Sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, and always compelling, the stories in this collection explore the many manifestations of being Jewish in a modern and largely secular world. Jennifer Anne Moses creates characters, mostly American, who are struggling with love, relationships, faith, tradition, and most of all family and the ties that bind.

A professor of Jewish literature buys a lake house in the Adirondacks with the aim of enjoying it with her husband, dogs, and grown sons, only to discover that her new neighbor is a sexist, dog-hating, and deeply antisemitic bully. The editor of a magazine devoted to lost languages resents the popularity of a younger, less sophisticated novelist, who happens to have been her student. A young woman tries to find her way after her fiancé calls off the wedding.

With the contradictions, yearnings, imperfections, and longing for grace that beset all of us, these characters reach their own epiphanies--with results that are by turns breathtaking and heartbreaking.

Jennifer Anne Moses is a writer and painter whose books include The Book of Joshua, Food and Whine, and Bagels and Grits. Her writing has appeared frequently in Time magazine, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and elsewhere.

Moses is in conversation with Susan Crawford, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Earlier in her career, Crawford was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) in DC. As an academic, she taught courses about climate adaptation and public leadership. Crawford is the author of several books, including Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age and Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution and Why America Might Miss It. Her latest is Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm.

https://politics-prose.com/book/9780299354442?ic_referral=v1DL7qLE7V49WOqx9Weu5XeMgIRFSRLX33fKEtl-LHIwMx12t3pUlyh7xB3vcRkyR0neUKfUQwTz_ErS_fyx4KQJHKVaNOw6HSlN55_wgjm5H84eLwIfMz9cN_mzajiJREooJbw

As children in Central Illinois, Kate and Martin were never told much about their mother's childhood in East Germany. And they rarely asked questions. They were too busy grappling with the heartache left behind by an absent father and the tough love of a mother forced to raise them alone in a country not her own. Decades later, when the Berlin Wall falls, Kate and Martin are faced with a difficult decision: Should they try to reclaim the house in East Germany from which their grandparents fled in the 1950s? They travel to their grandparents' hometown and meet the couple now living in the house. But a house is never just a house, and the family secrets they discover reopen old wounds, driving the siblings apart just as divided Germany is coming together. Against the backdrop of German reunification, Restitution asks urgent questions that resonate today. What remains when people leave entire lives behind? What happens when personal histories are erased? And what-- if anything-- can heal these wounds?

Tamar Shapiro was raised in both the U.S. and Germany and now lives in Washington, DC with her husband, two children, and the world's best dog. While writing Restitution, Shapiro attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop Summer Program and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Vermont. A former real estate attorney and non-profit leader, she is a 2026 MFA candidate at Randolph College in Virginia. This is her first novel.

Shapiro will be in conversation with Susan Coll, the author of seven novels, including Bookish People and Real Life and Other Fictions, a USA TODAY bestseller. Her third novel, Acceptance, was made into a television movie starring the hilarious Joan Cusack. Susan's 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 in Washington, DC, and was the president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation for five years. Visit Susan online at susancoll.com; Instagram: @susan_keselenko_coll; X: @Susan_Coll; Pinterest: @susancollauthor.

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