Politics and Prose Presents

There are moments throughout our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression, helping inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward. In No Sense in Wishing, Lawrence Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.

In a time when music is spearheading Black Americans' connection with Africans on The Continent, Burney takes trips to cover the bubbling creative scenes in Lagos and Johannesburg that inspire teary-eyed reflections of self and belonging. Seeing his mother perform as the opening act at a Gil Scott-Heron show as a child inspires an essay about parent-child relationships and how personal taste is often inherited. And a Maryland crab feast with family facilitates an assessment of how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation.

Taking us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney's search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, it's like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise.

PURCHASE https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668051856?ic_referral=KT8Ufcz4HwustNyq4fLQI7aQZUS4g2uOJ0PsREhl4NMwM4hvX57lbsueWn_hNPhnzGmwYLQd1s7Dk0-Vy0t7wiqApBE4L8HmaZvesc5dOD26PdBLMUWehS_-3tcdCnfM4iJBnhU

Lawrence Burney is a writer, critic, and the founder of True Laurels, an independent magazine covering Baltimore's music and culture scene. His work has appeared in publications such as New York magazine, GQ, and Pitchfork. He has also worked at The Fader, VICE, and The Baltimore Banner. No Sense in Wishing is his first book. Follow him on Instagram and X @TrueLaurels.

Burney is in conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib. Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry.

Captain Denise is more comfortable facing down a stingray than a party guest, though she's punched both in recent memory. After spending half her life at the helm of yachts across the Caribbean, she's risen through the ranks thanks to one rule: never, ever mix with the owners.

Her sister, Helen, is a walking HR violation, one of many reasons the two haven't seen each other in years. Recently fired after burning all her bridges, Helen returns home to work for Denise.

The clashing sisters' first charter is the Falcon family, shady real estate developers who mowed down Helen and Denise's childhood home to build condos. But then the latest Falcon building collapses--and a dead body turns up beside it. Helen and Denise comb through the wreckage to uncover just how low the Falcons will sink in order to stay afloat--before the big storm wipes out the evidence.

PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063385481?ic_referral=mG38ds5zj5nf9e0UJexOxJu1HrDkPDkB0Sqv7qCSgNUwM4AjMOlKl8657fStW3EulbybeZFJ_sk-KQv9VbOHK419lMpd1fOntr4MqRWAr1SikASSaAx7HAkIAbkqA-8tiD2ND58

Kate Myers is the author of the national bestseller Excavations. Her writing has appeared in Elle, BuzzFeed, and Self magazines. She studied archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and has lived in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, where she's worked for CBS in television development and for CollegeHumor. She now resides in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband, daughters, and dog.

Myers is in conversation with Mimi Montgomery. Montgomery is a reporter for Axios D.C. She's written for The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine and Washington City Paper. Her reporting has been featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Inside Edition, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast, The Cut, Morning Brew, Politico Playbook and CNN'S Reliable Sources. Her first novel, MURDER BITES, will be published by Penguin Random House next year. She lives in D.C. with her partner and far too many furry dependents.

Nearly four years after Trump's first turbulent presidency concluded in a violent attempt to overturn the election, he made a political comeback on a scale that stunned the nation. How did the first U.S. president to become a convicted felon regain control of the White House? And at what cost? In 2024, award-winning reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf bring us the definitive and explosive account of how Trump and his advisers overcame a dozen primary challengers, four indictments, two assassination attempts, and his own past mistakes to defeat the Democrats, and pave the way for a second term that would be far more aggressive and ruthless than the first.

Drawing on extraordinary access to the Trump, Biden, and Harris teams, 2024 takes readers beyond the speeches, rallies, and debates to reveal the innermost workings of the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. Beginning in August 2022 with the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents, and Trump's subsequent decision to run once again for president.

After his disastrous debate performance forced him to withdraw, Biden anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate and tasked her with running the shortest presidential campaign in modern U.S. history. With only 107 days to distinguish herself from the past four years, Harris lacked the time or space to outrun Biden's shadow--a challenge in and of itself, but one which Biden would make even more difficult. On November 5th, 2024, Trump was elected the nation's forty-seventh president, and would return to power vindicated, emboldened, unrestrained, and burning for revenge.

PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593832530?ic_referral=9nYbKk1fHs0TixYyjY7l4LzjVpeZiFKTUj32ZLbQJgswMxbw0BY6FhcV0kZYuUiI-tzu8JgjjBkoC5k1YaUpRjAjd3hLgvzIVOKg0n_rbvoEjMp5TmqIhOP-gdURlQztAL7E1UM

Josh Dawsey is an investigative reporter focused on politics at The Wall Street Journal. He most recently worked as a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 2017 and covered the White House from 2017 to 2021. He was part of the team of journalists that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the newspaper’s coverage of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the role of the AR-15 in American life. He is also a two-time recipient of the White House Correspondents Association award for news reporting and a lecturer at the Allbritton Journalism Institute. Josh is a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina and the enthusiastic owner of a rambunctious rescue dog named Pepper.

Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent at The New York Times. He previously covered the White House at The Washington Post, where he won the 2022 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. He graduated as the valedictorian from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and with distinction from the University of Oxford, where he earned a master’s degree in comparative social policy. He lives in Washington, D.C. 

Isaac Arnsdorf covers the White House for The Washington Post. His work has received the 2024 Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism, the 2019 Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, and honorable mentions for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting in 2019 and 2022. His first book, Finish What We Started, about the MAGA movement since January 6, was published in 2024. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his family. 

The authors are in conversation with Ashley Parker, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Previously, Parker—a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner—spent eight years at The Washington Post, where she covered all four years of Donald Trump’s first presidency, was White House bureau chief during President Joe Biden’s first two years.

It's the perennial question: are we a product of how we were raised, or is our identity hardwired by our genetic inheritance? When her adoptive mother dies in a freak accident, high school senior Melody Marcus doubles down on her refusal to learn anything about her birth parents. In this age of 23&me, though, that may not be possible, and the secrets hidden in her DNA threaten to upend everything she knows about herself and her family.

For Candace Milton, a successful woman in her forties, the collateral damage from her parents' tortured marriage has led to a life of intentional unattachment. She is happy--enough. But a chance encounter with a friend of Melody's father will challenge this assumption and force her to reimagine who she is and who she might become.

Big-hearted evocative, and achingly relatable, What We Leave Behind grapples with destiny, belonging, and love, and makes us question our own idea of family: the kind we're born into and the kind we create.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063415386?ic_referral=N2JHQWWST6PekSCwJyrp5ACSuh_ZRpByAfnuVC4-4PQwM6J34DPLqOfsEooVThCTi3p8mK_Vi1QXl7IVvLf7YTBdfybZwP2iP_pLMN8fXlL3aIJhIV6qhj-ePWzRgGmGZooCzy4

Sue Halpern is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently Summer Hours at the Robbers Library. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, and Condé Nast Traveler. A former New Yorker staff writer, she lives Vermont with her husband, the writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben, and is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.

Halpern is in conversation with Jane Mayer, the chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, covering politics, culture, and national security. Mayer is an author of several best-selling books, including “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” which the Times named as one of the ten best books of 2016, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” a finalist for the National Book Award, and one of the ten best books of the year by the Times. She is a co-author, with Jill Abramson, of “Strange Justice,” also a finalist for the National Book Award, and, with Doyle McManus, of “Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988.” In 2022, she was inducted into the Society of Professional Journalists’ Hall of Fame. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Whether it's the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame...and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors' lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: They make human mummies. They investigate the unsolved murders of ancient bog bodies. They carve primitive spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea--all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.

Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archaeologists on their adventures across the globe, from the Andes to the South Seas. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads--and, in novelistic interludes, spins gripping tales about the lives of our ancestors with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research.

Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning revelations about our past, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long gone and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way.

PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780316496551?ic_referral=aAMZBgF1nDf3qyY3xXkHo5Om3FGJYFSAEKNoP3v2QeAwM-IzgoG-ugNFNuGmrmXP52haSvspQx4WWhkfMFqkN6IcdRYDzI3doYVdikrOsmEI5ErGr4WJRSk2MILEz6dxD-xma-g

Sam Kean is the New York Times bestselling author of The Bastard Brigade, Caesar's Last Breath (the Guardian's Science Book of the Year), The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The Violinist's Thumb, and The Disappearing Spoon. He is also a two-time finalist for the PEN / E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. His work has appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and he has been featured on NPR's Radiolab, All Things Considered, Science Friday, and Fresh Air. His podcast, The Disappearing Spoon, debuted at #1 on the iTunes science charts. Kean lives in Washington, DC.

Kean is in conversation with Melissa Block. Block is a longtime NPR host and correspondent whose reporting over the decades earned journalism's highest honors. As a daily host of All Things Considered, interviewing world leaders, authors, musicians, thinkers, and the not-so-famous, she became one of NPR's most familiar and beloved voices. Melissa lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, writer Stefan Fatsis.

In the 1980s, Washington, DC--a predominantly African American, racially and economically segregated city with a strong local Black culture--became a hub of Latin American immigration. As the city's communities interacted, an identity both unique to DC and reflective of diverse Latin American cultures was born.

Empanadas, Pupusas, and Greens on the Side is the first linguistics book to explore how the Latinx community forged a new sense of home and identity in Washington. Using original ethnographic research--including interviews, narratives, and surveys--Tseng develops a new framework for understanding the relationship between race, identity, language, and culture, and she explains what happens when communities interact.

Readers interested in the cultural history of Washington, Latinx history, and language and society will enjoy this rich study of language as a cross-cultural current in ever-evolving America.

PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781647125905?ic_referral=KdixhJkmiui3EavMdn3UXDao4iS3eo1k-_36YvdktKgwM4cEVlBNjoVO_D4vPvVXuXu7V3-G0NmQNJ6VvZyMDMit25dENEyMnyl1YLaRN1jWF24LCPUspWpMbhcQrh6JFpnfX-o

Amelia Tseng is assistant professor of linguistics and Spanish in the Department of World Languages and Spanish at American University, where she is also and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. She coedited Bilingualism for All? Raciolinguistic Perspectives on Dual Language Education in the United States, with Nelson Flores and Nicholas Subtirelu (2020).

Tseng is in conversation with Dr. Wanda R. Hernández, a cultural organizer and scholar from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area—also known as the DMV. She is an Assistant Professor of Central American and Latinx Studies in Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Wanda holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching interests revolve around the formation of race and ethnic identity among the U.S. Central Americans through material and visual culture, space and place, and performances of the everyday. Wanda’s current manuscript-in-progress examines Central Americans’ personal archives in the Washington area, between 1960–2000. In addition to academia, she has curated exhibitions like Nuestras Historias: Latinos in Richmond and produced community-based theatre, such as Little Central America, 1984.

When Bruno stumbles upon a motionless figure in a car parked at a scenic overpass on the ridge of the Vézère valley, he's ready to investigate. Inside, he finds a suicide note and the dead body of Monique, a successful businesswoman who rented châteaus to wealthy expats. It seems like an open-and-shut case.

But Bruno can't shake the suspicion that something sinister lurks underneath this tidy narrative. After he delivers Monique's final messages to those most important to her, malicious gossip about Bruno begins to spread through the village. One thing leads to another, and soon Bruno faces pressure to resign from the job. Despite this disturbing turn of events, Bruno remains Bruno, never one to turn down a fine meal with good company in the French countryside. In the course of inquiry, he meets Laura--and her dog, which happens to be the same breed as his beloved basset hound. As sparks fly and Bruno realizes just how much he has at stake, he races to find out what really happened to Monique, before he loses his badge, his new love--or something even worse.

After a long career working in international journalism and for think tanks, Martin Walker now gardens, cooks, explores vineyards, writes, travels, and has never been busier. He divides his time between Washington D.C. and the Dordogne.

PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593536643?ic_referral=sYGP3bhjH2X_eK7iP0X_P4LwEB14HEwdTXqlZR8XdjswMxGFNul-I5jyAjzfD6vMOnNa3JWAHg6aFWiRwoDz9R_0SyhMgQ-zCpN9GUznxOx6C1jbyXktfKTY1KG4pF-uakLj-yY

After six months abroad, America's top spy returns to a new administration, a new set of global priorities, and a power struggle--the likes of which the United States has never experienced.

Drawn into a web of deceit and deadly politics, Scot Harvath is thrust into a high-stakes conspiracy that could change the course of history. A cabal of shadowy elites is maneuvering for control and if they succeed, they will bring the country to its knees.

When trust is fleeting and survival means making impossible decisions, Harvath finds himself at the precipice. The actions he takes will shape the future of America--and might cost him everything he holds dear.

With enemies at every turn, one wrong move could push the nation over the edge.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781982182274?ic_referral=gvdmCcs4uJLCb80H_i1vae_z0WToaaTHh7rM-gM_kX0wMyzpjl1lfN6FG51lZ6GExd-JDstt6e1IgnjMfm94Lgm6P9sq8rLw6gZK07M3NJ1AmLO4EYm41D_1wXQTxy4kyrLEM0o

Brad Thor is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four thrillers, including Shadow of Doubt, Black Ice ( ThrillerFix Best Thriller of the Year), Near Dark (one of Suspense Magazine's Best Books of the Year), Backlash (nominated for the Barry Award for Best Thriller of the Year), Spymaster (named "One of the all-time best thriller novels" -- The Washington Times), The Last Patriot (nominated Best Thriller of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association), and Blowback (one of the "Top 100 Killer Thrillers of All Time" --NPR). Visit his website at BradThor.com and follow him on Facebook @BradThorOfficial, on Instagram @RealBradThor, and on X @BradThor.

Thor is in conversation with Shane Harris. Harris is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and intelligence. He can be reached on Signal at shaneharris.64. He has written about intelligence, security, and foreign policy for more than two decades, including as a staff writer for The Washington Post, where he was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In 2023, he co-reported the documentary The Discord Leaks with PBS Frontline, which was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding investigative news coverage. He is the author of two books, The Watchers and @War.

The war that we now call the American Revolution was not only fought in the colonies with muskets and bayonets. On both sides of the Atlantic, artists armed with paint, canvas, and wax played an integral role in forging revolutionary ideals. Zara Anishanslin charts the intertwined lives of three such figures who dared to defy the British monarchy: Robert Edge Pine, Prince Demah, and Patience Wright. From London to Boston, from Jamaica to Paris, from Bath to Philadelphia, these largely forgotten patriots boldly risked their reputations and their lives to declare independence.

Mostly excluded from formal political or military power, these artists and their circles fired salvos against the king on the walls of the Royal Academy as well as on the battlefields of North America. They used their talents to inspire rebellion, define American patriotism, and fashion a new political culture, often alongside more familiar revolutionary figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Phillis Wheatley. Pine, an award-winning British artist rumored to be of African descent, infused massive history paintings with politics and eventually emigrated to the young United States. Demah, the first identifiable enslaved portrait painter in America, was Pine's pupil in London before self-emancipating and enlisting to fight for the Patriot cause. And Wright, a Long Island-born wax sculptor who became a sensation in London, loudly advocated for revolution while acting as an informal patriot spy.

Illuminating a transatlantic and cosmopolitan world of revolutionary fervor, The Painter's Fire reveals an extraordinary cohort whose experiences testify to both the promise and the limits of liberty in the founding era.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780674290235?ic_referral=q6MQvWnuml2rBvh55ORiozd7qbNDinqyQTdhEKKbBtwwM3tXdTPzM-yyUJct1qIQdl52J9TD7zTt3NpaxdAqNIcA-Sd3ckAabPhX_pNih3sRbfhqLB2p92VZnbZozmL5Zk2WDbo

Zara Anishanslin is Associate Professor of History and Art History at the University of Delaware. She is the author of the award-winning Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World and has served as a historical consultant for the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as "Hamilton: The Exhibition."

Anishanslin is in conversation with Kevin Butterfield, a historian of the early United States and serves as Director of the John W. Kluge Center, the main center for research and scholarly programs at the Library of Congress.

Distracted by our own agenda, we so often hear without understanding, impatiently waiting for our turn to speak. In this exploration of transformational listening, Kasriel shows how shifting from surface-level exchanges to Deep Listening can enrich our relationships as friends, parents, and partners, enhance our effectiveness as leaders, and strengthen the fabric of our communities. At a time when divisions within communities, organizations, and families are often a source of profound pain, this book offers inspiration and practical guidance on how we can better listen to each other, even when we fiercely disagree.

Drawing on scientific studies, new research, and powerful stories from legendary listeners in politics, business, and the arts, Kasriel unveils her simple yet transformative eight-step approach. With Deep Listening as your guide, you'll learn to become a better family member, friend, co-worker and citizen.

At once a practical guide and a heartfelt manifesto, this groundbreaking book challenges us to rethink our approach to listening and in doing so, transform our lives from the inside out. Whether readers seek to strengthen their empathy, boost their performance at work, or foster genuine understanding across cultural, political, and generational divides, Deep Listening provides the tools and inspiration to unlock the power of lasting, meaningful connections.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780063352988?ic_referral=rDHIgnADLGbjnobwdBrYQt1M-0gIZOSRXoyxihpOfyswM7g3ctnhUm2DCm2SRDfZR85OghEFiERe9yCt1t2FTRgchUhHrV7VnaCcYhAOPyy8bvJOwSxBlAVfiXGtrna0mGGon8k

Emily Kasriel's distinguished career at the BBC for over two decades included roles as an award-winning journalist, editor and media executive. She developed the Deep Listening approach as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King's College Policy Institute in London, drawing on her experience as an accredited executive coach and workplace mediator. Previously, she's been a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School at Oxford University, and a Senior Advisor to the Skoll Foundation. An MA graduate of the University of Oxford and Syracuse University's Maxwell School of International Relations (as a Rotary International Fellow), she lives in London.

Kasriel is in conversation with Christopher Turpin, an award winning former NPR journalist and media executive. Most recently, he was Chief of Staff to NPR’s President & CEO. He’s also twice served as Senior Vice President for News and Editorial Director at NPR, running one of the nation's preeminent newsrooms. And for over a decade Turpin led All Things Considered, NPR’s legendary afternoon news magazine program, shaping coverage of major events such as September 11th, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and multiple Presidential elections. Turpin has won many of journalism's top honors, including multiple Alfred I. duPont and Peabody Awards. He lives on Capitol Hill with his wife and daughter.

*recorded 7/1/2025