The ever popular National Book Festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress and now in its eleventh year, has plans to expand to two days this year. On Saturday and Sunday, September 24-25, the festival will be on the National Mall with author talks, book signings, kids activities, and – given that this year's theme is "celebrating the joys of reading aloud" – lots and lots of readings. more ›

After Carla Cohen, co-owner and founder of quintessential Washington bookstore Politics & Prose, died last month, the DC literary community lost an icon. To celebrate her life and her contribution to DC's cultural scene, Politics & Prose will hold a memorial for Cohen tomorrow at 1 pm. more ›

Put "sex" and "drugs" in your title and you're sure to catch the attention of the young people. Say "gefilte fish" and you're adding a touch of Jewish kitsch. Sex, Drugs, and Gefilte Fish: The Heeb Storytelling Collection, a reading taking place tonight at Chief Ike’s, sits at the "edgy end" of the DCJCC’s 2009 Jewish Literary Festival. Heeb is a humor magazine targeted to the young and Jewish, and this reading aims to bring together the editor and three contributors to the story collection to "present an evening of funny, reflective, angst-ridden, angry and outrageous stories." more ›

Few writers have managed to pin the millennial male ego under glass the way Nick Hornby has. In his comic novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and the new Juliet, Naked, among others, Hornby picks apart our vanity and insecurity in ways that are as scary as they are entertaining. He's also written loads of great nonfiction about his love of soccer, literature, and pop music. more ›

A few years after Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld dominated network television with their “show about nothing,” Tom Stoppard astonished the theater with a play about everything. More specifically, the mathematical conceits that govern the ultimate predictability of everything. Or don’t. Learned opinion varies about the math. more ›

To celebrate the release of Electric Grace: Still more Fiction by Washington Area Women tonight, editor Richard Peabody and ten of the book’s forty-two contributors will be reading selections from their work at Politics & Prose tonight at 7 p.m. Faye Moskowitz, a memoirist, poet, short story writer and professor, will read from her story “Completo (A Triptych),” from the journal, Story Quarterly. more ›

You'd think that, once the Almighty found himself on the business end of God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens' latest broadside, there'd be hell to pay. Instead, Hitchens' book became an international bestseller, racking up laudatory reviews and garnering an even larger audience for his witty contrarianism. Which makes one suspect that perhaps The Hitch is on to something. As if it needed more attention, yesterday God Is Not Great was named one of five... more ›

The holiday shopping season is officially in full swing, so the literary reading cup runneth over and ruineth your coffee table with big names. Message from Big Literature: Books make great gifts! Message from DCist: Free readings help keep your entertainment budget low, which is helpful since you already have to spend your entire bonus on gifts for other people. MONDAY: Joan Collins is 73 years-old and still fabulous. We're not sure how she does... more ›

Shalom, readers. The Washington, D.C. area welcomes competing Jewish Literature Festivals to town: The Hyman S. and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival at the DCJCC and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington’s 36th Annual Book Festival. Both festivals offer exciting programs. On 16th Street, the DCJCC kicks things off Monday with Nick Olcott, one of the leading lights in the local theater scene, paying special tribute to Arthur Miller and Saul Bellow. It continues... more ›

No, Nigella Lawson (above) is not involved in this one (it seems that she's busy at the Royal Society of Literature, according to Londonist), but the news headlines would be all the better if she were ... Perhaps in an effort to make food sexy, a Maryland garden club in Frederick has produced a cookbook with recipes garnished with pictures of "nearly nude women" aged 55 to 70, the AP, via the W.Times, reports. It's... more ›