TUESDAY

In her work in the New Yorker, Daphne Merkin writes with a head-on style that tosses concern for political correctness to the wind and, just as often, polarizes readers, especially across the feminist spectrum. She’ll be holding court at the J tonight on the topic of the rebranding of Jewish identity and culture along hipster lines. DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW, 7:30 pm. For tickets, call 888-621-2230 or order online at www.nextbook.org.

WEDNESDAY

Jared Diamond brings the doom in his latest book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. We can only assume that the existence of Kevin Federline’s soul-destroying track “Popozao” figures prominently in the former. Seriously. That song makes us want to dump spermicide in the water supply. Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. 7 p.m.

THURSDAY

Growing up in Northern Virginia and learning about the Civil War, you learn two things. First, NoVa-ites aren’t so crazy as to refer to the war as “The War of Northern Aggression.” Second, no single moment of the Civil War is as geek-out crazy as the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSA vessel Merrimack. This is like the ice planet Hoth battle among Civil War aficionados. Dig into it further with Paul Clancy, author of Ironclad: The Epic Battle, Calamitous Loss and Historic Recovery of the USS Monitor. At the Navy Museum (how cool is that?), 11th & O Sts. SE. at noon.

SATURDAY

George Washington University professor Edward Berkowitz’s new book, Something Happened, is not to be confused with the meandering and tedious Joseph Heller novel of the same name. Rather, it’s an explication of the 1970s, seen by Professor Berkowitz as a critical period in our nation’s history for the far-reaching effects it’s had on our present. One pivotal moment of the Seventies we imagine he left undiscussed: the publication of the meandering and tedious Joseph Heller novel of the same name. At Politics and Prose, 1 p.m.

SUNDAY

Haven’t we covered Marcie Ferris’ Matzoh Ball Gumbo, in which she describes the creative ways Jews in the South fused their own cooking traditions with the Southern eats we know and love, before? Checking the Rollyo, it appears that we didn’t. Well, Ferris is in town discussing her book this weekend, and we recommend it because our sisters are really into it. And for you royal-we haters, let it be known that this time we are, in fact, literally talking about every sister of every DCist staffer. So there. Politics and Prose, 5 p.m.