MONDAY
Reader, meet jazzbo! David Yaffe comes to the Chevy Chase Neighborhood Library on a mission to blend bookworms and music lovers into a creamy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of cultural appreciation as he reads from Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing. 5625 Connecticut Ave. NW. Mon., 1/23, 6:30 p.m. Free
TUESDAY
Todd Gitlin picks up where he left off in Letters to a Young Activist, beseeching the American left to reconsider their wheezing orthodoxies and seek renewal, in his latest book, Intellectuals and The Flag. How do his ideas compare to the current Democratic strategy of lining up the same old overpaid consultants to shoot for the Mendoza Line again? We’ll see you in November! Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Poor Fred Barnes. Writing a book lauding President Bush is supposed to be like playing with house money. Yet Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, is getting frosted big time by the Conservative Book Club. Barnes comes hat in hand to Barnes and Noble tonight to discuss Rebel-in-Chief and look for answers. 3040 M St. NW Wed., 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY
Scott Weidensaul will be lecturing and discussing his book Return to Wild America at the National Zoo Visitor Center, and, as a brazen attempt to appeal to fans of Butterstick, will do so while curled up in a bowl. 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW., 7 p.m.
FRIDAY
The battle between Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood to determine who the most prolific writer of the last fifty years heats up as Oates visits the appropriately named Friendship Heights Village Center to discuss two books – Missing Mom and The Female of the Species, as well as her twelve-part essay series on the Friendship Heights Village Center and her work-in-progress: a short story about an author named Toyce Tarol Toates and the exciting, life-changing reading she gives at the Friendship Heights Village Center entitled, “The January 27th Book Signing.” 4433 S. Park Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD, 2 p.m.
SUNDAY
Politics and Prose brings David Shipler (The Working Poor) and Beth Shulman (The Betrayal of Work) to town to discuss — tag-team style — the sad situation faced by many Americans who work extremely hard at low-wage jobs only to find that the bootstrap promise of upward mobility is a figment of ignorant imaginations. 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW 1 p.m.
