Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and local resident Tim Weiner won the National Book Award’s nonfiction category for Legacy of Ashes: The History of the C.I.A., a sweeping 600-page critical history of the agency with a particular emphasis on the intelligence failures that have occurred during the agency’s relatively short period of existence. “Legacy of Ashes,” writes Weiner, “is the record of the first sixty years of the Central Intelligence Agency. It describes how…
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…
>> Most of the city it seems will be heading to RFK after work, so plan your Metro rides on the Blue and Orange line accordingly. >> The band that brought you the third most played song on the DCeiver’s iPod, The Daybreak Line, is teaming up with three other list-worth bands (The Grownup Noise, The Able Birds and Aubriot) tonight at the Red & the Black. $8, 4 bands, too good to pass…
With Congress in recess, it’s officially the August doldrums here at Reader, Meet Author. If you have any tips, feel free to drop us a line. Otherwise, read some good books and stay cool. MONDAY: Pushcart Prize-winning author Katherine Taylor will be at Olsson’s Books & Records in Dupont Circle to talk about her debut novel Rules for Saying Goodbye, a coming-of-age tale that straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Man…
>> Obviously, you’ll be attending Unbuckled 6 tonight. Le Loup, XYZ Affair, and a DJ set by members of Middle Distance Runner. 9 p.m., $8. DC9. Do we really have to tell you again? Other acceptable options: From 5:30 – 7 p.m., Joseph Cirincione will discuss and sign his new book: Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, at Busboys and Poets. This ends 2 hours before Unbuckled starts, meaning you can…
MONDAY: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the wife of Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Connie Schultz will be at Politics and Prose to discuss her book … And His Lovely Wife, which is her behind-the-scenes look at Brown’s campaign and their marriage. 7 p.m. In Last One In, Nicholas Kulish, who was embedded with a Marine attack-helicopter squadron for the Wall Street Journal, spins a slightly unbelievable tale of a gossip columnist who ends up covering…
Good morning, Washington. Sure, there’s some news to discuss, as usual. There’s even a local weather update. But we’re not going to sit here and pretend like you don’t all want to talk about the numb emptiness inside you that resulted from the series finale of The Sopranos. My take? If they could give out penalties to TV show runners who can’t decide how to end their series, David Chase deserves at least two separate…
>>On Thursday, La Maison Française (4101 Reservoir Rd. NW) is hosting a double screening of two of the funniest movies ever made in France. First, at 6:30 p.m., it is Patrice Leconte’s Les Bronzés (1978), whose story follows a group of nutcases trying to relax at a vacation resort in Ivory Coast. Second, at 8:45 p.m., they will show Jean-Marie Poiré’s Le Père Noël est une ordure, which mostly takes place in a suicide hotline…
They say the terrorist attacks of 2001 on the United States was the first time a foreign force had struck inside the Continental U.S. since the War of 1812 (though there was a Japanese attack on Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1942.). So what of the War of 1812? The History Channel on Sunday is showing a special on “Mr. Madison’s War” including the burning of Washington. In 1814, British forces landed on the Patuxent River…