Politics and Prose (sometimes stylized as Politics & Prose or abbreviated as P&P) is an
independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, cl ...
located in
Chevy Chase,
Washington, D.C., on
Connecticut Avenue. It was founded in 1984 by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade. They expanded it fivefold to its present size. After a failed sale attempt in 2005, they sold it to Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine in 2011. Its author events attract famous speakers, such as
Bill Clinton and
J.K. Rowling.
History
Founding and growth
Carla Cohen, after losing her job with the
Carter administration
Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A Democrat from Georgia, Carter took office after defeating incumbent Republican President ...
, decided to create an
independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, cl ...
in
Washington, D.C., despite having no previous experience with running a business.
She partnered with Barbara Meade, whom she found through the
classifieds, and who, with her previous experience of managing a bookstore, became a co-owner early on.
Cohen decided to name the store Politics and Prose because it was "Washington-sounding" and not pretentious, and the two co-owners founded the store in 1984.
Meade worried that the name was a put-off, and the store struggled at first to attract authors to speak at its events and relied on local journalists to publicize the location.
The store's original location in the
Forest Hills neighborhood was across the street from its current spot, and in 1989, Politics and Prose moved to their present larger location after finding success.
The store merged with a nearby children's bookstore, the Cheshire Cat, and incorporated its staff in 1990.
Failed sale attempt
Business continued to be successful during the late 1990s as other independent bookstores fell by the wayside and companies like
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
expanded.
Cohen and Meade decided to sell the store to Danny Gainsburg, who was selling his T-shirt business so he would be able to afford the cost of the store.
The co-owners made an agreement with Gainsburg that he would gain control of the store if he could function amicably with the rest of the staff.
Cohen and Meade set him up in a part-time position to see how he would interact with the employees and sold him an equity stake in the business without informing the other staff members.
Gainsburg was pressured to leave by the staff after he kissed an employee on her birthday.
The three co-owners agreed that Gainsburg should resign, and Gainsburg received his initial investment plus a premium.
Gainsburg said to the ''
Wall Street Journal'', "We all started with good motives, but there was lots of naiveté on all sides."
In 2006, a year after the botched sale attempt, Cohen and Meade both decided to hold onto the store as sole co-owners for at least three to five more years and met with an outside consultant to devise an eventual exit strategy.
New ownership
In June 2010, Cohen and Meade announced their intention to sell the store. Cohen became seriously ill around this time, and it contributed to the timing of their decision to sell.
Jim Lehrer wrote of the impending sale, "...putting Politics and Prose up for sale is like putting the
Washington Monument up for sale."
There was considerable speculation in the media about possible buyers for the store.
There were reportedly over 50 inquiries by October into the possible purchase of the store from Meade and Cohen's husband, David, who inherited her stake in the store after her death from cancer.
It was announced on March 28, 2011 that two former employees of ''
The Washington Post'',
Lissa Muscatine, and her husband, Bradley Graham, had purchased the store from Meade and David Cohen.
The store was reportedly sold for $2 million, although price was not the main factor in the selection of new owners.
Meade fully retired from work in the store on December 31, 2012. Graham and Muscatine have added literary classes and trips since purchasing the store.
Expansion
The new co-owners, Graham and Muscatine, began to look at opening branch locations soon after purchasing the store. They considered an expansion of Politics & Prose into a
Georgetown location but decided against it.
In 2014, Politics and Prose announced that it would be operating satellite stores inside
Busboys and Poets
Busboys and Poets is a full-service restaurant, bar, bookstore, coffee shop, and events venue in Washington, D.C., founded in 2005 by Andy Shallal. The original Busboys and Poets is located at 14th & V in the U Street Corridor. There are now sev ...
stores throughout the city called "Politics and Prose @ Busboys and Poets".
In May 2017, Politics & Prose announced that they would be opening a new branch at
Union Market in the fall of 2017.
Politics & Prose announced plans for a third location to open in October 2017 at The Wharf, a new development at the
Southwest Waterfront.
During the
COVID-19 pandemic, Politics and Prose was required to shut down by city officials as part of Washington, D.C.'s shutdown. The store was one of the first six inside D.C. that was allowed to re-open, as part of a pilot program allowing curbside sales for independently owned stores from Mayor
Muriel Bowser's Educational and Academic Retail Shops pilot.
The store on Connecticut Avenue re-opened, while mandating that only 30 customers could enter the store at one time, and with
plexiglass placed to protect workers.
Unionization
Workers at Politics and Prose announced in mid-December, 2021 that they intended to unionize with Local 400 of the
United Food and Commercial Workers. A super-majority of workers across departments signed union authorization cards and asked management for voluntary recognition, which management refused. Thereafter, the workers filed for a union election with the
National Labor Relations Board. The owners of Politics and Prose initially hired attorneys from Jones Day, which local DC news outlet DCist described as, "known for its aggressive anti-union tactics" to fight the unionization effort. Two weeks later, the co-owners pivoted and instead hired a D.C. labor attorney who represents unions and nonprofits to negotiate the scope of the union.
Graham and Muscatine voluntarily recognized the union as the collective bargaining unit for the bookstore after 35 of 54 union authorization cards were signed by workers, making the store the first unionized book store in D.C.
Services and reputation
Politics and Prose has a reputation for staff who are able to recommend books to customers.
The space contains an
Espresso Book Machine
The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a print on demand (POD) machine created by On Demand Books. It prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes.
Introduced in 2007, EBM is small enough to fit in a retail bookstore or small ...
for on-demand printing of self-published and out-of-print books and a cafe on the first floor of the building called "Modern Times" in addition to space for books.
A ''Washington Post'' review of the cafe in 2006 reacted favorably to changes to the menu.
The store is famous for its author events, in which writers usually read an excerpt from their book and take questions from the audience.
''
The Washington Post'' notes that as the talks gained prominence and the store grew more popular, Cohen and Meade, the original co-owners, "became known as literary tastemakers".
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
broadcasts around five of the talks a month; and audio and video recordings of most talks are released on the Internet Archive and the Politics and Prose YouTube channel respectively. The store has gained a reputation for having astute and smart audiences present at readings.
Famous readers at its author events have included politicians such as Presidents
Bill Clinton and
Barack Obama, UK statesman
Boris Johnson, and former Senator
Edward Brooke, as well as authors
J.K. Rowling,
Salman Rushdie, and
Amy Chua, photographer
Annie Leibovitz, and investigative reporter
David Halberstam.
Cohen in the past refused to allow prominent writers to appear in the store, such as
Matt Drudge, ostensibly because of their conservative leanings.
Politics and Prose is often seen to be an important stop for authors publicizing their work and is regarded as being a significant part of DC culture.
New owners Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine were ranked #50 on ''
GQ''s "The 50 Most Powerful People in Washington" because of their purchase of Politics and Prose, describing the store as "...liberal Washington's most sacred space."
The ''
New Yorker''s
Hendrik Hertzberg
Hendrik Hertzberg (born July 23, 1943) is an American journalist, best known as the principal political commentator for ''The New Yorker'' magazine. He has also been a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and editor of ''The New Republic'', and ...
commented on the unusually intelligent questions from the audience at readings, and ''
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''s editor in 2007, said: "If there's one bookstore in the city you want to read in, it's obviously the place."
References
External links
Politics and Prose official website
Politics and Proseappearances on
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...
and
BookTV
{{coord, 38.955452, -77.069669, type:landmark_region:US, display=title
1984 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Culture of Washington, D.C.
Independent bookstores of the United States
Retail companies established in 1984