Members Doyle, Srodes and Wallace to present history books at Book Fair

NPC members Mike Doyle, James Srodes, and Jim Wallace will join eleven
other authors in the history section of the 2012 Book Fair and Authors'
Night Tuesday, Nov. 13, from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. They will be among
nearly 100 writers who will autograph and sell their books at the event.

Jill Smokler, author of "Confessions of a Scary Mommy," and Baratunde
Thurston, author of "How to Be Black" are featured in the Humor section.

For a contribution of $25, you can become a "Friend of the Book Fair"
and join fellow patrons in promoting a love of books and reading.
"Friends" will receive a complimentary raffle ticket (a $10 value) for a
chance to win one of a group of exciting prizes, from gift certificates
to Georgetown Cupcake, Chef Geoff's, Clyde's and Landmark Theaters to a
wine tasting at Sunset Hills Vineyard, a curators' private tours of the
National Portrait Gallery and Dodona Manor or a golf outing at River
Creek Country Club. Your generosity will support the National Press
Club's Journalism Institute, a 501 (c) (3) that provides training,
research and resources for news professionals and scholarships for the
next generation of journalists.

Click here to become a
Friend of the Book Fair.

Admission to the 35th annual Fair is free for NPC members, $10 for
non-members.

No outside books permitted. A full list of participants is listed on
the Club's web site.

HISTORY

Fergus Bordewich "America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A.
Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union" $30

Bordewich recounts the amazing story of the cliffhanging compromise
hammered out in both houses of Congress in 1850 that pitted the rival
pro- and antislavery factions against each other and saved the country,
temporarily, from dissolution. The war with Mexico had added 1.2 million
square miles to the western United States, while slavery, thanks to the
cotton gin, had exploded exponentially. Would the new territories
comprise slave states or free states? How to maintain the balance in the
Senate and House of Representatives between them?

Deborah Davis "Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt,
and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation" $36

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to
have dinner at the executive mansion. The next morning, news that the
president had dined with a black man-and former slave-sent shock waves
through the nation. In this work, Davis explores how this one seemingly
ordinary dinner becomes a window onto post-Civil War American history
and politics, and onto the lives of two dynamic men whose experiences
and philosophies connect in unexpected ways.

Mike Doyle "Radical Chapters: Pacifist Bookseller Roy Kepler and the
Paperback Revolution" $29.95

Roy Kepler, ahead of his time as the owner of a legendary San Francisco
Bay bookstore that combined selling affordable books in a coffe house
atmosphere, also led the way as a pioneer in the "paperback revolution."
But there was more to this bookseller. In this volume, Doyle sheds light
on Kepler's remarkable contributions to pacifism and social change from
advocating radical pacifism during World War II to his antiwar activism
during the Vietnam War. Kepler created a space for such notable figures
as Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, and Stewart Brand to exchange their ideas.

Timothy Gay "Assignment to Hell: The Wear Against Nazi Germany with
Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigart
and Hal Boyle" $26.95

The powerful story of war against Hitler is told through the eyes of
five intrepid reporters. Crisscrossing battlefields, they formed a
journalistic band of brothers, repeatedly placing themselves in harm's
way to bring the war home for anxious American readers. Included in this
volume are the stories of Walter Cronkite crashing into Holland on a
glider with U.S. paratroopers and Andy Rooney dodging mortar shells as
he raced across the Rhine at Remagen.

Peter Hatch "A Rich Spot of Earth: Thomas Jefferson's Revolutionary
Garden at Monticello" $35

Hatch, Director of Gardens and Grounds at Monticello since 1977, guides
readers from the asparagus and artichokes first planted in 1770 through
the horticultural experiments of Jefferson's retirement years. Hatch
explores topics ranging from labor in the garden, garden pests of the
time, and seed saving practices to contemporary African American
gardens. The book has nearly 200 full-color illustrations.

James Johnston "From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the
History of an African American Family" $29.95

This work is the story of an African American family in Maryland over
six generations. It peels back the layers of relationships between
blacks and whites and shows the complexity, all the while busting some
stereotypes. The author traces the Mamout family narrative from the
colonial period and the American Revolution through the Civil War to
Harvard and up to today.

Charles Kupfer "Indomitable Will: Turning Defeat into Victory from Pearl
Harbor to Midway" $34.95

A unique look at how America during World War II gained strengths from
early defeats: Bataan, Corregidor, Wake Island and the Java Sea. Weaving
together military, journalistic, political, and cultural histories, this
engaging book shows that by setting their collective will on victory,
Americans in and out of uniform gained strength from their setbacks. It
shows how the nation turned early defeat into ultimate victory.

Jefferson Morley "Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott
Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835" $28.95

Francis Scott Key is best known for writing the lyrics to the Star
Spangled Banner. But he was also a politically ambitious attorney. And
after race riot gripped Washington, D.C. in the wake of a slave being
charged with murdering his owner, Key, defender of slavery, sought the
death penalty for the slave. But in a surprise twist his prosecution was
thwarted by Arthur's ostensible victim, Anna Thornton, a respected
socialite who sought the help of President Andrew Jackson.

John Muller "Frederick Douglass in Washington, DC: The Lion of
Anacostia" $19.99

Little has been written about Douglass's final years in Washington, D.C.
Muller explores how Douglass spent the last eighteen years of his life
professionally and personally in his home, Cedar Hill, in Anacostia. The
ever-active Douglass was involved in local politics, from aiding in the
early formation of Howard University to editing a groundbreaking
newspaper to serving as marshal of the District. During this time, his
wife of forty-four years, Anna Murray, passed away, and eighteen months
later, he married Helen Pitts, a white woman. Unapologetic for his
controversial marriage, Douglass continued his unabashed advocacy for
the rights of African Americans and women and his belief in American
exceptionalism.

Garrett Peck "The Potomac River: A History and Guide" $19.95

The Potomac River begins in the Alleghenies and flows 383 miles through
some of America s most historic lands before emptying into the
Chesapeake Bay. Maryland's first Catholic settlers came to its banks in
1634, and George Washington helped settle the new capital on its shores.
During the Civil War, the river divided North and South, and it
witnessed John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry and the bloody Battle of
Antietam. This book is a guide to the nation's river.

Mary Hart Perry "The Wild Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria's Defiant
Daughter" $14.99

Princess Louise was the rebellious, scandalous and untamed daughter of
England's Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. This young woman, dubbed the
"Wild One," fought the constraints placed on her and her brothers and
sisters. She dreamed of becoming an artist, and broke with a
three-hundred-year-old tradition by marrying outside of the privileged
circle of European royals. This is the story of a princess who refused
to give up on her dreams, including her right to true love.

Craig Smith "Counting the Days: POWs, Internees and Stragglers of WW II
in the Pacific" $27.95

Whether it was civilians or military personnel, prisoners of World War
II had their lives turned upside down. "Counting the Days" chronicles
some of their stories, from the young Marine who faced a death rate in a
Japanese prison 10 times that in battle to European expatriates living
in the Philippines who had their house and belongings confiscated by the
Japanese to a U.S. citizen of Japanese descent living in Malibu,
California, who was imprisoned by the United States for the duration of
the war.

James Srodes* "On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the
Progressives Who Shaped Our World" $26

On the eve of World War I, 12 young men and women in the tony Dupont
Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. mixed cocktails, foreign policy
and bed-mates in a determined effort to reshape the world. The group
included a young Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Felix
Frankfuter and Walter Lippman. By the end of this story, on the eve of
WWII, the group reassembled for a second chance at history. And this
time the result was the United Nations.

Jim Wallace* "Courage in the Moment: The Civil Rights Struggle,
1961-1964" $30

In 1961 Jim Wallace, a young photographer for the Daily Tarheel,
newspaper of the University of North Carolina, was sent by his editor to
cover local civil rights activities. Wallace documented the participants
in the Freedom Movement on both sides of the law. His camera also
captured the magnitude, and some of the intimate moments, of the 1963
March on Washington, scene of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s memorable "I
Have a Dream" speech. And he took scores of pictures at a Ku Klux Klan
rally. This volume includes more than 100 photographs from his archive.

HUMOR

Jill Smokler "Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent
Look at Motherhood - The Good, The Bad, and the Scary" $15

This collection of original essays takes an irreverent look at the
underbelly of parenting. Each chapter begins with the best anonymous
confessions from Smokler's online Confessional and covers everything
from husbands ("If he could be carried around in a Baby Bjorn all day,
he would.") to PTA fundraisers ("It brings out the worst in people.and
who wants an overpriced roll of wrapping paper, anyway? How about
something we actually want to buy? Alcohol, for instance.").

Baratunde Thurston "How to Be Black" $24.99

Baratunde Thurston, of Jack and Jill Politics and The Onion, shares his
30-plus years of expertise in being black, with helpful essays like "How
to Be the Black Friend," "How to Speak for All Black People," "How To
Celebrate Black History Month," and more, in this humorous guide to race
issues. This fun read is also critiques the media's portrayal of
blackness as one-dimensional. Through humor, Thurston teaches readers
how to be black by reminding them that there really is no one way to do
it.