Something for every literary bent at NPC Book Fair, Nov. 15

You’ll find something for everyone on your literary holiday list at the 34th annual Book Fair & Authors’ Night on Tuesday, Nov. 15, especially in the Literature and Memoir & Bio sections.

From Chad Harbach’s best-selling first novel The Art of Fielding to Diplomacy and Diamonds: My Wars from the Ballroom to the Battlefield by Joanne Herring, the Houston socialite portrayed by Julia Roberts in the film “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Former "Morning Joe" producer, Chris Licht will be there with What I Learned When I Almost Died: How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His BlackBerry and Started to Live His Life, along with Law & Order star Isabel Gillies' A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story. They will be among close to 100 nationally known writers autographing and selling their books at the festive event scheduled from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

NPC Member Jim Lehrer will serve as the honorary chair of the event which supports 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. Joining Lehrer in the Politics and Current Affairs category will be NPC member Marvin Kalb, Pamela Constable, Ronald Suskind and Ann Coulter.

Stop in at the NPC Library to purchase your Book Fair raffle tickets. You’ll have a chance to hear your winning number called during the drawing at 8 pm on Nov. 15. Tickets are $10 each or three for $25, cash, checks or credit cards only!

Your ticket may be THE ticket that wins one of these exciting prizes: Gift certificates to Georgetown Cupcake, Chef Geoff's, Clyde's and Cowgirl Creamery. Also for raffle is a wine tasting at Sunset Hills Vineyard, a curator's private tour of National Portrait Gallery and Dodona Manor or a Saturday night stay at the W Washington D.C. hotel. 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.

Admission to the 34th annual fair is free for NPC members, $5 for non-members.

No outside books permitted. A full list of participants is listed on the Club’s website: http://press.org/library/book-fair/authors-and-books

LITERATURE

R. A. Comunale – “Clover” $15.00

“Safehaven,” a refuge in northeastern Pennsylvania, is back in R.A. Comunale’s latest book about a group of injured souls who came together and found a new and miraculous life. “Clover” carries on the saga that began with Comunale’s “Requiem for the Bone Man” and “The Legend of Safehaven.”

Eric Dezenhall – “The Devil Himself” $25.99

In a novel based on real events, military espionage meets Mafia justice when, as part of a move to combat terrorism, a young Reagan White House aide is dispatched to interview his gangster grandfather’s friend about how the mob helped sabotage Hitler’s move on America’s shores.

Chad Harbach – “The Art of Fielding” $25.99

Chad Harbach’s first novel weaves together the story of a group of flawed characters connected by friendship, love, family, ambition and baseball as they find try to find their way in life.

Hillary Jordan – “When She Woke” $24.95

Hannah Payne wakes to a nightmare. She is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home. Her crime: the murder of her unborn child. In “When She Woke” Hillary Jordan writes of an America sometime in the future where faith, love, and sexuality have fallen prey to politics.

MEMOIR/BIO

Ellen Brown – “Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood” $26.95

Ellen Brown tells the story of how this iconic novel was developed, marketed, and groomed to become an international phenomenon, and how Mitchell's estate has kept the public interest alive.

Cherie Burns – “Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers” $27.99

This portrait of the Standard oil heiress traces Millicent Rogers’ life from her days as a young girl afflicted with rheumatic fever to her society debut, her role as a muse to fashion designer Charles James, and her retreat to Taos, New Mexico at the end of her life.

Nancy Clarke – “My First Ladies: Twenty-Five Years as The White House Chief Floral Designer” $21.95

In this book, Nancy Clarke tells the story of what it was like to serve six presidential administrations over the course of 30 years, and to help each First Lady find her own personal style when it came to planning flower designs, state dinners, and holiday festivities in the White House.

Bob Edwards – “A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio” $21.95

In “A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio,” Edwards recounts his career as one of the most important figures in modern broadcasting. He describes his road to success from his early days knocking on station doors during college, to his years at NPR and on to the launch of his new radio ventures on the XM Satellite Radio network.

John Farrell – “Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned” $32.50

Clarence Darrow left a promising career as a railroad lawyer during the tumultuous Gilded Age in order to champion poor workers, blacks, and social and political outcasts against big business, Jim Crow, and corrupt officials. John Farrell’s biography offers a candid account of Darrow’s divorce, affairs, and disastrous finances and a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases.

Sara Fitzgerald – “Elly Peterson: ‘Mother’ of the Moderates” $29.95

In “Elly Peterson,” Fitzgerald chronicles the life and political history of Elly Peterson, one of the highest ranking women in the Republican Party.

Isabel Gillies – “A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story” $21.99

“A Year and Six Seconds” is the true story of New York Times bestselling memoirist Isabel Gillies's efforts to pick herself up after her husband leaves her for another woman – and of how she stumbles upon true love.

Lindsay Harrison – “Missing: A Memoir” $25.00

A twenty-five-year-old recent graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, Lindsay Harrison began writing “Missing” as a way to cope with the drowning death of her mother. She writes of the first forty days after her mother disappeared, dealing with detectives, false sightings, wild hope, and deep despair.

Joanne King Herring – “Diplomacy and Diamonds: My Wars from the Ballroom to the Battlefield” $24.99

Joanne Herring, the Houston socialite portrayed by Julia Roberts in the film “Charlie Wilson's War,” is far more colorful, funny, and likable than any screenwriter could have guessed. In this autobiography she tells her full story-with all its God, guns, and Gucci glory.

Richard L. Holm – “The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA” $30.00

For more than three decades, Richard L. Holm worked in the agency's Directorate of Operations, now the National Clandestine Service, the component directly responsible for collecting human intelligence. Holm chronicles his assignments and travels, which took him to seven countries on three continents. At almost every turn, Holm encountered dangerous characters and situations, including one that nearly ended his life before he turned 30.

Arthur Jones – “Post-It® Note Diaries: 20 Stories of Youthful Abandon, Embarrassing Mishaps, and Everyday Adventure” $15.00

“Post-It® Note Diaries” captures everyday occurrences from a job interview gone hilariously awry and a nude run-in with a neighbor to hair-raising events like an overnight encounter at Nicholas Cage's house (it's not what you think!), and nearly drowning while trying to paddle across the East River in a homemade canoe.

Miranda Kennedy – “Sitting Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India” $26.00

Part memoir, part in-depth reporting about women's lives in a very foreign culture, this first book by a young NPR reporter closely examines the lives of six women - some of them privileged, some very poor.

Chris Licht – “What I Learned When I Almost Died: How a Maniac TV Producer Put Down His BlackBerry and Started to Live His Life” $23.00

What do you learn when your brain goes pop? By the time he was thirty-five, Licht landed his dream job: a fast-paced, demanding spot at the helm of MSNBC’s Morning Joe—one of the most popular shows on cable TV. Then one day Chris heard a pop in his head, followed by a whoosh of blood and crippling pain. Doctors at the ER said he had suffered a near-deadly brain hemorrhage. This book tells the story of what happened next.

Lisa Napoli – “Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth” $25.00

Accomplished L.A.-based journalist Lisa Napoli became entranced with Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan kingdom that sits between India and China. In this work she shares and reflects on Bhutan's people, history, and customs from painting phalluses on houses to repel evil spirits to Buddhism's role in daily life.

Sean O’Connell & Vernon Loeb – “King's Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East” $26.95

Jack O'Connell seemed to always be at the center of things from the time he arrived in Jordan in 1958. He became King Hussein’s counselor and this narrative explores that relationship and the secrets that O’Connell tells in keeping with the Jordan king’s dying wish.

Frances Park & Ginger Park – “Chocolate Chocolate: The True Story of Two Sisters, Tons of Treats, and the Little Shop that Could $23.99

When their beloved father died suddenly, Frances and Ginger Park comforted themselves with chocolates and mused on opening a confectionery shop with their small inheritance. The idea felt right to them--"a shop our late father would've loved just by virtue of its contents: chocolates and daughters"--and despite their inexperience, they decide to go for it.

Nada Prouty – “Uncompromised: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of an Arab American Patriot in the CIA” $26.00

Labeled by the New York Post as “Jihad Jane,’’ Nada Prouty was eventually exonerated by the CIA and a federal judge of charges that she had passed intelligence to Hezbollah. But the woman born in Lebanon who came to America as a child was still dismissed from the agency and stripped of her U.S. citizenship. In this memoir she tells the story or her bid to restore her name and reputation.

Mary Schaller – “Deliver Us from Evil: A Southern Belle in Europe at the Outbreak of World War I” $29.95

She thought she and a friend were escaping the Washington, D.C. social scene by taking a grand tour of Europe. But in the spring of 1914, Nancy Johnson, the daughter of a congressman, found herself among the 120,000 American travelers stranded in a vast warzone unable to get home. Mary Schaller tells the story of these two young women’s effort to cope with the chaos of war.

Charles J. Shields – “And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life” $30.00

“And So It Goes” is the culmination of five years of research and writing—the first-ever biography of the life of Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut resonates with readers of all generations from the baby boomers who grew up with him to high-school and college students who are discovering his work for the first time.

Amanda Smith – “Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson” $37.50

Eleanor Medill (Cissy) Patterson was called the most powerful woman in America, surpassing Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, Clare Boothe Luce, and Dorothy Schiff. In this comprehensive biography, Amanda Smith chronicles the life and times of the 20th century’s first woman editor-in-chief and publisher of a major metropolitan daily, the Washington Times-Herald.

Keni Thomas – “Get It On!: What It Means to Lead the Way” $19.99

Decorated U.S. military veteran-turned-country musician Keni Thomas gives a personal account of his heart-wrenching experiences in the chaotic 1993 Battle of Mogadishu to express a unique set of leadership lessons and inspired view of our greater purpose. Carrying a guitar now rather than a rifle, Keni also shares stories from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry to overseas concerts for active soldiers.

Jonathan Coleman – “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life” $27.99

Jerry West was the coach who began the Lakers' resurgence in the 1970s, and the general manager who helped bring "Showtime" to Los Angeles, creating a championship-winning force that continues to this day. In this book Jonathan Coleman recount’s West’s story from his tough childhood in West Virginia, to his college success at West Virginia University and his 40-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers.