10th Annual Takoma Park Book Fair

We are delighted that Busboys and Poets will be hosting the Takoma Park Book Fair again this year—our 10th anniversary milestone! 

Saturday, December 15

2–5 p.m.

Takoma Busboys & Poets

235 Carroll St NW, Washington, DC

This unique holiday book sale and signing features more than 35 local authors and books of every genre. Something for everyone (see list of authors and books below). Among this year’s participating authors is David Corn, author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump—#1 on the New York Times bestseller list for three straight weeks.

Heads up: the 2018 Takoma Park Book Fair coincides with the annual Takoma Cocoa Crawl organized by Main Street Takoma. Busboys will offer special hot chocolate concoctions for kids and adults. 

Check out the children’s corner for Story Time readings by local authors (every half hour from 2 to 5 p.m.)

Join us for this festive event. Have a drink, chat with authors, find that perfect personalized gift, and enjoy a meal at Busboys!  

Here are this year’s TP Book Fair Authors and Their Books:

Henry Allen, Where We Lived. Pulitzer Prize-winner Henry Allen brings alive nearly five centuries of family by describing places where they lived―from plantations in South Carolina and Guadeloupe to a boarding house in Queens; a sadly grand old house in Orange, New Jersey; farmhouses, mansions, apartments, ships, tents, and dormitories; towns in Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

 

Mary Amato, News from Me, Lucy McGee. Lucy and her classmates learn to write songs as they navigate the ups and downs of elementary-school friendships. 

***Mary will be reading News from Me, Lucy McGee and leading a sing-along which will work for all ages. Bring your uke if you play! Look for her at 3:00 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

 

Tamar Anolic, Triumph of a Tsar.  A work of alternate historic fiction, here the Russian Revolution is averted and the hemophiliac Alexei, son of Tsar Nicholas II, assumes the throne.

 

 

 

Abby Beckel, Rose Metal Press. Rose Metal Press is a small, not-for-profit publisher of literary works in hybrid genres such as flash fiction, prose poetry, lyric essays, novels-in-verse, novellas-in-flash, and text/art projects. Recent titles that will be for sale include Monster Portraits by Del & Sofia Samatar and Ghostographs by Maria Romasco Moore, both reviewed favorably by the NYT Book Review. We’ll also have some of our hybrid genre anthologies on sale—come by our table and discover new and innovative authors doing ground-breaking writing! 

Anne Becker, Human Animal. Becker’s 36 poems “speak of transformation, both the transformation of metaphor and the archetypal transformations of myth and religion.  Audacious and unabashed in their effort to reach levels of experience below speech, her poems work to fully imagine from inside out what it means to live in this world in a body.”

 

Mark Bernstein, Grand Eccentrics. The story of how—in aviation, in the automobile industry, and in salesmanship—turn-of-the-century Dayton, Ohio, was this nation’s first Silicon Valley.

 

 

K.G. Bethlehem, Certain Moments of Time. This collection of creative short stories brings to light themes that connect the reader with different times and alternate thought processes. Let your mind go beyond its comfort zone and immerse yourself in Bethlehem’s quirky world.

 

 

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell. The true story of a dyslexic traitor who stole thousands of pages from the U.S. government and attempted to sell them to the regimes of Iraq and Libya.

 

 

Nadine Bloch, Beautiful Rising: Creative Resistance from the Global South.This remarkable book showcases some of the most innovative tactics used in global struggles against autocracy and austerity—face-to-face jam sessions held in Yangon, Amman, Harare, Dhaka, Kampala, and Oaxaca—and imparts the collective wisdom of more than a hundred grassroots organizers from five continents. If you’ve ever wondered how to organize a DIY uprising, this book is a primer.

Adam Brookes, The Spy’s Daughter. The concluding novel of the Night Heron trilogy centers on a young woman in Maryland, a math prodigy, who is targeted by international espionage agencies for her expertise in artificial consciousness.

 

 

Sally Brucker, A Walk in the Garden of Words.This delightful, insightful collection of poems represents 50 years of work by Brucker, an artist and expressive arts therapist. Her poems abound with wit and lyrical description of the outer and inner worlds reflecting the changing times.

 

 

Barbara Carney-Coston, To the Copper Country: Mihaela’s Journey. In 1886, 11-year-old Mihaela embarks on a journey from Croatia to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula with her mother and two younger brothers to visit her father. Two years prior he had come to America to work in the copper mines to support his family back home; now he is disabled by a serious eye disease and needs help.  They encounter enormous challenges and unexpected outcomes, not least a stay of longer duration.

Janice Coleman, Night Walker.Anna Pearson, a 28-year old American punk rocker turned career woman, has a history of attraction to scary situations—and scarier men. On a trip to London, she meets Tom Hall, an attractive, enigmatic ghost tour guide. Their encounter sets in motion a journey through Tom’s shadowy past, Anna’s odd premonitions, and a rash of hate crimes and vigilantism in the streets of London. This dark mystery revolves around two people who face extraordinary circumstances, where passion, doubt, and fate drive their unrelenting love.

David Corn, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.The incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the U.S. election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency. This is a story of political skullduggery unprecedented in American history—of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds, told against the backdrop of Trump’s strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle, including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, and Russia.

Hank Cox, The General Who Wore Six Stars.This is a long overdue biography of Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee, a WWII leader, whose personality quirks compromised his reputation during the war—and after. Lee, the unsung hero of the D-Day invasion, was also an early advocate of African Americans who ordered the integration of front line troops during the Battle of the Bulge.

 

Art Ehrens, Sweet Potato Pete. The first book in Ehrens’s Green Garden Gang series introduces Sweet Potato Pete, a young farmer who loves sweet potatoes. Pete promotes healthy food choices, gets kids excited about growing and eating fruits and vegetables, and promotes the power of team work to overcome obstacles. A QR code embedded in pages of the book links to an original sing-along song that keeps children engaged and reinforces the healthy messages.

***Art will also be reading Sweet Potato Pete as part of the Story Time Readings. Look for him at 2:30 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

 

Theo Emery, Hellfire Boys: The Birth of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and the Race for the World’s Deadliest Weapons. Hellfire Boys is the never-before-told World War I story of the U.S. scientists, soldiers and a spy recruited into the race to develop and deploy the first modern weapons of mass destruction. “A crackling history,” according to the Washington Post, Hellfire Boys is a centennial link between the chemical-drenched battlefields of WWI, the cleanup of chemical warfare agents here in DC, and the revival of chemical weapons in our time.

Dave Engledow, The Little Girl Who Wanted to Be Big. There once was a little girl who wanted to be big. Her dad told her that to be big, she had to think big. So she grew taller than the tallest buildings, larger than the largest mountain, and big enough to reach the farthest planets. But what’s the biggest girl in the world to do when she’s grown up too fast? Engledow brings his vibrant photography to a picture book that’s all about why it’s okay to take your time just being a kid. His work has appeared in People, GQ, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, USA Today, the Today show, Time, and other outlets.

***Dave will be reading The Little Girl Who Wanted to Be Big as part of the Story Time Readings. Look for him at 4:00 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

Susie Erenrich, Grassroots Leadership and the Arts for Social Change. This book explores the intersection of grassroots leadership and the arts for social change, accentuating achievements and victories won by various artists. Readers will find inspiration in the work of these individuals and the continuing commitment to dream a better world for humanity.

 

John Feffer, Frostlands. The stand-alone sequel to Splinterlands, this novel follows the efforts of an 80-year-old climatologist as she attempts to save the world from global warming. “By taking us on a cautionary journey into a future planetary collapse, where the term ‘one percent’ is redefined in a terrifying way, Feffer forces us to look deeply at our own society’s blindness to ecological apocalypse and greed. But the novel’s enchantment goes beyond dystopia: the quest for salvation depends on a crusty female octogenarian who would make Wonder Woman salivate with envy.”

Genevieve Grabman, Technology Takers.  Change in the digital era is constant and behavior transforming. Managers must respond to these changes or be left behind. This book offers a playbook for how to manage technological change, create value, and exploit the digital era’s strategic opportunities.

 

Amy Hansen, Fire Bird: The Kirtland’s Warbler Story. This award-winning nature writer presents her newest nonfiction picture book, which uses birdsong to introduce readers to the endangered warbler. The birds live in the jack pine woods of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ontario—fire-dependent ecosystems that must burn to renew. As their habitat disappears, how can the warblers survive? Fortunately, people have been paying attention, and the birds are coming back.

***Amy will be reading Fire Bird: the Kirtland’s Warbler Story as part of the Story Time Readings. Look for her at 3:30 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

Christian Matthew Harris, Doing Not Dreaming. This collection of poetry and prose touches on subjects close to the author’s heart, such as race relations, faith, the beauty of love, and the reality of death. Harris draws on personal experience, eloquently taking the reader on a journey, with its highs and lows, and heightening our crucial awareness of mind, body, and soul.

 

Zahara Heckscher, Learning Service, the Essential Guide to Volunteering Abroad. The book presents a powerful new approach that invites volunteers to learn from host communities before attempting to offer assistance. It also offers a thoughtful critique of the sinister side of volunteer travel, suggestions for turning good intentions into effective results, and advice on how to maximize your volunteer experience.

 

Bill Hutchins, Dwelling: A Poetic Exploration of Home. Hutchins explores the concept of home as an internal image of wholeness and how we can deepen our life by living in our home. This contemplative book offers ways to live with this awareness.

 

 

Alison Kahn, Patapsco: Life along Maryland’s Historic River Valley, with photographs by Peggy Fox and foreword by Robert Coles. This collection of compelling oral history narratives, evocative essays, and stunning images profiles the lives of longtime residents of five historic Patapsco Valley towns—Ellicott City, Oella, Elkridge, Relay, and Daniels—and reveals the connections between culture and place and memory.

 

Merrill Lefler, DRYAD PRESS and Blume Lempel, Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories, trans. from the Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub.”Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub’s translation of Blume Lempel’s post-Holocaust Yiddish oeuvre brings to the reader a startling voice. Composed in New York and published in Tel Aviv in the 1980s, Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories presents a series of characters who depict their worlds in disruptive, disturbing, and unexpectedly beautiful terms. . . a startling voice.” — Modern Language Association Selection Committee. Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories is the winner of the Fania & Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies. Awarded only once every four years.

Stephanie Mickle, Follow the Leader. Mickle wants to empower women to get involved in the political process. In her book, she explores why that is important, which topics are taboo, how to close the gender gap, and how to let go of the superwoman syndrome.

 

 

Joy Thomas Moore, The Power of Presence. Moore explores seven pillars of presence that parents can use to positively influence their children. Rather than emphasize physical presence, she focuses on the importance of learning how to communicate values, responsibilities, and love in all your interactions. This book offers working parents, single parents, and caregivers a compassionate look at what it takes to raise great kids—even if you can’t spend as much time with them as you’d like. 

Kathleen O’Toole, In the Margins. O’Toole’s book represents a remarkable poetic collaboration among four women who, for years, shared their lives and their poems. It is a rich garden of love and loss, of pain and delights, “such beautiful things made from their grief”—a compilation by accomplished poets working “furious as the squirrels/hiding what they must preserve before the coming frost.”

 

Chidanand Rajghatta, Illiberal India: Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason. A memoir both personal and political, it centers on a journalist-activist (who also happened to be the author’s former wife) who was assassinated by right-wing Hindu supremacists in India. The book also reflects on the growing illiberalism and intolerance and the rise of right-wing forces in India, the United States, and other regions of the world.

Pat Rumbaugh, Let’s Play at the Playground. This exciting children’s book features full-page photographs and inspirational text that get children playing. Says Karen MacPherson, children’s and youth services coordinator for Takoma Park Library, “By the time I finish reading this book at our library’s Circle Time, the kids are all revved up to run outside and play. It’s thrilling to see how this book inspires kids to get up and get moving.”

***Pat will be reading Let’s Play at the Playground as part of the Story Time Readings. Look for her at 4:30 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

Shabnam Samuel, A Fractured Life. Samuel explores the experience of growing up female and the shared “culture of silence”—and how to break through with hope and resilience.

 

 

Cory Schulman, The World of Comics. This coming-of-age novella features a 13-year-old boy, whose passion for collecting comic books becomes an obsession that comes between him and his academics, his family, and his peers.

 

 

Megan Scribner, Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach. For this book, 90 teachers, educators, and administrators each selected a poem and wrote a moving commentary about how it taps into the joys and challenges that define their work and identity as teachers.

 

Donna Sherard, The Splendiferous Adventures of Ryan Odongo: Swahili Safari. The adventure story of a young bicultural boy who travels on summer vacation to Kenya with his family only to find himself in a race to prevent a catastrophe and come to terms with his hidden superpowers.

***Donna will be reading The Splendiferous Adventures of Ryan Odongo as part of the Story Time Readings. Look for Donna at 2:00 at Busboy’s Children’s Book Corner.

T.C. Weber, The Wrath of Leviathan. The second book in the Better World trilogy sees Waylee facing life in prison for exposing MediaCorp’s schemes to control the world. Exiled in São Paulo, her sister Kiyoko and their hacker friends continue the fight to end the conglomerate’s stranglehold on virtual reality, information, and politics, but MediaCorp and its government allies may quash the nascent rebellion. Unbeknownst to Kiyoko and her friends, a team of ruthless mercenaries is after them—and closing in fast.

Lane Windham, Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide shakes up the received wisdom about how the labor movement grew so weak.  Windham reveals how women and people of color powered an unseen wave of union organizing; when employers viciously blocked workers’ efforts they limited new possibilities for a recently transformed working class.

 

David Winters, Taking God to Work: The Keys to Ultimate Success. Winters poses this question to his readers: What if I told you that taking God to work can help you stay motivated, while loving others through your job? Learn how to be your best every day.

 

 

 

Hope you can join us for this fun and unusual stop on your holiday rounds!