A SUMMER THRILLER

Washington is a city for 24-hour politicos—Congressional aides, lobbyists, and election-obsessed journalists—who have little time to read more than what is available on their blackberry and twitter accounts. Naturally, the city has its literary havens, such as the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress, but these are hardly political haunts.

If there has been one place where all come to browse—wonks and non-wonks alike—it is at Politics and Prose, a little bookshop with a national reputation. Run by two septuagenarians, Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, this 26-year-old institution has long been a necessary stop for any author on a book tour. The list of distinguished visitors is staggering, with General Colin Powell reading at mid-day and Christopher Hitchens in the evening. (Correspondents from The Economist and Intelligent Life number among the ranks.)

But in a time when many are lamenting the decline of the small bookstore and brooding over threats to the publishing industry in general, we have more bad news: Cohen and Meade are putting Politics and Prose up for sale. Business is still good, they say, but it's time to let someone else handle the job. Some buyers have already expressed interest, soothing the fears of some customers. But at what cost? In what is largely a culturally vacuous city, Cohen and Meade have been necessary traffic wardens of intellectual culture. Theirs is a showcase of the political biographies worth reading and the novelists worth remembering. Few do this so well. As Peter Osnos writes in the Atlantic, "Politics and Prose is what a great bookstore should be."

As a sign of its local value, the store has some auspicious potential buyers, such as Franklin Foer, editor of the New Republic, and Jeffrey Goldberg, a columnist at the Atlantic (both DC-based magazines). Another bid may come from a consortium headed by a law professor at American University. This latter group is even considering adding a publishing arm to the store.

More offers are sure to come in. Perhaps a few politicians can get in on the act. For a city usually obsessed with what's happening elsewhere, it is nice to see plans being hatched to save something closer to home.

~ ALEXANDER EWING

Picture credit: katmere (via Flickr)