Today we learn that Carla Cohen, the co-owner of Washington's Politics & Prose, one of America's greatest bookstores, passed away at 74 after a battle with cancer.
If you live in or around Washington, you surely have visited the upper Connecticut Avenue independent store, which is known far and wide not only for its stock and its knowledgeable staff and its great anchoring presence in this city, but also for the rather amazing roster of people who have spoken there over the years.
I can't imagine there's a book store in the country with a more vibrant list of speakers, or with a more dedicated following in its community. Even if you've never been there, if you watch any C-SPAN books coverage, you have seen people speaking from P & P dozens of times.
I had the privilege of speaking there twice, in 1996 and 2008. To whatever extent that I'm "known" today, which is an arguable proposition, I was certainly less well-known in 1996, at the time of my first book. I was due to start at 7. I arrived at 6:45 and saw that sight that appears in a nervous first-time author's nightmares - rows and rows of empty seats. Helping matters, a violent thunderstorm unleashed itself just about then, darkening my prospects even further.
But lo and behold, by 7:15 or so, 50 or 60 people were there - not for me, I'm sure, but because they were part of this excellent community of people interested in books and ideas that Cohen and her co-owner, Barbara Meade, had built. Carla was incredibly kind and it all went off wonderfully.
In 2008, I appeared with Guardian colleagues Suzanne Goldenberg and Jonathan Freedland, and my New York Review of Books co-contributor Elizabeth Drew. By then, we were able to draw maybe three times the old number for a great conversation about the election. There are hundreds of authors and journalists across the country who can tell similar stories, all, I'm sure, with gratitude and affection.
I've been to many of America's great bookstores: Elliott Bay in Seattle, Powell's in Portland, City Lights in San Francisco (oddly, it's hard to think of one in New York these days, or maybe it's not so odd - it's a function of commercial rents; there's the Strand, but last I knew it didn't have speakers and serve the community in the same way). These are all wonderful stores, but I have trouble imagining that any of them is any more important to their communities than P & P has been to this one. The store is for sale, and several groups of people have expressed interest.
Carla's husband, David, is a friend and a lovely guy who worked in the Johnson administration's anti-poverty programs, among other accomplishments. My sympathies to him and to all involved.
