Politics and Prose
Politics and Prose logo
|
|
| Independent bookstore | |
| Industry | Bookselling |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Founder |
|
|
Area served
|
Washington, D.C., USA |
| Owner |
|
| Website | politics-prose |
Politics and Prose (sometimes stylized as Politics & Prose or abbreviated as P&P) is an independent bookstore located in Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C., on Connecticut Avenue. The store was founded in 1984 by co-owners Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, who expanded the store fivefold to its current size. After a failed sale attempt in 2005, the two co-owners eventually sold the store to current owners Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine in 2011. Politics and Prose is known for its knowledgeable staff and is seen as a part of DC culture. Its author events attract a number of famous speakers, such as Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowling, and have a reputation for their astute audiences.
Carla Cohen, after losing her job with the Carter administration, decided to create an independent bookstore in Washington, D.C., despite having no previous experience with running a business. She partnered with Barbara Meade, whom she found through the classifieds, and who, with her previous experience of managing a bookstore, became a co-owner early on. Cohen decided to name the store Politics and Prose because it was "Washington-sounding" and not pretentious, and the two co-owners founded the store in 1984. Meade worried that the name was a put-off, and the store struggled at first to attract authors to speak at its events and relied on local journalists to publicize the location. The store's original location in the Forest Hills neighborhood was across the street from its current spot, and in 1989, Politics and Prose moved to their present larger location after finding success. Politics and Prose has over the years expanded their sections and collections. The store merged with a nearby children's bookstore, the Cheshire Cat, and incorporated its staff in 1990.
Business continued to be successful during the late 1990s as other independent bookstores fell by the wayside and companies like Barnes & Noble expanded. Cohen and Meade decided to sell the store to Danny Gainsburg, who was selling his T-shirt business so he would be able to afford the cost of the store. The co-owners made an agreement with Gainsburg that he would gain control of the store if he was able to function amicably with the rest of the staff. Cohen and Meade set him up in a part-time position to see how he would interact with the employees and sold him an equity stake in the business without informing the other staff members. Gainsburg was pressured to leave by the staff after he kissed an employee on her birthday. The three co-owners agreed that Gainsburg should resign, and Gainsburg received back his initial investment plus a premium. Gainsburg said to the Wall Street Journal, "We all started with good motives, but there was lots of naiveté on all sides." In 2006, a year after the botched sale attempt, Cohen and Meade both decided to hold onto the store as sole co-owners for at least three to five more years and met with an outside consultant to devise an eventual exit strategy.
...
Wikipedia