Amazon

With 2020 in Sight, de Blasio Turns Against Amazon

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Ever since Amazon decided to withdraw its plans to build a corporate campus in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been in attack mode.

He criticized Amazon for abandoning New York, characterizing its decision as an example of “the 1 percent dictating to everyone else.” He ridiculed the company for not having the patience to work through community opposition, suggesting on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it showed the maturity of someone who “took their ball and went home.”

The comments represented an abrupt shift for the mayor, who had helped entice the company to come to Queens, and had recently met in Albany with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to strategize how they might help push aside the political hurdles that stood in the company’s way.

Three days after that meeting, Mr. de Blasio got the phone call from an Amazon executive, informing him of the company’s decision.

“It was such a shock to the system,” the mayor said in an interview on Wednesday. “I wanted to believe there was something more to it, that there was more room for dialogue, that there was something they wanted to address, that it wasn’t literally: We’re out and never coming back.”

Within minutes of hanging up the telephone with the Amazon executive, Jay Carney, Mr. de Blasio decided to turn against the company; he said that he and his aides “immediately reached a broad and fast consensus that this was outrageous.”

For Mr. de Blasio, the aggressive posture toward Amazon, a company that has been criticized by the left for its opposition toward unions and its cooperation with federal law enforcement officials, may be a calculated political risk worth taking.

He has suggested that he is considering running for president in 2020, and taking a highly visible stand against a big corporation and its phenomenally wealthy chief executive, Jeff Bezos, could score points with the energized Democratic activists on the left who are likely to vote in primaries.

It gives him a platform to discuss corporate behavior and income inequality, one of his core progressive issues. It provides an avenue for Mr. de Blasio to position himself on the campaign trail as a mayor who stood up to Amazon — even if he once stood alongside them.

And it allowed Mr. de Blasio an opening to regain some of the ground he had ceded with his party’s left wing, many of whose leaders in New York, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, opposed the Amazon deal.

How well it will work for him remains an open question.

“It seems that he’s a little bit torn on who he wants to be,” said Jose Cabrera of the Queens branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, a political group that organized against Amazon, including door-to-door efforts to rally opposition.

Mr. Cabrera said the mayor’s office did not reach out to D.S.A. members or other local activist groups that gained experience and contacts during the campaign for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. As for the mayor’s rhetoric now, Mr. Cabrera said it rang hollow. “I don’t think he has much to do at this point,” he added.

The mayor was more receptive to concerns raised by prominent union opponents of the deal.

The mayor spoke several times with Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, who was one of the more vocal opponents of Amazon coming to Queens. The two held a meeting at Gracie Mansion in late January, and spoke again on Super Bowl Sunday, Mr. Appelbaum recalled.

“I think that we were able to inform him of Amazon’s behavior in the workplace, and the mistreatment of its workers all over the world,” Mr. Appelbaum said.

“I think he made a mistake in the way the deal was put together, I think he was wrong in believing that Amazon would behave rationally in this process.”

The union leader said he believed the mayor “changed over time,” eventually agreeing that the city “needed to find a way to deal with these labor issues.”

Mr. de Blasio disputed any notion that the conversations caused him to alter his approach, which he laid out on the day last year that he announced Amazon would be coming to New York City. The city — a union town, the mayor said — would eventually change the corporate behemoth.

“When Stuart suggests evolution it misses the fact that I think I felt all that at the beginning,” Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday.

Mr. de Blasio has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he is not ruling out a run for the White House, and his pivot on Amazon comes at a convenient time for someone who might be contemplating facing Democratic primary voters who lean leftward.

“I knew there would be some of my fellow progressives who for other reasons might not have liked the deal,” the mayor added. “But the progressive movement isn’t a monolith, certainly the Democratic Party isn’t anything like a monolith. It never surprises me when there’s differences among my friends. But I felt very comfortable that the net gain for working people was really clear, was unusually clear.”

“If I had wanted to run away I could have obviously done that,” he added, insisting he was never less than gung-ho in his support for the deal. “I believed it was a good deal, I spoke to it many many times.”

The mayor said that his switch from Amazon-booster to Amazon-basher was actually part of a consistent stance toward big business. “It’s important to understand that I’m very comfortable in my own skin,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I have been a self-identified progressive since high school and I know that in all dealing with corporate America you have to take a position of demanding guarantees for working people.”

The Amazon deal and Mr. de Blasio’s possible presidential aspirations came up at a news conference earlier this week, which also happened to fall on the day that Bernie Sanders announced that he would again seek the Democratic nomination for president.

Although Mr. de Blasio did not endorse Mr. Sanders for the Democratic nomination in 2016, he was and remains a fervent admirer. Yet when he was asked if he would campaign for Mr. Sanders this time around, his answer hinted at his own presidential intentions.

“I’ve been really, really clear; I’ll be clear again,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I do not rule out any particular path for myself.”

Through the whole process of dealing with Amazon officials, the mayor did not meet, or even speak to, the Amazon chief executive. Mr. Bezos did not visit the site in Long Island City, or come to New York at any point as part of the process.

Yet less than a week after Amazon pulled out, Mr. Bezos visited New York on Wednesday to speak before an aviation club in Midtown Manhattan. He spoke for about an hour, mostly about space travel, took no questions from the audience, and, according to two people who attended the closed-door event, never once mentioned Amazon’s failed attempt to build a campus in New York.

Then he left, ignoring questions outside from reporters.

Database startup Redis Labs says that it's worth shaking up the open source software world if it means protecting its business from Amazon

Last year, Redis Labs — the proprietors of the popular Redis database — took a stand against cloud providers like Amazon by changing the terms of its open source software license.

The upshot: Years after Amazon Web Services took the open source Redis database and started offering it as a paid service to its own customers, Redis Labs put a provision in its licensing that lets anybody do anything with the code, except sell it as a paid service.

The move proved controversial: Some said the license went against the meaning of open source, while others supported it as a way to protect Redis Labs' business. Importantly, the change doesn't affect the main Redis database itself, but rather the additional add-ons for it developed by Redis Labs.

Now, though, Redis Labs CEO Ofer Bengal tells Business Insider that the move confused some users, so it's making another change aimed at simplifying matters by introducing the Redis Source Available License. The move comes just two days after it announced it announced $60 million in funding.

Read more: The open-source startup Redis Labs has raised $60 million and is planning for an IPO as it takes a stand against Amazon Web Services

But this doesn't mean Redis Labs is backing down, says Bengal. It's a move that's necessary for Redis Labs to take on the major cloud providers, Bengal says, whatever the philosophical implications — and, in fact, it means that those Redis add-ons will go from being "open source" software to "source available," a subtle but important distinction.

"People realized that something must be changed because the situation with open source cannot go on like this," Bengal told Business Insider. "Otherwise, no one will develop significant open source projects. It doesn't make sense when cloud providers take it from them."

The new changes

Last year, Redis Labs appended the Commons Clause to the Apache 2.0 software license for the add-ons, or extensions, to the Redis database. Like most other open source software licenses, the Apache 2.0 allows for anybody to legally download the code for free and do whatever they want with it — even package it up and sell it, as Amazon has done to Redis with its own AWS Elasticache service.

But by adding Commons Clause, it effectively blocked Amazon and other cloud providers from selling its Redis add-ons for a profit. Otherwise, the main Redis database remains open source. Soon after, MongoDB and Confluent created new licenses of their own, with similar goals.

Since Redis Labs added the Commons Clause, it has collected feedback from its users about the licensing change, and Bengal says that there are three main points of confusion for users.

The first was, users found it confusing that Redis Labs was using the Commons Clause, which places limits on open source, in conjunction with the otherwise very permissive Apache 2.0 license.

The second was that Commons Clause says that users can't sell it as a product or service "whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software." "Substantially" wasn't defined specifically enough for users, making it difficult to know if they were in compliance.

The third was that users were confused about in what ways they can and can't sell Redis Labs' software. For example, some users said they wanted to offer consultancy and support services around Redis Labs' software, but were not sure if they were allowed to.

With the feedback in hand, Redis Labs decided to scrap it all and create a completely new license that was more specific. Meet the Redis Source Available License.

The big change

Importantly, Bengal points out again that the Redis Source Available License doesn't affect the main Redis database, which will remain open source as before. It's only those add-ons that are affected.

"Our case was a little more complex than others," Bengal said. "We wanted to keep the core of Redis open source and apply this new license only to extensions. Each company has its own needs and nuances when it comes to carving a new software license. We did what's best for us."

According to this license, anyone can use the source code, modify it, and integrate it into their applications, and they don't need to contribute the code back if they don't want to. The one restriction is that users cannot distribute or sell their application as a database or caching system.

For example, if a company has a website that uses Redis Labs' database components in the back end, it can use the database and make money from its website without any limitations. Likewise, users can sell support and consultancy services around Redis Labs' software. However, if a company sells a database based on Redis Labs' product, that is not allowed.

"If you read it, you can do everything with the new software except selling it as a database product," Bengal said. "If you're using it and otherwise selling it in software that's not a database, you can do whatever you want, no restrictions. We think this is very clear compared to what we had before."

'We don't want to fight'

Elsewhere in the market, MongoDB has said that it considers its new Server Side Public License (SSPL) to be open source, despite provisions that place limitations on how the code can be used.

To that end, the MongoDB SSPL is currently under review by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which gives the stamp of approval on whether licenses are officially considered open source or not. It's an important distinction, as having the official open source designation serves as something of a guarantee to would-be buyers of the software that it doesn't have complicated or otherwise odious licensing terms.

Read more: An influential group sponsored by the Silicon Valley tech titans warns that efforts are underway to 'undermine the integrity of open source'

However, Redis Labs doesn't even plan on wading into that particular debate, and won't be submitting the Redis Source Available License to the OSI. Bengal says that it's perfectly happy to have its Redis extensions defined as "source available" — meaning that while users can see the source code to its software, it doesn't meet the criteria.

"According to the definition of the OSI, anything which has any limitations on anything is not open source by definition," Bengal said. "We think, by the way, that this is wrong, but for us, open source is not a religion. It's a practical thing. We have a business to run, so we don't want to fight the OSI, so basically this new license is not open source, although it has most of the ingredients of open source."

Bengal expects some people to condemn Redis Labs' new approach, while others will react positively. Redis Labs could have completely closed off its code to the public with a commercial license, Bengal says, but it did not want to take this approach.

"No one would have said anything if we put all this software under a commercial license, not this type of new license, but we wanted to be more fair to the community and let them have the source code, play with it, and let them use it in their projects," Bengal said. "Whatever you do in this world, some people are for it, some people are against it. We need to do what we think is right."

How do indie bookstores compete with Amazon? Personality — and a sense of community.

Fritz Hahn

Reporter covering bars, drinks and nightlife for The Washington Post's Weekend section

February 21 at 2:25 PM

For decades, experts have been predicting the death of small, independent bookstores. In the 1990s, the villains were mega-stores, like Barnes & Noble and Borders. The new millennium saw the rise of online bookselling, which offers far more titles and lower prices than neighborhood shops. (You know who we’re talking about, and the founder of that company also owns this newspaper.) Then came e-books, which further cut into sales.

When veteran Washington Post editor Bradley Graham and his wife, Lissa Muscatine, purchased the venerable store Politics and Prose in 2011, they painted a grim picture of the business for sellers: “Over the past 20 years, the number of independents tracked by the American Booksellers Association has fallen by about 66 percent,” Graham and Muscatine wrote in a Washington Post essay. “For those surviving today, operating margins generally remain thin, with hundreds of stores reporting no profit at all.”

Yet somehow, they appear to be thriving, especially in the capital. Over the past three years, Washingtonians have welcomed new bookstores in every quadrant of the city. Farther afield, shops have appeared from Reston to Annapolis. Pop-ups bring books to unexpected places.

Even the well-known booksellers have expanded: Dupont’s Kramerbooks took over a neighboring storefront; Alexandria’s kid-centric Hooray for Books doubled in size; Politics and Prose has opened two satellite locations, far from its Upper Northwest base, at the Wharf and Union Market.

What’s fueling this growth, sellers say, is a connection with the community instead of fighting Amazon for every dime. “There’s no universe in which I can compete with online retailers, because that’s how publishing works,” says Ally Kirkpatrick, who opened Old Town Books in a 200-year-old building near the Potomac in November. “Our competitive edge is events,” she says, whether that’s gathering two dozen people for a lively book club discussion, hosting author signings or organizing a series about the craft of writing. “I feel like everybody I meet in the shop is the right kind of customer. They want to hang out and meet other book lovers.” And, of course, chat about what they’ve read.

[5 D.C. Meetup book clubs for broad and niche genres]

Others see community service as a chief role. Angela Maria Spring worked as a bookseller for 18 years, spanning a Waldenbooks in her native Albuquerque to Politics and Prose, but she reexamined her life after the last election. “2016 was an intense year for people of color,” says Spring, who is of Panamanian and Puerto Rican descent. “I thought, ‘What kind of bookseller do I want to be?’­ ” Although she enjoyed her job at Politics and Prose, “I felt like I wasn’t serving my community,” she says. “I’d like to build a bookstore that centers on us and celebrates who we are as authors and readers.” The result was Duende District, a pop-up bookstore that places works by authors of color in wine bars, museums and a Union Market bodega.

What distinguishes this new wave of bookstores is that their individual personalities shine through what they share in common. Any bookstore is going to be eager to sell you a copy of Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” or Tara Westover’s “Educated” — as well as notecards, an RBG enamel badge or a pair of literary-themed socks. But each of these shops fills a distinct and different niche that brings its audience together.

THE NEW GUARD

“I never wanted a traditional store,” says Angela Maria Spring, the founder of Duende District. “I wanted to play with the model.” That’s exactly what the New Mexico native is doing, curating pop-up offerings of books by and about people of color at a changing variety of unexpected spaces. She has filled two large bookcases at Walls of Books, a used bookstore in Petworth; curated a selection inside the bookshop at the National Museum of Women in the Arts; and chosen books for kids and adults at Toli Moli, a bodega inside Union Market. Most recently, she stocked a waist-high book rack inside Dio, a woman-owned wine bar on H Street NE. “For me, it’s important that the business is serving a very specific part of the community that isn’t being tapped,” Spring explains.

The selection varies by location: Dio has romance novels and new fiction, while Toli Moli’s titles lean toward the Asian diaspora and books by foodies, such as chef Edward Lee. For Spring, this is part of the appeal of pop-ups and temporary spaces. “We can take it anywhere, into any community,” Spring says. “It’s as big or small as you want it, but you can get a rich amount of books in there.”

Multiple locations: Dio Wine Bar, 904 H St. NE; National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW; Toli Moli, 1309 Fifth St. NE; Walls of Books, 3325 Georgia Ave. NW.

The line of strollers begins building well before story time in the mornings on Tuesdays and Fridays, stretching up and down the passageway outside East City Bookshop’s front doors. Inside, parents and caregivers watch as small children determinedly climb the shop’s wide stairs or settle onto the floor with a book. It’s evidence of how much East City, which opened in April 2016, has become part of the Capitol Hill community. It’s a place where residents drop in to pick up the latest bestseller or grab a cute gift, such as journals, literary-themed socks or enamel pins. A variety of book clubs include those for readers in their 20s and 30s (e.g., the CHILLY Ps, or the Capitol Hill Interesting Literature League for Young Professionals), a social-justice club, and groups just for teens and tweens. Covering similar topics: the W(h)ine & Angst Book Club, for those over 21 who want to discuss books for or about teenagers with a glass of red or white in hand.

645 Pennsylvania Ave. SE.

Hannah Oliver Depp created a buzz on the Washington bookstore scene over the holidays, launching Loyalty Bookstore as a pop-up in Silver Spring at a former barbecue restaurant, filling it with books, children gathered for story times, and a variety of giftable items from local makers, including prints and stationery. Now Depp, who previously worked at Politics and Prose and the Word Bookstore in Brooklyn and Jersey City, is taking on a bigger task: Rebooting Petworth’s Upshur Street Books as Loyalty. “Community-building through bookselling is my passion,” she says. “I want Loyalty to look more like Petworth. I want there to be a really diverse selection of books, but reflect the full scope of what people in Petworth love.” As she did in Silver Spring, she expects to stock plenty of nonbook items. On Saturdays, Depp explains, a lot of the sales are what she calls “shower gifts”: board books for kids, plus cards, knickknacks and a bag to put everything in. “I’m not competing with Amazon,” she says. “I’m competing with people’s time.”

Where Upshur Street struggled to find its voice, she says, she thinks that Loyalty can become a neighborhood destination. There will be more children’s events, author appearances and book clubs, such as one looking at intersectional romance and one called “Pages Against the Patriarchy.” She plans on partnerships with the neighboring restaurant Petworth Citizen. The weekly Literary Cocktails series, which finds veteran bartender Chantal Tseng creating a menu of drinks inspired by a new or classic book, might expand to feature Tseng’s selection from the bookstore in the week leading up to the tasting, and Depp is also thinking about a literary-themed brunch, too.

For those mourning Loyalty’s departure from Silver Spring, Depp says she’s still working on a permanent space downtown with a full bar or cafe. “We have an eye on a couple of spaces, but it’s a struggle.”

827 Upshur St. NW.

After a decade of operating Mahogany Books as an online bookstore selling titles “for, by, or about people of the African diaspora,” Derrick Young and Ramunda Lark Young opened a shop inside the Anacostia Arts Center in November 2017. The first bookstore east of the Anacostia River to open in more than two decades, it’s heavily stocked with materials targeted at children, which is important in a neighborhood considered a book desert. Mahogany also gives back, with an annual book drive called Books for the Block.

Young readers aren’t the only ones who benefit: Mahogany features a schedule of author events and networking socials. In October, the store launched a monthly book club with the popular blog Very Smart Brothas, which is part of TheRoot.com. They’ll tackle Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s engrossing short-story collection “Heads of the Colored People” on March 1.

1231 Good Hope Rd. SE.

[Bookstores by and for people of color are finding their industry niche]

Old Fox is a quirky bookstore. Visitors open a squeaky door and negotiate creaking floorboards before making it to a front table where the Teddy Roosevelt-inspired “Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King” sits near Hanif Abdurraqib’s love letter to A Tribe Called Quest, “Go Ahead in the Rain.” But Old Fox, which takes its name from a sobriquet for George Washington, isn’t the average bookstore: Owner Jinny Amundson estimates that 35 percent of the store’s sales are new books, while the rest are vintage and used books. Because it’s on a historic street between the Maryland State House and the U.S. Naval Academy, books on American history and maritime topics do well, though there’s a well-stocked philosophy section to cater to the students from nearby St. John’s College. “The Johnnies think this is their bookstore, and the Mids think that this is their bookstore,” Amundson says, laughing.

Old Fox fills two floors of a Colonial-era building, connected by a spiral staircase. It’s also a shrine for Harry Potter fans: Note the “signed” photo of Gilderoy Lockhart in the bathroom, and see if you can find the horcruxes hidden throughout. In the rear is Brown Mustache Coffee, where book browsers can collect a flat white or cup of tea, and then settle into a leather armchair in front of a brick fireplace. (Fez, the shop’s chonky resident Bernese mountain dog, may be sleeping nearby.) The long communal table is used for teleworking during the day and hosts book clubs in the evenings. “Every town deserves a spot like ours,” Amundson says, and it’s hard to disagree.

35 Maryland Ave., Annapolis.

Ally Kirkpatrick never thought she’d own a bookstore, even though, she explains, “I’m one of those people who’ve always been obsessed with independent bookstores.” In November, Old Town Books opened in a cozy, light-filled space near the Torpedo Factory, and it’s technically a pop-up, on a short-term lease while Kirkpatrick hunts for a permanent location. (She says she’s “90 percent sure” she’s found another space nearby, which she hopes to open in May.) Old Town Books stocks many of the general-interest titles that appear on bestseller lists, though Kirkpatrick hopes customers stumble across titles they didn’t know they needed. “I’ve always been surprised by what I found in small indie bookstores. They’re so different from what I would usually read.”

Regardless of the location, Kirkpatrick has big plans for Old Town Books, including a literary festival in August. Old Town Books continues to host book clubs, concerts and talks. Kirkpatrick is also scheduling events that are “more than just coming and doing a reading,” such as a series called Read Write Now, which includes a discussion with an author about writing, group writing prompts and a Q&A session. Abby Maslin, who turned a series of blog posts about her husband’s traumatic brain injury into a just-released memoir, is the guest on March 30.

104 S. Union St., Alexandria.

Independent booksellers know that authenticity will help them stand out in a crowded field. At One More Page, an eight-year-old bookstore in East Falls Church, “We’re not shy about expressing our personalities,” says store book buyer Lelia Nebeker. This comes through in a variety of ways: its Boozy Booksellers YouTube series, which finds Nebeker and store events coordinator Rebecca Speas acting silly and enjoying drinks while chatting with authors on camera; its in-store book recommendations, such as Lyndsay Faye’s “Jane Steele,” which reimagines Jane Eyre as a serial killer (“murder and feminism — that covers us,” Nebeker says, laughing); and its book clubs, including the Romance Roundtables, which pair wine tastings and Q&As with contemporary romance authors. “We want to make romance seem a little more accessible, and destigmatize it from being a guilty pleasure.” (The next roundtable is March 1.)

One More Page is also supporting the next generation of readers: It’s a co-founder and sponsor of the NoVa Teen Book Festival, a six-year-old literary festival focused on young adult literature. Last year saw 9,000 readers show up at Washington-Lee High School to hear 40 authors speak on panels and participate in breakout discussions. This year’s free festival will be at George Marshall High School on March 30.

2200 N. Westmoreland St., Arlington.

Jake Cumsky-Whitlock and Scott Abel met while working at Kramerbooks, where Abel was the general manager and Cumsky-Whitlock was the store’s head buyer. They’ve gone out on their own with the introduction of Solid State, an open and welcoming shop that sits alongside Whole Foods on the vibrant H Street NE corridor.

Books are not necessarily arranged by topic — don’t be surprised to see “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” next to Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses S. Grant or the locally focused “Chocolate City” on display tables — but that only encourages shoppers to spend more time browsing. Prime seats in the front windows or at long tables encourage lingering with a cup of coffee or a craft beer. (Taking a cue from Kramerbooks, happy hour runs from 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays.) Book clubs cover the spectrum: foreign policy, poetry, works related to Rorschach Theater’s current season, and Music Graphic Novels, which adds audio and video clips to the mix.

600 H St. NE.

THE OLD GUARD

No recommendation algorithm can beat the booksellers at Alexandria’s venerable Hooray for Books. Owner Ellen Klein opened the shop in 2008 and saw it double in size in 2015. Now, “because we’re 11 years old, we’ve seen children grow up from being in strollers to being taller than I am,” she says. “We know their names — we can say, ‘Hey, Patrick, here’s a great book for you!’ They trust us, and we make them feel vested.”

Years ago, Klein started the Youth Advisory Council, which provides advance copies of books to students from elementary-school-age through high school. They read and serve as a focus group, Klein says: “They tell us, ‘Buy a lot of this one,’ or ‘Don’t buy this, no one’s going to like it.’ ” Reviews are published in the store’s newsletter.

Hooray for Books has popular weekday and weekend story times, which bring in 20 to 30 kids and give parents a chance to socialize, as well as author events that can draw hundreds of fans. The expansion allowed Klein to expand a section of the store with new bestsellers and history books, but the store’s focus remains on children.

1555 King St. Alexandria.

A fixture in Dupont Circle for more than four decades, Kramerbooks remains one of the most important bookstores for both sides of Washington: The political cognoscenti lined up here for the midnight release of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” and other topical tell-alls — “Harry Potter for adults,” observed one late-night customer — while generations of Washingtonians have spent first or second dates browsing the shelves and getting to know each other over drinks and snacks at the in-house cafe. Under new owner Steven Salis, the co-founder of &pizza, Kramerbooks expanded into a neighboring storefront in 2018.

1517 Connecticut Ave. NW.

As it approaches 35 years in business, Politics and Prose has become a Washington landmark. Over that time,the store has organized a staggering number of readings, from local authors with a few dozen fans on upper Connecticut Avenue to Kamala D. Harris or José Andrés at a sold-out Lisner Auditorium. (J.K. Rowling signed books back in 1999.) Twenty-two book clubs are sponsored by P&P, with themes including graphic novels, lesbian writers, travelogues and horror. Its basement cafe, the Den, is a gathering place with coffee, pastries and wine.

Not content to rest on these laurels, however, Politics and Prose opened two branches, at the Wharf and Union Market, in the fall of 2017, looking beyond leafy Northwest to growing retail areas. “We were motivated by the shifting of the center of gravity from Northwest to Northeast and Southwest D.C.,” co-owner Bradley Graham says. “There’s housing stock being renovated, new buildings going up and people with disposable income going in.”

Three locations: 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; 70 District Sq. SW; 1270 Fifth St. NE.

Located across the street from Howard University, Sankofa was opened by husband-and-wife filmmakers Haile and Shirikiana Gerima in 1997 to showcase books and films from Africans and African Americans. It’s particularly strong in biography, history and fiction, and the children’s section is packed with inspirational board books and coloring books. More than just a place to read, Sankofa sponsors weekly jazz performances, and the cafe offers panini, wraps and salads named after filmmakers.