James Parker — Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes: Odes to Being Alive - with Jeffrey Goldberg

Watch author James Parker's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

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This event is in partnership with The Atlantic.

Our politics are broken; our world is melting; the next catastrophe looms. Enter James Parker, who for years now has been writing odes of appreciation on subjects from the seemingly minor ("Ode to Naps") to the unexpected ("Ode to Giving People Money") to the seemingly minor, unexpected, and hyperspecific ("Ode to Running in Movies"). Finally collecting Parker's beloved and much-lauded odes in one place, this volume demonstrates the profound power of the form. Each ode is an exercise in gratitude. Each celebrates the permanent susceptibility of everyday humdrum life to dazzling saturations of divine light: the squirrel in the street, the crying baby, the misplaced cup of tea. Parker's odes are songs of praise, but with a decent amount of complaining in there, too: a human ratio of moans. Varied in length but unified in tone, mostly in prose, sometimes toppling into verse, the odes range across music, movies, literature, psychology, and beyond, all through the lens of Parker's personal history. Gathered together, they form an accidental how-to guide to honoring your own experience--and to finding your own odes.

James Parker is a staff writer for The Atlantic. Since 2011, he has run the Black Seed Writers Group--a weekly writing workshop for homeless, transitional, and recently housed writers--and edited The Pilgrim, a literary magazine from the homeless community of downtown Boston. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Parker is in conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic and the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic. He joined The Atlantic in 2007 as a national correspondent and in 2016 was named the magazine’s 15th editor in chief. In 2020, Goldberg was named editor of the year by Adweek, which also named The Atlantic magazine of the year. Before joining The Atlantic, Goldberg served as the Middle East correspondent, and then the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Earlier in his career, he was a writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he wrote 15 cover stories. He began his career as a police reporter for The Washington Post. Goldberg is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

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