David Litt — It's Only Drowning - with Jennifer Rubin

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

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David Litt, the Yale-educated writer with a sensible fear of sharks, and Matt, the daredevil electrician with two motorcycles and a passion for death metal, had always coexisted from a comfortable distance as brothers-in-law. Yet in 2021, as David wallowed in existential dread while America's crises piled up, he couldn't help but notice that Matt was thriving. When he wasn't making money rewiring New Jersey beach homes, Matt was riding waves at his favorite spots in the state.

Quietly, David started taking surfing lessons. For a few months, he suffered through wipeouts on waves the height of daffodils. But to his surprise, he soon became obsessed. And once he got a sense of the ways that fully committing to surfing could change him both in the water and on land, he set his sights on an unlikely goal: riding a big wave at Hawaii's famously dangerous North Shore. To get there, he'd need Matt's help.

At a moment when the fault lines of class, education, and culture threaten to tear our country apart, It's Only Drowning is a blueprint for becoming braver at a time when it takes courage just to read the news, a love letter to surfing in the vein of William Finnegan's Barbarian Days, and a poignant buddy comedy in the tradition of Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

David Litt is the New York Times bestselling author of Thanks, Obama; Democracy in One Book or Less; and It's Only Drowning. A former senior speechwriter for Barack Obama, described as "the comic muse for the president" for his work on the White House Correspondents' Dinner monologues, he has also written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, and more. Along with writing speeches and jokes for political figures, athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and philanthropists, David was the head writer/producer at Funny Or Die, DC, and has written and sold comedy pilots for Comedy Central, ABC, and NBC. Raised in New York, he and his wife now split their time between Washington DC, and Asbury Park, New Jersey. Find out more at DavidLittBooks.com.

Litt is in conversation with Jennifer Rubin, the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian, a pro-democracy platform that covers politics, policy, and culture. She created a stir when she resigned after 14 years as The Washington Post’s top opinion columnist, denouncing owner Jeff Bezos and other media titans for refusing to fulfill their journalistic responsibilties. In just a few months, she and co-founder Norm Eisen have built a platform with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and published written pieces and interviews with everyone from Paul Krugman to Sherrilyn Ifill to Larry Tribe to Olivia Julianna. Jennifer is also an MSNBC contributor, a frequent guest on syndicated and public radio programs, and a popular speaker on college campuses and other venues . She is author of the book, Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump. Before her career in journalism Jennifer practiced labor law for two decades in Los Angeles.

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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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