Come talk philosophy and the art of living with Eric Weiner and Leeya Mehta for his Washington area book launch of Ben & Me at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC 20008. More about the event here: https://www.politics-prose.com/eric-weiner
Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist, and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin's greatest experiment was...Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived.
Not a conventional biography, Ben & Me is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence, and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben's life lessons, large and small. We learn how to improve a relationship with someone by inducing them to do a favor for you--a psychological phenomenon now known as The Ben Franklin Effect. We learn about the printing press (the Internet of its day), early medicine, diplomatic intrigue and, of course, electricity. And we learn about ethics, persuasion, humor, regret, appetite, and so much more.
At a time when history is either neglected or contested, Weiner argues we have much to learn from the past and that we'd all be better off if we acted and thought a bit more like Ben did, even if he didn't always live up to his own high ideals. Engaging, smart, moving, quirky, Ben & Me distills the essence of Franklin's ideas into grounded, practical wisdom for all of us.
Eric Weiner is author of the New York Times bestsellers The Geography of Bliss (now a docu-series featuring Rainn Wilson) and The Geography of Genius, as well as the critically acclaimed Man Seeks God and The Socrates Express. A former international correspondent for NPR, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the anthology Best American Travel Writing. He lives with his family and a menagerie of animals in the Washington, D.C. area. For more information, visit: EricWeinerBooks.com.
Weiner will be in conversation with Leeya Mehta. Mehta is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer and essayist. Leeya’s new collection of poems is ‘A Story of the World Before the Fence’ (2020). In 2022 her work appeared in three new anthologies including the Penguin Book of Indian Poets. She is the Director of the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, a literary arts center that is currently celebrating the centennial of the writer James Baldwin through a 13-month community project - the Baldwin100. Leeya grew up in Bombay, and has a Masters in Philosophy, Politics & Economics from Oxford University on a Radhakrishnan Scholarship that was created in honor of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of independent India. She teaches at George Mason University, and often includes Eric Weiner’s essays in the classroom, where her students are big fans of his work.
This event is free with first come, first serve seating.
Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC 20008
More about the event here: https://www.politics-prose.com/eric-weiner