REMINDER: "America's Gilded Capital" Lecture TOMORROW!

Washington, D.C.—This Town—might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore, just millionaires in America’s gilded capital. In This Town, Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, presents a blistering, stunning—and often hysterically funny—examination of our ruling class’s incestuous “media industrial complex.” Through his eyes, we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year. How political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city’s most powerful and puzzled-over journalist. How a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent “brand” than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on “changing Washington” can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath. Outrageous and fascinating, This Town is must reading, whether you are inside the Beltway—or just trying to get there.

Mark Leibovich is the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, based in Washington, DC. Leibovich was previously a national political correspondent in the New York Times’ Washington Bureau.  He came to the Times in 2006 from the Washington Post and previously worked at the The San Jose Mercury News. This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-plus plenty of valet parking! – in America’s Gilded Capital debuted at #1 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in July 2013, and remained on the Times best-seller list for 11 weeks.  The New Republic described Leibovich as “brutally incisive yet not without pathos” in naming him one of Washington’s 25 Most Powerful, Least Famous People.  A native of Boston, Leibovich attended the University of Michigan.