Description: A compelling portrait of Washington, D.C. through the work of seventy authors ranging from early Americans such as Abigail Adams and Washington Irving to contemporaries such as Edward P. Jones and Joan Didion.
Brief description: CHRISTOPHER STEN is a professor of English at George Washington University. He is the coeditor of "Whole Oceans Away" Melville and the Pacific and author or editor of three other books. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Review Quotes:
Literary Capital is great in concept and even better in execution. Christopher Sten has skillfully selected an assortment of the classic and the contemporary, the literary and the reportorial, the appreciative and the denunciatory, in writings about life and habits in Washington. In a fair world, this collection might slightly raise the esteem of Washington in the public's eyes. In the real world, it makes for wonderful reading.
--James Fallows "National Correspondent for The Atlantic"