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Bob Schieffer opened his interview with "Mortal Friends" author Jane Stanton Hitchcock with the same question on every long-time Washingtonian's mind...

"I'm going to ask the obvious question- am I in this book?"

On CBS' webcast "Washington Unplugged," the novelist, and wife of WaPo foreign affairs editor Jim Hoagland, described her latest as "a book about how Washington really works, how friendships really work and how old haunts of the past can come back to you."

"Mortal Friends" hits bookshelves today and is a murder-mystery (Hitchcock prefers to call it a novel with a murder in it) set to the background of Washington. She says DC makes the perfect backdrop because life here is like "high school with wrinkles." Hitchcock says there's an official and a superficial Washington- her novel is about the superficial, which is "where most of the work gets done."

And just how is Washington run? "Honey, it is run by the women," she told Schieffer. "They may look like wonderful accessories in pastel suits but, honey, they are artfully concealed weapons of mass destruction."

Hitchcock starts her "Mortal Friends" media blitz this week, and from what we can tell so far, it's a Washington must-read.

NPR's Michele Norris, host of "All Things Considered," will take this summer off to work on a book of essays about race in America. She announced this at the end of her show Friday (h/t NYO).

The book is tentatively titled "Say What?" and Norris says in an interview with the New York Observer, "People talk about race one way in public and they often- not always but often- talk about it in a different way and at a different tempo in the private sphere... And I just want to pull back the curtain a little bit."

Norris will travel around the country this summer as research for the book, making her first stop to see and interview her family in Alabama. Her NPR co-hosts Melissa Block and Robert Siegel, as well as Madeline Brand whose show Day to Day was canceled on NPR last December, will fill in for Norris until mid-September.

Read more of this New York Observer interview here.

Grim's book (left) Members of Merle Haggard Haggard (right)

Saturday night at American Legion #8 - Capitol Hill, DC journos and a few stray winos gathered to toast the release of Ryan Grim's new book, "This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America."

The HuffPo reporter and new author inked copies of his book with the help of wife Elizan Garcia while barefooted band, Merle Haggard Haggard rocked Legion 8.

Spotted: Michael Steel, Jared Allen, David Mark, Ken Vogel, Bob Hillman, Anne Marson, Mike Allen, Jennifer Kohl, Leonard Roberge, Dave Jamieson, Mike Debonis, Jason Cherkis, Gail Ross, Howard Yoon, Marissa Newhall, Matt Mackowiak, Rachel Morris, Sarah Courteau and Amos Snead.

Not since the release of Britney Spears' "Heart to Heart" has a book signing boasted bare feet and banjos with such klass. Well done, Mr. Grim!

MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell and husband Chef Geoff Tracy are working on a cookbook "Baby Love," recipes for infants. Tracy, who owns Chef Geoff's, has been cooking meals for their three children since they got off the bottle, he tells the blog "Eat Me Daily."

And apparently baby food is quite lucrative-- they landed a six-figure book deal, Publishers Weekly reports.

WaPo Magazine will feature exclusive excerpts from the book "Decline and Fall: The final days of Donald Rumsfeld's troubled reign" by Pentagon correspondent Bradley Graham.

He reveals Rumsfeld was ready to leave President Bush's administration in 2006:

Around September 2006, Rumsfeld and his wife, Joyce, had discussed the prospect of his stepping down as Secretary of Defense. "We said there's no way he would stay if either the House or the Senate went Democratic because he would be the issue," Joyce recounted months later. The criticism "would have been relentless until he was gone."

Graham interviewed the former Defense Secretary eight times and also conducted interviews with close colleagues and friends. He will host a chat about the book on WaPo's site here at 12pm Monday and the book hits stands June 22nd.

Full excerpts can be found here.

NBC Chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd will write a book about the first few years of Obama's presidency, as first reported by Felix Gillette at The New York Observer.

Todd's agent says the new book will be a "nuanced analytical narrative" focusing on the political relationship between Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The book would likely come out in the months before the 2012 election.

His first book "How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election," written with NBC director of elections Sheldon Gawiser, was published in January.

At Ellen and Gerry Sigal's book party for 9/11 Commissioner and Mayer Brown Partner Richard Ben-Veniste, talk veered from Obama's mission to the Middle East to Watergate (Ben-Veniste was chief prosecutor). His new book, The Emperor's New Clothes, covers five riveting cases with which Ben-Veniste was associated and the Sigals' living room looked like Kennedy Center Honors. From Congress, former Senators Ted Stevens and Paul Sarbanes, Congresswoman Jane Harmon and Congressman John Dingell and lobbyist wife Debbie. Media wunderkinds included Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Howard Fineman, Sam Donaldson, Daniel Schorr, Nina Totentenberg, Elizabeth Drew, Kim Eisler (Washingtonian) and the New York Times Neil Lewis. Lewis found plenty of time to chat with Senator Stevens' wife Catherine - perhaps about Senator Stevens' trial which Lewis covered for the Gray Lady.

Sam Donaldson and Richard Ben-Veniste

Elizabeth Drew, Michael Isikoff and Howard Fineman

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The Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series Cordially invites you to a lunchtime book talk featuring Karl Taro Greenfeld, longtime writer and editor for Time and Sports Illustrated and author of Boy Alone: A Brother's Memoir and WaPo Associate Editor Steve Luxenberg, author of Annie's Ghosts:A Journey Into a Family Secret.

Moderated by Walter Isaacson
President and CEO, The Aspen Institute

Monday, June 8, 2009
12:00 pm

The Aspen Institute
One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC

Please reply via email to rachel.sommers@aspeninstitute.org or by phone to (202) 736-2299.

Books available for sale and for signing on-site. A buffet lunch will be served.

**********

About Boy Alone:
Haunting, tragic, and unforgettable, this chronicle of autism is a beautiful, wholly original exploration of what it means to be a family, a brother, and a person.

About Annie's Ghosts:
"It is too simple to call this a magnificent detective story. More than that, Annie's Ghosts is an honest and faithful rumination on a sad, delicate mystery . . . a remarkable journey to the very center of a secret."
--David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire

An iconic group from Capitol Hill, K Street, NIH and the media gathered at the home of Marina and Daniel Ein's home on Thursday to celebrate the publication of Michael Smerconish's new book, Morning Drive: Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Talking.

Folks chattered about Pennsylvania politics (Senator Arlen Specter's chances for re-election post-party swap...deemed "excellent" by most) and swine flu. MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews extracted an "I'm not running for the Senate" from popular Democratic Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy while former Senator Ted Stevens talked up WaPo's MaryAnn Akers.

Roll Call reporters Tory Newmyer, Emily Heil and long-time Chicago Sun Times bureau chief Lynn Sweet made the fete and celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley mixed it up with Politics Mag's Boyce Upholt.

Chris Matthews and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA)

Chicago Sun Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet and Biographer Kitty Kelley

Chris Matthews and Michael Smerconish

* All photos courtesy of nobilephoto.com

Say hello to Rich Lowry- don't call him Richard- co-author of "Banqo's Ghost" with Keith Korman.

In Lowry's own words the basic plot: "Left-wing journalist sent on a rogue CIA mission to Iran to assassinate Iran's top nuclear scientist; mayhem ensues. Some people will have fun arguing whether one character, the left-wing media-savvy editrix Josephine von Hildebrand, is more like Katrina vanden Heuvel or Arianna Huffington. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Joy Behar, Larry King, et. al make appearances by name."

"Banquo's Ghosts" is on bookshelves now.

What does your morning reading list include?
I'm old school. I still get five newspapers delivered at home, NY Times, Washington Post, New York Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today: I read the New York Post first (some of us at NR call it "the newspaper of record"). Online, I first turn to NRO, RealClearPolitics, and Drudge.

What single person has played the biggest role or has had the biggest influence on your career? Easy- Bill Buckley.

How many suits do you own? Just enough to get by, basically two, one grey, one dark blue. Somehow I've also accumulated two summer suits, which I'll wear once or twice a year.

What is the name of your cell phone ring? I have a rotation of "Daughter" by Pearl Jam, "All the Small Things," by Blink 182 and "Everybody" by the Blues Brothers (Remember that scene in the movie? "We're so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight, and we would especially like to welcome all representatives of the Illinois law enforcement community who have chosen to join us in the Palace hotel ballroom at this time"). And, finally, "Les voici! Voici la quadrille" for my girlfriend's calls, since she's an opera fan.

How many emails do you receive a day? How many do you answer? I'm not sure. A lot. And I don't answer enough. If anyone has brilliant ideas for e-mail management, please let me know.

Where do you power-lunch? Starbucks.

What's your favorite or go-to drink? Vodka tonic.

Who is your favorite active journalist? Charles Krauthammer. Marry an incredibly incisive intellect with fearsome powers of expression, and you get Charles. As they say in sports, he's scary good.

What subject line in an email grabs your attention? I hate to say it, but: "Congratulations." The one that grabs me least: "Dear Richard." If it starts that way, I'm 100% sure that it's from a p.r. person who got my name from some list since no one who knows me calls me Richard.

What section of the Sunday Washington Post do you read first? Op-ed pages.

If you ran a doctor's office or a bank, what cable news station would you have on in your waiting room or lobby? Fox News, except during Yankee day games, when it would be the YES network.

Lowry's FBDC Interview continued after the jump...

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