Washington’s Most Famous Bookstore Finds New Owners

WaPo is reporting that Politics & Prose will soon have new owners — two WaPo reporters.

Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade co-founded the famed bookstore 27 years ago, but decided to put it up for sale when Cohen discovered she had cancer. Cohen died in October. Since then, Meade and Cohen’s husband David had considered a number of serious bids.

The new owners will be two former (and married) WaPo reporters, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine. Since they left journalism, Graham has written two books and Muscatine has worked as an aide to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

One of the competing bidders on the bookstore was a group composed of Franklin Foer formerly of TNR, the Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, and literary agent Rafe Sagalyn.

Graham told WaPo: “[Politics and Prose] is an integral part of the Washington community, a community that Lissa and I have served for much of our careers already as journalists, authors and, in Lissa’s case, a senior government staff member. It is a very special culture here, a culture we want to see survive.”

The deal, said to be close to $2 million, is expected to close in 45 days.

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