Washington, D.C.’s iconic Politics and Prose Bookstore [5] will soon have new owners.

After considering offers from a number of interested parties, Barbara Meade and David Cohen, husband of the late Carla Cohen [6], have chosen to sell the store to former Washington Post journalists Bradley Graham and his wife, Lissa Muscatine.  The deal is expected to close in approximately 45 days, according to a report in the March 28 edition of the Washington Post [7].

Although terms of the sale were not made public, the Post noted that “a person with knowledge of the negotiations said that the purchase price was about $2 million.”

Meade and Cohen said that they carefully chose the store’s new owners because they wanted to ensure that Politics and Prose’s legacy as a community gathering place for ideas and civic discourse would continue. “Graham and Muscatine have the passion and wisdom to further strengthen Politics and Prose as a community institution that disseminates ideas and stands as a respected and revered public space,” Meade and Cohen said in a statement. “We are confident that they have the wherewithal and vision to sustain Politics and Prose for many years.”

Graham’s career at the Post included turns as a business reporter, foreign correspondent, editor, and Pentagon correspondent. He is the author of two books and is a graduate of Yale and Stanford Business School.

Muscatine, a graduate of Harvard and a Rhodes scholar, most recently served as a senior advisor  and director of speech writing for the State Department. She worked at the Post for 12 years as a reporter and editor. After leaving the paper in the early 1990s, she became a White House speech writer during the Clinton administration and was a collaborator on Hillary Clinton’s memoir Living History.

“We’re very grateful for this opportunity, which we consider both a privilege and a responsibility,” Graham and Muscatine said in statement posted on the Politics and Prose website [5]. “We will do everything we can to preserve P&P’s special culture and traditions, while also looking for new ways to ensure that this great store remains relevant, influential, and technologically up-to-date.”

The Post reported that Graham and Muscatine would work full time in the store and plan to use their own money to expand the business.