All posts by Emily Berg

The Wolf Road – Beth Lewis

July 12, 2016
by Emily Berg

ELKA BARELY REMEMBERS a time before she knew Trapper. She was just seven years old, wandering lost and hungry in the wilderness, when the solitary hunter took her in. In the years since then, he’s taught her how to survive in this desolate land where civilization has been destroyed and men are at the mercy of the elements and each other.

But the man Elka thought she knew has been harboring a terrible secret. He’s a killer. A monster. And now that Elka knows the truth, she may be his next victim.

Armed with nothing but her knife and the hard lessons Trapper’s drilled into her, Elka flees into the frozen north in search of her real parents. But judging by the trail of blood dogging her footsteps, she hasn’t left Trapper behind—and he won’t be letting his little girl go without a fight. If she’s going to survive, Elka will have to turn and confront not just him, but the truth about the dark road she’s been set on.

The Wolf Road is an intimate cat-and-mouse tale of revenge and redemption, played out against a vast, unforgiving landscape—told by an indomitable young heroine fighting to escape her past and rejoin humanity.

In-Store Book Fair!

May 10, 2016
by Emily Berg

Books & Books @ The Studios will host a Community Book Fair Celebration on Sunday, May 15th, @ Books & Books from 10am-6pm, presented by the Key West Montessori Charter School. The event will feature story time readings at 11:30 am & 1:30 pm, a ukulele performance by the charter school’s students in partnership with Bahama Village Music Program at 2:30, a chance to win a $100 gift certificate with purchase, and a wide selection of books for all ages.  Shoppers are encouraged to present the school’s special “bookmark” that day to help raise funds for the free Montessori school; the bookmark can be found at the school & many local businesses or by emailing Leslie@keywestmontessori.com. Call Leslie at 305.587.4130 for more information.

EDMUND WHITE TO READ FROM HIS NEW BOOK

May 10, 2016
by Emily Berg

Edmund White, the novelist, critic and memoirist who has been called a literary giant of the gay world, will speak about his new novel, “Our Young Man,” at 6 p.m. on May 16 at Books & Books @ the Studios, 533 Eaton St.

“Our Young Man” tells the story of Guy, a handsome French man who becomes a top fashion model in New York City just as AIDS is beginning its deadly assault on the exuberant gay tribes of Greenwich Village and Fire Island. Although Guy is terrified of the disease, he is inexorably drawn to the thrill and romance of being the gay community’s darling.

Kirkus Reviews praised “Our Young Man” as “a playful yet searching novel of gay life in the New York of Ed Koch and Studio 54… [It] captures a time of whispers,elaborate codes, and not inconsiderable danger.”
White is the author of many other novels, including “A Boy’s Own Story” and “The Beautiful Room Is Empty.” He got an inside look at the world of fashion during his 10 years working at Vogue magazine. He now teaches at Princeton University.
In his memoir, “City Boy,” White remembered living in New York in the 1970s, when the city was grungy, dangerous and bankrupt. But for a young gay man, it was also “the only free port on the entire continent.” Only in New York, White wrote, “could we could walk hand in hand with a member of the same sex.”

FRANK DEFORD TO READ FROM HIS NEW AT BOOKS & BOOKS @ THE STUDIOS

April 25, 2016
by Emily Berg

Frank Deford, the long-time voice of sports on NPR’s Morning Edition and the man once called “the Sinatra of sportswriters,” will speak about his new book, “I’d Know That Voice Anywhere,” at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 6, at Books & Books @ The Studios, 533 Eaton St.

In his more than 50 years writing about sports, starting at Sports Illustrated in 1962, Deford has covered everything from sex scandals to steroids, gamblers to cheaters, roller derbies to soccer moms. His new book is a collection of the best of his NPR commentaries: How was Babe Ruth like Winnie the Pooh? Why is football like Venice? How are the Olympics like the movie “Groundhog Day”? He even channels Shakespeare covering a Super Bowl.

In addition to his sports coverage, which has earned him the Sportswriter of the Year award six times, Deford has written nine novels. Billie Jean King calls Deford “one of the greatest writers of our time”; the writer Nicholas Dawidoff calls Deford “The Secretary of Sport in the nation’s Cabinet of Letters…an unmatched interpreter of games and the people who play them.”