Fiction is the ultimate time/teleportation machine.
Last month I lived through WWI, the rise of Hitler, WWII and the rise of McCarthyism, all while living the complex life of Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize winning author and father of six politically and sexually multifarious children. The power of The Magician, Colm Tóibín’s novel/biography, is the way he makes us see and feel, not the historic figure, but the man and his struggles with closeted homosexuality, an obstreperous family, and a roiling world.
Or what about joining an aspiring black businessman in 1950-60’s Harlem, navigating the path between riots and the tugs of easy money from shady diversions. That’s Harlem Shuffle, from Colson Whitehead, author of prize-winning The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
But all that pales beside Cloud Cuckoo Land from Anthony Doerr, author ofAll the Light We Cannot See. Doerr weaves together the lives of a girl living in a 15th Century monastery and an elderly translator of classical Greek living in contemporary Idaho, with flashes of Korean POW camps, a terrorist bomber, and the Ottoman siege of Constantinople. Like the dazzling diamond at the heart of his last novel, he has a moldy, faded ancient codex of a Greek fairy tale to bring it all together.
Image courtesy of the American Library Association, www.ala.org
What do you think of when you hear the term “banned book”?
Maybe Fahrenheit 451 or Lolita? Books are still being challenged and banned, but these days it’s more likely to be a book targeted to your middle-schooler or teenager. In 2020, all of the top ten most challenged books were titles for kids and teens or often read in school settings, including Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You and The Bluest Eye.
One of the things that many readers love about books is learning, being exposed to new ideas and perspectives. As Jason Reynold, author and honorary chair of Banned Books week, said in a Twitter chat, keeping young people from reading widely limits their resilience and advocacy. He wrote, “I think books for young audiences are banned most often because many adults (in their infinite fear) believe it’s better to shield young people than to help young people grow to become shields for others.” (https://bit.ly/3EB8TbT)
This year’s theme: Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us centers on using books to create conversation and increase understanding. Join us during Banned Books Week and check out our display of books that have been challenged or banned over time. It will likely include some of your favorites, especially if you’re a Judy Blume fan.
Store Manager Emily shows off a few of her favorite banned books, during last year’s Banned Books Week.
We’ll have some great student art, fun merch to show your love of reading what you want, and the opportunity to get your mug shot taken reading a banned book.
If you’ve been in the bookstore recently or at the library, you may already have met our newest bookseller, Jay. In addition to his role as a part-time bookseller for us, he’s a library assistant at the Key West Public Library.
He enjoys reading and recommending social satire such as the works of Barbara Pym, Sally Rooney, Dawn Powell, Rachel Cusk, and Joy Williams
He has lived in Key West on and off for 35 years, drawn by the bohemian lifestyle and the weather. Ask him about the time he hitchhiked across the country to Key West.
I’ve just read two new books that share a subject, American Jews in the 1950’s, and a comedic style.
The protagonist in The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen is Ruben Blum, a young professor at Corbin College, a second rate upstate New York college, the only Jew on the faculty. When a new faculty candidate, the Jewish scholar Ben-Zion Netanyahu needs a guide, the job of course falls to Ruben, “poor Ruben” I should say. From the moment Ben-Zion appears on the scene, driving a beater car with, unexpectedly, his outspokenly critical wife (this isn’t New England, you told me New England) and two wild teen boys, the rollicking antics are the stuff of comic gold. Such demands, you wouldn’t believe.
By the time the boys finish trashing the professor’s house,
and lead everyone on a wild chase through a snowy night, while their father is
delivering a pompous and insulting lecture, and their mother is complaining
about everything, you’ll be feeling Ruben’s pain.
And yet, there’s sly underlying truth. Benzion (alternate
spelling) was an actual person. His trip to Corbin may be fiction, but his
basic description and the fact that one of his sons was named Benjamin are
right there in Wikipedia. And the underpinnings of Bibi’s personality and
politics are crudely revealed.
The hero of The Vixen by Francine Prose is Simon, an unemployed underachiever living in Brooklyn with his parents (but he went to Harvard), when he lands a job at a prestigious New York publishing house. It’s just after Ethel Rosenberg’s execution, and his first assignment is to edit a trashy novel designed to counter growing sympathy for the executed woman by painting her as a voluptuous Mata Hari.
But Jewish Simon and his parents worship Ethel. What’s a
young editor to do, especially when the author, his editing client, is a
seductress herself, living in a mental hospital, but free to come out on day
trips?
Here again, there’s an underlying historical truth, about
the two sides of the Rosenberg story, and the efforts employed to demean her.
Learn a bit of history, and laugh all the way.
Judy
I’ve read so many good books recently. But the one that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go is The Paper Palaceby Miranda Cowley Heller. I read it over a weekend and on the last day I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, until I’d finished. No, it’s not a mystery. It’s a family story with a love triangle at the center, told in real time with the characters’ back stories woven in seamlessly. Set in the backwoods of Cape Cod where the family has summered for generations, in a series of now rundown cabins – the descriptive writing is gorgeous – but it’s the characters and their lives that matter to me – sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always compelling. The perfect book to read this summer. Sexy and romantic, it left me breathless. I had to go back and read the ending again.
Coming out later this month is Hilma Wolitzer’s, Today a Woman Went Mad at the Supermarket, a book of short stories published over many years, with a chilling new story at the end. If you don’t know Hilma Wolitzer’s work, you are in for a treat. There is no one who writes as generously about men and women, often married, with as much heart and humor as Hilma. If you do know her work you’re probably panting at the thought of this new book, with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. I’m grateful to call Hilma a friend, an inspiration. I hope to be chatting with her virtually when the book comes out.
Emily
Store manager Emily recently enjoyed another short story collection, Give My Love to the Savages by Chris Stuck.
The nine tales in Give My Love to the Savages illuminate the multifaceted Black experience, exploring the thorny intersections of race, identity, and Black life through an extraordinary cast of characters. From the absurd to the starkly realistic, these stories take aim at the ironies and contradictions of the American racial experience. Chris Stuck traverses the dividing lines, and attempts to create meaning from them in unique and unusual ways. Each story considers a marker of our current culture, from uprisings and sly and not-so-sly racism, to Black fetishization and conservatism, to the obstacles placed in front of Black masculinity and Black and interracial relationships by society and circumstance.
When the Reckoning Comes is a new horror novel that is also on Lori’s list to check out. A haunting novel about a black woman who returns to her hometown for a plantation wedding and the horror that ensues as she reconnects with the blood-soaked history of the land and the best friends she left behind.
Lori
Lori enjoyed Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby, who also wrote staff favorite Blacktop Wasteland. Razorblade Tears “is about revenge and redemption, and I’m enjoying it a lot,” Lori writes.
Robin loved A Memory Called Empireby Arkady Martine, space opera with fantastic worldbuilding, great characters, a cool mystery and a side of epic poetry. Don’t miss the sequel, A Desolation Called Peace.
Come find your next “Happily Ever After” with us on Bookstore Romance Day (Sat. August 21, 2021) or with one of the more than 250 independent bookstores that are joining together to celebrate the Romance genre.
Make any purchase (online or in-store) of $25 or more on Saturday 8/21 and be entered to win a goodie bag of romance inducing giveaways including a signed copy of Meg Cabot’s new book No Words (out 9/28). (Winner must be available to pick up their prize at the store after 10am on Sunday 8/22. We will happily ship No Words on its publication day.)
Online, Bookstore Romance day lasts all weekend with panels including:
Florida Keys families, teachers and school administrators, best wishes for the new school year!
Along with books for adults and kids of all ages, we have art supplies, and we offer local educators discounts on books for classroom (or school library) use. And if we don’t have it, we are always happy to place a special order.
For local readers in grades 6-12, we are always looking for new members of our Youth Advisory Board, which has access to early reader copies of new books and helps us fine tune our teen section.
Teachers, if you know a reader who might be a good fit for the YAB, email us at booksandbooks@tskw.org.
We had the opportunity to meet Jennifer L. Holm, author of Turtle in Paradise, The Lion of Mars, Full of Beans, the Sunny series and the Babymouse series, while she was vacationing in Key West this summer.
Store co-founder Judy Blume (left) and Jenni Holm
Q: Please tell us a little about how you came to write Turtle in Paradise?
A: My great-grandmother, Jennie Lewin, was a Key West “conch”. Which is to say, she and her family emigrated from the Bahamas and settled in Key West in the late 1800s. I’d always been interested in that side of my family, so it seemed natural to write a book that takes place in Key West.
Q: How did it come to be graphic novel? What do you feel the graphic novel format brings to the story?
A: Fans of Turtle in Paradise had been begging me for years to make it into a graphic novel! I was so fortunate to have Savanna agree to adapt it. I was one of her biggest fans—she illustrated an incredible graphic novel called Bloom, that I absolutely loved.
I think that the graphic novel really helps readers—kids and grown-ups—visualize what Key West looked like during the Great Depression. It makes historic fiction more approachable.
Q: What was the process of creating the graphic novel like? Were you surprised by anything in the look of the book?
A: Savanna just took it and ran with it. Honestly, she did almost all of the work. I helped with the historical research. I was blown away by her interpretation. It feels so fresh. And I love the anime style.
Q: If you don’t mind saying, what are you working on now? What’s coming up next from you?
A: The fourth book in the Sunny series, Sunny Makes a Splash, is coming out in September! And my brother, Matt, and I are working on two new top-secret Babymouse books. We’re returning to the original graphic novel format with some extra surprises!
Q: What are you reading and recommending? For adults? For kids?
Q: What’s your favorite thing about visiting Key West? What’s one thing visitors shouldn’t miss?
A: Wandering down hidden lanes in Old Town, especially around the cemetery. It’s like stepping back into the past. Also, I love El Siboney. It has the most delicious Cuban food (be sure to try the pork!)
If you weren’t able to attend the virtual event featuring Jennifer L. Holm, Savanna Ganucheau and Hope Larson, presented by Books & Books, check out the video:
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo is our new Virtual Book Club pick. This fantasy retelling of The Great Gatsby promises to be everything you ever wanted from the roaring ‘20s and more.
Robin writes: I read The Great Gatsby in college, but I don’t remember much about it except for Gatsby staring over the water at the green light and discussions of what it means, but I’m always interested in stories that recenter those who are often marginal.
Immigrant.
Socialite. Magician.
Nghi
Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of
the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and
glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.
Our virtual book club gives us the chance to share a book we love with other readers far and near. Share your thoughts and photos with our virtual book club on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by using the hashtag: #bbkwbookclub
In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely
coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds,
changed the world.
Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid
fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire,
spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so
often interdependent instincts.
With the humor and heart we’ve come to expect from bestselling author Steven Rowley, The Guncle is a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times.
A
small-town boy hops a bus to New York City to crash an audition for E.T.:
The Musical in this winning middle grade novel that The New York Times
called “inspired and inspiring.”
Judy Blume holding a clapperboard on the set of the Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret movie
It’s very cool to see scenes you wrote 50+ years ago acted out. And since the film is set in 1970 (year the book was published) it’s doubly fun. We’ll be back on set for another ten days this month. This time we’ll get to see Kathy Bates, Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie as Margaret’s Grandma, Mom, and Dad.
We see the CDC’s new guidelines for fully vaccinated people as a good sign. Things are getting better, but we’re not there yet. Because we can’t and don’t want to ask who is fully vaccinated, we are still requiring masks for in-store shopping and browsing. Thank you for helping to keep everyone safe.
The store is open for browsing every day from 10am and 6pm. No appointment is necessary during these hours. Masks are required for everyone entering the store. We’ve found books are particularly difficult to sanitize. Since picking up the books is so important in finding your next read, we provide gloves and hand sanitizer at the door. Please either use the hand sanitizer or don a pair of gloves before entering. Thank you for helping us keep the store safe for yourself, other shoppers and our staff.
Home delivery is still available for those living on the island of Key West and Stock Island. We deliver Monday through Friday.
Finally, the thing we’re missing most this season are author events and book signing. Luckily, through the power of the Internet, we’re still able to speak with amazing authors safely with virtual events. We’re teaming up with The Friends of the Key West Library and the Books & Books stores in Miami to bring you award winning authors to speak on their latest work. Visit our event page for upcoming events.
