Credit: Winky Lewis

As we shelter-at-home and need wonderful, moving books to distract and entertain us, our current virtual book club pick is WRITERS & LOVERS by Lily King. Store co-founder Judy Blume writes, “WRITERS & LOVERS, is exactly the book we need now. Witty and heartfelt, . . . filled with memorable characters.”

We had the opportunity to ask Lily King a few questions about her new novel, hear about how the Covid-19 pandemic is changing book promotion and get some reading recommendations.

Q: What has it been like promoting a novel during this time of closed bookstores and sheltering at home? What, if anything, will you keep in your bag of tricks when we get back to being able to hold in-person events?

A: I had three in-person events before we went into isolation. Then within a few days many bookstores had figured out virtual solutions. It really is amazing how quickly you all have adapted. I’m always so happy when a bookstore that I was supposed to visit on my tour invites me to do something online. What’s great about it is that people from anywhere can come. They can pick and choose the time and the date. It’s really fun in that way, seeing who shows up. I wish I could introduce everyone to each other and we could out go out for a drink after, but that’s another lifetime. It’s easier to hold a room from a podium than from a computer screen. You feel that. There’s an energy in a real roomful of people that doesn’t get created in the same way. Everyone’s mic is off so you can’t hear people’s responses. But the in-conversation format is really suited to the virtual event and if you get a good conversation going it nearly feels real. I had one a few weeks ago and I got so absorbed I actually forgot about the virus for a full hour. That was lovely.

I do think we’re learning that these events really can work, that if the author cannot travel to the store they can still support the store and the store can support them. I like the idea that after this is all over, for the price of the book you could get a Zoom invitation from the store to an online event. I think it would be a real incentive to buy the book at the store that’s hosting it. As a reader, I have loved the Zoom events I’ve attended on my couch in my slippers after a long day.

Q: Very early in the novel, Casey says, “I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.” Do you share Casey’s position on the purpose of writing?

A: Completely. Writing things down always makes me feel better. But what Casey doesn’t quite understand yet is that she does have something to say. She has a lot to say. We all do. But when you write fiction you often have no idea what you have to say until you’ve written a full draft of the thing. Then you start to get it. Then you can start to shape and highlight those things. But what you have to say in a novel cannot be summed up in a few tidy sentences or bullet points. What you have to say is an experience that usually takes a few hundred pages to evoke.

Q: WRITERS & LOVERS has such a strong sense of place, a little claustrophobic, but also filled with the familiarity of coming home. How does that sense of place interweave with the narrative themes around grief and love?

A: Claustrophobia is one of my trademarks! My first three novels were about families because a family in a house guarantees claustrophobia. I was attracted to the story of EUPHORIA for the same reason: three scientists marooned together in the jungle of Papua New Guinea. In WRITERS & LOVERS I needed Casey to be coming back to the region she grew up in, back to everything that once was familiar and now has a layer of sadness and nostalgia but also great comfort to it. She comes back to the state where she was raised with all its memories of her mother as a young woman, full of life and desires of her own. All that is swirling around in the background when Casey returns to New England.

Q:  What are you reading and recommending?

A: Right now I’m reading THE OTHER LANGUAGE, stories by Francesca Marciano which I love. I’m also reading two nonfiction books, THESE TRUTHS by Jill Lapore and EPIDEMICS AND SOCIETY by Frank Snowden, both of which I find intriguing. Recently I loved SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid, THE REVISIONERS by Margaret Sexton, and WEATHER by Jenny Offill. Next on my list are NOTHING TO SEE HERE by Kevin Wilson and THE NIGHT WATCHMAN by Louise Erdrich and ACTRESS by Anne Enright and SPRING by Ali Smith.

Q: What are you working on now, if you don’t mind saying?

A: I’m working on a collection of short stories, which I am grateful for. I’m not sure I have the stamina right now for a novel.

*****

Read Judy Blume’s review. If you want to stay up-to-date on store news and features like this one, subscribe to our email newsletter on our website, just scroll down to “Join us” and fill our the contact form.

Every other month or so, we pick a new book for the Books & Books @ The Studios Virtual Book Club. Our virtual book club is a way for us to share what we’re reading with our friends near and far. It’s an opportunity to pick up a new read and share your thoughts (and photos) with other readers online.  Follow our book club hashtag (#bbkwbookclub) on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Mark and Nancy’s dog Elly at home. Photo by Mark Hedden

In the wake of closing galleries and public spaces due to the coronavirus, The Studios of Key West has taken its programming online offering a wide range of innovative classes and programs, from showcasing exhibitions via Facebook Live for its popular First Thursday reception to offering drawing, photography, writing and other classes virtually. Check out all of the current class offerings at tskw.org.

As part of this lineup, local well-read power couple Mark Hedden and Nancy Klingener are offering a look at the history of Key West through literature, reading TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT by Ernest Hemingway, selections from Elizabeth Bishop, 92 IN THE SHADE by Thomas McGuane, KEY WEST TALES by John Hersey and THE JEWS OF KEY WEST by Arlo Haskell. Nancy Klingener covers the Florida Keys for WLRN. Mark Hedden is a writer, photographer, and birding guide.

We had the opportunity to ask them about the virtual book club and other matters literary.

Q: How and why did you decide to do a Key West book club? How did you choose titles?

A: We started it back in 2013 when Nan was working at the Key West Library and Mark had a studio at the Studios (as he still does) – it seemed like a cool opportunity to do something in between a book club and a college course. So there is a syllabus, of sorts, and we moderate or lead the discussions but there’s no homework or grades.

We have chosen a variety of books from different writers – not always our personal favorites but ones we thought directly addressed Key West (TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT) or might be fun to read. In the past we’ve included some crime fiction (by Laurence Shames and James W. Hall) and some historical accounts. It’s fun, for us at least, to mix it up a little.

Q: How is it similar or different hosting the book club on Zoom?

A: It feels very different but has been pretty glitch-free so far. It’s great that we can connect this way both with people in town and those from the mainland who are interested in these books.

It does make it harder to share a bottle of wine like we used to.

Q: What advice would you give prospective hosts about managing a book club, on Zoom or otherwise?

A: It helps to have someone like Michelle from the Studios managing the technicalities so you can focus on the content. And maybe to try and be aware of who might have some difficulties connecting or accessing material so you can make sure they get everything they need BEFORE the meeting.

In general don’t make it too big – I think our class size of 12 is just about right. And try to choose a variety of books so that there’s something for everyone. And try to make sure everyone has a chance to speak and be involved.

Q: What’s your favorite Key West book, and why?

Nan: My favorite writing about Key West is by Elizabeth Bishop – her poems, letters and essays about this place show that she really got it and appreciated its endemic weirdness. I’m also fond of John Hersey’s KEY WEST TALES, which capture a lot of different angles of the island.

Mark: My favorite Key West book is PANAMA by Tom McGuane, which is about a failed and lovelorn former rock star trying to figure out how to live with himself. I feel like it really captures an era, albeit an era ten years before I moved here. But my second favorite book about Key West is 92 IN THE SHADE which I’d argue is less about character and more about Key West and America and the counterculture of the time. And fishing, which I like reading about more than I like doing. Both of McGuane’s books couldn’t be set anywhere else.

Q:  Outside of your book club reading, what are you reading and recommending these days?

Nan: I’m (very, very slowly) making my way through THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT, the final book in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Time and focus are in short supply for me, but even though I’m usually a fast reader who would devour a book like that, I like savoring it – it’s an excellent respite from current events and the last book from her on that subject (I’ve been obsessed with the Tudors since I was a kid and read a book about Elizabeth I at my grandparents’ house). And I have a stack of books I got out of the library before they closed so my TBR pile is, as usual, enormous. And I can’t wait to dive into the new Lily King novel, WRITERS & LOVERS. Her novel EUPHORIA is one of my favorite reads of recent years.

Mark: I’m working my way through Michael Reynolds’ five-volume Hemingway biography, because, honestly, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about him and his legacy — something we’re confronted with pretty regularly on this tiny island. I’m also reading Charles Willeford’s Hoke Mosely quartet, detective novels set in the rough-and-tumble world of 70s and 80s Miami. And I’m reading a bunch of stuff about sharks. I’m also listening to some books on tape while doing some home improvement. Michael Connelly’s the THE LINCOLN LAWYER has such deftly realized character studies, as does Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series, which makes sense once you realize that Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling.

Hi, non-fiction fans.

I’ve got a good one for you this week. It’s the true story of an extraordinary leader who took over the reins of his country in the midst of an existential disaster. Somehow he managed to redirect industrial production to meet critical needs and convince the public that they could survive a brutal attack from a seemingly overpowering enemy.

No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. It’s the story of Winston Churchill during the German bombing blitz of Britain in 1940. As he assumed power from a disgraced Prime Minister who had tried to placate Hitler, Germany had overrun Europe and forced British forces into an ignominious retreat across the Channel. How Churchill managed to ramp up production, not of something relatively simple like ventilators, but combat aircraft, was a marvel. And how he got population to remain hopeful through daily aerial bombing attacks is a lesson of leadership for all time. From Erik Larson, author of Devil in the White City.

Click to buy:

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Right now, gift cards really are the gift that keeps on giving.

Purchase a Books & Books @ The Studios gift card (online) or call the store 10am – 3pm at 305-320-0208.

Each $50 in gift cards purchased will provide an entry to a drawing for $50 in Moleskine products (choose from products in store stock). 1 winner will be notified next Monday, March 30, 2020. U.S. residents only. Not sponsored by Moleskine.

Independent Bookstore Day has been rescheduled for Saturday, August 29, 2020, making this beautiful totebag a collector’s item for sure.

Purchase at least $100 in books, gift cards or other merchandise and be entered to win an IBD totebag filled with books and other surprises.

Place your order online at shop.booksandbookskw.com or call us 10a-3p everyday. Purchases made thru 3p on Saturday, April 25 will qualify for the drawing. 2 gift bags will be awarded. U.S. addresses only.

And, of course, you don’t have to depend on luck. The IBD totebags are for sale at https://shop.booksandbookskw.com/product/IBD-tote. Supplies are limited.

And stay tuned for news about Independent Bookstore Day as we get closer to the new date.

Lead by Assistant Manager Gianelle, last month’s virtual book club pick was HOW NOT TO DIET, which offers information to change how to think about eating and nutrition.

Eat real foods grown from the ground, rich in fiber & nutrients. Eat as we are designed to eat.

Gianelle writes, “This is not a diet-book, in fact that’s right in the title!

We believe fake foods are real foods. These pseudo foods ‘exploit our innate biological vulnerabilities by stripping down crops into almost pure calories-straight sugar, oil…condensed in the same way plants are turned into addictive drugs…’ which ‘appear to activate the same reward pathways in the brain.’

AND these pseudo foods are more abundant than real foods. I am grateful for Dr. Greger and the nonprofit nutritionfacts.org, mainly because he condenses all of the relevant research and explains it in an easy to digest way, which is remarkable considering he cites studies 4,990 times.

Eating mainly whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables may seem restrictive to some, but there are plenty of easy ways to choose real foods as often as possible. Dr. Greger proposes when we choose to eat real food instead of fake food, it’s not dieting, and, perhaps, we should all put it to the test.”

**********

Every other month or so, we chose a new book for our virtual book club, giving us the chance to share a book we love with other readers far and near. Read along with us. Share your thoughts and photos with our virtual book club on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by following and using the hashtag: #bbkwbookclub.

We had a wonderful time with Mamta Chaudhry, author of HAUNTING PARIS, a timeless story of love and loss takes a mysterious turn when a bereaved pianist discovers a letter among her late lover’s possessions, launching her into a decades-old search for a child who vanished in the turbulence of wartime Paris.

In addition to a well-attended reading and booksigning, we had the opportunity to ask Mamta a few questions:

Q: What was the genesis of this novel?

A: HAUNTING PARIS is above all a love letter to the City of Light. Many of the scenes take place in and around Notre Dame; but when I visited the Deportation Memorial behind the cathedral, I became aware of the darker side of the city’s history. So the love letter became as complicated, layered, and heartbreaking as love can often be.

Q: In a manner of speaking, Paris gets top billing in your novel, how does the city as a character play into the themes and ideas you’re exploring in the novel?

A: That is so perceptive . . . Paris is indeed a character in the novel, and the double entendre in the title refers to a city that is both haunting and haunted. The ghosts of history accompany you as you walk the cobblestone streets, especially on Île Saint-Louis. I’m always fascinated by the long shadow of the past upon the present. The story is set in 1989, when Paris is celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution that resulted in the glorious motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” But it also leads us back to Nazi occupation, a time when the city singularly failed to live up to that promise.

Q: This is your debut novel, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

A: Although HAUNTING PARIS is my first novel to be published, it’s certainly not the first one I’ve written. So my advice is, don’t give up. Write more, write better. If your story is important enough for you to keep at it, sooner or later it will find its way into the world.

Q: What are you reading and recommending?

A: Although I’m mostly drawn to fiction, I was gripped by a couple of non-fiction books recently: SAY NOTHING by Patrick Radden Keefe, and EDUCATED by Tara Westover. For fiction, I’ve been enthusiastically recommending Lucia Berlin’s A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN, and Nicholson Baker’s THE ANTHOLOGIST.

Q: What are you working on next, if you don’t mind saying?

A: As they say on Monty Python, “Now for something completely different!” But although the new book is set in a different time, a different place, we take our obsessions wherever we go, so it’s still about love, loss, and forgiveness.

We had a great time hosting Key West local Hays Blinckmann on Friday, Feb. 21 promoting her second novel WHERE I CAN BREATHE. WHERE I CAN BREATHE is a drama/comedy infused with bold characters, laugh out loud humor that will keep you engrossed in its compelling storylines.

Having to rush suddenly to a Connecticut hospital, Arthur, Abby, and Ansel Williams must come to grips with the impending death of their beloved mother, Agnes. She is dying from cirrhosis and for years has been drinking herself to death. None of the siblings are prepared for the journey of placing their mother in hospice care and spending her final weeks looking back at her lifetime of pain and destruction. Asher Williams, their father, business mogul, and Agnes’s ex-husband, also must come to terms with his family’s path and his role in shaping all of their lives. The story is rich with a family’s defining moments that changed them, pushed them apart, and brought them back together.

We had the pleasure of asking Hays a few questions to give you a taste of her books and future plans.

Q: You balance novel writing with journalism, please tell us a bit about your writing process? Do you find the different types of projects compatible or can it be difficult to keep on track?

A: At the moment I am taking a break from journalism, if I didn’t I would have never written WHERE I CAN BREATHE. The story was forming in my head for months after my mother’s death in August 2018 so I had to stop everything to get it on paper.

Writing news is an addictive form of employment with its rush and immediacy and I loved it. There was always one more story, one more deadline and I admit, I had hard time withdrawing from it. But thanks to journalism, I have become a very efficient writer and when I began WHERE I CAN BREATHE it just flowed out of me. It required very little subject editing, mostly just regular editing and I had a team from the paper to help me. Start to finish was less than six months on top of being a mom, wife and regular life stuff, so that was the real accomplishment. I am very disciplined and work extremely hard, but it’s the kind of work I love. Infinitely better than unloading the dishwasher or figuring out how in the hell kids do math nowadays.

Q: Mothers and alcoholism recur in both your novels, can you say a little about what makes this such an interesting subject for you?

A: My mother was an alcoholic since I can remember and I have never tried to hide it. Anyone remotely close to me knew or was involved in the drama of it. But I wasn’t ready to put that into words until after my children were born and I became a mother myself. At that point, my mother’s struggles and choices became fascinating to me and less a reflection. Fictionalizing her turmoil riddled life was a wholly new form of therapy. My first novel, IN THE SALT definitely has some of that residual anger but WHERE I CAN BREATHE has a lot of compassion for the circumstance. Both are very healing books when it comes to family relationships and how we cope with dysfunctional behavior, that was my endgame.

Q: How long have you been in Key West? How did you come to be here? What’s your favorite thing about our little island?

A: I started coming in the early 90s, when my parents bought a second home and made my permanent move after 9/11/2001. Now it’s been almost 20 years and absolutely no regrets. I moved around a lot throughout my life so some places were too big and some too small but Key West was just right for me. My favorite thing is how my life has gone through so many phases here: Young party girl, then newlywed, then a family and soccer mom, then journalist and writer. Key West is incredibly supportive if you let it. I even thanked the whole city in the back of the book, I don’t think many people thank their city, but I genuinely believe Key West has given me everything I could imagine (except a sit down with HBO for movie options but that’s still on the table).

Q: What are you reading and recommending?

A: I am reading and fascinated by Ada Calhoun’s WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP. It’s non fiction about how women my age, Gen Xer’s, got the short end of the stick when it came to money, careers and family because of when we were born. There are so many points she makes that are dead on it’s frightening. And she’s right, I remember every advertising slogan between 1975 and 1985 that ever aired on TV. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar…

Q: What’s next? Is novel #3 already in the works?

A: Yes, I’ve got novel #3 in the works. It’s another “dramady”. I like humor and family dynamics but this time no alcoholism – there are many other dysfunctional maladies to choose from, I can’t be so one sided. Also, I am playing around with #4, a book of autobiographical shorts. Whatever one finishes first will be next.

We recently had the pleasure of hearing Craig Pittman, author of CAT TALE, at the Key West Library discussing his new book about how Florida panthers nearly went extinct and how they were saved. We had the opportunity to ask Craig a few questions about his new book, his writing process and what he’s reading and recommending these days.

It wasn’t so long ago when a lot of people thought the Florida panther was extinct. They were very nearly right. That the panther still exists at all is a miracle–the result of a desperate experiment that led to the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Endangered Species Act. And no one has told the whole story–until now. With novelistic detail and an eye for the absurd, Craig Pittman recounts the extraordinary story of the people who brought the panther back from the brink of extinction, the ones who nearly pushed the species over the edge, and the cats that were caught in the middle. This being Florida, there’s more than a little weirdness, too. An engrossing narrative of wry humor, sharp writing and exhaustive reportage, CAT TALE shows what it takes to bring one species back and what unexpected costs such a decision brings.

Q: How did you come to write this book? What changes do you hope it will foster? Who is the audience for the book?

A: I’ve been writing about Florida panthers since I started covering environmental issues for the Tampa Bay Times in 1998, and I’ve wanted to write a book about them for 20 years. I had to wait until I had a good ending, and I finally got one a few years ago. I hope this book will help people see the panther as more than just a figure on a license plate or a hockey uniform. They’re living, breathing animals, apex predators that need wilderness to survive. The audience for this book would be anyone who cares about Florida’s state animal, anyone who’s apprehensive about saving endangered animals, and anyone who loves cats. (But don’t worry, dog fans, you get some love too.)

Q: OH, FLORIDA was funny. CAT TALE is a light-hearted title; how would you describe the tone of this book? Do you enjoy the serious journalism as much as the humorous stuff? How do your research and writing processes differ between various types of projects? 

A: CAT TALE is, overall, a more serious book, but it has some light-hearted scenes in it, and because this is Florida the story takes some weird twists and turns. For instance, Florida’s version of Bigfoot, the Skunk Ape, gets a cameo. Serious or humorous, you have to take the same approach to researching and writing the story. Your first loyalty is to telling the story right.

Q: What are you working on now, if you don’t mind saying?

A:  I’ve got a Florida novel I’ve been working on since 2017 and I’m on my third rewrite. Maybe this will be the one that gets a publisher’s attention! The title is “Death of a Dolphin” and it concerns the death of the most famous Florida dolphin since Flipper. There’s also a mysterious fish kill, a developer who’s disappeared, a barbershop quartet made up of crooked cops, and a Weeki Wachee mermaid who is not what she seems.

Q: What Florida books are top-of-mind recommendations for you?

A: How much time do you have? I have a VERY long list. It includes nonfiction such as:

• Jack E. Davis’ THE GULF
• Gilbert King’s DEVIL IN THE GROVE
• Julie Hauserman’s DRAWN TO THE DEEP

My list of fiction features such titles as:

• Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA
• Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
• John D. MacDonald’s CONDOMINIUM
• Elmore Leonard’s LABRAVA

Along with pretty much everything from Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen, of course.  Among Keys authors, I always recommend Tom Corcoran, who has a real sense of place in his novels.

Q: What else would you like to share?

A: I always brag about the fact that I am a Florida native, and my parents still live in the Panhandle. My mom taught me to appreciate a good book while my dad taught me to appreciate a good story. CAT TALE is dedicated to my dad. I dedicated an earlier book to my mom — THE SCENT OF SCANDAL which is about an orchid smuggling case involving Selby Gardens in Sarasota. It’s the only book I know of that is classified as “True Crime/Gardening.”