All posts by Robin Wood

Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME

January 28, 2019
by Robin Wood

photo credit: Michael Lionstar

Thursday, January 31, at 6pm, a reading and discussion with Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME. ELSEY COME HOME is the January/February 2019 Books & Books @ The Studios Virtual Book Club pick. Bookclub discount available now through January 26th. (Online use code BC20 for 20% off). The event will be followed by a book signing.

“I loved ELSEY COME HOME. The exotic setting, the characters Elsey meets along the way—her husband, her little girls, her dilemma. And the writing, spare and lovely. What more can I say— perfect.” – Judy Blume, Books & Books @ The Studios co-founder.

From the widely praised author of Paris Was the Place — a shattering new novel that bravely delves into the darkest corners of addiction, marriage, and motherhood

When Elsey’s husband, Lukas, hands her a brochure for a weeklong mountain retreat, she knows he is really giving her an ultimatum: Go, or we’re done. Once a successful painter, Elsey set down roots in China after falling passionately for Lukas, the tall, Danish MC at a warehouse rave in downtown Beijing. Now, with two young daughters and unable to find a balance between her identities as painter, mother, and, especially, wife, Elsey fills her days worrying, drinking, and descending into desperate unhappiness. So, brochure in hand, she agrees to go and confront the ghosts of her past. There, she meets a group of men and women who will forever alter the way she understands herself: from Tasmin, another (much richer) expat, to Hunter, a young man whose courage endangers them all, and, most important, Mei — wife of one of China’s most famous artists and a renowned painter herself — with whom Elsey quickly forges a fierce friendship and whose candidness about her pain helps Elsey understand her own. But Elsey must risk tearing herself and Lukas further apart when she decides she must return to her childhood home — the center of her deepest pain — before she can find her way back to him. Written in a voice at once wry, sensual, blunt, and hypnotic, Elsey Come Home is a modern odyssey and a quietly dynamic portrait of contemporary womanhood.

Maximizing space with Key West Designer Debra Butler

January 24, 2019
by Robin Wood

Don’t just take our word for it. Leaf through a copy of SOME LIKE IT HOT. More than 220 color images from the work of Florida interior designers will give you tons of ideas to create your own Florida style. We caught up with Key West designer Debra Butler, one of the book’s contributing designers, prior to our meet & greet and book signing on Tuesday, January 29, at 6pm, to talk inspiration and storage.

Q: How did you end up in Key West?

A: Sorry, it’s a long but not interesting story. I’m sure, not different from many others. I moved here in 2000, was supposed to be here for a year or so, while I decided on my next city… I never left.

Q: What tips do you have for pulling together a Keys style that isn’t too stereotypically beachy?

A: I don’t really approach design from a beachy or really any trendy perspective. I spend a lot of time working with my clients & learning how they live or plan to use the space. I like to combine natural textures with colors also found in nature. When I juxtapose these with bold accents either material or color & let as much natural light or views become part of the accessories. If we have a lush garden or ocean view to balance beautiful art or unusual piece of furniture even better.

Q: Do you find that your background in custom cabinetry is particularly useful in dealing with small space living?

A: Yes, absolutely. Understanding function and maximizing space & often storage is so important to all my designs.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently?

A: Right now I prefer fiction (thrillers & suspense) & books on spirituality… I know I should probably read more design & art… but I haven’t lately… reading is a big part of the time I spend away from work.

Late in the Day – Tessa Hadley

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

Recommended by Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, Refinery29, The Millions, Book Riot, and Bookpage

“With each new book by Tessa Hadley, I grow more convinced that she’s one of the greatest stylists alive…. To read Hadley’s fiction is to grow self-conscious in the best way: to recognize with astonishment the emotions playing behind our own expressions, to hear articulated our own inchoate anxieties….The whole grief-steeped story should be as fun as a dirge, but instead it feels effervescent—lit not with mockery but with the energy of Hadley’s attention, her sensitivity to the abiding comedy of human desire…. Extraordinary.”—The Washington Post

The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in the latest from Tessa Hadley, the acclaimed novelist and short story master who “recruits admirers with each book” (Hilary Mantel).

Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their twenties. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: she is at the hospital. Zach is dead.

In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.

Late in the Day explores the complex webs at the center of our most intimate relationships, to expose how, beneath the seemingly dependable arrangements we make for our lives, lie infinite alternate configurations. Ingeniously moving between past and present and through the intricacies of her characters’ thoughts and interactions, Tessa Hadley once again “crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural” (Washington Post).

No Sunscreen for the Dead: A Novel (Serge Storms #22) – Tim Dorsey

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

The Sunshine State’s most lovable psychopath, Serge A. Storms, kills it in this zany adventure from the “compulsively irreverent and shockingly funny” (Boston Globe) king of mayhem, New York Times bestselling author Tim Dorsey.

Serge and Coleman are back on the road, ready to hit the next stop on their list of obscure and wacky points of interest in the Sunshine State. This time, Serge’s interest is drawn to one of the largest retirement villages in the world—also known as the site of an infamous sex scandal between a retiree and her younger beau that rocked the community.

What starts out as an innocent quest to observe elders in their natural habitats, sample the local cuisine, and scope out a condo to live out the rest of their golden years, soon becomes a Robin Hood-like crusade to recover the funds of swindled residents. After all, our seniors should be revered and respected—they’ve heroically fought in wars, garnered priceless wisdom, and they have the best first-hand accounts of bizarre Floridian occurrences only Serge would know about. But as the resident’s rally for Serge to seek justice on their behalves, two detectives are hot on the heels of Serge and Coleman’s murderous trail.

In this epic adventure that jumps between present day and the tumultuous times of the Vietnam war, mystery fans are in for a witty and deliciously violent delight from the twisted imagination of bestselling author Tim Dorsey.

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love – Dani Shapiro

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

“Who are we? Does who we think we are change when we learn a family secret that alters the source of our identity? Shapiro has explored issues of identity in her previous memoirs, but in her latest she applies her signature candor and heart to a riveting, provocative, and inspiring genealogical mystery and journey of discovery.”
— Roxanne Coady, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT

“A gripping genetic detective story, and a meditation on the meaning of parenthood and family.” —Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan Beach 
 
From the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist and novelist—“a writer of rare talent” (Cheryl Strayed)—a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test: an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us?
In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history–the life she had lived–crumbled beneath her.
Inheritance is a book about secrets–secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman’s urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in–a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover.

A Washington Post, Vulture, Bustle, Real Simple, PopSugar, and LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2019 

“Poignant…Origin stories are among the most powerful that exist because they shape people’s identities and anchor them—to a culture, a place and other people. When stories about the past change, Ms. Shapiro argues, so does the future…In losing the genetic connection to the man who raised her, Ms. Shapiro gained new insight into their enduring bond.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating and pertinent look into the murky world of medical ethics, as well as the kind of profound, insightful look into the meaning of love and connection that we’ve come to expect from Shapiro.”
—Nylon

“An introspective mystery.”
—Elle

“In Inheritance, Shapiro movingly reckons with identity and family secrets.”
—Real Simple

“Fascinating… With thoughtful candor, [Shapiro] explores the ethical questions surrounding sperm donation, the consequences of DNA testing, and the emotional impact of having an uprooted religious and ethnic identity. This beautifully written, thought-provoking genealogical mystery will captivate readers from the very first pages.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“For all the trauma that the discovery put her through, Shapiro recognizes that what she had experienced was ‘a great story’—one that has inspired her best book.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Dreamers – Karen Thompson Walker

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

“A strange virus invades a small university community, sending its victims into deep, seemingly endless sleep and infecting them with extremely powerful dreams. This backdrop provides a perfect scenario for examining the delicate, often unrecognized line between reality and perception. As the crisis deepens, the characters are caught up in a phantasmagorical world that challenges normal conceptions of existence. A thoughtful, provocative novel of strength and beauty.”
— Bill Cusmano, Square Books, Oxford, MS

An ordinary town is transformed by a mysterious illness that triggers perpetual sleep in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Miracles.

“This book is stunning.”—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station ElevenNamed one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vogue, Huffpost, Real Simple, PopSugar, Literary Hub, BuzzFeed, Bustleand Vulture.One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster.Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?

Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and beautiful novel, startling and provocative, about the possibilities contained within a human life—if only we are awakened to them.

Advance praise for The Dreamers

“[An] imaginative, disturbing, and ultimately spellbinding narrative, which asks provocative questions about our concepts of time and connection, and the bounds of possibility for life on earth.”—Vogue

“You’ll be mesmerized by this well-constructed, vividly drawn exploration of the concept of dreams versus reality.”—Marie Claire 

“With mellifluous prose, Walker traces victims’ experiences (awake and asleep), along with how their family members, friends, and doctors respond to the crisis.”—Real Simple 

“The Dreamers is a beautifully written novel that is powerful, thoughtful, and entirely original.”—PopSugar

“Richly imaginative and quietly devastating . . . Walker jolts the narrative with surprising twists, ensuring it keeps its energy until the end. This is a skillful, complex, and thoroughly satisfying novel about a community in peril.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Andrew Furman, author of GOLDENS ARE HERE

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

Wednesday, February 6, at 6pm, a reading, discussion and book signing with Andrew Furman, author of GOLDENS ARE HERE.

Inspired by true events surrounding an historic Florida citrus season and the civil rights struggle, GOLDENS ARE HERE offers a glimpse of the sea changes occurring in Florida and the nation in the 1960s through the prism of one family’s negotiations with the land, their neighbors, and each other.

It’s 1961, and everything is changing in Florida. Jim Crow strains to maintain its hold, the Cold War escalates, the US space program hits its stride, and the Jewish Goldens—determined to begin a new pastoral life along Florida’s central east coast—are just trying to hold on to their small orange grove near the excitement of Cape Canaveral.

In GOLDENS ARE HERE, Andrew Furman imagines with great empathy the individual members of the Golden family, their unique struggles and dreams, during a single tumultuous citrus season. Isaac Golden must reckon between his ambition to create the perfect fruit and the business realities bearing down upon him given the booming postwar demand for cheap frozen concentrate. His beautiful wife, Melody, finds herself testing the boundaries that had so clearly governed her more conventional life in suburban Philadelphia, and their chronically ill son, Eli, wishes only to muster his strength so that he might enjoy the wide-open outdoors and see a bobcat.

Andrew Furman is a professor of English at Florida Atlantic University and teaches in its creative writing MFA program. He is the author of the environmental memoir Bitten: My Unexpected Love Affair with Florida (2014), which was named a Finalist for the ASLE Environmental Book Award, and My Los Angeles in Black and (Almost) White (2010). His fiction and creative nonfiction frequently engages with the Florida outdoors, but he has also written about Jewish identity, basketball, lighthouses, swimming, and cast-iron cookware. He lives in south Florida.

Praise for GOLDENS ARE HERE:

“Andrew Furman’s GOLDENS ARE HERE is a smart, generous, and engrossing look at the Civil Rights struggle in Florida. A fascinating meditation on what it means to be a neighbor in a highly unjust world.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Little Failure

“‘There was something glorious about an examination with a stethoscope,’ muses Isaac Golden, the searching, hopeful patriarch in Andrew Furman’s novel, GOLDENS ARE HERE. ‘This laying on of hands. This reverent silence. . . . Here was the real, Isaac thought.’ Readers looking for the real will find it in Furman’s careful attunement to place (tamarind, lantana, wax myrtle; Parson Brown, Hamlin, Valencia) and time (the Space Age and the Civil Rights struggle.) Furman gives this moment in our collective history its due with nuance, warmth, and a palpable sense of family grief and love.”
—Joni Tevis, author of The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse

Michelle C. Johnson, author of SKILL IN ACTION

January 15, 2019
by Robin Wood

Friday, February 8, at 6pm, a reading, discussion and book signing with Michelle C. Johnson, author of SKILL IN ACTION: RADICALIZING YOUR YOGA PRACTICE TO CREATE A JUST WORLD.

The current social context highlights how power and oppression is present in the very air we breathe. Michelle C. Johnson, author of SKILL IN ACTION: RADICALIZING YOUR YOGA PRACTICE TO CREATE A JUST WORLD will read from her book exploring the intersection of justice and the principles of yoga.

Michelle is an author, yoga teacher, social justice activist, licensed clinical social worker and Dismantling Racism trainer. She writes, “I approach my life and work from a place of empowerment, embodiment and integration. With a deep understanding of trauma and the impact that it has on the mind, body, spirit and heart, much of my work focuses on helping people better understand how power and privilege operate in their life. I explore how privilege, power and oppression affects the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and energy body.”

The Winter of the Witch – Katherine Arden

January 8, 2019
by Robin Wood

“The Winter of the Witch takes place immediately after the events in The Girl in the Tower. The world of the old gods is fading, and a new religion is claiming the hearts of Vasya’s people. Rus is on the brink of war, and Vasya, it seems, is up against the whole world. With the help of new allies, Vasya is determined to save all that she holds dear even if it means sacrificing everything. Vasya is the kind of character you cheer for, cry with, and roar alongside. ‘Petrichor,’ the word used to describe that sweet, earthy smell after it rains, is how I would describe the Winternight Trilogy. Arden’s storytelling encompasses all your senses, so grab a hot mug of your favorite drink and settle in for Vasya’s adventures in The Winter of the Witch.”
— Jen Steele, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI

Following their adventures in The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower, Vasya and Morozko return in this stunning conclusion to the bestselling Winternight Trilogy, battling enemies mortal and magical to save both Russias, the seen and the unseen.

“A tale both intimate and epic, featuring a heroine whose harrowing and wondrous journey culminates in an emotionally resonant finale.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Reviewers called Katherine Arden’s novels The Bear and the Nightingale and The Girl in the Tower “lyrical,” “emotionally stirring,” and “utterly bewitching.” The Winternight Trilogy introduced an unforgettable heroine, Vasilisa Petrovna, a girl determined to forge her own path in a world that would rather lock her away. Her gifts and her courage have drawn the attention of Morozko, the winter-king, but it is too soon to know if this connection will prove a blessing or a curse.

Now Moscow has been struck by disaster. Its people are searching for answers—and for someone to blame. Vasya finds herself alone, beset on all sides. The Grand Prince is in a rage, choosing allies that will lead him on a path to war and ruin. A wicked demon returns, stronger than ever and determined to spread chaos. Caught at the center of the conflict is Vasya, who finds the fate of two worlds resting on her shoulders. Her destiny uncertain, Vasya will uncover surprising truths about herself and her history as she desperately tries to save Russia, Morozko, and the magical world she treasures. But she may not be able to save them all.

Advance praise for Winter of the Witch

“Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy isn’t just good—it’s hug-to-your-chest, straight-to-the-favorites-shelf, reread-immediately good, and each book just gets better. The Winter of the Witch plunges us back to fourteenth-century Moscow, where old gods and new vie for the soul of Russia and fate rests on a witch girl’s slender shoulders. Prepare to have your heart ripped out, loaned back to you full of snow and magic, and ripped out some more.”—Laini Taylor

“Luxuriously detailed yet briskly suspenseful . . . A striking literary fantasy informed by Arden’s deep knowledge.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Visceral descriptions of battle, an atmospheric sense of place, and some truly heartbreaking moments of loss make this a gut-wrenching read, but there’s ample hope and satisfaction to be found as Vasya chooses her own unique path to triumph.”—Booklist

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey – Kamala Harris

January 8, 2019
by Robin Wood

From one of America’s most inspiring political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them, in her own life and across the life of our country.

Senator Kamala Harris’s commitment to speaking truth is informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents–an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India–met as activists in the civil rights movement when they were graduate students at Berkeley. Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the state of California as a whole. Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis, winning a historic settlement for California’s working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California’s thorniest issues, always eschewing stale “tough on crime” rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither “tough” nor “soft” but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those truths with all our might. That has been the pole star that guided Harris to a transformational career as the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality.

By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in THE TRUTHS WE HOLD a master class in problem solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times. Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values. In a book rich in many home truths, not least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.