Category: News

Upcoming Author Events

We have a remarkable and exciting season ahead. Here are a few authors who will be reading and signing books, so make your plans now and see you soon.

We kick-off the season with Meg Cabot on Monday, November 4th at 6pm. She will be here to discuss her latest title, No Judgments.

 

 

Rosalind “Roz” Brackenbury will be here to discuss her new novel, Without Her, on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 at 6pm.

 

 

Dani Shapiro will join us on November 20th at 6pm. We will discuss her latest release, Inheritance: Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.

 

 

Jami Attenberg has a new release coming out on October 22nd. We welcome her to discuss her new novel, All This Could Be Yours, on Friday, December 6th at 6pm.

 

 

Steven Chbosky will be here to talk about Imaginary Friend on Monday, November 25th at 6pm.

 

 

Ayse Papatya Bucak will join us on Tuesday, December 10th at 6pm to discuss her latest book, The Trojan War Museum: And Other Stories.

 

 

 Roberta Marks will join us on Friday, December 13th at 6pm to discuss her latest, Roberta B. Marks: Works and Words: A Personal Anthology.

 

 

Then we move into 2020 and will welcome Alison Lurie to discuss Words and Worlds on February 18th at 6pm.

 

 

Next we will host Lily King to discuss Writers and Lovers on March 17th at 6pm.

 

 

Stay tuned for the date we will host Phyllis Rose to discuss Alfred Stieglitz: Taking Pictures, Making Painters (Jewish Lives).

 

 

Actually, we are just getting started. Check back soon for updated events. Stay tuned and stop by the store or check out our events page for updated information.  booksandbookskw.com/event-directory/

Rosalind Brackenbury, author of WITHOUT HER

Tuesday, November 12, at 6pm, Rosalind Brackenbury will be in store for a reading and book signing featuring her new novel, WITHOUT HER.

In a novel that critics are calling smart, sexy and suspenseful, Key West poet and novelist Brackenbury writes a compelling story of female friendship and rivalry.

When her old friend Hannah doesn’t show up at her house in the south of France, everyone assumes that Claudia, who has known Hannah since their shared years at boarding school, will know where she is, and what has happened. But as Claudia travels from the USA to France to help Hannah’s husband and children conduct their search, she is forced to deal with her old jealousy of Hannah, as well as her own relationship in the present with her French lover, Alexandre.

As events unfold, Claudia begins to wonder if Hannah and Alexandre may have had an affair and if that has had something to do with Hannah’s mysterious disappearance. In this exquisitely written, Ferrante-esque novel the question of whether or not Hannah will come back becomes urgent and bewildering. And if she doesn’t come back, what will the lives of her friends and family be without her?

Always a local fan favorite, Brackenbury is the author of BECOMING GEORGE SAND, PARIS STILL LIFE, THE THIRD SWIMMER, THE LOST LOVE LETTERS OF HENRI FOURNIER and other titles. A former writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, she has also served as poet laureate of Key West.

If you’re a poet or interested in the craft of poetry, she is also teaching a class at The Studios of Key West on the Elements of Poetry this November.

Flashback to our 2018 Q&A with the author discussing THE LOST LOVE LETTERS OF HENRI FOURNIER: https://booksandbookskw.com/a-qa-with-rosalind-brackenbury-author-of-the-lost-love-letters-of-henri-fournier/

Books & Books @ The Studios Makes All the Lists

Books & Books @ The Studios is getting great media exposure these days.

Magazine and website Mental Floss celebrated Independent Bookstore Day by making a list of bookstores worth seeking out — and Books & Books @ The Studios was their pick for Florida.

The magazine highlights our founders, Judy Blume and George Cooper, as part of what sets our store apart, but also notes our beautiful space, our carefully curated mix of books and our art supplies room.

Read the full article at The Best Bookstores in All 50 States.

Additionally, Buzzfeed recently noted 8 Author-Owned Bookstores Every Book Lover Needs To Visit, which puts Books & Books @ The Studios in the company of fabulous stores including Brooklyn’s Books Are Magic and Nashville’s Parnassus Books.

New B&BTSKW Reusable Straws Help Reduce Plastic Ocean Pollution

The newest addition to the B&BTSKW family of products is reusable stainless steel drinking straws. We are proud to join the straw-free Key West movement seeking to reduce the amount of micro-plastics polluting the ocean and harming sea life.

These straws are this year’s Booklovers Loyalty Club member gift. So if you’re a member (thank you!) pick yours up next time you’re in the store.

They are also for sale. $5, includes a pipe cleaner to make the reusable part easy as Key Lime pie and Cuban coffee.

Don’t know about the Booklovers Club, find out here: booksandbookskw.com/loyalty

Get and give free audiobooks for Independent Bookstore Day

This Independent Bookstore Day, we want to thank all of our customers, fans and friends for supporting Books & Books @ The Studios and our friends at independent digital audiobook provider Libro.fm are helping us do that with a gift of free audiobooks. Simply create your free Libro.fm account before April 27th and you’ll receive free audiobooks. There is no cost or commitment required. Follow this link to create your account: https://libro.fm/bookskw

Already have a Libro.fm account?

If you already have a Libro.fm account, you’ll get an email on Independent Bookstore Day with your free audiobooks. Get the audiobooks for yourself by adding any (or all!) of the free audiobooks to your cart and checking out.

You can also use this opportunity to introduce your bookish friends to Libro.fm by gifting them these free books. To send the free gifts, start a new shopping experience and add any (or all!) of the free audiobooks as “gifts”. When you checkout, you’ll get to enter the email address and have the option to add a special note for the recipient. You can gift these free audiobooks as many times as you like, but the offer is only valid on Saturday, April 27th for Bookstore Day. Note: The recipient does NOT need to redeem the free audiobooks by 4/27; the gifts will be sent immediately.

 

Independent Bookstore Day Turns 5 April 27

Come celebrate five years of independent bookselling’s biggest party. Join Books & Books @ The Studios of Key West and more than 500 independent bookstores in 49 states celebrating our shared love of reading and shopping local, small & independent.

It’s a party for the best customers in the world. We’ll have exclusive day-of merchandise  – fun products you can only get in indie bookstores and only on Bookstore Day – along with giveaways and a surprise or two. And, you’ll certainly find great books, art supplies, toys and all the other things that make our store special.

The 2019 IBD author ambassador Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE, says, “Indie stores stock books by hand and sell them the same way. They know what we want and need to read because they know us, as people. A writer is not a machine. A reader is not an app. We are human beings and so are the independent bookstore workers who show up each day and place books in our hands.”

Some of this year’s exclusive Bookstore Day items include:

Charles Bukowski Uncensored exclusive vinyl album
In 1993, the year before he died, Bukowski recorded selections from his classic Run with the Hunted. This exclusive vinyl edition features these selections along with additional material from that recording session including candid conversations between Bukowski, his wife Linda Lee Bukowski, and his producer. This is a true must-have for the Bukowski fan.

 

Women Talking (signed edition with an exclusive IBD-only cover)
Author: Miriam Toews
Fans of Toews’ darkly funny fiction have been waiting for this one. And we have an exclusive signed edition with a redesigned, IBD-only cover. Women Talking is a transformative novel — as completely unexpected as it is inspired—based on actual events that happened between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite community.

What to Eat with What You Read: A Guide for Book Clubs and Other Literary Gatherings
A companion to last year’s IBD bestseller The Book Club Journal, comes this funny, helpful guide with reading lists, recipes, and menu suggestions from 25 of our favorite authors, including Min Jin Lee, Mary Roach, Roxane Gay, Jennifer Egan, and Robin Sloan.

Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants (Exclusive, signed edition with FREE iron-on Ada patch)
Author: Andrea Beaty
A special Independent Bookstore Day exclusive autographed copy of ADA TWIST AND THE PERILOUS PANTS signed by bestselling author Andrea Beaty. Includes a collectible embroidered iron-on patch of stellar scientist Ada Twist.

If you won’t be in Key West on April 27, check out this list of participating indie bookstores: http://indiemap.bookweb.org/

Come Support May Sands Montessori’s Community Book Fair

Books & Books @ The Studios is partnering with May Sands Montessori school on a Community Book Fair, Saturday, May 18, 2019. Shoppers who present the event coupon will enable a donation to the school with their purchases. Books & Books will donate 10% of net purchases from coupon sales to support the school. Shoppers using the coupon will also have the opportunity to enter a raffle for a $50 Books & Books gift card.

Get the coupon via Facebook: Book Fair Coupon

Moms love books

Trying to decide what to get Mom? Books are always a good choice.

And if you don’t know what she’s read, a gift card will give her a chance to find her #nextfavoriteread.

 

Pam Jenoff, author of THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS

Photo credit Mindy Schwartz Sorasky

Wednesday, April 17, at 6pm, a reading and book signing with Pam Jenoff, author of THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS.

1946, Manhattan…

After taking the world by storm with her compelling and absorbing USA Today and New York Times bestseller, THE ORPHAN’S TALE, Pam Jenoff, returns with a story of bravery, intrigue, and sisterhood in the Second World War. THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS investigates the forgotten history of a female spy ring whose agents changed the course of the war before disappearing, and the widowed American woman determined to uncover their fates.

Widowed during the war, Grace Healy is slowly rebuilding her life in 1946 Manhattan. One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, she finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs–each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.

Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a ring of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home–their fates confidential. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother-turned-agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor, and betrayal.

Based on the Secret Operations Executive, this vividly rendered story of mystery and survival shines a light on the much-overlooked role that women played in the Allied victory. THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS is a suspenseful and inspiring read about the brutality of war, the scars left on its survivors and the inspiring tenacity of the human spirit.

Pam Jenoff is the author of several novels of historical fiction, including the New York Times bestseller THE ORPHAN’S TALE. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and a master’s degree in history from Cambridge, and she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. Jenoff’s novels are inspired by her experiences working at the Pentagon and also as a diplomat for the State Department handling Holocaust issues in Poland. She lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.

Praise for The Lost Girls of Paris

“Pam Jenoff’s meticulous research and gorgeous historical world-building lift her books to must-buy status… An intriguing mystery and a captivating heroine make The Lost Girls of Paris a read to savor!”
—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network

“In The Lost Girls of Paris, Pam Jenoff has used her finely honed story-telling skills to give us a smart, suspenseful, and morally complicated spy novel for our time. Eleanor Trigg and her girls are every bit as human as they are brave. I couldn’t put this down.”
—Jessica Shattuck, New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle

“Pam Jenoff deftly brings to life the history of ordinary women who left behind their home front lives to do the extraordinary—act as secret operatives in occupied territory. Fraught with danger, filled with mystery, and meticulously researched, The Lost Girls of Paris is a fascinating tale of the hidden women who helped to win the war.”
—Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours

Jason Dewees, author of DESIGNING WITH PALMS

Friday, April 19, at 6pm, a presentation and book signing with Jason Dewees, author of DESIGNING WITH PALMS.

Palms are a landscape staple in warm, temperate climates worldwide. But these stunning and statement-making plants are large, expensive, and difficult to install, resulting in unique design challenges. In Designing with Palms, palm expert Jason Dewees details every major aspect of designing and caring for palms. This definitive guide shares essential information on planting, irrigation, nutrition, pruning, and transplanting. A gallery of the most important species showcases the range of options available, and stunning photographs by Caitlin Atkinson spotlight examples of home and public landscapes that make excellent use of palms.

The book includes beautiful photos of gardens and native palm habitat in South Florida from Miami to Key West to Naples, as well as in California, South Carolina, Georgia, and Hawai`i. Celebrated Miami landscape architect, Raymond Jungles, said about the book, “Contains virtually everything you need to know about these plants and their usage in gardens. This is the go-to book.”

Jason Dewees is the staff horticulturist at Flora Grubb Gardens and East West Trees in San Francisco. Responsible for the Tree Canopy Succession Plan for the San Francisco Botanical Garden, he serves on the Horticultural Advisory Committee for the San Francisco Botanical Garden, and on The San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers Advisory Council.