Category: News

Take Pride in Reading Banned Books

May 30, 2022

Have you read GENDER QUEER, a graphic novel memoir by Maia Kobabe? It’s about a lot of things you might expect in a memoir, growing up and fitting in, and it’s about Kobabe’s experience of being nonbinary.

Some people think you or your kids and grandkids shouldn’t be able to read GENDER QUEER or the 1500 other books that were challenged or banned last year, according to stats collected by the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom.

But it’s not actually about GENDER QUEER or THE HATE YOU GIVE by Angie Thomas (which has been on the top banned list 4 out of the 5 years since its publication in 2017) or A COURT OF MIST AND FURY by Sarah J. Maas, which a Virginia judge thinks might not be appropriate to sell unrestricted in bookstores. As librarian Alex Brown wrote recently for Tor.com:

Banning books is always bigger than just the ban or just the book. It’s a concerted effort to whitewash and sugarcoat history, to deny the truth of what happened and who we are as a nation, and to continue the dismantling of our public educational institutions.
– Book Bans Affect Everybody — Here’s How You Can Help

And it’s getting worse – along with targeting school libraries at every level and public libraries, an active challenge right now is trying to restrict Barnes & Noble bookstores from selling certain books to kids, and maybe to anyone at all (in Virginia).

*Find the list of the Top Ten Challenged Books of 2021 at https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10*

It’s not really about the books. It’s about the people. The kids who are hungry to see themselves and their experiences in the books they read. All of us who want to read widely, adventurously and freely. The authors who are writing their best stories with heart and hard-won wisdom, or maybe just for fun.

This Pride month, pick up a copy of GENDER QUEER, and see what you think. And, if it’s not for you, pick up something else – but champion everyone’s right to read freely.

If you want to do more, check out the ALA’s new campaign, Unite Against Book Bans.

~ Robin, social media manager

May Staff Pick: Booth

May 2, 2022

by Robin Wood

Picked by store co-founder, George Cooper

BOOTH by Karen Joy Fowler

When I learned that Fowler, author of the witty and surprising We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves had a new novel, I jumped at the chance to preview it.

She’s still surprising, but in a completely different way. BOOTH is historical fiction, but it might better be described as a novelistic biography of a famous family, famous for its lifelong brilliant achievements on the Shakespearean stage, but even more for the single dastardly act of young John Wilkes.

The father, Junius Brutus Booth emigrated from England as a young man and went on to triumph on the American stage, and father a family of six children who survived into adulthood. Son Edwin became even more celebrated than his father as an actor, perhaps the most famous Hamlet ever; daughter Asia had some success as a writer; and son June (Junius, Jr.) became a theatrical producer.

But the novel is not limited to these foreground players. Equally important are daughter Rosalie, the stay-at-home ugly duckling of this luminous family, and long-suffering mother Mary Ann who held the family together through periods of poverty, as the often drunk, flamboyant father would disappear on road tours for months, often drinking his fees rather than sending them home.

The period covered goes from the arrival in America of Junius and Mary Ann in 1821, until 1865. A crushing gloom and infamy then settled on this northern, Lincoln loving family as it tried to reconcile love for its assassin son with revulsion at what he did. The book is a novel, but supported by a wealth of research: letters from and to the principle characters, journals and news stories, and the documented history of the United States during a period of passionate divisions that bears disturbing parallels to today.

It’s full of descriptive set pieces from this master novelist, like the burdens of a journey by citified Easterners to San Francisco by boat and a slog through the mountainous jungles of Panama – supposedly easier and safer than the direct overland route through Indian lands and the Rockies – that makes one marvel at the fortitude of ordinary men and women of the time.

This is historical fiction at its finest.

March Staff Pick: Black Cake

February 24, 2022

by Robin Wood

Picked by Robin, social media manager

I like to be surprised – and BLACK CAKE by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine Books), our staff pick of the month for March, begins on a literal cliffhanger.

“He stood at the water’s edge, now, watching the waves crash white against the rocks, waiting for his daughter’s body to wash ashore.
… He remembered a clattering of plates, the splintering of glass on the tile floor, someone crying out. When he looked toward his daughter, she was gone and her satin-covered shoes lay strewn on the lawn outside like tiny capsized boats.”
– Black Cake

In a family shaped by secrets, siblings Byron and Benny sit down with the family lawyer to hear about their mother’s past, revealed only after her death. She asks them the share a Black Cake, a recipe that has been an important part of their family traditions and gains significance as the story unfolds. Before the cake is shared, we learn there should be one more at the table.

These are people who have never heard Dr. Phil’s adage: Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? But they are compelling characters and the plot is propulsive. This book is the whole package: beautiful cover, good writing, strong plotting, relatable characters.

Twisty, fun and moving, you’ll enjoy this book where everyone has (a lot of) secrets.

****

“Survival is not enough. Survival has never been enough.”
Black Cake

I love this quote, which comes late in the book, because in a story about Black characters it makes sense out of context, but in the larger context it pulls together the themes of the book. Love and inheritance and all the bigger problems of the world that we can’t ignore or escape.

Here’s a bit more of the quote, from page 372 of the hardcover,

“Etta is swimming for her children now, and for their children, too, not for the records. She uses every chance she can to talk about the health of the oceans. Seafloor damage, runoff, plastics, rising water temperatures, overfishing. She calls for the designation of additional protected zones. But she also take the time to show the audience old photos of herself as a girl in a swim cap, plus her favorite snapshots of Patsy and the boys when they were little, poking around a tide pool in Wales, their shoes clumped with wet sand. She never forgets to show the joy, to show the love. Because, otherwise, what would be the point of anything?
Survival is not enough. Survival has never been enough.”
Black Cake

Q&A with Erika Robuck

February 23, 2022

by Robin Wood

We are delighted to host Erika Robuck at 6:30pm on Wednesday, March 23, in-person, outdoors at Hugh’s View on the roof of The Studios of Key West (register here). Robuck will be discussing her newest historical novel, SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG (Berkley). She is the bestselling author of novels including THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, and store favorite HEMINGWAY’S GIRL.

We had the opportunity to ask a few questions in advance of her upcoming event.

Q: Is there a short excerpt that you think works well to introduce SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG?

A: I chose the following scene, at the start of the German occupation of France, because it felt relevant to the way the beginning of the pandemic felt. The start of rationing, the restriction of movement, and the disbelief were unsettlingly relatable.

“It takes many cuts before she comprehends the truth: France is bleeding out—sliced with a mortal blow—and with it, Virginia’s old life is dying.
Like the early days of grieving a loved one, Virginia awakens each morning not knowing, but rather having to remember. That remembering brings fresh pain with each wave, and the waves are drowning her. She thinks it will be better when she simply knows the world has turned upside down—to have the thing dead and buried and not have to recollect. Then maybe she can move on. But there’s no knowing, at least not now. There is no certainty and no timetables, and that’s the hardest part. Though she knows it’s not for her ultimate good, Virginia continues to grasp the ever-vanishing vapors of the memories of before, but they’re getting increasingly hard to grasp.”
SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG

Q: How do you do your research? Has the pandemic disrupted or changed how you work?

A: My research process usually begins with visits to sites important to my story. Because of the pandemic, and the difficulty of traveling overseas, I had to settle for books, YouTube videos, interviews, and Google Earth, all of which are surprisingly helpful (and economical). I tend to begin by reading nonfiction about the subjects, events, and locations. Then I moved to archival material and interviews of the subjects or their loved ones. If there is any first person or autobiographical writing, that is my last stop in getting to know the characters before I can inhabit them to write them.

Edit note: Erika Robuck made a great interactive map of key locations from SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG? Check it out at https://bit.ly/3vhS0k2

Q: I saw a fun teaser on your Facebook page, involving vinyl records. Can you tell us anything about your current work-in-progress? If it is indeed, a near-past historical, will this be the first time you have set a story post-WWII?

A: Yes, my new work in progress is a dual period, multigenerational family drama—moving between 1978 and the 1930s—tied together by one of the most studied and debated artifacts of all time. My first, self-published novel, was also a dual period, multigenerational family drama that took place partly in the present day and in the 1800s. I love working in this form because it ties the past to the present in interesting ways, and creates natural suspense as the reader moves back and forth in time.

Q: What’s your favorite thing to do when visiting Key West? What’s one thing visitors should not miss?

It’s hard for me to answer this question, because I want to say so much. Key West is my home away from home. Aside from visiting Books & Books to find that perfect vacation read, my heart turns to The Hemingway House. You don’t have to like Hemingway to be enchanted by the home, gardens, and cats.

Q: What are you reading and recommending these days?

A: I recently rediscovered my love of Rosamunde Pilcher, the queen of multigenerational family dramas, and have been recommending WINTER SOLSTICE to everyone I meet. I also loved the re-released LOOKING FOR TROUBLE: THE CLASSIC MEMOIR OF A TRAILBLAZING WAR CORRESPONDENT, by Virginia Cowles (out in August). From the Spanish Civil war to the London Blitz, readers are travel companions on the most astonishing pre-WW2 itinerary imaginable. Finally, I loved THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. It tells the story of JP Morgan’s dazzling, brilliant librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, whose secret—that she is a Black woman who passes for white—could destroy both her personal and professional life. It was incredibly beautiful and eye opening.

GMA Book Club Selection author Kirthana Ramisetti

January 2, 2022

by Emily Berg

On Thursday Jan. 20th Books and Books @ the Studios welcomed Kirthana Ramisetti, author of the bestselling debut novel Dava Shastri’s Last Day – the Good Morning America December Book Club selection.

The live event has passed but you can watch the recording below and then pick up your copy at the store or by clicking here.

WATCH THE EVENT RECORDING

RAMISETTI ON GOOD MORNING AMERICA

About the Book

Dava Shastri, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has always lived with her reputation in mind. When she is diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of seventy, she decides to take her death—like all matters of her life—into her own hands.

Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of her death to break early, so she can read her obituaries. As someone who dedicated her life to the arts and the empowerment of women, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her “death” reveals two devastating secrets, truths she thought she had buried forever. And now the whole world knows, including her children.

In the time she has left, Dava must come to terms with every decision that has led to this moment—and make peace with those closest to her before it’s too late. Compassionately written and full of humor and heart, this powerful debut novel examines private versus public legacy, the complexities of love, and the never-ending joys—and frustrations—of family.

BUY THE BOOK

About the author:

As a former entertainment reporter for Newsday and the New York Daily News, Kirthana Ramisetti has written her fair share of stories about the lives (and deaths) of the rich and famous. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Emerson College, and her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, TODAY.com, and elsewhere. Dava Shastri’s Last Day is her first novel, and she lives in New York City.

Our favorite books of 2021

January 1, 2022

by Robin Wood

2021 is in the books, and for us, it was all about books. Here are the books we read and loved last year and are still thinking about and recommending.

Tag us on social media (@booksandbookskw) and tell us what you loved. Even though we are replete with books, we’re always ready to add another to the TBR pile.

Judy

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart

Six months in the country (waiting for the pandemic to end) with a cast of characters who will have you laughing, crying and cringing. His best book yet and that’s saying a lot!

The Magician by Colm Toibin

I thought I wouldn’t be interested in the life of Thomas Mann. How could I have been so wrong? Brilliant – the book, the man, and his family.

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

It’s the 70’s! Get ready to meet Izzy, the best five year old in modern fiction, her way out parents, their summer guests (a rocker and a movie star) and Mary Jane, the summer nanny. Hilarious, endearing, with enough going on underneath to change Mary Jane’s life. I loved this one.

And a picture book — The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess by Tom Gauld

You will love reading this story to the young ones in your life. And they will love it too.

George

A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke

A deep dive into into the travails of masculinity against the backdrop of a master class in the life of the stage. Hawke may be an actor, but he is a damn fine writer, too. His marriage dissolves, but Shakespeare (Henry IV) triumphs. Fascinating. (Out in paper 1/18.)

Burning Boy by Paul Auster

Takes us richly into the brief but astounding life and works of Stephen Crane, a man who redefined the meaning of the word “writer.” Both a biography that leaves us in awe of this intensely dedicated man, and, through examination of his work, an eye-opening course in modern writing.

The Hummingbird Gift by Sy Montgomery

The author of Soul of An Octopus takes us to another startling world, that of the champion of flying. Able to hover for as much as an hour, these fiercenessly competitive birds are warriors in their endless quest for food/fuel.

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

It’s the 50’s and Bibi Neyanyahu’s father is an unwanted academic seeking an appointment at a second rate college in Upstate New York. His antics are the stuff of comic gold. Though a novel, it’s based enough in fact to provide perceptive insights about Israeli history and American Jews.

Emily

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

The most realistic story of immigration I’ve read. It’s not a thriller or extreme drama. It’s just the life of a family and their journeys.

The Good Hand by Michael Patrick F. Smith

“I went to work in the oil field for the same reason most people go to boomtowns, I wanted to make money fast and I was out of options. You could say my demons were catching up to me. I was surprised by what I found, because it wasn’t much money. It was better than that. . .” Michael Patrick F. Smith discussing his book, The Good Hand. Read our Q&A with him from March 2021.

Editor’s note: Emily highly recommends The Good Hand as an audiobook.

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

The book came out 1983 but I read it in 2021, and it is so good that I’m afraid to watch the show despite everyone telling me how good it is.

Lori

Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward.

A mind blowing psychological thriller/horror story about a man and his very unusual family. It kept me off balance until the end…and after.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

One of my favorite horror novelists did it again with an homage to the slasher films of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I was rooting for the heroine, Jade, the whole time. Look for the sequel, Don’t Fear the Reaper, coming August 2.

Little Devil in America by Hanif Abduraqib

A great exploration of the past, present and future of African-Americans in the performing arts. Dance, poetry, music, even preaching in church are covered by a dynamic cultural observer.

Gina

Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffett

I’m a constant re-reader and Tully’s story needed to be finished.

Home at the End of the World by Rita Troxel

All I can say is I envy the people who discovered Key West before everyone else did!

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

One of the most powerful stories I’ve read – we all saw shades of this happening in 2020 – and are still seeing it in 2021 – constantly reminds me to never lose my voice.

Riona

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

This is everything I need in a great Western: a troubled & mysterious leading man, a traveling circus, and a splash of magical realism perfectly entwined with revenge and self-actualization. Ming stayed with me for a long time.

Girly Drinks: A World History of Women & Alcohol by Mallory O’Meara

I love beer, books, and history. O’Meara presents a fantastic and inclusive history of women and alcohol, covering such topics as the scientific process, brewing as a means to financial independence, and drinking habits reflecting change in society.

Editor’s note: Don’t miss this one as an audiobook.

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. I keep describing this book to friends as a Death Metal album. Beginning in media res, Empire of the Vampire plays with timelines, the power dynamic between humanity and vampires, and the control organized religion imposes on its followers. Bloody, fun, and heartrending, I couldn’t put this down.

Camila

Gladys the Magic Chicken by Adam Rubin, Illustrated by Adam Rex

My son Cannon & I loved this funny story about a magic chicken. Is she really magical? Or did the characters make their own magic? This is my new favorite picture book and we LOVE Gladys!

The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman

I loved this final book about the Owens sisters. It’s a beautiful celebration of family and magic.

Brood by Jackie Polzin

I was drawn to this beautifully written book mostly because of the chickens. She captures the trials and tribulations of chicken tending so perfectly, and also tells a story of loss and grief.

Animal by Lisa Taddeo

Not about magic or chickens, but a book that left me a little disturbed and unsettled. Hard to put down.

Robin

The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe

Despite some heavy issues (that contribute to it’s thriller-ness), the writing style is light. Oceans8 for the YA reader. A page-turner about surviving and defining who you want to be.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Masterful world-building, politics, poetry and a mystery. I recommend it to people who enjoyed The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. The sequel to A Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace, successfully changes venue from murder mystery to first-contact with a war threatening. Also, highly recommended.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

A police procedural in magical, steampunk Cario. And queer to book. Marvelous fun.

Picked by bookseller Riona Jean

Picked by store co-founder, George Cooper

Picked by Gina, bookseller

Picked by Robin, social media manager

Picked by Lori, bookseller

Now out in paperback!

About the Book

Judy

George

Emily

Lori

Gina

Riona

Camila

Robin