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Virtual Event with Valeria Luiselli

October 8, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and the Miami Book Fair presents…
A VIRTUAL EVENING WITH
VALERIA LUISELLI
author of LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE

Wednesday, October 28th at 7PM

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER HERE FOR THIS FREE EVENT

In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet.

Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way.

A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.

Online Event with Michael Ian Black

October 2, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and the Miami Book Fair presents…
AN ONLINE EVENT WITH MICHAEL IAN BLACK
In Conversation with MERRILL MARKOE
discussing A BETTER MAN:
A (MOSTLY SERIOUS) LETTER TO MY SON.

Friday, October 23rd at 7PM

 

A poignant look at boyhood, in the form of a heartfelt letter from comedian Michael Ian Black to his teenage son before he leaves for college, and a radical plea for rethinking masculinity and teaching young men to give and receive love.

Part memoir, part advice book, and written as a heartfelt letter to his college-bound son, A Better Man reveals Black’s own complicated relationship with his father, explores the damage and rising violence caused by the expectations placed on boys to “man up,” and searches for the best way to help young men be part of the solution, not the problem. “If we cannot allow ourselves vulnerability,” he writes, “how are we supposed to experience wonder, fear, tenderness?”

Honest, funny, and hopeful, Black skillfully navigates the complex gender issues of our time and delivers a poignant answer to an urgent question: How can we be, and raise, better men? 

MICHAEL IAN BLACK is an actor, comedian, and writer who started his career with the sketch comedy show The State, on MTV, and has created and starred in many other television shows. Movie appearances include Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Sextuplets. Black is the author of several books for children, including the award-winning I’m Bored, I’m Sad, and I’m Worried, and the parody A Child’s First Book of Trump. His books for adults include the memoirs You’re Not Doing It Right and Navel Gazing, and the essay collection My Custom Van. Black also co-authored with Meghan McCain America,You Sexy Bitch. As a stand-up comedian, Michael regularly tours the country, and he has released several comedy albums. His podcasts include Mike & Tom Eat Snacks, with Tom Cavanagh; Topics, with Michael Showalter; How to Be Amazing; and Obscure. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

MERRILL MARKOE was the head writer for the original The David Letterman Show; the live NBC morning show was recognized with a Daytime Emmy Award. She shared in three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for her work on Late Night with David Letterman. She engineered most of the original concepts and architecture for the ground-breaking late-night talk show and created the segment “Stupid Pet Tricks”, as well as “Stupid Human Tricks” and “Viewer Mail.” Many of the ideas behind the remote segments outside the studio came from Markoe, who also won a Writer’s Guild award for her writing/performing work on HBO’s Not Necessarily the News. She has also written for television shows such as Newhart, Sex and the City, and Moonlighting.  Markoe has had a number of columns and written for many periodicals including Rolling Stone, Time, New York Woman, New Woman, US Newsand World Report, US, People, Esquire, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. She is the author of four books of essays and four novels. Most recently, her cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker.

Online Event with NICK HORNBY and CARL HIAASEN

September 23, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and the Miami Book Fair  presents…
AN ONLINE EVENT WITH NICK HORNBY
discussing JUST LIKE YOU
Moderated by: CARL HIAASEN

Sunday, October 4 at 2PM

REGISTER HERE

 

This warm, wise, highly entertaining twenty-first century love story is about what happens when the person who makes you happiest is someone you never expected.

“Hornby lives up to his reputation as bard of the everyday in this thoughtful romance that crosses lines of race, age, and class…Hornby is good company on the page and offers insights on his characters with aplomb, demonstrating an investment in each of their voices and an interest in the forces that draw people to one another. This is great fun.” —Publishers Weekly

NICK HORNBY is the author of seven other bestselling novels, including High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down, as well as several works of nonfiction. Many of his books have been turned into successful films and TV series. He has been Oscar-nominated twice, for his screenplays of An Education and Brooklyn. His ten-part, short-form TV series, State of the Union, directed by Stephen Frears, has recently been broadcast by the Sundance Channel and the BBC, and has won three Emmys. He lives in London.

CARL HIAASEN was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of fourteen previous novels, including the best sellers Bad Monkey, Lucky You, Nature Girl, Razor Girl, Sick Puppy, Skinny Dip, and Star Island, as well as six best-selling children’s books, Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp, Skink, and Squirm. His most recent work of fiction is Squeeze Me. 

An evening with JODI PICOULT and JUDY BLUME

September 18, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books and the Florida JCC Partnership present…

 

A Virtual Evening with
JODI PICOULT
in conversation with
JUDY BLUME

 

discussing
THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS: A NOVEL
(Ballantine Books, $28.99) 

 

Wednesday, September 23, 8pm EST
LIVE on Zoom

 

PURCHASE TICKETS*
Each ticket includes a copy of the book. 


 

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein when on a plane the flight attendant announces: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. Shockingly, the thoughts are not of her husband or daughter but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago at an archeological site in Egypt … Wyatt Armstrong. Miraculously, Dawn survives, but so do new doubts and questions.

 

About the Author
JODI PICOULT is the #1 bestselling author of 26 novels including My Sister’s Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, The Storyteller, Leaving Time and A Spark of Light. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide, translated into 34 languages.

 

About the Moderator
JUDY BLUME spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. She has since published twenty-nine books, including Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. She has written four novels for adults, In the Unlikely Event, Summer Sisters, Smart Women, and Wifey, all of them New York Times bestsellers. She was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2004. She and her husband George Cooper are proud to be co-founders of the Books & Books @ the Studios of Key West.

 

*Ticket Info

  • Tickets: $36 and include a copy of the book.
  • All book sales benefit Books & Books in Miami and Key West, with a percentage of sales going back to the JCC Partnership.
  • Tickets must be purchased online and will not be sold at the Key West store.

2020 Summer Art Contest

September 4, 2020
by Robin Wood

We’re looking for submissions to our fourth annual summer art contest!

Your registration fee will include a 4×12 canvas. Use the canvas to show your artistic abilities. Paint, collage, pencil, whatever suits your style.

The work will show in the store for one week while visitors vote in person and online for their favorite designs.

2019 Summer Art contest winners: “Untitled” by Dreya Ramos, “Key Weird #2” by Kevin Assam, and “Deep Blue” by Brooke Dore

Three winning canvases will be selected to appear on special edition Books & Books @ The Studios bookmarks, which are given out with store purchase. Artists will even have the option to include their website and social media handles on the bookmark.

One grand prize winner will appear on a special edition bookmark, have their canvas show in the bookstore through the end of the year and receive a $25 Art Supply gift card from Books & Books. One winner from the junior division (for those under 18) will be selected to receive a Books & Books gift card. All contestants are eligible for the grand prize.

Contest details and entry here.

How We Live Now by Bill Hayes

August 25, 2020
by George Cooper

From the beloved author of Insomniac City, a poignant and profound tribute in stories and images to a city amidst a pandemic.

A bookstore where readers shout their orders from the street. A neighborhood restaurant turned to-go place where one has a shared drink–on either end of a bar–with the owner. These scenes, among many others, became the new normal as soon as the world began to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

In How We Live Now, author and photographer Bill Hayes offers an ode to our shared humanity–capturing in real time this strange new world we’re now in (for who knows how long?) with his signature insight and grace. As he wanders the increasingly empty streets of Manhattan, Hayes meets fellow New Yorkers and discovers stories to tell, but he also shares the unexpected moments of gratitude he finds from within his apartment, where he lives alone and–like everyone else–is staying home, trying to keep busy and not bored as he adjusts to enforced solitude with reading, cooking, reconnecting with loved ones, reflecting on the past–and writing.

Featuring Hayes’s inimitable street photographs, How We Live Now chronicles an unimaginable moment in time, offering a long-lasting reminder that what will get us through this unprecedented, deadly crisis is each other.

The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager

August 18, 2020
by George Cooper

In this luminous memoir, an MIT astrophysicist must reinvent herself in the wake of tragedy and discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth.

Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets—especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager’s husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe.

As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match, not in the stars but here at home.

Probing and invigoratingly honest, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own kind of light in the dark.

A Virtual Event with Rosalind Brackenbury

July 20, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books @ the Studios presents…
An Evening with Rosalind Brackenbury
and Katrin Schumann discussing Without Her.

Friday, August 7th, 6 PM

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

Join us for an online event with Key West favorite Rosalind Brackenbury. Brackenbury will be speaking with author Katrin Schumann (This Terrible Beauty) [click here to purchase] about her newest book, Without Her, now out in paperback.

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?

About the Authors:

Born in London Brackenbury is a former writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and has also served as poet laureate of Key West, teaching poetry workshops.

She is the author of Becoming George Sand, Paris Still Life, The Third Swimmer, and The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier. 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, teaching poetry workshops. She has attended the yearly Key West Literary Seminar as both panelist and moderator. Born in London, Rosalind lived in Scotland and France before moving to the United States. Her 2016 novel, The Third Swimmer was a 2016 INDIES Silver Winner in adult General Fiction. She now lives in Key West, Florida, with her American husband. 

Katrin Schumann enthralled readers with her debut novel, The Forgotten Hours, a Washington Post bestseller that critics praised as “an addictive and timely read” (Kirkus) with a “clear and resonant” voice (New York Journal of Books) and a style that “will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty, Paula Hawkins, and Jenna Blum” (Booklist).

 

 

A *VIRTUAL* Event with Meg Cabot

July 19, 2020
by Emily Berg

Books & Books presents…
An Evening with Meg Cabot
discussing No Offense

 

Tuesday, August 11, 7 PM

 

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

New York Times-bestselling author Meg Cabot’s returns with a charming romance between a children’s librarian and the town sheriff in the second book in the Little Bridge Island series.

Click here to read our Q&A with Cabot last fall. 

Welcome to Little Bridge, one of the smallest, most beautiful islands in the Florida Keys, home to sandy white beaches, salt-rimmed margaritas, and stunning sunsets—a place where nothing goes under the radar and love has a way of sneaking up when least expected…

A broken engagement only gave Molly Montgomery additional incentive to follow her dream job from the Colorado Rockies to the Florida Keys. Now, as Little Bridge Island Public Library’s head of children’s services, Molly hopes the messiest thing in her life will be her sticky-note covered desk. But fate—in the form of a newborn left in the restroom—has other ideas. So does the sheriff who comes to investigate the “abandonment”.  When John Hartwell folds all six-feet-three of himself into a tiny chair and insists that whoever left the baby is a criminal, Molly begs to differ and asks what he’s doing about the Island’s real crime wave (if thefts of items from homes that have been left unlocked could be called that). Not the best of starts, but the man’s arrogance is almost as distracting as his blue eyes. Almost…

Clever, hilarious, and fun, No Offense will tug at readers’ heartstrings and make them fall in love with Little Bridge Island and its unique characters once again.

About the Author:
Meg Cabot’s many books for both adults and tweens/teens have included multiple global and #1 New York Times bestsellers, selling over twenty-five million copies worldwide. Her Princess Diaries series has been published in more than 38 countries and was made into several hit films by Disney. Meg is still waiting for her real parents, the king and queen, to restore her to her rightful throne. She currently lives in Key West, FL, with her husband and various cats.