Books & Books in partnership with the Key West Literary Seminar presents

SAFIYA SINCLAIR
in-conversation with Ricardo Zegri 
discussing Sinclair's book
HOW TO SAY BABYLON

Tuesday, January 7th, 7:00pm ET
PEAR House Courtyard - 533 Eaton Street
Doors open at 6:30pm

With echoes of Educated and The Glass Castle, How to Say Babylon is a “lushly observed and keenly reflective chronicle” (The Washington Post), brilliantly recounting the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid religious upbringing and navigate the world on her own terms.

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and a militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, was obsessed with the ever-present threat of the corrupting evils of the Western world outside their home, and worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure. For him, a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.

Safiya’s extraordinary mother, though loyal to her father, gave her the one gift she knew would take Safiya beyond the stretch of beach and mountains in Jamaica their family called home: a world of books, knowledge, and education she conjured almost out of thin air. When she introduced Safiya to poetry, Safiya’s voice awakened. As she watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under relentless domesticity, Safiya’s rebellion against her father’s rules set her on an inevitable collision course with him. Her education became the sharp tool to hone her own poetic voice and carve her path to liberation. Rich in emotion and page-turning drama, How to Say Babylon is “a melodious wave of memories” of a woman finding her own power (NPR).

About the Author: Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the internationally bestselling author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and the Kirkus Prize. How to Say Babylon was included on over 17 Best Book of 2023 year-end lists, including the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of the year, the Washington Post Top 10 Books of 2023, TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2023, and The Atlantic’s 10 Best Books of 2023. It was a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick and named one of President Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2023. How to Say Babylon was also named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, and Barnes & Noble, among others, and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year. The audiobook of How to Say Babylon was named a Best Audiobook of the Year by Audible and AudioFile magazine. Sinclair is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University. 

About the Moderator: Ricardo Zegri is a writer and working musician from the San Francisco Bay Area with a deep affection for pretentious beer and humble burritos. He is the winner of the 2025 Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer award in short story. His prose and poetry have appeared in the Welter Literary Journal, Gyroscope Review, Paragon Press, Chaleur Magazine, The Esthetic Apostle, and Mind Equals Blown, among various other coffee-stained zines. In 2023 he published a limited edition, handmade chapbook through Ethel Zine and Micro-Press.

This is an in-person event taking place outdoors. 
Registering ahead of time helps us to plan for a successful event but is not required.
In the event that attendance reaches capacity registered guests will be seated first.

REGISTER HERE

Books & Books presents

Stan Zimmerman
signing his book
The Girls: from Golden to Gilmore

Saturday, January 25th, 11am-1pm
in the bookstore.

Join us for a mimosa, coffee and cheesecake while supplies last.

ABOUT THE BOOK: The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore is the story of Stan Zimmerman, a gawky Jewish boy who dreamed of becoming a wildly successful actor, rich enough to build his own mansion in the Hollywood Hills. While the actor part didn't quite pan out, Stan found success as a writer, producer, director, and playwright, working on such shows as The Golden Girls, Roseanne, and Gilmore Girls.

Growing up in a small suburb of Detroit, Michigan, Stan was surrounded by three strong, intelligent women-his mother, his grandmother, and his sister-all of whom supported his imagination and creativity. Instead of playing outside, he spent time in his basement directing and acting in plays with the neighborhood kids. At seven-and-a-half years old, he was the youngest student accepted into a prestige summer theater school program.

After high school, he was awarded a work/study scholarship to NY/Circle in the Square, where he met his first serious boyfriend and became Andy Warhol's unwitting photo subject one night at Studio 54. He also met Jim Berg, a journalism student at NYU's University Without Walls, forming a writing partnership that continues to this day. Their latest project is naturally an all-star, female ensemble Christmas comedy movie for Lifetime

Throughout his life, most of Stan's friendships have been with females. He credits those friendships and the women in his family with his ability to connect with creative women who have played a part in his career success.

Accompanied by journal entries, The Girls details Stan's relationships with some of entertainment's most notable women, including Roseanne Barr, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel, and, of course, all four Golden Girls.

This is a in-store book signing, not a reading so
guests are welcome to come by anytime between 11am and 1pm.

ORDER THE BOOK

Books & Books presents

STEPHANIE ANDERSON
discussing her book
FROM THE GROUND UP

Friday, Feb 7th, 6:30pm ET
Doors open at 6:00pm
Hugh's View - 533 Eaton Street

An award-winning author's powerful exploration of the remarkable women driving transformative change in America's food system. 

It's well known that our industrialized food system has abandoned priorities of nutrition and environmental stability in the pursuit of profit--a model designed to fail, especially as climate change escalates. Yet this groundbreaking book describes a glimmer of hope: a green wave of diverse female farmers, entrepreneurs, community organizers, scientists, and political leaders who operate with the shared goals of combatting climate change through regenerative agriculture, redesigning the food system, and producing healthy, socially responsible food.

From the Ground Up, by award-winning author Stephanie Anderson, offers a journey into the root causes of our unsustainable food chain, revealing its detrimental reliance on extractive agriculture, which depletes soil and water, produces nutritionally deficient food, and devastates communities and farmers. Anderson then delivers an uplifting, deeply reported narrative of women-led farms and ranches nationwide, supported by women-led investment firms, farmer training programs, restaurants, supply chain partners, and advocacy groups, all working together to create a more inclusive and sustainable world.

From the Ground Up sheds light on a set of inspiring journeys, with stories that will transform the way we think about the food chain--one that can weather the storms of climate change, conflicts, and global pandemics.

About the Author: Stephanie Anderson is the author of From the Ground Up: The Women Revolutionizing Regenerative Agriculture (The New Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, TriQuarterly, Flyway, Hotel Amerika, Terrain.org, The Chronicle Review, Sweet and others. Stephanie is the 2020 winner of the Margolis Award for social justice journalism and a co-editor for the University of Nebraska Press “Our Regenerative Future” book series. Her debut nonfiction book, titled One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl’s Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture, won a 2020 Nautilus Award and 2019 Midwest Book Award. Stephanie holds an MFA from Florida Atlantic University, where she serves as Assistant Professor of Creative Nonfiction. 

This is an in-person event taking place outdoors. 
Registering ahead of time helps us to plan for a successful event but is not required.
In the event that attendance reaches capacity registered guests will be seated first.

REGISTER HERE