Tag: book recommendation

Mixed Doubles: From Bethany Ball, author of WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS

January 4, 2019

Spencer Wise photo by Molly Hamill

Our own Judy Blume raves about Bethany Ball’s WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS, as does Booklist, writing, “Ball, with great humor, profound wit, and notable insight, vividly captures a singular family . . . This novel from a most promising writer has been compared to the work of Isaac B. Singer and Grace Paley, as well as Nathan Englander and Jennifer Egan. Try Eudora Welty with sex and Jews.”

Bethany will be giving a joint book talk with author Spencer Wise, Thursday, January 17th at 6:00 p.m. at B’Nai Zion Synagogue, 750 United St. in Key West. This event is free and open to the public. Please join us for what is sure to be an insightful and engaging conversation.

Leading up to this fun double-bill, I had the opportunity to ask both Spencer and Bethany a few questions.

Q. What do you like best about having a tour buddy?

A. Spencer and I have the same agent, the wonderful Duvall Osteen. She had sent me his book in galley form. When he asked me to do his launch reading with him in New York City, I jumped at the chance. We have a good rapport. I can feel a little jittery with public events, but not with Spencer. He’s really funny and generous and kind. Everyone who meets him loves him. And our books go well together. Ex pat Jews, old patriarchs who find themselves a little outre and not with the new times, and the younger generation trying to break out of the mold that they feel was cast for them long ago. Our books also deal in depth with the world outside of the United States which I’m always happy to explore both as a writer and a reader.

Q. What do you like about Spencer’s novel, THE EMPEROR OF SHOES?

A. Spencer is a wonderful storyteller. He gets you hooked right from the very beginning. THE EMPEROR OF SHOES tackles a topic we are all interested in: what does it really mean that everything we own and wear and buy for our kids is made in China? Who are the people working in these factories? It’s political and real but warm rather than dark and at times it’s really funny.

Q: Tell me a little about how you came to write your novel?

A. My book started out as several stories I was playing around with. The first was the chapter, Guy Gever Stands in the Fields. I had lived in a kibbutz for about half a year with my ex kibbutznik husband and young son. I have lived with and around kibbutzniks for almost twenty years. It was something I was dying to write about! I was fascinated by the concept of communal living in the mold of Marxism and what that meant for a generation of people my own age. Later, I wrote stories about Israeli Navy Seals and then an American woman named Carolyn and an Israeli woman who accidentally leaves her young son alone while she travels to the United States. I decided to take those three or four marginally related stories and write in the connective tissue. Out of all that was born WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS.

Q. What are you reading and recommending?

I just read a wonderful time travel novel called The Heavens by Sandra Newman coming out from Grove next month. It’s literary but wonderfully readable. A writer friend of mine gave me the new edition of Just Kids by Patti Smith with the photograph that I’m rereading. I love her very grounded mysticism.

Q. What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new novel about a group of families in a satellite town of New York City. I was kind of a lonely only child growing up without a lot of family or community so I like to populate my books – as I once did my imaginary games – with a lot of people. Reading them is fine but I would feel lonely and claustrophobic writing a book from the POV of just one person!

~Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Going Viral: Talking to Caitlin Kunkel, co-author of NEW EROTICA FOR FEMINISTS

January 4, 2019

by Robin Wood

If you haven’t visited comedy site The Belladonna, “a comedy and satire site by women and other marginalized genders, for everyone,” go check it out.

No really, we’ll wait.

Okay, come back now. You’re welcome.

We are excited to present comedy writer Caitlin Kunkel, co-founder of The Belladonna and co-author of NEW EROTICA FOR FEMINISTS. Kunkel will appear in-conversation with local comedian and journalist Gwen Filosa Saturday, January 19, at 6pm, followed by a book signing.

Kunkel is visiting Key West for the first time and we had a chance to ask her a few questions about transforming a web-post into a book, staying busy and checking out iconic movie locations.

Q. Tell me a little bit about The Belladonna. How did it come to be? How did you come to be working with your partners? Besides being funny, what’s your goal with the site?

A. The Belladonna is a site that features comedy and satire written by women, for everyone. The four co-founders (myself, Brooke Preston, Fiona Taylor, and Carrie Wittmer) were each part of a private Facebook group for female comedy writers, and there was increasing discussion about how there seemed to be a dearth of reputable satire sites that accepted outside submissions from contributors, and even fewer that celebrated or nurtured specifically women’s talents and voices.

A number of members in that group mentioned they’d stopped writing comedy entirely, because their early efforts had been met with unnecessarily cliquish or exclusionary behavior, or negative feedback, or no feedback at all. Other members had occasionally piped in to suggest that women from that group should start their own publication, but no one had taken the reins.Then in November 2016, Carrie posted “I want to start a website, who wants to start one?” I responded, so did Fiona, and I looped in Brooke who I knew in real life. So it was completely chance how to came to be – we just each had the same purpose and desire! We actually ran the site and got the book deal prior to all four being in the same room together. So a lot of trust and remote working was involved!

Our goal is to provide a space where beginning writers can get feedback (we tell every submission why it’s not right for us), and writers at all stages of their careers can benefit from a growing platform to showcase their unique voices.

Q. How did you come to write the original post that became NEW EROTICA FOR FEMINISTS? Any hint that it would take off the way it did? What’s your sense of what captured people’s imagination and made it go viral?

A. It truly felt like the piece chose us! We were deep in daydream schemes about how to potentially monetize The Belladonna (a frequent topic of conversation for us), cheekily dreaming about having our favorite flavored sparkling water company (LaCroix–wildly popular in the US, a real cult following) somehow just foot the bill for everything and send us truck upon truck of the stuff. And why not have, say, Tom Hardy make those deliveries? Is that not how corporate sponsorship works? Perhaps we don’t understand commerce after all.

One of us said (in jest) ‘you know, that’s our million dollar idea–that sounds like erotica the women of New York would pay good money for’. We decided then and there to write a comedy piece in that vein–what would erotica for feminist women look like–and it flowed out of us so quickly and naturally as we realized all the ways actual romance and porn tropes are in service to traditionally cisgender male desires and urges, and the women are largely there as objects to be had rather than protagonists.

We did NOT expect it to go viral – we wrote the whole thing in about a day, and we thought we would get some views back to The Belladonna from McSweeney’s [where the piece was published], but that was about as big as we dreamed. It started to take off the same day it was published, and then we watched, mouths agape, as it kept spreading. We think that the format of erotica lets people slip into each vignettes themselves, and the central of ideas of fantasies that should be reality can be expanded to SO many different scenarios and areas of life. So people could appreciate the piece, but also appreciate the main satirical point of view pretty easily.

Q. What was the expansion/revision process like? What does the book do that the original post couldn’t?

A. One of the interesting things we saw in the response to the initial McSweeney’s piece was that people tended to prefer completely different vignettes for different reasons. Typically in a humor piece, there are a few lines that people cluster around, but here, different elements were sticking out to people. So looking at the initial group of 12, as well as our early brainstorms of new material to put into the proposals, we started to see groups and methods of classifying them. There were a lot that skewed pop culture, we knew we wanted to touch on parenting, and being able to look at historical sources gave us a lot of inspiration. Building out a table of contents helped us show publishers how this 800-word piece could become a 10,000 word-plus book. We could then also brainstorm and write around each chapter heading and see where we needed more and less entries, rather than write an amorphous bunch of jokes and try to organize them.

The book also let us write some significantly longer vignettes, mostly in the Historical and Literary sections. It’s hard to do a literary parody of Lolita in four lines, so having a little more space to have a clear point of view really helped! It also lets you vary tone a bit more – in a piece with 12 vignettes, they each have to play the game pretty clearly to fit together. But the 47th vignette in the middle of the book could break format a little, or be weirder. So it let us build in more variety.

Q. What are you reading and recommending?

As we wrote our comedic book, I read a lot a serious books on women and/or society this year! The three that stood out to me were Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister, and So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. Each of these is excellently written with the author’s particular voice clearly shining through.

For fiction, I’m a huge Stephen King fan (I thank him in the acknowledgments of the book!), and I reread The Stand this year, as I do most years. I loved Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, which is like feminist sci-fi/dystopian fiction, and in somewhat of that same vein I truly enjoyed the thought experiment of reading Naomi Alderman’s excellent book The Power.

Q. What are you working on now?

A. We’re working on continuing to grow The Belladonna and create more opportunities for women in comedy! Personally, I’m taking a hiatus from teaching satire, which I’ve done for The Second City in Chicago via online teaching for seven years, and I’m focusing on my own writing full-time. I’m the writer for Live Wire Radio, a variety show that airs on public radio across the country, and that is extremely fun and challenging job. I’m also one of the producers of the very first Satire and Humor Festival, coming to NY in March of 2019! And I’m continuing to tour and talk about the book. So I’m focusing on my own writing as well as community building. I love to keep busy.

Q. Have you been to Key West before? What are you most looking forward to here?

A. I have NEVER been to Key West, and I just want to walk to the end and stare out over the ocean at the southernmost point of the continental US! I grew up in Rhode Island, and being close to the water never ceases to give me a major thrill. I also saw the movie True Lies pretty young, and the iconic scenes on the Overseas Highway gave me an appetite to drive on that road someday.

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Andrew Simonet, author of Wilder

December 2, 2018

by Robin Wood

Tuesday, December 11, at 6pm, a presentation and book signing with Andrew Simonet, author of Wilder. Simonet, who will be an Artist in Residence at The Studios of Key West in November and December, will offer, “13 Thoughts on Writing and Fighting.”

This timely talk, geared towards teens and adults will include excerpts from his Young Adult novel Wilder, stories from his life, and reflections on masculinity and violence. Both funny and serious, Simonet offers a thoughtful and interesting take on the subject of toxic masculinity.

Andrew Simonet is writer and choreographer from Philadelphia. From 1993 to 2013, he co-directed Headlong Dance Theater, creating dances like CELL (a journey for one audience member guided by cell phone), and This Town is a Mystery (dances by four Philadelphia families in their homes). In 2013, he left his dance company to focus on writing.

Wilder, his debut YA novel has been called, “A page-turning, mind-twisting adventure that illuminates the complexity of male violence,” by Dashka Slater, the award-winning author of The 57 Bus. Slater goes on to write, “Jason’s story gripped me by the lapels
and refused to let me look away.”

Jason Wilder is in permanent in-school suspension for fighting. Meili Wen gets there by breaking a girl’s finger. Jason and Meili don’t just connect; they collide. Two people who would never cross paths—outsiders from radically different backgrounds—they form an exhiliarating, unpredictable bond. When circumstances push, they push back. There’s no plan. And there’s no stopping.

– From the book jacket

Q&A with Jack E. Davis, author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea

September 28, 2018

by Robin Wood

Photo: University of Florida, Bernard Brezinski

Store co-founder George Cooper says of Jack E. Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Gulf, “Davis takes us from the beautiful past of the Gulf as fount of life for native tribes, to its decline into an ecosystem under attack from development and pollution. A must read for anyone who cares about the vast sea on our doorstep.”

We were able to ask Jack a few questions to get you in the mood for what is sure to be an insightful discussion of the environmental issues that have shape this important waterway.

(Don’t miss the reading and signing with Jack Davis, Friday, Oct. 5 at 6pm.)

Q: After your book on the Everglades, what made the Gulf a particularly compelling topic to you?

A: I wanted to do another biography of a place and thought of the Gulf since I had grown up on it. A quick check revealed that no one had written a comprehensive history of the Gulf, and given my lifelong relationship with it, the topic seemed a good fit for me. I guess it was.

Q: You frame much of the story of the Gulf through the stories of notable people. Can you say a bit about this use of biography as a narrative device?

A: I wanted nature to be at the forefront of this history because I see nature as a historical agent that shapes the course of human history. This is to say that I did not want human events to dictate the narrative, as is the case with most histories. So I organized the chapters around natural characteristics of the Gulf: estuaries, fish, birds, the beach, intense weather, islands, rivers, etc.

But this is a book about the human relationship with Gulf nature, so I had to bring people into the story. It made sense then to use human characters and their stories to help frame the narrative in each chapter and to keep the reader’s interest. Some of the characters were familiar to me, but many emerged as I was researching and writing, and they turned out to be compelling ones. They, among other things, made writing the book fun and inspirational.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from The Gulf?

A: I wrote this book for a national audience rather than just a regional one. I want readers to know that Americans, all Americans, have both historical and ecological connections to the Gulf and that the Gulf is more than a mere oil sump or hurricane alley, that it has a rich history beyond media sound bites that is very much a part of the larger American experience. I determined for this book not to be about the 2010 BP oil spill.

Q: What did you do to celebrate winning the Pulitzer Prize?

A: Hah! There is not much of a story behind the celebration. Learning of the prize is more interesting. It came as a complete surprise. I was in my office on campus in a meeting with a graduate student, reading him the riot act about his sloppy writing, when the office phone and cell phone started to ring. Pesky solicitors, I thought, But neither stopped, and my cell phone was also exploding with texts. So I looked at one, from my editor, Bob Weil, saying I had won. I had no clue that the Pulitzer winners were being announced or that Bob had nominated me (the publishers nominate the books and the finalists aren’t announced until the winner is announced).

I muttered, “Holy shit,” and then fell speechless. I had to push the phone across the desk for the student to read it. His eyes bugged out because, I think, he knew his meeting with me was over (his final paper was perfect, by the way).

Two hours later, I rode my bike home, as I always do, my sleek bike rattling from my shaking, adrenaline-spiked body, thinking that of all days this should not be one in which a car hits me. My 13-year-old daughter met me at the door. Her mother had called her with the news, but she played me, asking, “Sooo Dad, how was your day?”

Later, five close friends came over with dinner and champagne, all of us happy and getting happier, and I wondering how this had happened, trying to translate it into my life and to associate my name with the prize.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently? Fiction, nonfiction, for fun or edification?

A: I prefer nonfiction to fiction but do not avoid the latter by any means. I just finished Jill Lepore’s new book, These Truths, a superb narrative history of the US. Just before that, I read Lauren Groff’s collection of short-stories, Florida. Lauren and I live in the same neighborhood, and I love when she uses it as a setting, as in the first story of the book. I know the exact sidewalks her protagonist is walking, but the true conveyance is Lauren’s lyrical words and phrases. I read the New Yorker assiduously, and on my bed stand is Barry Lopez’s elegiac Crossing Open Ground, 40 years old and still highly relevant. I’m also eager to dig into Ray Arsenault’s new biography of Arthur Ashe. I read for fun and edification, the latter of which includes studying the narrative and sentence constructions and word choices of the authors. For example, when Lauren used “gambol” in one of her New Yorker stories, I decided to find a place for it in The Gulf. I did.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: I’m deep in the writing of a book on the cultural and natural history of the bald eagle, which is employing the working title Bird of Paradox: How the Bald Eagle Saved the Soul of America. Additionally, one of my former PhD students, Leslie Poole, and I are editing a second edition of The Wild Heart of Florida, a collection of personal essays about natural Florida.

~Robin Wood, Associate Manager

The Audacious Kwame Alexander

September 28, 2018

by Robin Wood

The audacious, Newbery medal-winning Kwame Alexander wants to introduce you to some people – both in his own work and in his new HMH imprint Versify, which showcases voices underrepresented in publishing.

Swing, co-authored with Mary Rand Hess, is Kwame’s second Young Adult novel-in-verse and tells the story of 17-year-old high school junior Noah, who seeks to make the baseball team and win over the heart of Sam, a girl he’s loved since third grade.

Kwame’s all-ages event at the store (Friday, October 12, 6pm) will feature Randy Preston on guitar and offer a dynamic, inspiring performance. Kwame is already on tour for Swing, but I caught up with him by phone and asked a few questions.

Q: What inspired Swing?

A: It was inspired by remembering how I was in high school, not being cool, liking a particular girl and being afraid to tell her. Finally, I did tell her, and I asked her to the prom – she said she’d think about it ….

[Ed note: They went. Kwame reports having a good time.]

It’s also an ode to jazz music, like Solo was to Rock & Roll.

Look for the first Versify titles coming April 2019

I also wanted to write about social justice. I believe poetry, books, can change minds, change the world. It’s kind of audacious, but I believe I can change the world. I want people to see the value in all our lives. I want people to be able to appreciate and relate to people who have different experiences from them, who are not them.

Q: What’s authentic cool?

A: For me – poetry, tennis, love poems, being a dad.

You gotta find your own authentic cool. Walt (one of the characters in Swing) says he’s looking for his authentic cool, but really he’s already got it – he is unabashedly okay with being himself – obsessed with baseball, possessed of death trivia . . ..

You have to find your authentic cool for yourself, what engages, moves you, whether other people get it or not.

Q: Tell me a little about Versify, your new imprint.

A: Book publishing is an amazing dinner party, but it’s the same people at the table over and over again and there are always some empty seats. I want the table to be packed, just full of interesting people, anyone who can entertain and empower.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: There will be a continuation of the story in The Crossover.

And I’ll be making a big announcement Oct. 13 – maybe, just maybe, I’ll give you all in Key West a hint the night before . . ..

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Mark Your Calendars — October Newsletter, events & more

September 28, 2018

by Robin Wood

No red/orange leaves here, but summer is over and we are jumping into an exciting fall/winter season of bookstore events. Kick October off with the opening reception for the second annual art contest on Oct. 4, followed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack E. Davis, discussing his book The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea on Friday, Oct. 5. Friday, Oct. 12, will feature an all-ages event, Newbery award-winning author Kwame Alexander and guitarist Randy Preston.

Also, join us in reading Friday Black, our new virtual book club pick. (Publishing Oct. 23, available for pre-order now.)

Debuting, Oct. 2, look for the new kids’ biography of Judy Blume, Who Is Judy Blume.

Get this month’s news in the newsletter, and bookmark our calendar page for updated information about all of the store’s upcoming events. We’ve already announced Susan Orlean in March and there’s much more to come.

Kwame Alexander, author of Swing

September 16, 2018

by Robin Wood

Friday, October 12 at 6pm, a reading, performance and book signing with Kwame Alexander, author of SWING. The event will also feature Randy Preston on guitar as Kwame gives one of his trademark performances from his brand new novel-in-verse, Swing.

Swing, written with co-author Mary Rand Hess, is a tale of best friends in their junior year of high school, who discover jazz, love, the unpredictable game of baseball, and a community mystery that has them facing some hard truths about social justice, all while finding their own sense of authentic cool.

This all-ages event is an opportunity to hear and meet the Newbery Medal-winning poet, author and educator Kwame Alexander. Kwame is the author of Solo, Rebound, The Crossover, The Playbook, as well as a number of other works.

Written in Kwame’s signature intricate, intimate style, Swing tells the story of 17-year-old high school junior Noah, who seeks to make the baseball team and win over the heart of Sam, a girl he’s loved since third grade.

“At some point in life, we all seek to discover our voice, who we are, and how to love,” said Kwame Alexander. “Swing follows the journey of two teen boys on the edge of adulthood who are in the midst of this struggle. This book is about love and acceptance—of self and others. And, this book is about embracing all facets of life and being present in those moments. When a reader finishes Swing, I hope they find a bit more self-acceptance and a willingness to open themselves up to others.”

Our Current Virtual Bookclub Read — Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart

August 20, 2018

by Robin Wood

Hi all,

Hope you’re having a good summer. I’ve had some long flights in the last few months, allowing me to read a great group of new books.

But now it’s my pleasure to introduce you to our latest Books & Books at The Studios Virtual Bookclub pick for August/September — a book I could read over and over without ever tiring of it. Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart is a dazzling memoir of a boy who emigrates from the Soviet Union in 1979. It’s funny, tender, deeply affecting and has been a favorite book of mine since I first read it in 2014. When it came out in paperback I read it again. And now, I’ll get to read it with you. If you’ve read Gary’s novels you already know he’s an incredible writer. You’ve probably laughed aloud at his humor. And for those who don’t yet know him, this will be a real treat.

Becoming an American speaks to all of us today as we wait and wonder what will happen to the children separated from their families at our borders. Gary is lucky. He comes to America with his parents where they make a new home. But, oh, the hilarious details! No spoilers here but best of all, when you finish this book, you will feel you know him. And that’s a good thing because….

Gary has a new novel coming out in September, one I’ve already read and couldn’t put down. It’s called Lake Success. He’ll have you in stitches while you shake your head in disbelief, asking yourself, what is success anyway? Another funny, irreverent page turner, filled with characters you will love and hate, often at the same time. But more about that next time.

I know a lot of you are getting the kids ready to go back to school. It can be a stressful time, so we hope you’ll find a book like Little Failure a real pick-me-up at the end of the day. Maybe it will ease your worries about the kids, maybe even the world? Right now we all need that.

Thanks, as always,

************

How the B&BKW Virtual Book Club works

The Books & Books @ The Studios virtual book club is an opportunity for us to share reading experiences, even if we’re not all together in the same place.

Now through the end of September, purchase a paperback copy of Little Failure and get 20% off Lake Success. Online, put both books in your cart and use the code BC20. If you order now, we’ll send both books to you when Lake Success comes out September 4, or you can pick up in store. And, if that wasn’t quite enough, the first 10 purchasers of Lake Success will get a signed copy.

Read along with us and share your reactions on social media. Make a comment, share a picture, ask a question. Don’t forget to include the hashtag: #bbkwbookclub on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Follow us on social media and look for the #bbkwbookclub hashtag. Every week, we’ll post new book club content.