Literature

Books & Books Bal Harbour Shops. December 13, 2012. 6:30 p.m. Established as a luxury vacation destination in southern Florida for the rich and famous in the early 1900s, Palm Beach is synonymous with old-world glamour and new-world sophistication. This breathtakingly beautiful resort community – though elite and exclusive – can be truly hospitable to tourists, especially in hotels, restaurants, and shops.

Books & Books, Coral Gables. December 8, 2012. 2:00 p.m. She’s excited us with her magnetism as a Bond Girl in the film Live and Let Die; she’s made us cheer for her dance moves on the Emmy-nominated program Dancing with the Stars; she’s made us laugh as the sexually charged wife of Christopher Walken in New Line Cinema’s feature film Wedding … +

Books & Books, Coral Gables. November 27, 2012. 8:00 p.m. Long before Jimmy Buffett wrote “Margaritaville” about Key West, James Beard award-winning chef Norman Van Aken had already pledged allegiance to the magical little scrap of land at the end of the rainbow. Norman says “I just felt lucky when I walked the old small streets and alleys, protected by some ancient … +

Temple Beth Am. December 2, 2012. 7:00 p.m. Yaakov Katz is the military correspondent and defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post and the Israel correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly, the international military magazine. He is currently a 2013 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.

Book talk by Brenna Munro at Books & BooksNovember 28, 2012. 8:00 p.m. After apartheid, South Africa established a celebrated new political order that imagined the postcolonial nation as belonging equally to the descendants of indigenous people, colonizing settlers, transported slaves, indentured laborers, and immigrants. Its constitution, adopted in 1996, was the first in the world to include gays and lesbians as … +

From November 14 through 16, 2012. This fall, aspiring writers will have the opportunity to learn techniques and get publishing advice when The Center of Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College (MDC), formerly known as the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, presents its prestigious Miami Writers Institute from Wednesday, November 14 through Friday, November 16, during the Miami Book Fair … +

From November 3 through 18, 2012. The Center for Literature and Theatre at MDC, as described by its Director Alina Interián, “…is for readers and actors, book lovers and theatre aficionados. It is for aspiring writers and award-winning authors, children learning to sound out their first words, and college students ready to make their mark on society.

Books & Books, Bal Harbour Shops. October 22, 2012. 6:30 p.m. The story of Job is one of unjust things happening to a good man. Yet after losing everything, Job – though confused, angry, and questioning God – refuses to reject his faith, although he challenges some central aspects of it, and is rewarded with abundant good fortune.

Discussing and signing Bunny Yeager’s Darkroom: Pin-Up Photography’s Golden EraBooks & Books, Coral Gables. October 24, 2012. 7:00 p.m.Books & Books, Bal Harbour Shops. October 25, 2012. 6:30 p.m. Once the exclusive realm of the male, pin-up photography was invaded mid-century by a shapely young miss who could, and would, model for her photographs. The only female pin-up photographer of her day, … +

Books & Books, Coral Gables. October 15, 2012. 8:00 p.m. New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon has transported readers to wonderful places: to New York City during the Golden Age of comic books (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay); to an imaginary Jewish homeland in Sitka, Alaska (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union); to discover The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

Neiman Marcus, Bal Harbour Shops. October 8, 2012. 2:00 p.m. With her unique talent for seeing past disastrous wardrobes to the core emotional issues that caused these sartorial crises, style savant Stacy London has transformed not only the looks but also the lives of hundreds of guests who have appeared on What Not to Wear. Like the women she’s transformed, London has … +

CrepeMaker Café. September 24, 2012. 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. The CrepeMaker Café is celebrating its fourth season of The Poetry Buffet, featuring Miami-based artist David Zalben.

UM BankUnited Center Fieldhouse. October 2, 2012. 6:00 p.m. In the passion of the civil rights campaigns of 1964 and 1965, Jonathan Kozol gave up the prospect of a promising and secure career within the academic world, moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood of Boston, and became a fourth grade teacher.

As part of its Stanford Distinguished Professors Lecture SeriesSeptember 20, 2012. 7:00 p.m. “Is religion the problem, or is religion the solution? Is religion a harm to global ethics, or does it provide a healing touch?”– Mark Juergensmeyer

Books & Books, Coral Gables. September 10, 2012. 8:00 p.m. In a riveting account based on new documents and interviews with more than 400 sources on both sides of the aisle, award-winning reporter Michael Grunwald reveals the vivid story behind President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill, one of the most important and least understood pieces of legislation in the history of the … +

Books & Books, Coral Gables. September 20, 2012. 8:00 p.m. Marked by Irvine Welsh’s scabrous humor and raw Scottish vernacular, Skagboys transports us to 1980s Edinburgh, where the Trainspotting crew is just getting started.

Coral Gables Congregational Church. September 22, 2012. 7:30 p.m. Junot Díaz’s first book, Drown, established him as a major new writer with “the dispassionate eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet” (Newsweek). His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was a literary sensation, topping best-of-the-year lists and winning a host of major awards, including the Pulitzer … +

Miami Dade College Chapman Conference CenterSeptember 28, 2012. 7:30 p.m. The son of a pastor and grandson of a Voudu priest, Wyclef Jean was born and raised in the slums of Haiti, until his family moved to New York when he was nine. As immigrants they struggled in Brooklyn then eventually moved to Newark, where his father converted a burnt down funeral … +

Books & Books, Coral Gables. September 1, 2012. 7:00 p.m. Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan began writing a weekly column, “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” for King Features Syndicate in 2006. This timely new sequel to Goodman’s New York Times bestseller of the same name gives voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power – and refusing to … +

August 28 and 30, 2012. 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. Writers don’t talk enough about reading. Most of the people who are serious about writing can recite writing advice by heart: “show, don’t tell”; “kill your darlings”; “revise, revise, revise”; etc. But they don’t talk nearly enough about serious strategies for reading. And who are they as writers, if they are not readers … +

August 15, 2012. 6:00 p.m. Yvette Forbes’ book Testimonies: Issues of Life depicts the stories of nine biblical women. The author gives accounts of their triumphs, their disappointments, their mistakes and their pain. Her book tells the story of how these women overcame their trials and how they weathered life’s storms.