Books

Hialeah Homecoming: Jennine Capo Crucet and Patricia Engel

The Miami Book Fair may be, uh, in the books, but it’s also on the YouTubes. CSPAN, everyone’s favorite must-watch cable channel, aired some sessions from the fair, and CSPAN Junkie collected them for your viewing pleasure. Scott McClellan: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House The Fight Over Presidential…

Dennis Lehane On its 25th anniversary, the Miami Book Fair International is just that — drawing authors from around the world as varied and well respected as Salman Rushdie and Frank McCourt. Saturday morning’s marquee session, however, felt more like a hometown celebration, bringing together three of the most successful…

Nikki Giovanni was once known as the princess of black poetry, but nowadays she shares the queendom with the likes of Maya Angelou. Bold, forthright and sharp, Giovanni has paved the way for new generations of young black poets, she celebrated hip hop and recognized its power before many of…

Mitchell Kaplan is one of Miami’s most beloved figures. As the owner of Books & Books, he already had established a headquarters for a then burgeoning literary scene. When he co-founded the Miami International Book Fair 25 years ago, Kaplan helped to further cement the city as a mecca for…

Russell Banks Its been said that a person living on the right cross streets in downtown New York in the 1950s could get a university-level education just by hanging out in bars. If that’s true, then someone could get a Sorbonne-level education by hanging out in a bar with Russell…

Comic artist Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman- the Michael Jordan of literary comics- headlines this year’s book fair. The artist who created the hugely popular Holocaust comic tome Maus is here touting two new works. The first is Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, a re-release of a…

Mystic River author Dennis Lehane Dennis Lehane, author of best-sellers turned box office hits Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, is as Boston as the Dropkick Murphys and “Sweet Caroline” at Red Sox games. But he’s actually a South Florida guy, too. Lehane studied at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg…

Evelyn McDonnell, tattooed feminist, author of Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids, & Rock ‘n’ Roll, and former Herald pop culture critic speaks Sunday at 12 p.m. at the Miami Book Fair. New Times: What do you think about today’s music? Coming from the 60s and 70s, where good music…

“Rarely has one man been blessed with such an auspicious destiny. Few have been endowed with so many gifts, opportunity and the good will of so many. That he squandered it so makes Cuba’s tragedy all the more wrenching.” That man, of course, is Miami’s nemesis: Fidel Castro. The woman…

Govind Armstrong has never been a prissy, stick-to-the-rules kind of chef. Even his culinary background is unconventional – instead of culinary school, he gathered his knowledge working with Wolfgang Puck at Spago at age 13, then working amidst a crowd of young, innovative chefs in acclaimed restaurants in California and…

Molly O’Neill will appear at the Miami Book Fair tomorrow, November 10, at 1:30 p.m. Her book, American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes, cooks up a look at America’s history via over 100 concise and distinctive stories concerning food. O’Neill, the New York Times food columnist for a…

Dressed in black from head to toe, author Walter Mosley stood out easily against the rich tones of the Mandarin Oriental’s lobby and its equally overhued patrons. As he walked toward me, ebony fedora tipped to one side, visions of his most well-known character, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, came to mind…

Remember when your sister iced your birthday cake with Ajax? It’s payback time. From a journalist’s memoir about her junkie brother to a memoir written in tandem by sisters, one of whom was sexually assaulted, to a novel narrated by an office worker whose murdered sister was “diabolically beautiful” but…