Books

“I cannot abandon Havana,” Dr. Manolo Rodriguez muses over a cigarette in the opening pages of Robert Arellano’s newest novel, Havana Libre. It is the summer of 1997 — the height of Cuba’s Período Especial, or Special Period of economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union. The second installment in Arellano’s Cuba-centric series came out earlier this month just ahead of the third anniversary of President Barack Obama’s December 17, 2014 decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than 50 years of stalemate.

Maybe you’re feeling frustrated by politics. Maybe issues like police violence, racial discrimination, and poverty in communities of color feel unsolvable. Maybe you read the news each morning and wonder, How in hell did this country get so screwed up? In January, Ta-Nehisi Coates is coming to Miami to help answer that question.

The former vice president of the United States sat down with Man Booker Prize-winning writer George Saunders at the Adrienne Arsht Center as an accomplished foreign policymaker and bereaved father to discuss his new memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.

If you live in Miami long enough, chances are you have a Miami story. At this year’s Miami Book Fair, there’s no shortage of intriguing tales from authors who’ve documented the highs and lows of the Magic City. New Times has handpicked a shortlist of page-turners uncovering secret haunts, seafront vistas, ventanitas, best buys, and wildlife adventures — all to remind you there’s no place like home.

Every book lover can remember a lost weekend while binge-reading a novel whose ending had to wait because the body just gave out. No matter how compelling the story, somewhere around the 30th hour the brain shuts down and nothing more goes in.

The prologue of Katy Tur’s Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History tells the story of the night Donald Trump became President Trump. Tur, defeated and sleep-deprived after a year and a half of covering the Trump campaign, recalls nearly shutting down mentally after learning that Trump planned to continue staging rallies after his victory.

Punk-rock queen, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, writer, and artist Patti Smith will return to Miami Book Fair this year with her latest book, Devotion.

The Mutiny at Sailboat Bay was a notorious hotel and club in Coconut Grove that became the nerve center for Miami’s drug culture when the venue opened in 1969. It was there that the city’s lawless cocaine cowboys reigned over an era of unbridled excess heralded by a revival of…

Thanks to a robust schedule, visitors to this year’s Miami Book Fair will experience enough readings, panels, and other activities to fill a thousand volumes. There will be plenty of literary goodies to go around, but the organizers are most excited about what’s happening beyond the page at the Porch, an outdoor popup lounge that will host food, music, games, and other diversions.

Key West Island Books, independently owned and operated as a seller of new, used, and rare books since 1975, has become a Conch institution for its vibrant author event series and glass-of-wine-when-you-walk-in familiarity. After Hurricane Irma, the bookstore is one of many small businesses attempting to rebuild after the intense…

In any biz — especially in the movie biz — it’s all about who you know. Finding a place to schmooze with the bigwigs in an atmosphere that’s equal parts professional networking and tropical partying could make your career. So the founders of the Grand IndieWise Convention decided…

Twenty-five years ago, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida. Photographer Barry Fellman will mark the anniversary of the storm with a book of photos he took in its aftermath — and says we’re not doing enough to prevent another massive disaster.

As Miami’s cultural landscape boomed in the past decade — with the influx of major art fairs, new museums, and local galleries opening in up-and-coming neighborhoods — the city’s queer culture was in flux. Reading Queer, a Knight Foundation-sponsored cultural organization, is looking to change that fact by highlighting voices…

A few months before 40-year-old writer Luis Felipe Garcia began his eight-and-a-half-year stint in prison, he was selling liquid acid at a party when he accidentally dosed himself with the equivalent of 200 hits. At the time, the author of the new collection of short stories, Missing, was taking buprenorphine,…

Joining a wave of migration to Little Haiti — one that includes galleries such as Emerson Dorsch, Mindy Solomon, and Nina Johnson, as well as other cultural organizations — Exile Books has opened a storefront in the heart of the neighborhood. After three years in a small Wynwood studio, the small publisher is spreading its wings…

In its third year at the Standard Spa Miami Beach’s summer residency, Exile Books is planning a five-course dinner that pairs signature dishes, expertly crafted cocktails, and live poetry performances. Concrete Poetry, as organizers have named it, celebrates the eponymous medium that conveys verse (partially or totally) through visual representation.

You know that effortlessly fashionable friend who’s somehow always too broke to pick up the bar tab but looks like a Free People model with unlimited access to salon-quality hair products? Yeah, we can’t figure that out either. But if you’re trying to hit that sweet spot of boho-chic and bootylicious culture-crusader without sacrificing your groceries, we’re here to help. Below you’ll find events this week that will keep you seeing, eating, and grooving, even without designer funds.

The artist Ahol Sniffs Glue goes by many names: Ahol, Alouishous San Gomma, and David Anasagasti. But no matter what you call him, there’s no denying he’s a Miami institution. In fact, his work is so iconic that global brands have plagiarized it and appropriated it without his permission.

Drive east on NW 59th Street toward the Little Haiti Cultural Center and you’ll notice the murals and brightly painted building facades that echo the island of this neighborhood’s name. Unlike the arts district just south of it, Little Haiti is still resisting, with varying success, impending gentrification and the…

You can relieve your frustrations by whipping out some colored pencils and coloring in an outline of your car being towed in Jacober Creative’s Miami Beach coloring book, High Tides: Tales of Mermaids, Mayhem & Miami Beach.

Since Kickstarter’s launch in 2009, its users have pledged $3.3 billion. Miami native Alex Daly and her two-person team at Vann Alexandra, are responsible for raising $20 million of that and counting. Daly’s The Crowdsourceress: Get Smart, Get Funded, and Kickstart Your Next Big Idea is the ultimate crowdfunding manifesto…

He’s run eight miles every day starting at the Fifth Street lifeguard stand on South Beach since January 1st, 1975. He’s never owned a passport. He’s never had a driver’s license. He’s never even been on an airplane. Does he have any regrets? No way.