The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan
Mitchell Kaplan has been a bookseller and has owned the independent bookstores Books & Books for over 35 years. He is also co-founder of the acclaimed Miami Book Fair. If you love books, writers or are a passionate reader, this podcast is for you. Enter The Literary Life where every Friday you’ll hear candid conversations with Mitchell and his guests.
Episodes
February 23, 2024 • 48 mins
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November 3, 2023 • 45 mins
On this edition of The Literary Life, John Grisham is live at Books and Books in Coral Gables for a great night with a room full of readers, basking in the brilliance of a master storyteller. John's new book is The Exchange, and he brings back Mitch McDeer, the hero of The Firm -- and he talks with Mitchell Kaplan about this new book and much, much more.
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October 20, 2023 • 43 mins
Books & Books recently had the pleasure of hosting three-time National Book Award finalist and best-selling author Lauren Groff, presenting her new novel, The Vaster Wilds. The New York Times calls it “a lonely novel of hunger and survival.” The brilliant Groff reads from her adventure novel and answers questions from her audience of fans. This new episode of The Literary Life was recorded at Books & Books in Coral Gables.
Learn m...
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September 29, 2023 • 46 mins
Nathan Hill is the guest on this edition of The Literary Life. His new novel Wellness is one of the most anticipated books of the year: following his critically acclaimed The Nix, Wellness tells the story of a marriage at its inception and then into its future. Two days after Oprah selected Wellness for her book club, Nathan visited Books and Books and his humor, poignancy, and flat-out brilliance were on display -- on page and sta...
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September 8, 2023 • 36 mins
Books and Books in Coral Gables, our flagship store, is right across the street from the Coral Gables Cinema. Our indie bookstore so close to this indie cinema is my idea of heaven.
Over the years, we've had many collaborations and just a few weeks ago, during the cinema's first run showing of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Kai Bird, the co-author of American Prometheus (which Christopher Nolan adapted for his screenplay) joined...
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August 18, 2023 • 46 mins
Imagine this: my guest has published over 105 novels and has sold over 450 million copies of his books. That's right, 450 million copies. That's the output of Dean Koontz and my revealing conversation with him covers lots of territory: his book collection, his love of reading, his new works, his thoughts on artificial intelligence, his writing process, how he researches, his openness about overcoming his difficult childhood, the im...
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August 4, 2023 • 41 mins
Campbell McGrath is among South Florida's most revered poets recognized with the MacArthur Genius Award, a Kingsley Tufts poetry Award and by admirers from Robert Pinsky to Elizabeth Alexander. His newest collection is Fever of Unknown Origin and on this edition of The Literary Life, we celebrate its publication with a reading at the Coral Gables location of Books & Books.
Introducing Campbell is Scott Cunningham, executive and art...
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July 14, 2023 • 48 mins
On this edition of The Literary Life, what makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? Robert Waldinger and Mark Schulz, the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, have just published The Good Life: Life Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study on Happiness. Their invaluable insights emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard study that forms the basis of this new imp...
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June 23, 2023 • 54 mins
At a time when the state of Florida has become ground zero for those who want to silence the voices of so many, we at Books & Books found it critical to bring Chasten Buttigieg to the Miami area to celebrate the publication of the young-adult edition of his memoir, I Have Something to Tell You. Chasten was joined in conversation with the Deputy Executive Director of the national LGBTQ Task Force, Mayra Hidalgo Salazar. Pastor Lauri...
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June 9, 2023 • 44 mins
Anne Berest, the author of The Postcard -- one of the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years -- came to Books & Books and dazzled a room full of readers. Let's join those readers on this episode of The Literary Life.
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May 26, 2023 • 48 mins
Ana Veciana-Suarez is the author of several books, including the historical novel Dulcinea, the young adult novel, Flight to Freedom, and a collection of essays, Birthday Parties in Heaven: Thoughts on Life, Love, Grief, and Other Matters of the Heart. A previous novel, The Chin Kiss King, was nominated for the prestigious IMPAC Award. In 2019 she won a Cintas Fellowship for Creative Writing for her novel-in-progress.
Two of her no...
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May 12, 2023 • 50 mins
On this edition of The Literary Life, an evening of readings at Books and Books from the 2022 Prison Writing Awards Anthology. The evening was sponsored by PEN America's Prison and Justice Writing Program along with Exchange for Change, a Miami-based organization whose mission is as follows: "We believe in the value of every voice, and we give our students an opportunity to express themselves without the fear of being stigmatized. ...
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April 28, 2023 • 47 mins
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder is confirmation yet again of David Grann's prodigious talent. Like he did in Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z, David has taken a story that, while not unknown, is not known enough, and he brings it to life in all its exoticism and savagery.
David Grann is my guest on this episode of The Literary Life, and his talk was recorded in front of a live audience at Books a...
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April 14, 2023 • 31 mins
Photographer, model, and muse to two of the greatest musicians of our time, Pattie Boyd is Mitchell’s guest on this edition of The Literary Life. Her new book, My Life In Pictures (published by Real Art Press) is a stunning collection of her personal photographs capturing the essence and zeitgeist of the Bohemian rock and roll world of the 1960s and early ‘70s.
Mitchell spoke to Pattie about all of this and more in front of a live ...
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March 24, 2023 • 32 mins
On this edition of The Literary Life, it's my hope that listening to Shelly Read (Go as a River) talk about her life in Western Colorado and its influence on her engaging story of Victoria and how she perseveres over three decades, confronting love and disappointment and the harsh and beautiful reality of her life, will compel you to take a chance on this debut. You won't be sorry. As Bonnie Garmus, the author of Lessons in Chemist...
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March 17, 2023 • 49 mins
On this edition of The Literary Life, join Ruth Dickey, the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, and a live audience at Books and Books for an evening honoring Alexandra Chang, Joseph Hahn, Crystal Hana Kim and Alyssa Songsiridej, all recipients of the five under 35 prize selected by past National Book Award winners and finalists, or previous five under 35 honorees.
Unfortunately, Claire Sestanovich was not able to m...
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February 17, 2023 • 38 mins
Alisha Fernandez Miranda is the author of a coming-of-middle age memoir, My What If Year, coming from Zibby Books in 2023. Detailing her year of unpaid internships in the dream jobs of her childhood, the book follows Alisha on her quest to figure out what might have happened if her life had taken a different path. Her story has been featured in Business Insider and Moms Don’t Have Time to Write.
Alisha is also a co-author of 50 Ye...
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February 10, 2023 • 40 mins
Patricia Engel is the author of Infinite Country, a New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club selection; The Veins of the Ocean, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris, winner of the International Latino Book Award; and Vida, a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway and Young Lions Fiction Awards, New York Times Notable Book, and winner of Colombia’s national book award, the Premio Biblioteca de Nar...
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February 3, 2023 • 36 mins
Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. His books include Mountains Beyond Mountains, Strength in What Remains, The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, Hometown, and A Truck Full of Money.
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January 27, 2023 • 42 mins
Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of four other novels--All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, The Vacationers, and Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures--and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in twenty countries. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.
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