MIAMI BOOK FAIR INTERNATIONAL
In an intimate setting, novelist Richard Powers finds new fans
At the Miami Book Fair International Wednesday night, a novelist wowed a smaller crowd with some big ideas.
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Crowned the Queen of Italian Cuisine, Lidia Bastianich presides over six restaurants in three cities, multiple public television shows, a close-knit brood of children and grandchildren and a growing series of cookbooks based on travels throughout her homeland.
At the Miami Book Fair International Wednesday night, a novelist wowed a smaller crowd with some big ideas.
Novelist Richard Powers thrives at the intersection of science and wonder, raising questions that illuminate the human condition. In his provocative ninth novel, he poses an intriguing query guaranteed to spark the imagination: What would happen if we discovered a gene for happiness?
Celebrities such as Isabella Rossellini draw readers to the Miami Book Fair International, but organizers say they focus on their work as authors.
Economic pressures in the publishing industry prompt authors to become their own marketing muscle.
A memoirist's message Tuesday at the Miami Book Fair: When times are tough, it's time to get tough.
There was a time when no one was allowed to laugh about breast cancer -- much less wax sarcastic or cynical, ironic or arch about it -- because breast cancer usually meant disfigurement and often meant death.
The featured authors at Monday's book fair events delighted their listeners.
``It's sort of like being the absent-minded professor times five,'' says Tim Page. After a lifetime of struggling to relate to fellow human beings, he received a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome at age 45. Seven years later, Page, then the music critic for The Washington Post, revealed his condition in an essay in the New Yorker, which he has expanded into a new memoir, Parallel Play: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Asperger's (Doubleday, $26).
The author is so smitten with his protagonist that he imbues him with qualities that offset his sins
This volume contains stories from four collections of Lydia Davis, each with its own feel.
''I have just read Francine Prose's Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. This is an amazing book. It pulls together into one volume with great order and clarity much of what has been written about both Anne Frank and the publication of her diary over the years, but also (and most importantly, I think) focuses on Anne Frank as an accomplished writer who with great skill and talent edited herself in a way that makes clear her aspirations as someone who wanted her work to be published and read. As one of the many thousands upon millions of girls who was fixated on and obsessed with Anne Frank early in life -- finding in her work great inspiration as a writer and as a human, I was thrilled to find Prose's book. This is thorough, thoughtful, beautifully written.''
WEDNESDAY Abdella Taďa and ''Salvation Army.'' 6:30 p.m. Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables.
Miami Book Fair International kicked off Sunday night at Miami Dade College with novelist Margaret Atwood, poet Elizabeth Alexander and a fingers-crossed hope that troublesome Topical Storm Ida keeps heading north.
Here are Monday's events at Miami Book Fair International at Miami Dade College, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami. Tickets for ``Evenings With . . .'' events can be downloaded at www.miamibookfair.com
''God gave unto the Animals / A wisdom past our power to see,'' goes a hymn sung by God's Gardeners, the ecologically minded, deeply spiritual but eminently practical religious cult in Margaret Atwood's fire-breathing new novel, The Year of the Flood.
Al Gore's new work -- ``Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis'' (Rodale Books, $26.99) -- is a culmination of 30 ``solution summits'' that Gore convened around the world. Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his environmental advocacy. Beth Reinhard, political writer at The Miami Herald, spoke to him recently about this book.
Elizabeth Alexander's Praise Song for the Day, the inauguration poem that helped deliver Barack Obama into office, was in the making for almost half a century, surely for three generations: The grandmother who sang lullabies, poetry set to music. The parents who took their 1-year-old daughter to the Lincoln Memorial to hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. The husband who emptied the house of the two boys, because, more than anything, Alexander needed hushed space to muster words and thoughts, then distill them into something beautiful, powerful, memorable.
Jay Weaver is The Herald's legal-affairs reporter. He asked these questions of Joan Biskupic, the author of ``American Original, The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia''. Biskupic, who obtained her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, has been USA Today's legal affairs correspondent since 2000.
Small booksellers are filling niches and emphasizing service as they fight to stay in business.
Every year, Miami Book Fair International generates high expectations among Spanish-language readers who enthusiastically greet authors from throughout the Hispanic world. But the fair also gives writers from the United States, Canada and Miami the opportunity to present their books in Spanish and to mingle with their English-language colleagues.
Wear comfortable shoes. Get a copy of the schedule beforehand. Sign up for tickets in advance. Bring a big bag for the books you'll buy, whether you plan to or not. Be sure to try some sessions utterly out of the blue.
Barbara Kingsolver jokes that whenever she publishes a novel she apparently turns into a railway station because, according to reviewers, ''I only do departures.''
Journalists are never the story. They look instead to the world at large, interviewing, researching and seeking objective truth. Jeannette Walls knows this approach well, having worked for 20 years as a journalist in New York City -- including a stint as a gossip columnist -- before her first nonfiction book, The Glass Castle, was released in 2005.
Orhan Pamuk is a man in love. So is Kemal, the narrator of Pamuk's shimmering, brimming new novel The Museum of Innocence (Knopf, $28.95).
If most biographers start out in love with their subjects and end up hating them, Brad Gooch did things backward as he researched his highly regarded biography of southern writer Flannery O'Connor.
Interviews with Bill Clinton yield historical perspective as well as glimpses of behind-the-scenes Washington.
Finally, someone takes Anne Frank seriously as an author. [R](241.5)(.0)(199.5)(71.1)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)(.0)
A believer takes a calm approach to the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Nearly three weeks after food-world royalty Ruth Reichl got the staggering news that Gourmet, the venerated culinary magazine she ushered into the 21st century, was shutting down after a 68-year run, she was still at a loss as to what she might do next.
John Radanovich is obsessive about jazz, so much so that he moved from one great jazz town to another, just to immerse himself in it. Chicago. New York. New Orleans.
Sue Mullin is manager-editor of the Calendar department for The Miami Herald. She asked this of Sadia Shepard, who has written ``The Girl From Foreign: A Memoir'' (Penguin Books, $25.95 hardcover and $16 paperback).
Andrea Robinson, editor of The Miami Herald's Neighbors sections that appear in North-Central Miami-Dade and Northwest Miami-Dade, asked this of Lyah Beth LeFlore, the author of ``Wildflowers'' (Broadway Books, $13.99), a gripping tale about the strong black women in the Davis family that explores natural and spiritual bonds between mothers and daughters and the lengths they go to protect their name.
Olga Connor, who writes often for El Nuevo Herald about Cuban culture, interviewed Jaime Bayly, the well-known Peruvian writer and journalist whose latest book is ``El Cojo y el Loco'' (``The Mad and the Cripple'') (Alfaguara, $16.99).
Steve Rothaus covers gay issues for The Miami Herald. He asked these questions of Stuart E. Weisberg, who has written ``Barney Frank: The Story of America's Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman'' (University of Massachusetts Press, $30 hardback).
Terence Shepherd is multimedia business editor for The Miami Herald. He asked this of Joyce Purnick, who has written ``Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics'' (PublicAffairs, $26.95).
Nirvi Shah is consumer affairs and personal finance reporter for The Miami Herald who previously covered education. She asked this of Roxanna Elden, who wrote See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers (2009; Kaplan, $19.95). Elden has been teaching for eight years, including the past six at Hialeah High.
Luisa Yanez is a higher-education reporter for The Miami Herald and a co-author of ``Miami's Criminal Past Uncovered'' (The History Press, 2007). She asked this of Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés, who has written ``Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles'' (IG Publishing, $14.95):
Sergio Bustos is The Herald's deputy city editor and a co-author of ``Miami's Criminal Past Uncovered'' (The History Press, 2007). He asked this of Ana Menendez, a former Herald columnist and the author of ``The Last War'' (Harper/HarperCollins, $24.99).
Tere Figueras Negrete is a an editor for the Miami Herald Neighbor's section. She asked this of Pulitzer Prize winner Liz Balmaseda, formerly of The Miami Herald and currently a columnist for The Palm Beach Post, whose new book is ``Sweet Mary'' (Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, $24.95).