In All Fair-ness

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. - P.J.O'Rourke

With Miami’s focus on image, I do hope you have taken this into account. We need to start thinking about our intellectual lives as summer wanes; toss the trashy novels, put down daiquiris / mint juleps and pay attention. It’s time for serious thought into South Florida’s 2012-13 cultural season before we get caught out with sand in our ears.

Miami Book Fair International is slated for November 11 - 18 (street fair 16 -18). This phenomenal kick-off event to months of fascinating proceedings (ie Art Basel to follow) needs some planning to glean every morsel of fact, fiction and fantasy.

Tom Wolfe will open the always remarkable Evenings With series (Nov 11, 6:00pm). Just to tease and tantalize you a bit more, expect Cuban-born Isabel Toledo and husband/artist/collaborator Ruben Toledo, the designers who placed Michelle Obama in that beautiful lemon grass concoction for her husband’s inauguration. Should you have a more political bent, Jeffrey Toobin will inform and terrorize with his synopses of current events (New Yorker and CNN) in his latest, The Oath, The Obama White House vs. the Supreme Court.

There is a bit of homework that needs to be done beforehand to squeeze every delicious drop out of the lettered experience. Seriously consider joining Friends of the Miami Book Fair soon, to both aid in your enjoyment of this exemplary event and, equally as important, become a part of the future success of the absorbing and worthwhile annual affair. Book Fair was the vision of legendary bookseller Mitchell Kaplan twenty nine years ago, and will mark 2013 as a thirty year milestone in its history. Kaplan’s Books & Books stores have been such a boon to South Florida’s literary and cultural form to date, growing with the times, pushing things headlong into creating our own tome of scholarly pursuits.

Starting Membership level is $100 which will allow free access to the Fair, first shot at tickets to lectures, events and speakers as well as priority mailing for Books & Books events throughout the year. The Evenings With series (the week of the Fair) is enthralling and gotten so popular that membership is practically a necessity to ensure a seat for world class current author talks. A new twist to membership this year is the partnering with many local shops, restaurants and spas offering members a 10% discount.  Tom Wolfe

Membership benefits increase depending on level, which runs from Publisher for $2000 down to Reader ($100) or Student for $35. (Other levels are $250, $500 or $1000.) If you wish to kick it up a notch this year and participate in a new and separate contribution to Patron Circle ($3000 and up) there is an entire fresh wardrobe to consider as this will assure private invitations to intimate interactive greeting rooms. Here you can expect to nibble on cheese while relaxing over a glass of wine as you engage popular authors of the day with witty repartee and your always stunning insights. Apart from personal enjoyment, this contribution will be an important philanthropic donation to a three year fund raiser, ensuring the Book Fair support for its future. For more info on Patron Circle: 305-237-3258 or membership: http://miamibookfair.com/membership/friends/ 

All members of the family will be interested in attending The Miami Book Fair International. Children are not an afterthought, but recognized as an integral part of the future as this fair coaxes young minds to recognize the beauty of words strung together as pearls, creating jewels of thoughts to ponder and reflect. Cultural diversity is not lost on Book Fair organizers, a plethora of Spanish speaking lectures, books and authors are widely on view.

Lemony Snicket will be on hand should you need to introduce the popular adult pastime of angsting into the life of your descendant:“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” - Lemony Snicket.

Other highlights:

Pulitzer prize winning Dominican author Junot Diaz discussing his latest This is How You Lose Her.

Brooklyn-ite Chris Hayes will be available to add his hipster cable guy thoughts in Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.

Poet Sandra Cisneros adds another layer to the academic cake with her thoughts; “I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school, but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to be a writer to see my name in the card catalogue” (You never know what incites a child to succeed.)

You’d swear Pulitzers came in cereal boxes looking at the Fair roster as I see prize winner Robert Caro will expound on The Passage of Power delving into Lyndon Johnson’s legacy.

Frequent New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. Don’t miss his pithy comments on the world.

Irish born Canadian Emma Donogue will talk about her best seller Room along with a new book and play.

For more info:

www.miamibookfair.com/  Presented and Produced by The Center for Literature and Theater, Miami Dade College