A literary whirlwind blew through town. From opening night on Nov. 15 until the last chapter ended on Nov. 22, the 32nd Miami Book Fair offered up over 350 authors and every conceivable range of topics on the Miami-Dade College downtown campus.
LEFT:David Axelrod. RIGHT: Tom Brokaw.
Photos by Irene Sperber.
I love the Book Fair, but it is a daunting task to sift through the catalogue of events, talks, panels, readings and performances. One has to accept that all offered will not be do-able by one person. Once forgoing that bit of manic panic, settle in and enjoy the ride.
If getting out of your pajamas was a big old no-can-do this weekend, the talks were offered by C-Span2 and PBS or streaming on booktv.org. You could be infirmed and informed all at once. One could binge watch everything from Dave Barry discussing The Worst Class Trip Ever to Ted Koppel warning of the probability of cyber attacks with his newest weighty tome, Lights Out: Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. I'm not sure which of those topics elicits greater fear in your heart of darkness, but suffice to say, there is a lot to ponder with buckets of thoughts and ideas whizzing by.
LEFT: Marc Buoniconti and Mitchell Kaplan. RIGHT: Jesse Eisenberg and Kunal Nayyar.
Photos by Irene Sperber.
I must say after being assaulted by the piffle and drivel of TV pundits ad nauseum, the level of thoughtfulness and intelligence of Book Fair authors was inspiring and heartwarming to behold. It felt. . . hopeful. . . that people are still ruminative and well read. The level of questions posed by the audiences here in Miami were equally intelligent and gleaned new information to jump start our brains into directions perhaps not yet addressed.
Like visions of sugarplums, the Miami Book Fair 2015 left notions and potions dancing in my head.
Opening night with Patti Smith, reading from her well received M Train, did not disappoint. She is an interesting character, a true artist who gains respect for her life led with purpose. In no way apologetic, she commanded the stage in a quiet but purposeful manner. "The person who can best help you in your life is you," she instructed.
Smith ended with a haunting a capella rendition of her song Wings in homage to the Paris attacks.
Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley read from her book Golden Age, last in a trilogy of the Langdon family. Smiley was personable and fun as she answered audience questions on her method of writing both fiction and non-fiction. (It would be just wrong to make the connection with her name and attitude here.) Small observation: I had seen only Smith and Smiley before coming to the obvious conclusion that I do not need to ever brush my hair if I wanted to be a successful writer. This snippet of information pleases me, as it frees up more time in the day.
LEFT: Marlon James.RIGHT: Gail Sheehy and Peggy Noonan.
Photos by Irene Sperber.
Robert B. Reich was next on the agenda of Evenings With. . . a series of nightly talks leading up to the weekend street fair and wall-to-wall author talks. As Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, Time magazine named Reich one of the most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. An absorbing and well prepared speaker, Reich instructed his publisher to send him to the Red States for the launch of his new book, Saving Capitalism, For the Many, Not the Few. He related how everyone hated the title: conservatives groused that it seems like there's something wrong with capitalism, while in Berkeley they wondered why you would want to save capitalism. He shared a quote of Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1920s who said; "We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both." Reich participated in the film, Inequality For All, a documentary addressing the facts of the widening economic gap.
Booker Prize winner Marlon James read from his new book, A Brief History of Seven Killings, as he smoothly brought us through the patois of a Jamaican language of the middle class. His work includes many characters which the audience was interested as to how he kept them straight. A good deal of the audiences at Book Fair used successful authors to gain an insight to writing and publishing. James uses a plot chart to keep characters fluidly moving in proper sequencing.
Marc Buoniconti, head of the Buoniconti Fund to Fight Paralysis introduced Tom Brokaw. (Brokaw gives generously to the Buoniconti Fund) Anchoring NBC News from 1982- 2004, the veteran newsman took us through his recent (2013) fight with Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer. He is now in remission, but used the experience to translate his journals, recorded during the challenge, into a book titled A Lucky Life Interrupted. Brokaw got laughs for telling us the phrase Humble Anchorman is an oxymoron. None the less, he has used the book to aide in easing the communication between physicians, patients and clinics to deal with each other effectively. He got to know the American hospitalization system close up and extols the nurses as angels who do the hard work. His book is being utilized in hospitals and read by numerous people going through deeply difficult medical segments of their lives.
Beat generation poet Gary Snyder talked about living off the grid; involved in bio-regionalism believing it has yet to break into the greater consciousness. He was quirky and wryly amusing with tongue in cheek insightfulness. He was there when Ginsberg would first read important poems.
PJ O'Rourke.
Photos by Irene Sperber.
Political consultant David Axelrod called us the Land of Aspiring Presidents. Given the swarm of hopeful candidates trotted out over the past many months, who could argue his point. Axelrod recently wrote Believer: My Forty Years in Politics. He started out as a reporter and was told this piece of rookie info; "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." Ah, yes, fact checking…we remember it fondly.
A triad of photographers were on hand to bring us back in time to Miami's former youth. Charles Hashim's book of photographs (We Are Everywhere and We Shall Be Free) from 1977-1983 shows how Miami got where it is today.…the first gay pride parade, a KKK meeting where 800 marched in Davie. Bridge Red gallery will be showing Hashim's work until January. Brett Sokol, of Ocean Drive magazine officiated the panel discussion. Wynwood photographer Andrew Kaufman give a slide show of his book Arty Gras, commenting on the party atmosphere Art Basel has brought to the serious business of art. He discussed how Wynwood started out as a place for artists to embrace their wild sides.
Peggy Noonan ran a half hour late as the main Chapman Hall fell into dishabille as the day wore on, but talks were riveting no matter whom you walked in on at whatever time. She was charming and insightful in her stories of writing for Reagan, her dream job, and early times of breaking into journalism during the old boys club days. Our own Jackie Nespral was a well chosen questioner to accompany Noonan.
Gail Sheehy (author of the famed Passages) was paired with Rabbi Harold Kushner in a curiously disparate set up where there was very little interaction between the two. I felt like they missed an opportunity as the Rubin Museum in New York often has brilliant talks between high spiritual leaders and physicists or other science professionals. A good speaker, Sheehy was a fountain of history discussing women breaking into a man's world of journalism, bringing a new twist as well as sharing hair raising stories of her exploits. Rabbi Kushner discussed the question of how to marry the thought of God with difficult challenges life throws our way. His new book: Nine Essential Things I've Learned about Life.
Gail Sheehy and Rabbi Harold Kushner.
Photos by Irene Sperber.
By this time my eyes were crossing but I still missed so much. I caught a few more lectures on live stream after arriving home each day on booktv.org. But before I went home Sunday afternoon I finished with P.J. O'Rourke with his publisher and friend Morgan Entrekin. They have done 16 books together which I understand is some sort of literary loyalty record. O'Rourke is a clever man. Telling of the time he decided to live in Washington for a year to understand politics, until he realized "that much idiocy is not that easily penetrated." In one hour he manages to diss Woody Allen, the famed NYC literary restauranteur, Elaine, and her food along with many others. He was foreign correspondent of Rolling Stone magazine with the title of Editor of Irrational Affairs. PJ and Morgan agreed their voting leant toward the "Least Worst" party du jour.
One last blast of the clever duo of actors turned writers Jesse Eisenberg (Bream Gives Me Hiccups) and Big Bang Theory's Kunal Nayyar (My Accent Is Real: And Some Other Things I Haven't Told You) finished me off. They were both entertaining and a good palate cleanser as both read through some of their chuckle worthy awkward stories of truth and fiction in the trials of achieving adulthood and beyond.
Miami-Dade College needs to be commended for the brilliant Miami Book Fair as well as myriad volunteers who helped to steer this large ship of knowledge successfully into port.
