This month, when we asked Mitch Kaplan of Miami institution Books & Books for his latest recommendations, a theme emerged: Several of the literary world’s most anticipated titles are by authors who will be visiting the flagship Books & Books location, or surrounding venues, to discuss their work. We’re spotlight four of these titles, which drop over the next two months and are all available for preorder from the premier South Florida bookseller.
Arguably the most important author of the Haitian diaspora, Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory; The Art of Death) returns with her fifth novel—and her first in 13 years—following 2024’s essay collection, We’re Alone. A sense of isolation also colors Dèy, along with other themes, such as the ongoing push-pull dynamic between the main character’s family in Haiti and her life in the U.S., the tender relationship she shares with her daughter, and the complications of a faltering marriage. Adding to this familiar Danticatian stew is a meditation on gun violence and its aftermath. Magnolia, the Haitian-American protagonist, sells real estate in Miami. In the story’s inciting incident, she’s browsing a shopping mall when gunfire breaks out, prompting her to shelter in a nearby restaurant. She survives the incident but not without its attendant psychic scars, and though she keeps the day’s events to herself, their implications creep into daily life in unavoidable ways that only Danticat can express. See Danticat in conversation with journalist Jacqueline Charles on Aug. 29 at Books & Books.
American Scoundrel by Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark
Lauded biographer Kai Bird—whose 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus, inspired Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning biopic of the complicated scientist—pulls no punches in his appraisal of his latest subject, the high-powered lawyer Roy Cohn. Scoundrel, after all, is right there in the title. The subtitle of American Scoundrel, Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump, speaks to Cohn’s extraordinary trajectory through just about every facet of the Republican Party, from its paranoid to moderate to MAGA wings. Cohn was in his ‘20s when he successfully prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and by the following decade he was advising Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the latter’s Communist witch hunts. He later worked for the mafia, advised President Nixon, and befriended Nancy Reagan. His coup de grace was mentoring the young Donald Trump in the 1980s. Whether you loathe or admire the current president, much of his mannerisms and philosophical worldview were shaped by Cohn, who died in 1986, long before his protégé’s political rise. Bird and his wife, muse, and chief researcher Susan Goldmark will discuss their book with WLRN Senior Economics Editor Tom Hudson on Sept. 8 at Books & Books.
We Chase Shadows by Richard Osman
For many Britons of a certain generation or two, Richard Osman is most famous not as a novelist but as a television presenter and game show producer for the BBC, where he showcased his quick wit on series such as Pointless and Richard Osman’s House of Games. So it’s no surprise that this ludic, cheeky sensibility extends to his career as a best-selling crime novelist, with a style that’s perhaps more Only Murders in the Building than Easy Rawlins. After establishing his mystery-novel bona fides with the Thursday Murder Club series, Osman launched a separate series, We Solve Murders, in 2024, introducing his latest trio of unlikely sleuths: a celebrity novelist, the private security officer protecting her, and the officer’s father-in-law, a retired policeman and pub trivia devotee. Next month, Osman will release We Chase Shadows, the second novel in the series, in which the trio investigative a corpse discovered on the steps of a stunning Italian villa, with a threatening note pinned to the body. On Sept. 22, Osman will discuss the book at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus Auditorium, in a collaboration with the Miami Book Fair.
The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict by Priya Parker
The Art of Fighting is not a primer on how to excel as, say, a boxer, just as Priya Parker’s breakthrough book, The Art of Gathering, is not about foraging for nuts and berries. The latter is focused on the vitality—at risk in today’s increasingly virtual world—of gathering together in person, whether in work, life, or school. For Parker, a conflict resolution specialist, The Art of Fighting is a surprising extension of The Art of Gathering. Doesn’t common sense hold that fighting has negative consequences, and that we should be striving to do it a lot less? Parker aims to flip this script, arguing that conflict can be healthy, and that human flourishing, successful relationships, and business innovation often come from a baseline of disagreements, arguments, and hashing out differences. Abraham Lincoln knew this; hence his famous “team of rivals.” I assume there are limits to positive fighting that end sometime prior to a steel-cage grudge match, but I’ll have to read the book to find out. Parker will speak Sept. 23 at Coral Gables Congregational Church.
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