Bookstore1Sarsaota October Events and Book Clubs

September 4, 2024 | Sarasota

Florida Spectacular” with Cathy Salustri & Jono Miller
Author Talk & Book Signing

Tuesday, October 8, from 6-7 p.m. Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave.

Come discover Florida in a new light through little-known moments from its fascinating history in a conversation with Cathy Salustri, the author of Florida Spectacular: Extraordinary Places and Exceptional Lives. She is joined by Jono Miller, the author of The Palmetto Book: Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm.

About the book:

If when you think “Florida” you don’t think “spectacular,” Cathy Salustri is determined to change your mind. Explaining why the state is more than the “Florida Man” stories and the politics that so often make national news, and looking beyond the crowded beaches and theme parks, Salustri celebrates what makes the state worth a deeper understanding in this lively trip through its natural beauty and fascinating history.

“Salustri is someone who loves the Sunshine State more than just about anybody, and she’s got lots of great Florida stories to tell. More refreshing than the Fountain of Youth and more fun than all the rides at Disney World, Florida Spectacular is exactly that—a spectacular book about an amazing state, and everyone in Florida ought to read it.”— (Craig Pittman, author of The State You’re In: Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife) .

About the author:

Cathy Salustri is the owner of The Gabber Newspaper, the oldest independent weekly newspaper in Florida, and the author of Backroads of Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida. Salustri writes about her travels through Florida on her website, GreatFloridaRoadTrip.com, and is cohost of The Florida Spectacular podcast. She lives in Gulfport.

About the Moderator:

Jono Miller is a Sarasota author, natural historian, educator, and activist. He is one of the hosts of WSLR’s Our Changing Environment radio show, a contributing columnist for the Sarasota Herald Tribune and author of The Palmetto Book: Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm.

This is a ticketed event. More information and RSVP here: https://www.sarasotabooks.com/events     

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Poetry Open Mic. A Celebration of Poetry

Sunday, October 13, from 12 – 1 p.m. Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave.

Join our poetry community and take part in our Poetry Open Mic! Share original work or recite your favorite poem. Whether you’re a reader or a member of the audience, everyone is welcome. The sign-in for reading begins at 11:30 a.m.

This is a free event. More information and RSVP here:
https://www.sarasotabooks.com/poetry

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Fruit, Florida, and Felony: A Conversation and Book Signing with Annabelle Tometich
Author of “The Mango Tree” 

Wednesday, October 16 from 6-7 p.m. Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave.

Come spend some time with journalist and author Annabelle Tometitch, as she talks about the twists and turns, the joys and the juicy-sweet deliciousness, that are part of her memoir, The Mango Tree. She’ll also personalize your books! 

About the Book:

When journalist Annabelle Tometich picks up the phone one June morning, she isn’t expecting a collect call from an inmate at the Lee County Jail. And when she accepts, she certainly isn’t prepared to hear her mother’s voice on the other end of the line. However, explaining the situation to her younger siblings afterwards was easy; all she had to say was, “Mom shot at some guy. He was messing with her mangoes.” They immediately understood. Answering the questions of the breaking-news reporter—at the same newspaper where Annabelle worked as a restaurant critic––proved more difficult. Annabelle decided to go with a variation of the truth: it was complicated. 

So begins The Mango Tree, a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina “nobody” in suburban Florida as Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing—all the while reckoning with her erratic father’s untimely death in a Fort Myers motel, her fiery mother’s bitter yearning for the country she left behind, and her own journey in the pursuit of belonging. 

With clear-eyed compassion and piercing honesty, The Mango Tree is a family saga that navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle’s life, from her childhood days in an overflowing house flooded by balikbayan boxes, vegetation, and juicy mangoes, to her winding path from medical school hopeful to restaurant critic. It is a love letter to her fellow Filipino Americans, her lost younger self, and the beloved fruit tree at the heart of her family. But above all, it is an ode to Annabelle’s hot-blooded, whip-smart mother Josefina, a woman who made a life and a home of her own, and without whom Annabelle would not have herself.

About the Author

Annabelle Tometich went from medical-school flunky to line cook to journalist to author. She spent eighteen years as a food writer, editor, and restaurant critic forThe News-Press in her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Catapult, the Tampa Bay Times,and many more publications. Tometich has won more than a dozen awards for her stories, including first place for Features Writing from the Florida Society of News Editors in 2020. She (still) lives in Fort Myers with her husband, two children, and her ever-fiery Filipina mother. You can find her online at annabelleTM.com.

This is a ticketed event. More information and RSVP here: https://www.sarasotabooks.com/events     

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The Gothic Library Presents “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” 
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Masterpieces Brought to Life by the Art of Live Radio Theatre

Thursday, October 17, Friday, October 18, and Saturday, October 19 from 8-9:30 p.m. Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave.

A little more than one year ago, the doors to the Gothic Library were opened. Since then, listeners have been transported into the literary worlds of fantasy, horror, and adventure. Now we present an immersive audio experience based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Prepare yourself for a new adaptation that features live voice artists and sound design.

About the show:

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde.

Adapted and directed by Ren Pearson

Full Cast in Attached Image

Doors open a half-hour before the performance, at which time light, complimentary refreshments will be made available before showtime. The show will be approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, presented without intermission. 

WARNING: The Gothic Library is an immersive audio experience designed to ignite the dark side of the imagination. This performance features moments that may prove too intense for younger guests or those with a sensitive disposition.

This is a ticketed event. More information and RSVP here: https://www.sarasotabooks.com/events     

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October Book Clubs

Our book clubs meet in person in the loft at Bookstore1 at The Mark, 117 South Pineapple Ave.

Registration for all our book clubs can be found here, https://www.sarasotabooks.com/bookclubs, or call 941-365-7900.

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Poetry Book Club

Wednesday, October 9 at 2:00 p.m.

This monthly book club led by Doug Knowlton is for those who like to read and discuss poetry. It celebrates the integral role of poets and poetry in life and literature. October’s selection is What is Otherwise Infinite, a searching, startling new collection of poems from Bianca Stone.

About the book:

Written in four sections with incisive and vivid lyrical language, Bianca Stone’s What Is Otherwise Infinite considers how we find our place in the world through themes of philosophy, religion, environment, myth, and psychology. “I deal only in the hardest pain-revivers, symbols and tongues,” writes Stone. “I want to tell you only / in the intimacy of our discomfort.”

Populated by Archangels, limping in paradise; by allergies of the soul; the intimacy and danger of motherhood; psychic wounds; and dirty, dirty chocolate layer cake, What Is Otherwise Infinite deftly examines our inherent and inherited ideas of how to live, and the experience of the Self—which on one hand is so intensely personal, and on the other, universal.

Bianca Stone is the author of The Möbius Strip Club of Grief (Tin House, 2018), Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Octopus Books and Tin House, 2014), and Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours (Pleiades Press, 2016). She lives with her husband, the poet Ben Pease, and their daughter, Odette, in Goshen, Vermont.

A fee of $17 is required for participation. This includes a copy of What is Otherwise Infinit

e to be picked up at Bookstore1 and the book club meeting.

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The Banned Book Club

Tuesday, October 22 at 11 a.m. Bookstore1Sarasota 117 S. Pineapple Ave.

This monthly book club is led by Bryn Durgin. It is dedicated to reading and protecting the most important and threatened books for our generation. October’s pick is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. After being out of print for almost 30 years, Their Eyes Were Watching God has become the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature since its reissue in paperback edition by the University of Illinois Press in 1978. Recently banned in Collier County, Florida, https://pen.org/more-than-300-titles-banned-in-collier-county-florida/, Their Eyes Were Watching God is also one of the Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century noted by the American Library Association.

About the book:

The epic tale of Janie Crawford, whose quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life’s joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace. Her passionate story prompted Alice Walker to say, “There is no book more important to me than this one.”

With haunting sympathy and piercing immediacy, Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford’s evolving selfhood through three marriages. Light-skinned, long-haired, dreamy as a child, Janie grows up expecting better treatment than she gets until she meets Tea Cake, a younger man who engages her heart and spirit in equal measure and gives her the chance to enjoy life without being a man’s mule or adornment. Though Jaine’s story does not end happily, it does draw to a satisfying conclusion. Janie is one black woman who doesn’t have to live lost in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, instead Janie proclaims that she has done “two things everbody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. She wrote four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountains, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948) as well as The Life of Herod the Great, which she was still writing when she died; two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Every Tongue Got to Confess, 2001); a work of anthropological research, (Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); an international bestselling ethnographic work (Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” 2018); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1928. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

A fee of $18 is required for participation. This includes a copy Their Eyes Were Watching God to be picked up at Bookstore1 and the book club meeting.

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Registration for all our book clubs can be found here, https://www.sarasotabooks.com/bookclubs, or call 941-365-7900.