An Evening with Pulitzer Prize-Winner Geraldine Brooks and Mitchell Kaplan

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are REQUIRED. Each ticket admits up to two (2) guests into the venue and includes one (1) copy of MEMORIAL DAYS ($28.00+tax). Books will be handed out upon entry. Can't make it in-person?

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.
Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.
A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.
A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

Geraldine Brooks is the author of six novels, including Horse, People of the Book, Year of Wonders, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning March. She has also written acclaimed works of nonfiction, including Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Her writing has been translated into over 25 languages and has collectively sold millions of copies around the world. Born and raised in Australia, Brooks now divides her time between Sydney and Martha’s Vineyard.

Mitchell Kaplan, a Miami Beach native, founded the independent bookstore chain Books & Books in 1982. Books & Books was named “Publishers’ Weekly Bookstore of the Year” in 2015. He is the co-founder of Miami Book Fair, a former president of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), and received the National Book Foundation’s prestigious “Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community” in 2011. He is the host of the podcast, “The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan” and with his partner Paula Mazur, formed the Mazur/Kaplan film production company to bring books to the screen.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Books & Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, United States