Our next journey into the realm of horror brings us to The Worst is Yet to Come by S.P. Miskowski -- who will be joining our talk!

For most of her fourteen years, Tasha Davis has languished in the rural-suburban town of Skillute, Washington. Her parents offer plenty of comfortable--if stifling--emotional support, but what she needs is a best friend.In her final year at Clark Middle School, Tasha meets a strange, new classmate. Briar Kenny is the self-styled rebel Tasha wants to be, and the Davises are the kind of close-knit family Briar covets. A moment of unexpected violence spawns a secret between the two girls and awakens a mystery from the past.Unknown to Tasha and Briar, their secret also attracts something monstrous from a forgotten corner of Skillute. The town is haunted by its history, scarred with the lingering spirit of broken and scattered families, abandoned real estate ventures, and old scores never settled between neighbors. But there's more to the place than memory and legend. Beneath the landscape something malignant rages, and it will stop at nothing to find a route into the physical world.

Tombolo Books' Horror book club takes readers beyond the big-name authors and into the exciting, twisted, masterful world of modern horror. From melancholic body horror to gorgeous, tragic tales of the occult, our picks celebrate the genre's diverse authors and literary range.

To join us, RSVP at bookclubs@tombolobooks.com to receive a Zoom link. 

After this, we will be reading two novellas for a month of horror classics. Stay tuned!

Join Florida professors and authors Jack E. Davis and Leslie K. Poole for a virtual discussion of their edited volume The Wilder Heart of Florida: More Writers Inspired By Florida Nature. Davis and Poole will also be joined by contributors to the book!

You can register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. You can order a copy of the book HERE. 

Fall under the spell of Florida's natural environment

In this captivating collection, Florida's most notable authors, poets, and environmentalists take readers on a journey through the natural wonders of the state. Continuing in the legacy of the beloved classic The Wild Heart of Florida, this book features thirty-four pieces by a new slate of well-known and emerging writers.

The writers recount memories of how their lives have been enriched by the state's varied and brilliant landscapes. Some tell of encounters with alligators, pythons, manatees, turtles, and otters, while others marvel at the unique character of flowing springs and piney scrub. Together, they highlight the need to protect pristine ecosystems and restore ones that have been damaged due to development. The Wilder Heart of Florida will inspire readers to explore and celebrate the Florida wilderness.

 Jack E. Davis is professor of history and   the Rothman Family Chair in the   Humanities at the University of Florida.   He is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author   of The Gulf: The Making of An American   Sea and coeditor of Paradise Lost? The   Environmental History of Florida.
 
 Leslie K. Poole is assistant professor of   environmental studies at Rollins College. She is the   author of Saving Florida: Women’s Fight for the   Environment in the Twentieth Century.

 

Join us for a launch date celebration of Tenea D. Johnson's highly anticipated release Broken Fevers!  Johnson will be in conversation with professor, author, and creative coach Michele Tracy Berger. 

You can register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. You can order a signed copy of the book HERE. 
 

“Tenea Johnson’s new collection, Broken Fevers, is a wide-ranging selection of stories—science  fiction, dark fantasy, horror, folk tales and mythologies, country magic—presented in clear, crisp  writing, minus all affectation, and electric with undercurrents of politics, feminism, and social  justice. For lovers of the short story, don’t miss this powerful voice.” 

                  — Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell 

 

From humor to horror, the speculative fiction in Broken Fevers has a gleaming edge. This new  collection by award winner Tenea D. Johnson features thirteen tales. Though many are dark, they  pull one through the light, if only for a moment, to visit the next vista, a new world, or this one  recast in an uncertain future. Whether it be the lengths a woman will go to for performance art  or how best to communicate the Middle Passage’s horrors to the privileged, darkness has room to  breathe here and bring wonder.  
 

Social commentary and genetic adaptation exist alongside fairy crises, alien liminalities, and the  responsibilities of those holding up the world and those who communicate with the next. Broken  Fevers shares the heart in the hurt, the courage in a cataclysm, and the connections that make we  wherever we find ourselves.  

Tenea D. Johnson was born in Kentucky. From it, she took the calm of the Ohio River and the  swell of honesty (sometimes refreshing, sometimes catastrophic) that afflicts the folks born along  its banks. Writing sustains her; music saves her. As often as possible, she straddles their borders to  create compositions/fusions/hyphenated watchamacallit better heard than described. Her work  has appeared in Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism, African Voices, Arise, Humanities in  the South, Sycrorax’s Daughters, Contemporary American Women Poets, Shades of Blue  and Gray, Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III and Necrologue, among others. She is the  author of a poetry/short prose collection, Starting Friction as well as the novels, Smoketown,  R/evolution, and Evolution. Smoketown won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award; R/evolution received an honorable mention the same year.
 

 Michele Tracy Berger is a professor, a writer, a   creativity coach and a pug-lover. Her main   loves are writing speculative fiction, though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too. Her short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction has appeared, or is forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Glint Literary Journal, The Wild Word, Thing Magazine, Blood and Bourbon, FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Flying South, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Carolina Woman, Ms., The Feminist Wire, Western North Carolina Woman, various zines and anthologies. She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society for her story "Doll Seed" published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. In 2020, her science fiction novella, "Reenu-You" about a mysterious virus transmitted through a hair care product billed as a natural hair relaxer, was published by Falstaff Books. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.

 

Reading Minds, Tombolo Books' mental health and wellness book club, delves into books about the brain. Our readings will take us through different genres, such as memoir and narrative non-fiction, and through dark valleys, uplifting stories and new strategies for understanding our minds. 

We're diving into a staff favorite and store bestseller, now in paperback, that takes aim at some of the biggest topics weighing on our minds: time, justice, climate, attention and creativity. How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell will make for a rich and fascinating discussion. 

In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives.
 
Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress.

Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.

To join our free discussion of this unforgettable book, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com. This year, we are also creating a Facebook community to further our discussions. We'd love to have you!

Tombolo Books is thrilled to host Maria Ingrande Mora to celebrate the release of her book Fragile Remedy! Mora will be joined by author Lindsey Miller for this exciting event! 

You can register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. You can order a signed copy of the book HERE. Your purchase of the book from Tombolo exclusively will also come with bookmarks and stickers! 

Sixteen-year-old Nate is a Gem - a Genetically Engineered Medical Surrogate - created by Gathos City scientists as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung rot ravaging the population. As a child, Nate was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and into the Withers - a quarantined, lawless region. He manages to survive by becoming a Tinker, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy that makes his heart race, and his misfit gang of scavengers, Nate finds the family he's always longed for - even if he can't risk telling them what he is.

But Gathos created a genetic failsafe in their Gems - a flaw in their DNA that causes their health to rapidly deteriorate as they age unless they are regularly dosed with medication controlled by Gathos City. When violence erupts across the Withers, Nate's illegal supply of medicine is cut off, and a vicious attack on Reed threatens to expose his secret. With time running out, Nate is left with only two options: work for a shadowy terrorist organization that has the means to keep him alive, or stay - and die - with the boy he loves.

Maria Ingrande Mora is a graduate of the University of Florida, where she received her bachelor’s degree in English with a focus in creative writing. She is a marketing executive with over 18 years of experience building brand narratives, editorial strategies, and digital campaigns for clients across multiple industries.

 

She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and is on the board of directors of Keep St. Pete Lit, a non-profit promoting literacy through art, education and events in Tampa Bay. A single mom, Ingrande Mora lives in St. Petersburg with her two middle schoolers and a small menagerie of rescue animals. 

 

FRAGILE REMEDY is her debut. 

Linsey Miller grew up in Arkansas and has previously been a crime lab intern, neuroscience (undergrad) lab assistant, and pharmacy technician. She is represented by Rachel Brooks of Bookends Literary and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Wichita State University. She can currently be found writing about science and magic anywhere there is coffee. She is the author of Mask of Shadows and Ruin of Stars. Her most recent books are Belle Révolte, a French-inspired fantasy about two girls who swap places to study magic, and The Game, a young adult thriller about a game of assassins that turns deadly. Her next book, What We Devour (July 2021), is a young adult dark fantasy about dangerous magic, a curious boy, and the terrible choices we are sometimes forced to make.

 

Tombolo Books' social justice book club celebrates books that tackle deep-seated issues from race to capitalism to immigration to criminal justice. We aim for thought-provoking discussions and actionable steps in a safe and uncomfortable space. We hope that our discussions will lead us to interrogate how these issues show up in the communities in which we live and how we can think about social change at local, national, and international levels. We simply ask all members to observe our community agreements (see "Group Rules" on our Facebook group by requesting to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1209081876153121).

For our March 9^th pick we are reading Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. 

Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners. The federal government guaranteed urban mortgages in an attempt to overcome resistance to lending to Black buyers - as if unprofitability, rather than racism, was the cause of housing segregation. Bankers, investors, and real estate agents took advantage of the perverse incentives, targeting the Black women most likely to fail to keep up their home payments and slip into foreclosure, multiplying their profits.

As a result, by the end of the 1970s, the nation's first programs to encourage Black homeownership ended with tens of thousands of foreclosures in Black communities across the country. The push to uplift Black homeownership had descended into a goldmine for realtors and mortgage lenders, and a ready-made cudgel for the champions of deregulation to wield against government intervention of any kind.

To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

For our April 13^th pick we will be reading We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by adrienne maree brown.

The Gabber Book Club, in partnership with Tombolo Books, aims to celebrate Florida authors and great books set in our state. We meet every second Wednesday at 7 p.m. There is no cost to join — new members are always welcome.

March’s selection is Kristen Arnett’s bestelling debut novel Mostly Dead Things. This darkly funny book follows the story of Jessa-Lynn Morton who, in the wake of her father’s suicide inherits both his taxidermy shop and her family’s unusual and complicated grieving process. As one review put it: “There's much to admire in Arnett's vision of Florida as a creative swamp of well-meaning misfits and in the sweet hopefulness of finding your way back to yourself through family. An ambitious debut writer with extraordinary promise, Arnett brings all of Florida's strangeness to life through the lens of a family snowed under with grief.”

To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

After this, we will be reading Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston in April!

Join the Body Electric in person or virtually for its free, monthly gathering of The Body Electric Book Club. March's selection is Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee by Shannon Lee.
 
In Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee, Lee's daughter Shannon shares the concepts at the core of his philosophies, showing how they can serve as tools of personal growth and self-actualization. Each chapter brings a lesson from Bruce Lee's teachings, expanding on the foundation of his iconic "be water" philosophy. Over the course of the book, we discover how being like water allows us to embody fluidity and naturalness in life, bringing us closer to our essential flowing nature and our ability to be powerful, self-expressed, and free.
 
The BE Book Club is facilitated by Carley Siedlecki. The Body Electric Book Club meets every second Thursday at The BE Athletic, 655 31st. St. South, St. Pete.

With the crime travel book club, we travel the world with some of the world's best contemporary crime writers as our guides. We read crime fiction from a different country each month. We'll be scouring the globe for new voices, new motives, and all the familiar satisfaction of a well-crafted mystery novel.

Our next read is The Searcher by Irish writer Tana French.

"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small towns shelter dangerous secrets."

French is one of Candice's favorite contemporary crime fiction writers, so don't miss this discussion!

To join the club and receive a Zoom link, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

Our next pick for the antiracist book club is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

We are thrilled to have Dr. LaDonna Butler and her team from The Well for Life facilitating our book club conversation as a part of the organization's "Hybrid Healing" series. 

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.

The antiracist book club donates a portion of the proceeds of the book sales of the book club title to a local, Black-owned organization. For this meeting, we'll be donating to The Well for Life.

To join us, RSVP at bookclubs@tombolobooks.com to receive a Zoom link. 

 

Join Fairgrounds Immersive Learning, Keep St. Pete Lit and Tombolo Books in celebrating all things Florida by joining our #FLORIDARAMA Book Club!

We will have a live video talk with author Craig Pittman led by Keep St. Pete Lit’s Maureen McDole to discuss Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther!

Every other month we’ll delve into Florida together by reading a Sunshine State-inspired story. Then, we’ll come together for a discussion with the author led by Maureen McDole, Executive Director of Keep St. Pete Lit.

Visit https://tickets.fairgrounds.art/.../e431edcb-46be-fb5b... and pay-what-you can! *100% of book club profits to support Keep St. Pete Lit’s ongoing literacy efforts!

ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS:
Craig Pittman is an award-winning Florida journalist and the author of five books on his native state. The most recent is Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther. He currently writes a weekly column on environmental issues for the Florida Phoenix. He is also co-host of the "Welcome to Florida" podcast.
 Keep St. Pete Lit celebrates and promotes greater St. Pete’s literary community – past, present and future – through arts, education and events with a literary twist. In honor of our partnership with Keep St. Lit, Fairgrounds will donate 100% of book club profits to support their ongoing efforts in St. Pete. To see what great work they’re doing in the community, check out https://keepstpetelit.org/
Tombolo Books has the #FLORIDARAMA selected books available for purchase. Buy online to utilize their curbside pick-up, or book an in-store shopping appointment to check out their charming shop and grab this month’s pick by the door! To place a book order, visit Tombolo’s Bookclub page! #SupportLocalBiz https://tombolobooks.com/?q=p.book_clubs

NEXT STEPS FOR YA
To register for the event visit
https://tickets.fairgrounds.art/.../e431edcb-46be-fb5b...
After you purchase a ticket, a Zoom link will be emailed to you!

April brings us “Classics” Month for the Horror Book Club, featuring two novella horror classics that you may not know!

First up is The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen. A version of the story was published in the magazine Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication (together with another story, "The Inmost Light") in 1894. On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Machen’s story was only one of many at the time to focus on Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The title was taken from the poem "A Musical Instrument" published in 1862 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the first line of every stanza ends "... the great god Pan.”

Then we've got The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft – available free online, or in countless collections and anthologies. It's the story of Wilbur Whateley, son of a deformed albino mother and an unknown father, and the strange events surrounding his birth and precocious development. Wilbur matures at an abnormal rate, reaching manhood within a decade--all the while getting indoctrinated into dark rituals and witchcraft by his grandfather.

Tombolo Books' Horror book club takes readers beyond the big-name authors and into the exciting, twisted, masterful world of modern horror. From melancholic body horror to gorgeous, tragic tales of the occult, our picks celebrate the genre's diverse authors and literary range.

To join us, RSVP at bookclubs@tombolobooks.com to receive a Zoom link. 

After this, we will be reading HORRORSTÖR by Grady Hendrix. Don't miss it!

With the crime travel book club, we travel the world with some of the world's best contemporary crime writers as our guides. We read crime fiction from a different country each month. We'll be scouring the globe for new voices, new motives, and all the familiar satisfaction of a well-crafted mystery novel.

Our April read is Vanishing Falls by Australian writer Poppy Gee.

Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town’s showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House—occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms—and Celia Lily isn’t in any of them. She has vanished without a trace.…

Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she’s simple-minded. It’s true that Joelle’s brain works a little differently—a legacy of shocking childhood trauma. But Joelle sees far more than most people realize, and remembers details that others cast away. For instance, she knows that Celia’s husband, Jack, has connections to unsavory local characters whom he’s desperate to keep hidden. He’s not the only one in town with something to conceal. Even Joelle’s own husband, Brian, a butcher, is acting suspiciously. While the police flounder, unable to find Celia, Joelle is gradually parsing the truth from the gossip she hears and from the simple gestures and statements that can unwittingly reveal so much.  

To join the club and receive a Zoom link, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

Tombolo Books' social justice book club celebrates books that tackle deep-seated issues from race to capitalism to immigration to criminal justice. We aim for thought-provoking discussions and actionable steps in a safe and uncomfortable space. We hope that our discussions will lead us to interrogate how these issues show up in the communities in which we live and how we can think about social change at local, national, and international levels. We simply ask all  members to observe our community agreements (see "Group Rules" on our Facebook group by requesting to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1209081876153121).

For our April 13^th pick we are reading We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by adrienne maree brown.

“Cancel” or “call-out” culture is a source of much tension and debate in American society. The infamous "Harper’s Letter,” signed by public intellectuals of both the left and right, sought to settle the matter and only caused greater division. Originating as a way for marginalized and disempowered people to address harm and take down powerful abusers, often with the help of social media, call outs are seen by some as having gone too far. But what is “too far” when you’re talking about imbalances of power and patterns of harm? And what happens when people in social justice movements direct their righteous anger inward at one another?

InWe Will Not Cancel Us, movement mediator adrienne maree brown reframes the discussion for us, in a way that points to possible paths beyond this impasse. Most critiques of cancel culture come from outside the milieus that produce it, sometimes even from from its targets. However, brown explores the question from a Black, queer, and feminist viewpoint that gently asks, how well does this practice serve us? Does it prefigure the sort of world we want to live in? And, if it doesn’t, how do we seek accountability and redress for harm in ways that reflect our values?

To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com. And stay tuned for our May pick!

The Gabber Book Club, in partnership with Tombolo Books, aims to celebrate Florida authors and great books set in our state. We meet every second Wednesday at 7 p.m. There is no cost to join — new members are always welcome.

April’s selection is Zora Neale Hurston’s classic autoethnography, Mules and Men, the first great collection of Black America’s folk world.

In the 1930s, Hurston returned to her ‘native village’ of Eatonville, Florida to record the oral histories, sermons, and songs dating back to the time of slavery which she remembered hearing as a child. In her quest, she found herself and her history throughout these highly metaphorical folk-tales, ‘big old lies,’ and the lyrical language of song. With this collection, Zora Neal Hurston has come to reveal and preserve a beautiful and important part of American culture, testifying to her belief that, in her biographer Robert Hemenway’s words, “folk were creating art that didn’t need the sanction of art to affirm its beauty.” Join us as we salute one of Florida’s greatest writers through one of her most groundbreaking books.

To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

Next month (May), we will be reading Peter Matthiessen’s Killing Mister Watson.

The only thing better than one book release is TWO! Florida authors Gale Massey and Tyler Gillespie will be in conversation about their exciting new releases. Massey, award-winning author of The Girl from Blind River, returns with a collection of transformative new stories, Rising And Other Stories. She will be joined by poet and celebrated journalist, Tyler Gillespie, whose book The Thing About Florida gives readers a glimpes into the author's upbringing in the Sunshine State. 

You can register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. You can pre order your copy of the books HERE and HERE! 

In story after story in her new collection, Rising and Other Stories, Gale Massey illustrates the moments that shape and alter destiny. Bringing each to life through interconnected themes of moving water and transience, Massey shares with us an unvarnished narrative of a world that objectifies women and the strength and resourcefulness required to attempt to overcome those limitations.

Meanwhile, in The Thing About Florida, Gillespie who was once embarrassed to call Florida home, faces his Florida denial and takes readers on an exuberant search for the state behind the caricatures, cutting through the media storm with curiosity and humor. His journey leads him to unexpected places such as halfway houses, gator pits, venom rooms, and clothing-optional campgrounds, where he meets eclectic and unconventional Floridians who have been misrepresented in news stories.


 Gale Massey is also the author of the   novel,THE GIRL FROM BLIND RIVER (July,   2018; Crooked Lane Books), which received   a 2018 Florida Book Award and was a   finalist for the Clara Johnson Award. Her   work has been featured in Lambda   Literary, CutBank, CrimeReads, Sabal, the   Tampa Bay Times, Saw Palm and Tampa   Bay Noir. Gale was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference and a fellow at Writers in Paradise, and has served as a panel judge for the Lambda Literary Awards. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in both fiction and nonfiction.

 Tyler Gillespie, a fifth-generation Floridian, is a   poet and award-winning journalist. He has   written for GQ, the Guardian, the Nation, VICE,   and Salon. he is the author of Florida Man:   Poems and coeditor of The Awkward Phase: The   Uplifting Tales of Those Weird Kids You Went To   School With.
 

The Tombolo Book Club highlights the best of literary fiction and non-fiction. Moreover, it's a gathering space for our smart, funny, thoughtful and incisive literary community. 

We meet every other month, on the fourth Thursday, at 6:30 p.m. For now, we're doing things virtually. There is no cost to join. 

For our April meeting, we'll be reading the National Book Award-winning Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, a staff pick recommended by not one but four Tombolo booksellers.

"One of the funniest books of the year. . . . A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire." —The Washington Post

From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?

After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

Our facilitator is local librarian Mallory Arents. To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com.

It's Independent Bookstore Day! We will have special exclusives from some of our favorite authors including Jeff VanderMeer! Nikki Giovanni! Stephen King and Joe Hill! and Nigella Lawson!

Details to come!