Enid Shomer joins Tombolo Books for an evening of poetry and conversation. Shomer will share her latest collection, Shoreless, and we promise the words inside are just as beautiful as the cover! Shomer will be in-conversation with Helen Pruitt Wallace, Florida Book Award winner and St. Petersburg's Poet Laureate. 

Register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. Pre-order your copy of the book HERE. 
 

We are kicking off our newest book club in a big way! Joining us will be award-winning and bestselling author Lisa Unger to celebrate her latest thrilling release, Confessions on the 7:45. Lisa will be ready to answer your questions about how she continues to keep us on the edge of our seats! 

All are welcome to attend this special first meeting. To participate in the inaugural meeting of The Crime Travel Book Club, you must purchase a copy of Confessions on the 7:45 through Tombolo Books. This will serve as your ticket into the event, and Zoom link will be sent you. Purchase your signed copy HERE! 

More about Confessions on the 7:45:

In Unger’s best novel yet, CONFESSIONS ON THE 7:45 takes fans for a
thrilling ride reminiscent of the classic Strangers on a Train.
Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat, and their connection is fast and easy. The woman introduces herself as Martha and confesses that she's been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena's station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again. But days later, Selena's nanny disappears. Soon Selena finds her once-perfect life upended. As she is pulled into the mystery of the missing nanny, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, Selena begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she'll discover.

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of eighteen novels, including CONFESSIONS ON THE 7:45 (Oct. 2020). With millions of readers worldwide and books published in twenty-six languages, Unger is widely regarded as a master of suspense. Her critically acclaimed books have been voted "Best of the Year" or top picks by the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, IndieBound and others. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.


More about our Crime Travel Book Club:

With every meeting, we are going to travel the globe together with some of the world's best contemporary crime writers as our guides. Our intention is to 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. The Crime Travel Book Club led by Tombolo co-owner Candice Anderson.

Future clubs will not be ticketed unless it's a special occassion with a guest author. Here's a look ahead:

December: POLAND! Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa

January: THAILAND! A Nail Through the Heart by Timothy Hallinan 

February: GHANA! The Missing American by Kwei Quartey 

To register for future virtual meetings, please email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com

 

Our next read in Tombolo's Horror Book Club (Horror 201: Beyond Stephen King) is Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . .From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.  
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. This is a perfect haunted house story for your October reading! So lock the doors, turn down the lights, and cozy up with this 8-week New York Times bestseller.

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

About this club: When you think of horror, you probably think of shelves of Stephen King or Dean Koontz books. In this club, we go beyond those titles into a deeper realm of contemporary literature.

The horror genre is experiencing a boom right now and includes some of the highest quality fiction writing you’ll find anywhere. Together, we explore how horror can help us confront horrifying times, how it can be terrifically empowering, and the nature of fear on both a societal and a personal level. Join us!

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 welcoming 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.

For now, we're meeting virtually. There is no cost to join.

For our November meeting, we'll be discussing Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, longlisted for the National Book Award.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
 
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
 
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. And she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

Copies are available at tombolobooks.com. Our facilitators are Matthew and Susie, who are both white folks and community-engaged residents of St. Pete passionate about justice, equity, and acting locally while thinking globally.

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

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. at the Historic Peninsula Inn (though, for now, we're meeting virtually). There is no cost to join.

November's selection is Summer of the Cicadas by St. Petersburg author Chelsea Catherine, who has agreed to join us for the discussion!

Summer of the Cicadas is about a West Virginian town where a brood of Magicicadas emerges for the first time in 17 years. The cicadas damage crops and trees, and swarm locals. Jessica, a former cop whose entire family was killed in a car crash two years earlier, is deputized during the crisis. Throughout the book, Jessica must deal with her feelings for her sister’s best friend, Natasha, who is a town council member. After Fish and Wildlife removes the swarm, Jessica must also confront the two-year anniversary of her family’s death, Natasha’s budding romance with a local editor, as well as a sudden but devastating loss that changes everything.

"Many authors are good at writing about the body. Few authors excel at writing the body of the world, the way it moves through everyone: cicadas owning us, making us restless, flirtatious, fearful even; shadows hiding our shadows; the defeating pines; the teasing sun. Chelsea Catherine creates a natural world as real as her characters. But it’s not about her deft ability at description or setting; it’s about her deep understanding of how everything moves as one—people, moods, moments, manifestations—and the modern Romance (with a capital R) of it all."—Erica Dawson, author of When Rap Spoke Straight to God

Every month, we aim to feature a facilitator from the Gulfport community. If you'd like facilitate a book club, reach out to the Gabber here.

If you want to download the audiobook or read the book virtually, you can support indie bookstores by doing so from libro.fm.

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

Spend an exciting evening with Tombolo Books as we welcome New York Times bestselling author Jess Walter for a celebration of his much-anticipated novel, The Cold Millions. Walter will be joined in conversation with Senior Vice President and Chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at The Poynter Institute and NPR Public Editor, Kelly McBride.  In THE COLD MILLIONS—his eagerly-awaited first novel since the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins—master storyteller Jess Walter turns his brilliant, chameleon-like talents to a work of historical fiction whose themes echo many of the social and political concerns we once again face in this country.

Spokane, 1909. Orphans Gig and Rye Dolan don’t have a penny between them. The brothers work grueling odd jobs to feed themselves, and sleep wherever they can with other day laborers. Twentythree-year-old Gig is a passionate union man, fighting for fair pay and calling out the corrupt employers who exploit the working class. Eager to support his older brother, 16-year-old Rye joins the struggle, though he can’t quite muster Gig’s passion for the cause. But when Rye’s turn on the soap box catches the attention of well-known activist and suffragette Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, he is swept into the world of labor activism—and dirty businessmen. Caught between the two worlds, Rye must ultimately figure out for himself where he truly stands.

Jess Walter is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins, the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets, the National Book Award finalist The Zero, the Edgar Award-winning Citizen Vince, Land of the Blind, the New York Times Notable Book Over Tumbled Graves, and the story collection We Live in Water. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family.

 Kelly McBride is a writer, teacher and one of the   country’s leading voices when it comes to media   ethics. She has been on the faculty of The Poynter   Institute since 2002 and is its senior vice   president. She is also the Craig Newmark   Journalism Ethics Chair of the Craig Newmark   Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter. McBride was appointed as NPR's Public Editor in April 2020 as the result of a new partnership between NPR and Poynter. Before joining Poynter, she was a daily newspaper reporter in the Northwest for 15 years. Kelly served as ESPN’s ombudsman in 2012 and 2013. She has been a featured speaker at SXSW, the Online News Association annual conference and the Aspen Festival of Ideas. Her side hustle is the Everyday Ethics podcast.



 

The next thrilling addition to Akashic Books Noir Series we are heading back to Miami! With Miami Noir: The Classics, we revisit some of our favorite noir authors from the Sunshine State. We will be joined by editor and contributor, Les Standiford to talk about all of the bone-chilling details! 

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 a  copy of the book HERE. A limited number of copies will include a bookplate signed by Les Standiford. 

Standiford will also be in conversation with award-winning authors,  Preston L. Allen and T.J. MacGregor.

"This historical survey makes a fine case for Miami as a timeless setting for great crime fiction." - Publishers Weekly 

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each volume comprises stories set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.

Featuring classic noir fiction from: Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Elmore Leonard, Lester Dent, Zora Neale Hurston, Brett Halliday, Damon Runyon, Edna Buchanan, James Carlos Blake, Douglas Fairbairn, Charles Willeford, T.J. MacGregor, Lynne Barrett, Les Standiford, Preston L. Allen, John Dufresne, Vicki Hendricks, Christine Kling, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, and David Beaty.

LES STANDIFORD, who edited 2006’s Miami Noir, is the author of twenty-four books and novels, including the award-winning John Deal thriller series and the works of narrative nonfiction Last Train to Paradise, the One Read choice of a dozen public library systems, and Bringing Adam Home, a Wall Street Journal number one true crime best seller. He is director of the MFA program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami.

 Preston L. Allen is a recipient of a State of Florida   Individual Artist Fellowship, and has authored the novels   All or Nothing, Jesus Boy, and the allegorical Every Boy   Should Have a Man (a finalist for the Hurston/Wright   Legacy Award). The New York Times has called him “a   cartographer of autodegradation,” placing his work on a   continuum with that of Dostoevsky, William S. Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski. Allen is associate professor of English and creative writing at Miami Dade College.

 T.J. MacGregor (a.k.a. Trish MacGregor, Alison Drake,   and several other names) is the author of forty-two   novels and several dozen nonfiction books on   synchronicity, astrology, tarot, and dreams. Her most   recent novel is Skin Shifters, and she won the Edgar   Award in 2003 for her novel Out of Sight.

 

Join Tombolo books as we welcome New York Times bestselling author Denise Kiernan who will be with us to discuss her latest release, We Gather Together. Kiernan will be interviewed by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Gilbert King for this star studded evening! You won't want to miss it! 

Register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. Pre-order your copy of the book HERE. 

Spanning centuries, WE GATHER TOGETHER, is anchored amid the strife of the Civil War, and driven by the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother with no formal schooling who became one of the 19th century’s most influential tastemakers. Despite personal tragedy and ongoing political conflict, she
campaigned for decades to make real an annual day of thanks.

Populated by an enthralling supporting cast of characters including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln—the man who finally granted Hale’s wish—Sojourner Truth, Walt Whitman, and others, WE GATHER TOGETHER is ultimately a story of tenacity and dedication. Alongside the story of Hale, Kiernan brings to the fore the stories of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and more, offering readers an inspiring tale of how imperfect people in challenging times can create powerful legacies.

Denise Kiernan is an author, journalist and producer. Her last book, The Last Castle, was an instant New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback and was also a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Her previous title, The Girls of Atomic City, is a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and NPR bestseller and has been published in multiple languages. She has also worked in television, serving as head writer for ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" during its Emmy award-winning first season and has produced for media outlets such as ESPN and MSNBC, as well as for independent productions. She lives in North Carolina.

 Gilbert King is the author of three books, most   recently, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. His previous   book, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall,   the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New   America, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for   general nonfiction in 2013. A New York   Times bestseller, the book was also named   runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction, and was a finalist for both the Chautauqua Prize and the Edgar Award. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he is a contributor to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. King’s earlier book, The Execution of Willie Francis, was published in 2008. He is currently a fellow at The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and he lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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 November meeting, we'll be reading The Cold Millions, the hotly anticipated novel by Jess Walter, author of a number of great, critically acclaimed books (Beautiful Ruins was his most recent). Here's a bit about The Cold Millions:

Walter delivers another “literary miracle,” according to NPR — a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.

The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked  job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer  who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.

Dubious of Gig’s idealism, Rye finds himself drawn to a fearless nineteen-year-old activist and feminist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But a storm is coming, threatening to overwhelm them all, and Rye will be forced to decide where he stands. Is it enough to win the occasional  battle, even if you cannot win the war?

An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice,  and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, it is a tour de force from a “writer who has planted himself firmly  in the first rank of American authors” (Boston Globe).

Our facilitator is local librarian Mallory Arents. To RSVP and receive a Zoom link, email bookclubs@tombolobooks.com. This book is special — Readers who shop through us, please stay tuned for further announcements!

Join Tombolo Books as we celebrate this timely anthology by Jane Fleishman, PhD, The Stonewall Generation! Fleishman will lead a panel discussion including Mandy Carter, Edie Daly, and Jackie Mirkin all of whom have interviews in the book.

Register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. Order your copy of the book HERE. 
 
In The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging, sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, strengths, activism, and sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today.

A sex-positive and unapologetic depiction of LGBTQ culture and identity, The Stonewall Generation includes the voices of those frequently marginalized in mainstream tellings of LGBTQ history, lifting up the voices of people of color, transgender people, bisexual people, drag queens, and sex workers. We need to hear these voices, particularly at a time when our country is in the middle of a crisis that puts hard-won civil and human rights at risk, values we’ve fought for again and again in our nation’s history.

Jane Fleishman, PhD, MS, MEd, is a certified sexuality educator, researcher, and writer with more than forty years of experience. In her recent TEDx talk, “Is it OK for Grandma to have sex?” she articulates her mission to promote the sexual well-being of older adults. She has co-chaired national conferences for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) and the Sexuality and Aging Consortium; launched a popular column on sex and aging for Live Well magazine; co-hosted the Our Better Half podcast with Dr. Ashley Mader and Dr. Rosara Torrisi; and hosted a monthly radio show, Sex Matters. She received the William R. Stayton Award for Leadership in the field of human sexuality in 2016. Jane Fleishman is currently an instructor and consults at many senior living residences throughout the United States. Visit her website at janefleishman.com.

 Mandy Carter is a political activist and campaign   manager with more than fifty years of experience   fighting for social change. She is a co-founder of both   Southerners On New Ground (SONG), an organization   working toward intersectional liberation in the   Southern states, and the National Black Justice   Coalition. Mandy was also one of five national co-chairs of Obama LGBT Pride, the LGBT initiative of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. In 2012, she was inducted into the International Federation of Black Pride’s Black LGBT Hall of Fame. Carter is a co-editor of We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America (2012).
 
 Edie Daly is the co-founder of Women's   Energy Bank, a lesbian feminist   organization that produced the feminist   periodical Womyn’s Words for more than   thirty years. She also co-founded the St.   Petersburg Salon, a monthly meeting   place for lesbians in western Florida. She has worked as a global peace activist, traveling to Bosnia in 1993 and to the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Edie is a member of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC); Women in Black, a worldwide organization of women standing for peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution; and Southerners On New Ground (SONG). She is the author of Old Lesbian Memory Quilt: Stories Told by Edie Daly on Her 80th Birthday (2019).
 
Jackie Mirkin is a retired social worker and lesbian community activist. After co-founding the Women’s Association at Suffolk University, she attained a master’s degree in social work at Wayne State University in 1955. As a social worker in New Jersey public high schools, she prioritized the safety of sexual minority students, later serving on the faculty of the Rutgers School of Social Work. Jackie and her wife, Edie Daly, were married in California in 2008. They are residents of Gulfport, Florida.


 

Trouble is brewing at the beachside café in GROUNDS FOR
MURDER, and St. Pete local author Tara Lush is heading to Tombolo Books to tell us all about it! Lush will be joined by another local favorite Craig Pittman to talk about the first installment in this trilling new series. 

Register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. Pre-order your signed copy of the book HERE. 

When Lana Lewis's best—and most difficult—employee abruptly quits
and goes to work for the competition just days before the Sunshine
State Barista Championship, her café's chances of winning the contest are creamed. In front of a gossipy crowd in the small Florida town of Devil's Beach, Lana's normally calm demeanor heats to a boil when she runs into the arrogant java slinger. Of course, Fabrizio "Fab" Bellucci has a slick explanation for jumping ship. But when he's found dead the next morning under a palm tree in the alley behind Lana's café, she becomes the prime suspect.

Tara Lush is a Florida-based novelist and journalist. She's an RWA Rita finalist, an Amtrak writing fellow and the winner of the George C. Polk award for environmental journalism. For the past decade, she's been a reporter with The Associated Press, covering crime, alligators, natural disasters and politics. She also writes contemporary romance set in tropical locations. Tara is a fan of vintage pulp fiction book covers, Sinatra-era jazz, 1980s fashion, tropical chill, kombucha, gin, tonic, seashells, true crime podcasts, Art Deco, telenovelas, street art, coconut anything, strong coffee and newspapers. She lives on the Gulf coast with her husband and two dogs.

 Craig Pittman is a journalist, novelist, and native   Floridian. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy   State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work   for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to   label him "the most destructive force on campus." Since   then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature. Since 1998, he has covered environmental issues for Florida's largest newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. He has won the Waldo Proffitt Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism in Florida four times, and twice won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists. His novels include Manatee Insanity, Paving Paradise, The Scent of Scandal, Oh, Florida, and Cat Tale.