Did you know that the stripes on a zebra run vertically on the main part of its body, while the stripes on its rump run sideways? Or that an elephant can drink 50 gallons of water a day? Want more interesting animal facts? Join us for a virtual event with Lions, Cheetahs, and Rhinos Oh My! authors John Platt and Moira Rose Donohue. 

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. 

Take young readers on an African safari with Lions & Cheetahs & Rhinos OH MY! All of the gorgeous illustrations were made by children who live in east Africa. Connecting young readers to young artists, this beautiful story is both educational and empowering.

In partnership with John Platt’s non-profit art education program, How to Draw a Lion, all of the author’s royalties from the sale of this book will help keep How to Draw a Lion’s incredible art program alive. This program provides children in Sub-Saharan Africa with incredible opportunities: creatively, academically, and personally. Learn more about How to Draw a Lion’s mission at www.drawalion.org. 

John Platt is the founder of How to Draw a Lion, and splits his time between teaching art and conservation in Africa and continuing to grow the program from his home in New York City. His grassroots efforts aim to help break the cycle of poverty in Africa. Visit his website at http://www.johnplattstudio.com/. 

 

Moira Rose Donohue has authored a number of nonfiction educational series. Her works include Little Kids First Big Book of the Rain Forest (National Geographic). She lives in Florida. Visit her website at https://moirarosedonohue.weebly.com/. 

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.

 This event is sponsored by the Old Lesbian Oral   History Project. 

 Founded in 1998, the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory   Project (OLOHP) has gathered and preserved the life stories of hundreds of lesbians 70 years of age and older, told in their own words.

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.


 

Join our bookseller Andrew Harlan for another exciting Instagram Live. Andrew will be interviewing local author JD Scott! They will discuss Scott's otherworldly short story collection Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day. 
 
In this debut collection of short stories by the winner of the Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Residency Prize, the sly fabulism of JD Scott’s fiction casts its own peculiar spell upon the reader as it outlines a world unsettlingly similar to our own. Scott troubles the line between what is literary and genre, fairy tale and parable.
 
In one story, a perfumer keeps his boyfriend close at hand by dosing him with precise measures of poison. In another, a comical domestic drama hinges upon the life and death of an ancient chinchilla. Scott pushes liminality with magical scrolls, a drowned twin returning from the sea, and a witty retelling of the Crucifixion where a gym bunny chops down a tree in the Garden of Eden—only to transform the wood into a cross for himself.
 
The collection ends with an epic novella in which a heroic teenager comes of age inside an otherworldly shopping mall that spans the entire globe. Visceral, dreamlike, and full of dazzling prose: Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day announces the arrival of a distinctive talent who challenges us to see our own endless possibilities—to find luminescence inside and beyond the shadows.

JD SCOTT is the author of the poetry collection Mask for Mask. Scott’s writing has appeared in Best Experimental Writing, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day is Scott’s debut story collection.

We are excited to announce Tombolo’s new writing series with local author Roy Peter Clark! Roy will lead hour-long writing workshops based on each one of his books, starting Dec. 3 and continuing through 2021.

The first book Roy will teach from is Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer. Admission to each event is $10. That $10 will be applied to a gift card that you can use as store credit towards your next purchase. Be sure to provide the address you would like your gift card mailed to! 

To sign up for the workshop purchase your ticket below.

Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America's most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost thirty years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of fifty short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the best loved books on writing available.

Organized into four sections, "Nuts and Bolts," "Special Effects," "Blueprints for Stories," and "Useful Habits," Writing Tools is infused with more than 200 examples from journalism and literature. This new edition includes five brand new, never-before-shared tools.

Accessible, entertaining, inspiring, and above all, useful for every type of writer, from high school student to novelist, Writing Tools is essential reading.

Roy Peter Clark, a writer who teaches and a teacher who writes, is vice president and senior scholar of the Poynter Institute, one of the most prestigious schools for journalists in the world. He has written or edited 14 books about writing and journalism. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

 

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!

Our next read in Tombolo's Horror Book Club (Horror 201: Beyond Stephen King) is The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
 

Four American Indian men from the Blackfeet Nation, who were childhood friends, find themselves in a desperate struggle for their lives against an entity that wants to exact revenge upon them for what they did during an elk hunt ten years earlier. Not just them, either, but their families and friends. According to horror author Gabino Iglesias, “The Only Good Indians is a disturbing horror novel about revenge and sorrow that houses a narrative about identity and the price of breaking away from tradition at its core.” Already getting tons of buzz for all manner of horror awards, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians promises to be an unforgettable read from one of the best writers working in the genre today!

As an added bonus, the author has agreed to join us for part of our discussion. You won't want to miss this window into outstanding contemporary horror.

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!

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.
 

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 December meeting, we'll be discussing Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of Time's 100 must-read books of 2020.

James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. In our own moment, when that confrontation feels more urgently needed than ever, what can we learn from his struggle?

In the story of Baldwin’s crucible, the author suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography—drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews—with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude’s endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America. 

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 Worm Fiddling Nocturne in the Key of a Broken Heart, a collection of Florida Book Award-winning stories by local author Kimberly Lojewksi. 

In this wildly imaginative debut collection, whimsical fairy tales of princesses and farm girls turn dark, and dark tales of mistreated sideshow freaks turn whimsical. An itinerant marionette falls prey to a lusty mesmerist. An alcoholic camp counselor is haunted by her dead best friend. A juvenile delinquent languishes in a boot camp run by authoritarian grandmas. Be they human monsters or reluctant moth-girls, the outcasts that populate these eleven compelling stories all long for escape, community, acceptance, and self-discovery.

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.

National Book Award Finalist Pilar Quintana joins Tombolo Books for an exciting discussion about her latest release The Bitch. Winner of the English Pen Award, The Bitch "weaves human nature and the chaos of the universe together with extraordinary mastery." - Gabriela Aleman. Quintana will be joined by the book's translator, Lisa Dillman.  

Register for the event through our GOOGLE FORM and a Zoom link will be sent to you closer to the event date. Order your signed copy of the book HERE! 
Colombia’s Pacific coast, where everyday life entails warding off the brutal forces of nature. In this constant struggle, nothing is taken for granted. Damaris lives with her fisherman husband in a shack on a bluff overlooking the sea. Childless and at that age “when women dry up,” as her uncle puts it, she is eager to adopt an orphaned puppy. But this act may bring more than just affection into her home.The Bitch is written in a prose as terse as the villagers, with storms--both meteorological and emotional--lurking around each corner. Beauty and dread live side by side in this poignant exploration of the many meanings of motherhood and love. 

Pilar Quintana is a Colombian author. She debuted with Cosquillas en la lengua in 2003, and published Coleccionistas de polvos raros in 2007, the same year the Hay Festival selected her as one of the most promising young authors of Latin America. Her latest novel, The Bitch, won the prestigious Colombian Biblioteca de Narrativa Prize, and was selected for several Best Books of 2017 lists, as well as being chosen as one of the most valuable objects to preserve for future generations in a marble time capsule in Bogotá. The Bitch is the first of her works to be translated into English.

Lisa Dillman lives in Georgia, USA, where she translates Spanish, Catalan, and Latin American writers and teaches at Emory University. Some of her recent translations include Such Small Hands (winner of the 2018 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Award) by Andrés Barba; Signs Preceding the End of the World (winner of the 2016 Best Translated Book Award), Kingdom Cons, and The Transmigration of Bodies (shortlisted for the 2018 Dublin Literary Award) by Yuri Herrera, and Breathing Through the Wound and A Million Drops, by Víctor del Árbol.

Join Tombolo Books and The Dali Museum for this special streaming installment of Poetry at The Dalí series. The event is hosted by St. Petersburg Poet Laureate Helen Wallace.

This month Wallace will be joined by John Balaban, Sean Sexton, and Sidney Wade.  

Poetry at The Dalí is an ongoing series hosted by St. Petersburg Poet Laureate, Helen Wallace. Occurring on the second Thursday of each month, each evening will feature Wallace joined by selected poets. Following the presentation, there will be an audience Q&A.
Visit the Dali's YouTube channel to stream this event.

 John Balaban is the author of thirteen   books of poetry and prose, including four   volumes which together have won The   Academy of American Poets’ Lamont prize, a   National Poetry Series Selection, and two   nominations for the National Book   Award, After Our War (1974) and Locusts at   the Edge of Summer (1998). In 2017, he   received the George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Associated Writing Programs. His new book of poetry, Empires, came out from Copper Canyon Press in 2019.
 

 Sean Sexton was born in Indian River County   and grew up on his family's Treasure   Hammock Ranch, eight miles west of Vero   Beach, Florida.  He is the author of Waldo’s   Mountain, Brief History of a Small Elevation,   Waterview Press, 2001, Blood Writing,   Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009 and The Empty Tomb, University of Alabama's Slash Pine Press, 2013. In 2017 He completed a three city Southern Poetry Tour with Alice Friman and presented his poetry at "O' Miami" with Campbell McGrath and Dylan Brennan at the Betsy on South Beach last April. He became inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County in 2016. 
 

 Poet and translator Sidney Wade is professor   emerita of creative writing at the University of   Florida. She is the author of seven collections of   poetry: Bird Book, Straits &   Narrows, Stroke, Celestial Bodies, Empty   Sleeves, Green, and From Istanbul/İstanbul'dan.
 

Tombolo's Crime Travel Book Club is heading to Poland for our next read, Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkow.

Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing is an Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery set in late 19th century Poland. This book promises both period character and zesty charm, featuring amateur detective Zofia Turbotynska, a bored socialite who discovers a murder and her unlikely passion for solving crime. The first in a new series, Mrs. Mohr transports us to an underexplored place and time while confronting a range of issues from class prejudice to women's rights. 

‘An ingenious marriage of comedy and crime.'
- Olga Tokarczuk, 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Maryla Szymiczkowa is a pseudonym for Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczynski. Dehnel  is a writer, poet and translator. He has written several novels, including Lala (Oneworld, 2018) and Saturn (Dedalus, 2012). Jacek writes crime fiction under the pseudonym Maryla Szymiczkowa with partner Tarczynski, a translator and historian. They live in Warsaw.

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. Join us!

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

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.

 

Tombolo Books is thrilled to welcome McKenzie Cassidy for a virtual event and release celebration for, Here Lies A Father. Cassidy will be joined by his editor, Kaylie Jones, in this in-depth conversation about his debuted novel!

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. 

 

“Cassidy’s engrossing debut . . . convincingly depicts the ways his sensitive, turbulent protagonist navigates the murky period between adolescence and adulthood. Cassidy’s distinctive coming-of-age story will move readers.” —Publishers Weekly

 

When Ian Daly and his sister Catherine arrive for their wayward father’s funeral in his small  and desolate upstate New York hometown, a secret that was kept from them their entire lives  emerges: their father Thomas abandoned two other families, leaving behind two furious wives  and several children who never knew their father. Ian wants to know more of the truth, but his  sister and mother want to preserve the carefully constructed myth they’ve created around who  Thomas really was. 
 

In the cold, lonely winter landscape of small-town New York, fifteen-year-old Ian sets out alone  to learn the truth about his father’s past and the families he left behind. Here Lies a Father  examines the long-term effects shameful secrets have on a family, and how difficult it is for  a young man to reconstruct his own sense of right and wrong, when every value and moral  principle he was ever taught was based on a lie.

MCKENZIE CASSIDY is a writer, journalist, marketer, and professor living in Fort Myers, Florida. His work has appeared in Walk Hand in Hand into Extinction: Stories Inspired by True Detective, Flash Fiction Magazine, Florida Weekly, and in multiple newspapers throughout southwest Florida. He holds an MFA from Wilkes University and is a regular blogger for the Florida Writers Association. Here Lies a Father is his first novel. Learn more at mckenziecassidy.com.

 KAYLIE JONES has published seven books, including   a memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me, and her   most recent novel, The Anger Meridian. Her novel A   Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries was adapted as a   Merchant Ivory film in 1998. Jones has been   teaching for more than twenty-five years, and is a faculty member in the Stony Brook Southampton MFA in Creative Writing & Literature program and in Wilkes University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. She is the author of Speak Now and the editor of Long Island Noir. Her newest endeavor is her publishing imprint with Akashic Books, Kaylie Jones Books.
 

Spend an evening with Tombolo Books and Florida author Rick Kilby for a conversation about his book Florida's Healing Waters: Gilded Age Mineral Springs, Seaside Resorts, and Health Spas. Rick will be joined by St. Pete local author Craig Pittman for this exciting event! 

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. 
 

The origins of modern Florida’s tourism-based economy can be traced back to the 1700s when a narrative of an untamed paradise was created to encourage settlement in the Land of Flowers. With more than 1,000 fresh water springs, 1,300 miles of coastline, and 30,000 lakes, Florida counts water as one of its most abundant resources.

In the nineteenth century, water was also seen as a source of healing and rehabilitation, and invalids began to flock to Florida for its warm climate and its salubrious waters. 

This book traces the phenomena of taking the waters, from ancient cultures that saw the divine lurking beneath the surface to contemporary spa resorts.
 

It will shed light on a golden age of bathing in Florida, when the state was a prime destination for visitors seeking restoration and romance in springs, surf, and spa – a golden age that lasted well into the first quarter of the twentieth century. Today, most of the surviving spa facilities have transitioned to recreational amenities for a culture more about sun and fun than physical renewal, yet some people still find Florida waters to be sacred.

Rick Kilby grew up in Gainesville, Florida, looking for shark’s teeth, swimming in springs, and wading through swamps. A University of Florida graduate, he has earned his living as a graphic designer since 1986 and has been self-employed for twenty years. Inspired by a trip to the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, he created a blog about the history and culture of Florida in 2008. His Old Florida blog now has over 880,000 views and his Old Florida Facebook page is followed by over 58,000 people. 

 

He has delivered papers at several conferences of the Society for Commercial Archeology and is the designer and managing editor of “Reflections from Central Florida” magazine, the journal of the Historical Society of Central Florida.  

 

His first book, “Finding the Fountain of Youth,” was published in 2013 and won a Florida Book Award in the Visual Arts category. His second book. “Florida’s Healing Waters” was recently published by the University Press of Florida.

 

Rick’s mission is to motivate other Floridians to appreciate and preserve the natural and historic wonders of their state. 

 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.

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 starting off the new year with a critically acclaimed bestseller that aims right for the gut. Educated by Tara Westover, a memoir that reads like fiction, makes for compelling holiday reading as well as a rich well of discussion. Join us!

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

"Despite the singularity of her childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue

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!