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Candles, Kiddush, challah and more. It’s time to celebrate stories that celebrate Shabbat. Join us for stories, crafts and fun today! The national PJ Library program supports families in their Jewish journey by sending Jewish-content books and music on a monthly basis to children. Presented in collaboration with the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and the Gordon Schools of Beth David Congregation. 

Candles, Kiddush, challah and more. It’s time to celebrate stories that celebrate Shabbat. Join us for stories, crafts and fun today! The national PJ Library program supports families in their Jewish journey by sending Jewish-content books and music on a monthly basis to children. Presented in collaboration with the Greater Miami Jewish Federation and the Lehrman Community Day School.

Share the timeless tale and moving music of Sleeping Beauty at Piano Story Time presented by the Miami Piano Academy. Little ones, as young as 2 years old, will float away with this story and musical accompaniment. Miami Piano Academy is an educational institution offering individual piano classes to adults and children, starting as young as 4 years old.

The Vizcaya Lunch and Learn Series presents the Centennial Edition of Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford.

In an age where e-publishing has created profound changes in the industry, the commemorative edition of Last Train to Paradise (B&B Press, $60) is a reminder that there are some books that can only be fully experienced and appreciated in physical form.

As artistic director for the Commemorative Edition, published by B&B Press in conjunction with the Flagler Museum of Palm Beach, Petra Mason culled through more than 1,000 photographs in archives up and down the East Coast, including the Library of Congress, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Miami-Dade and Monroe County Libraries and others, finally selecting 154 to illustrate and augment the original text.  She then had the unenviable task of choosing just the right formats and placement of the images, many of which have not been published in book form before, to properly support and enhance the reading experience.

Please call 305-856-4866, Ext 111 to RSVP. Seating is limited. 

Join us for live music in the courtyard.

Abandoned Hat Factories: Setting & Atmosphere in Fiction with Peter Selgin is a reading/discussion with the award-winning author on his newest work, and specifically on the roles of atmosphere and setting in fiction.

The University of Miami sponsored Writers’ Salon will feature Selgin reading from various works, including his yet-to-be-published Pirate’s Alley / Faulkner Society Prize-Winning new novel, The Water Master, set in a dying hat factory town in 1963, as well as from 179 Ways to Save a Novel, his book on the craft of fiction writing.

The reading will be followed by a Q & A with the author moderated by University of Miami MFA in Creative Writing student Benjamin “Benjy” Caplan.

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After many years of seeing his extraordinary Cuban slide shows, Mr. William Gonzalez is now bringing a truly unique treasure trove of his latest acquisitions. Images of a long gone 1940's telephone, a rare seen "dos centavos" coin. Did you ever see the "tranvias" cemetery? Did you ever cross in Miramar the all steel "Puente de Pote"? Or for that matter saw a real Cuban "bodega"? Bet you bought "Guarina" ice-cream from a horse drawn vendor, didn't you? How about a picture of the world famous Cuban sailboat yacht "El Criollo" during the St. Petersburg to Havana race? These and many more of his gems will make this list too extensive. Do not miss this Very Cuban Presentation…shown in his own peculiar way via one of the last Kodak slide projectors, for a real "nostalgia" night with "boleros" music and all.

Join us for live music in the courtyard.

Beyond Boundaries Children’s Foundation is delighted to invite you to the launching of its cookbook Exclusive Recipes from Claudette’s Kitchen by Claudette Hawit. Claudette is a renown Honduran chef who is known for donating all her book proceeds to help benefit children. Please stop by to delight yourselves with these amazing recipes and at the same time you will be helping the children of Honduras have a better tomorrow. 

POSTPONED: Note: This event is in Spanish. Alentando el encuentro desde múltiples perspectivas, para explorar cómo los cambios del último milenio, dan forma al hombre y la realidad contemporánea, Letra Urbana junto al Centro Cultural Argentino presenta: ¿Y para qué el arte? con la Dra. Cristina Bulacio. La condición humana conlleva tres factores que marcan su perfil: la caducidad de la existencia, sólo un margen de libertad y, también una poderosa imaginación; a ellos se debe la imperiosa necesidad de trascender más allá de sus propios límites. En ese movimiento de salir de sí mismo los hombres han buscado sostén, tradicionalmente, en los sentidos que albergan el arte y la religión, más que el saber que da la ciencia. Sin arte y sin religión una sociedad languidece y muere. Nos preguntamos por qué. No hablamos de los mercados actuales de arte ni de obras de arte como mercancías; hablamos de la obra de arte como autorreferente y del verdadero hacedor, el artista anónimo y creativo, que se juega el sentido de la vida en cada obra. En tiempos de violencia y exclusión, de tecnología y utilitarismo, donde la eficiencia es un valor supremo, nos preguntamos ¿por qué el hombre sigue haciendo arte?

Polite and respectful behavior is vanishing from our world today. Bullying, hostile and polarizing political interactions, tasteless and tactless comments delivered without discretion, everyone talking at once but nobody listening we are treating one another badly in our day-to-day lives and our relationships are fragmenting and deteriorating as a result.

It doesn't have to be this way. Sara Hacala, a certified etiquette and protocol consultant, offers guidance that goes beyond the hollow or artificial display of proper manners and good conduct. She presents civility as a mind-set that encompasses values and attitudes that help us embrace our shared humanity and society. She taps the wisdom of ancient spiritual luminaries as well as the latest social science research to provide fifty-two practical ways we can reverse the course of incivility and create a more enriching, pleasant place to live.

Whether in our interpersonal lives, the workplace, our schools, or the world at large

Join us for live music in the courtyard. 

Join us for Coral Gables Gallery Night. 

Join us for a poetry reading with Lemon Andersen, subject of the film “LEMON” that will be screening at the Coral Gables Cinema at 9:30pm tonight, about 3-time felon turned poet Lemon Andersen and his last-ditch effort to get out of poverty through his autobiographical, one man-show, "County of Kings." It is a story about artistic struggle, the consequences of ambition, and ultimately, creative triumph. Lemon has been championed by Spike Lee. At tonight’s event, Lemon will be introduced by co-director of the film, Laura Brownson for a poetry reading and Q&A, followed by a book signing. Presented in collaboration with The Center @ Miami Dade College.

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The Rogue Aviator, an insider's perspective of a professional pilot's exposure to the "back alleys" of commercial aviation will reveal a roller-coaster-like ride that is both entertaining and informative. Ace Abbott's unstable career results in numerous oscillations between the aviation penthouse and the aviation outhouse. The myth of under-worked and over-paid pilots will be debunked. Spiced with humor, The Rogue Aviator is complemented with occasional sketches of pathos and poignancy. Captain Abbott's story also contains a smattering of decadence and debauchery. Ace Abbott was employed by numerous Miami area airlines and local area charter companies. He provides an insider's view of the South Florida aviation environment.  Fasten your seat belt and hang on!

In Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion & Reinvention (Algonquin, $23.95) Jamal Joseph vividly recounts his introduction to the Black Panther Party, and his progression from a young, naïve street kid to a confident and outspoken member of an influential national movement, and later to an Oscar nominee (for IMPACT Repertory Theatre’s song “Raise It Up” from the movie August Rush) and a professor at an Ivy League college. In addition to providing insight into the Panther movement, Joseph’s story spans and illuminates a ground-shifting and volatile period of New York and national history, encompassing anti-Vietnam protests and the rise of the Weathermen, police brutality and the height of the drug war, the murder of George Jackson and the Attica rebellion, and gang violence and the untimely death of Tupac Shakur (to whom Joseph was godfather). Presented in collaboration with The Center @ Miami Dade College.

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In Power in the Balance (Univ. Notre Dame, $38), Barry S. Levitt answers urgent questions about executive power in “new” democracies. He examines in rich detail the case of Peru, from President Alan García’s first term, to the erosion of democracy under President Alberto Fujimori, through the interim government of Valentín Paniagua and the remarkable, if rocky, renewal of democracy culminating in Alejandro Toledo’s 2001–2006 presidency. This turbulent experience with democracy brings into clear focus the functioning of formal political institutions—constitutions and electoral laws, presidents and legislatures, political parties and leaders—while also exposing the informal side of Peru’s national politics over the course of two decades. 

Paisajes: metaforas de nuestro tiempo de Dennys Matos constituye un gran aporte para el estudio del arte contemporáneo y sus nuevas condiciones de producción y recepción. La propia hibridez del libro donde se mezclan la autobiografía intelectual, la entrevista, la reseña a una exposición y el ensayo crítico, le hace justicia al carácter heteróclito y heterogéneo de los artistas y las prácticas estudiadas en el mismo. Paisajes constituye uno de los mayores aportes al estudio de la cultura poscomunista y desde ya podemos decir que ocupará un lugar prominente entre los grandes textos producidos por los ensayistas cubanos de su generación.

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In the stifling days before the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Isadora Khaled dreams of catfish and murdering her daughter, setting off a chain of events that will not be resolved until Hurricane Ike in 2008. The descendents of Isadora are defined by and eventually named after the hurricanes that shape their lives: Fatima, who enters into a doomed relationship with a visiting artist in 1961; her drug-numbed daughter Carla, desperate to get home in 1983; and Carla’s daughter Alicia, reunited with her heritage on a modern island embracing disaster culture in 2008. An epic tale, Audra Martin D’Aroma’s The Galveston Chronicles (Rozlyn Press, $22) holds a mirror to the transformation of an unforgettable island, looking at the Gulf Coast region through the eyes of these women in the days preceding and following Galveston’s major hurricanes.

M.J. Rose’s The Book of Lost Fragrances (Atria, $24) fuses history, passion and suspense in an intoxicating web that moves from Cleopatra’s Egypt and the terrors of revolutionary France to Tibet’s battle with China and the glamour of modern-day Paris. This marvelous, spellbinding novel mixes the sensory allure of Perfume with the heartbreaking beauty of The Time Traveler’s Wife, coming to life as richly as our most wildly imagined dreams.

At a reception hosted by a notorious Russian black marketeer, Doc Ford uses darkness as cover to get an underwater look at the billionaire's yacht. By the time Ford surfaces, everything has changed. Environmental extremists have taken control of the island. Or are they thugs hired by the Russian's competitors? Whatever the motive, they have herded everyone together and threatened to kill one hostage every hour unless their demands are met. Electronic jammers make communications with the outside world impossible. The militants don’t know Ford's capabilities, or that he is still on the loose. But that situation won't last for long...and the clock is ticking. Discover what happens in the newest book by Randy Wayne White – Chasing Midnight (Putnam, $25.95).