Tomorrow at 8 p.m., Books & Books is hosting Edwidge Danticat, who will discuss her new novel, Claire of the Sea Light (Knopf), at the Coral Gables, Fla., flagship store. As with several author events in the past month at Books & Books, the book launch will be live streamed--and be archived online.
Next month the stores' live streamed events include appearances by Bob Shacochis, James McBride, John Searles, Chris Bohjalian and Nelson DeMille. In addition, Books & Books is live-streaming its Spanish-language events, such as the appearance by Eduardo Paz Soldan on September 13.
"We've been wanting to do this for some time and when the opportunity arose, we jumped," owner Mitchell Kaplan said. "We know we have an audience that can't always make it to one of our events, and we want to give them an opportunity to experience it, or if they've never been to an event of ours, seeing one online might entice them to come to the next one. We also give the viewer an opportunity to buy a personalized, autographed book or ask a question by calling the store while the event is in progress or see it at another time at their leisure. By archiving them, traffic is also drawn to our website, not to mention the added value of creating a wonderful record of some of the great authorial voices that visit our stores."
