Whether your child is going to a private kindergarten or a public school, he or she will most likely be tested—and placed in classrooms according to those results. But information about intelligence tests is closely guarded, and it can be difficult to understand what your kids need to know. As an expert who has successfully taught hundreds of parents how to work with their own children, Karen Quinn has written the ultimate guide to preparing your child for kindergarten testing Testing for Kindergarten (Fireside, $14.99) . The activities she suggests are not about “teaching to the test.” They are about having fun while teaching to the underlying abilities every test assesses. It’s just good parenting—and better test scores are icing on the cake. 7:30pm

Yehuda Avner served on the staffs of Israel’s Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Menachem Begin, and his new book, The Prime Ministers (Toby Press, $29.95) , takes the reader behind the scenes. He restores to life episodes of war and peace as these amazing individuals, early leaders of Israel, grappled with one another and with the life-and-death decisions they were often called upon to make. In the author’s eyes, Menachem Begin emerges as most exceptional, and much of the book is devoted to him. Based largely on personal notes, as well as on actual transcripts and correspondence, some of which are revealed here for the first time, the narrative reenacts how each of the leaders responded under conditions of acute stress – be it terror or war- and how their respective relationships unfolded with Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. 7:30pm

Note: This event is in Spanish. El Instituto Interamericano para la Democracia presentará al escritor argentino Nicolás Márquez. Márquez es periodista, abogado y escritor. Colaboró en diarios argentinos (Ámbito Financiero, La Prensa y La Nueva Provincia), así como en El Mercurio de Chile, y otros medios informativos como CNN. Ha publicado seis libros: “La otra parte de la verdad” (2004) es un clásico del revisionismo sobre los años 70, vendiendo más de 25.000 ejemplares. “La mentira oficial”, su segunda obra El setentismo como política de Estado” (2006) “El canalla. La verdadera historia del Che”, prologado por Armando Ribas y “Chávez. De Bolívar al narcotráfico” prologado por el ex Embajador y politólogo Emilio Cárdenas, serán comentados en la presentación por Carlos Sánchez Berzain y Vilma Petrash y luego el autor dialogará con el público. 6:30pm

During the last eighteen years of his life (1968–86), Jean Genet was preoccupied with the struggles of the disenfranchised and displaced: among them the Black Panthers, the Baader-Meinhof, and the Palestinians. Hadrien Laroche’s The Last Genet (Arsenal Pulp, $22.95) is a careful philosophical and historical reading of acts and thoughts of various political movements in the seventies and the eighties all over the world, and of Genet’s experiences and writings. This translation of Le Dernier Genet (Seuil) considers Genet’s insights, failures, and critique of humanism, and examines the way in which his energetic prose forged a new political, aesthetic, and philosophical relation between literature and the world. This is also the first book to address the issues of Genet’s relation to Israel, Jews, and anti-Semitism. Hadrien Laroche will be in conversation with Ralph Heyndels, professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Miami. 6pm
Randy Wayne Whitehas put Doc Ford on a collision course with death in Night Vision (Putnam, $25.95) , the New York Times bestselling author’s his extraordinary new novel. A lot is going on in the trailer park known as Little Guadalajara, inhabited principally by illegal laborers. The park manager is the hired gun of a financial syndicate that wants to develop the property, and he’s prepared to do whatever it takes-but he can’t figure out what to do about the teenage girl, the one the laborers believe has some sort of gift. When she witnesses him killing a man, though, and runs, there’s nothing left to figure: He’s got to find her fast and shut her up good. Her only hope for survival: a marine biologist (and sometimes more) named Doc Ford, who along with his friend Tomlinson, must undertake a search through an underground, invisible nation … and just hope he reaches her first. 8pm

University of Miami Caribbean Literary and Cultural Studies Book Launch, 7:30pm
Photographer Tomas Loewy shares his photographic impressions of the last seven years of Burning Man in Radical Burning Desert ($34.95). This unique art & people & ideas festival in the Nevada desert near Reno, where 50,000+ people come to celebrate freedom and express themselves for seven days a year in the week prior to Labor Day, may is best described by it’s two mottos: ‘Radical Self Expression’ and ‘Radical Self Reliance’. This book is photography only, no text or philosophical comments are provided other than the foreword and one page of thoughts about Burning Man from people who have participated. 8pm

In Spanish: Una teoria controversial acerca de como obtener la Fuente de la Juventud presentada por la escritora, autora y conferencista motivacional Christina Balinotti en su tercer libro, Feminidad Holistica: El Nuevo Paradigma Cultural ($19.99). A los 56 años, Balinotti descubre la fuente de la juventud, el equilibrio y la paz, a través de un neuvo modelo femenino, sabio y controversial. Apoyado en el paradigma holístico de la Física moderna y en las polaridades del universe, el presente trabajo es una contribución al equilibrio humano pero, fundamentalmente, un guía existencial hacia el descubrimiento de aquello que, en definitive, nos hace ser mujeres. 7:30pm

Across the Western World, the Ten Commandments have become a source of both inspiration and controversy. But what do the commandments really stand for? According to polls, less than half of all Americans can even name more than four of them. For most of us, agnostics and faithful alike, they have been relegated to the level of a symbol, and the teachings they contain are all but forgotten. In The Ten Commandments (Scribner, $26) , David Hazony offers a powerful new look at our most venerable moral text. Combining a fresh reading of the Old Testament’s most riveting stories and ancient rabbinic legends with a fearless exploration of what ails society today, Hazony shows that the Ten Commandments are not just a set of obscure laws but encapsulate a deeply valuable approach to life—one that is as relevant now as it was when they first appeared more than two millennia ago. 7pm

In rural Wisconsin in 1909, Ralph Truitt stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife.” But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she’s not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting. She has survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons. Robert Goolrick’s fiction debut A Reliable Wife (Algonquin, $14.95) is a darkly nuanced psychological story that builds suspense as it churns. 7pm

The abduction that changed America forever, the 1981 kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh—son of John Walsh, host of the Fox TV series America’s Most Wanted—in Hollywood, Florida, was a crime that went unsolved for a quarter of a century. Bringing Adam Home (Ecco, $24.99) by author Les Standiford and Det. Sgt. Joe Matthews is a harrowing account of the terrible crime and its dramatic consequences, the emotional story of a father and mother’s efforts to seek justice and resolve the loss of their child, and a compelling portrait of Miami Beach Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, whose unwavering dedication brought the Adam Walsh case to its resolution. Says Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River: “Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” 6pm

Tracing the shift from the optimism of the early 1980s to the cultural cynicism that paralleled the near-collapse of Cuban society in the 1990s, To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art (U. of Minnesota, $34.95) identifies a renewed idealism among the artists about the potential role of culture in Cuban society. Rachel Weiss, a professor at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, offers the definitive critical history of the new Cuban art, exploring its remarkable artistic accomplishments and its role as catalyst for, and site of, public debate. Weiss draws on two decades of engagement with Cuban art and on the statements of the artists themselves to read individual artworks against the complex relationships between artists, their local and global audiences, and the Cuban state. 8pm

Coral Gables Gallery Night: Peter Dooling’s images promote the Miami-Dade Parks Jazz Ensemble, a group of twenty volunteer musicians. The Jazz Ensemble’s mission is to preserve and celebrate this cornerstone of American music and these photos are meant to reflect the individuality of its performers and their craft. 7-10pm
Live Music in the Courtyard: Miami-Dade Parks Jazz Ensemble, 7-11pm

Kids, join author Margaret Cardillo for a chance to live life like Audrey Hepburn with her book Just Being Audrey (Balzer & Bray, $16.99) ! Post-Story Time fun for everyone. Even get your own “pearls” for that iconic Audrey look. Learn how to tie a scarf in oh-so-many ways – just like Audrey herself. Just Being Audrey is Audrey as a little girl, an actress, an icon, an inspiration; this is Audrey just being Audrey. When Audrey Hepburn starred in a movie, she lit up the screen. But her life off-screen was even more luminous. As a little girl growing up in Nazi-occupied Europe, she learned early on that true kindness is the greatest measure of a person — and it was a lesson she embodied as she became one of the first actresses to use her celebrity to shine a light on impoverished children throughout the world. 11am
At 43 years old, Pamela Madsen was happily married to the man she fell in love with at 17. She was the mother of two sons and had a successful career as a nationally known advocate for fertility issues. But she felt a growing sexual restlessness and yearning that wouldn’t let up. And though Pamela loved her husband and didn’t want to have an affair, she knew deep down that she needed more, much more. In Shameless (Rodale, $24.99) , she tells the story of how she found it—and not only kept her marriage intact but made it stronger than ever. 7pm
Live Music in the Courtyard: Emmet Cohen Trio, 7-11pm

In South Florida, we all know the horrifying story of six-year-old Adam Walsh’s abduction and murder in 1981. And we know that before that awful day, there were no children’s faces on milk cartons, no Amber Alerts, no national Center for Missing and Abused Children, no federal databases for crimes against children, no registration of pedophiles. But few of us know the whole story—how, after 27 years of relentless investigation, decorated Miami Beach homicide detective Joe Matthews finally identified Adam’s killer. Bringing Adam Home (Ecco, $24.99) by Les Standiford and Det. Sgt. Joe Matthews is the definitive account of this harrowing crime and its aftermath – a true story of tragedy, love, faith, and dedication. Says bestselling author Brad Meltzer: “I didn’t live far from the mall where Adam Walsh was kidnapped. I remember that story as if it were yesterday. It terrified me as a kid. But it’s the details that Les Standiford has found that terrify me as an adult. Insightful, horrifying, and just beautifully written.” Join our Facebook contest, and you can win one of five autographed copies. Winners announced tonight. 6pm

In his memoir, Memories of a Journey Through Time (Argian Press, $19.95), Manuel A. Cadenas traces the adventures of a young man growing up in Cuba during the 1920s through the 1950s in the rural sugar plantations, ranching and coastal elements of Camaguey. There are striking narratives of hunting, fishing, political and family events with geographic and cultural contrasts during periods when his parents, like a few other families in Cuba of that era, sent their son to be educated in the United States, where he attended the prestigious Phillips Academy at Andover and MIT, graduating as an engineer like his father and grandfather. Later, with his wife Hilda Cadenas Cabarrocas and three young children, he recounts the difficult period in the 1960s when the family leaves everything they own behind in Cuba to live in the United States, Australia, Argentina and Mexico. Left behind were treasured family properties and heirlooms, including the last trophy presented by Ernest Hemingway for the largest white marlin in the famed author’s final fishing tournament held during May 1960 in Havana. The family takes with them on their sojourn around world the basic principles of reverence for God, family, education, persistence, and the spirit to pursue many other adventures. 6:30pm
Somewhere between the lessons her mother taught her and the ones she is now trying to teach her own daughter, Kim Severson stumbled. The New York Times food writer lost sight of what mattered, of who she was and who she wanted to be, and of how she needed to live her life. It took a series of encounters with female cooks – including Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Rachael Ray, and Marcella Hazan – to reteach her the life lessons she had forgotten, and many she had never learned in the first place. Some were as small as a spoonful, and others so big they saved her life. Their lessons in Spoon Fed (Riverhead Trade, $16) come not as sermons, but as side dishes to the main point of the day, which was dinner or lunch or a particularly unexpected and delicious snack – for which Severson provides recipes. 8pm

Harry D. Gould, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at FIU, presents The Legacy of Punishment in International Law (Palgrave Macmillan, $93.50) . The book illustrates how seventeenth and eighteenth century rationales for the use of force in support of piracy and colonialism have been transformed into progressive features of contemporary International Law.  The classic practice of international punishment was a part of the jus ad bellum, and was the fig leaf for intra-European violence, and for the European conquest of the Americas.  It has been transformed, however, into the basis for the assertion of a set of unconditionally, universally binding rules of international law, and for universal jurisdiction over perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes. 8pm

Join us for this poetry reading: Cradle Song ($14.95) is Stacey-Lynn Brown’s book-length poem in sections that grapples with issues of race, family, and cultural identity against the backdrop of the poet’s childhood in the South. The poems in Adrian Matejka’s second collection, Mixology (Penguin, $16) shapeshift through the myriad meanings of “mixing” to explore and explode ideas of race, skin politics, appropriation, and cultural identity. Whether the focus of the individual poems is musical, digital, or historical, the otherness implicit in being of more than one racial background guides Matejka’s work to the inevitable conclusion that all things-no matter how disparate-are parts of the whole. 7pm
Picture yourself trapped in a traffic jam feeling utterly calm. Imagine being unflappable and relaxed when your supervisor loses her temper. What if you were peaceful instead of anxious? What if your life were filled with nurturing relationships and a warm sense of belonging? This is what it feels like when you’ve achieved Emotional Freedom (Three Rivers Press, $16) . National bestselling author Dr. Judith Orloff invites you to take a remarkable journey, one that leads to happiness and serenity, and a place where you can gain mastery over the negativity that pervades daily life. Synthesizing neuroscience, intuitive medicine, psychology, and subtle energy techniques, Orloff maps the elegant relationships between our minds, bodies, spirits, and environments. 8pm

In the tradition of Atul Gawande and Sherwin Nuland, Marc Agronin writes luminously and unforgettably of life as he sees it as a doctor in How We Age (De Capo, $25) . His beat is the Miami Jewish Home & Hospital, which some would dismiss as “God’s waiting room.” Nothing in the young doctor’s medical training had quite prepared him for what he was to discover there. As Agronin first learned from ninety-eight-year-old Esther and, later, from countless others, the true scales of aging aren’t one-sided—you can’t list the problems without also tallying the hopes and promises. Drawing on moving personal experiences and in-depth interviews with pioneers in the field, Agronin conjures a spellbinding look at what aging means today—how our bodies and brains age, and the very way we understand aging. 7:30pm

James Gleick brings us his crowning work: a revelatory chronicle that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. He traces this from the invention of scripts and alphabets to Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer, straight through to the dawning of the information age. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And they sometimes feel they are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information (Pantheon, $28.95) is the story of how we got here and where we are heading. 8pm

Join us for a mix of word and song and cultures as Judith Bacay and Issac Carter from St. Thomas University present MultiCulti Mixterations ($10) with a cast of contributors. Packed with haiku, MultiCulti Mixterations evokes emotion of all kinds, written in English but reflecting the cultural experiences of the world community. Editors explore the intersection of culture and identity through imagery that makes us laugh, makes us angry, tugs at our hearts, challenges our beliefs – or, better yet, makes us hungry, angry, lonely, or joyful. (MultiCulti Mixterations was inspired by Hialeah Hiakus, edited by the talented Marco Ramirez and Alex Fumero.) Proceeds benefit the Social Justice account at St. Thomas University. including a Café Cocano coffee cooperative in Port de Paix, Haiti. Cans of the coffee will be for sale tonight. 8pm
Live Music in the Courtyard: Federico Britos, 7-11pm

Make way for the butt! Butts on mummies and butts on mommies. Butts on giraffes and elephants and dogs and… FISH? Yes, even fish butts are celebrated in The Butt Book (Bloomsbury, $16.99) – author Artie Bennett’s tribute to backsides, rumps, tushies, keisters, heinies, and derrieres. Join us for this fanny … um, make that funny – very funny – rhyme-filled read that will have kids of all ages laughing. 11:30am

Emilio Estefan presents The Exile Experience (HCP, $34.95), which tells the story of the various waves of exiles who arrived on these shores. It is a collaboration of well-known Cuban writers: Carlos Eire, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Mirta Ojito and poet Carlos Pintado. But Estefan also sought personal testimonials of successful people from different generations of exiles, like the Mas Canosa family, television personality Cristina Saralegui, medical entrepreneur Benjamin Leon Jr., and Perry Ellis International chairman and CEO George Feldenkreis. “It has been an exile (community) that has fought a lot,” said Estefan, who fled Cuba as a teen with his father. The Exile Experience: Journey to Freedom is published in three separate editions – each tailor-made for those who arrived through Operation Pedro Pan, the Freedom Flights and the Mariel boatlift. Each edition features the names of every Cuban who arrived in one of the three exoduses, more than 400,000 names between the three editions. 2pm

PJ Library Story Time: Share stories, crafts and fun today as we get ready for Purim! 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, Temple Beth Am and MiamiMunchkins.com. 10:30am
Bottoms up, kids – It’s The Butt Book (Bloomsbury, $16.99) ! Dozens of funny rhymes and pages of laugh-out-loud pictures pay homage to a body part that keeps kids and grown-ups giggling with glee. Tall butts, short butts, round butts, flat butts. But wait – there’s more! Author Artie Bennett brings us this fun-filled book about the end of us all. 11:30am

PJ Library Story Time: Dress your best as we gear up with Purim with 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, the Miami Beach JCC and the Lehrman Community Day School. 12:30pm

On the heels of the acclaimed Once a Spy, Keith Thomson returns with Twice a Spy (Doubleday, $24.95) , a breakneck thriller that’s twice as explosive as the original. In the tradition of Robert Ludlum, with a witty twist, Thomson’s second novel featuring a former spy and his son once again poses the question: What happens when a former CIA agent can no longer trust his own mind? Charlie and Drummond Clark are now in Switzerland, hiding out from criminal charges in America and using the time to experiment with treatments to retrieve Drummond’s memory. When NSA operative Alice Rutherford, with whom Charlie has fallen in love, is kidnapped, the Clarks must dodge a formidable CIA case officer and his team to get her back. 8pm

The New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill returns with a relentless supernatural thriller. Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the Horns (William Morrow, $25.99) were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief after the inexplicable rape and murder of his beloved Merrin. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged – and never cleared. Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look — a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. It’s time the devil had his due. . . . 7pm
Not many former NFL cheerleaders have survived a plane crash, slept in jungles teeming with poisonous snakes, swam with hungry great white sharks, rappelled down a 14,000-foot sinkhole in search of frogs, and been charged by an angry silver-backed gorilla. But then, Mireya Mayor is not your normal ex-NFL cheerleader. On quick examination of her roots, one may never have guessed that Mireya Mayor would become the woman she is today. Yet, against all odds, this self-professed former “girly-girl” daughter of an overprotective Cuban immigrant mother blossomed from NFL cheerleader to Fulbright Scholar to field scientist and ultimately, quintessential adventurer. Now, with more than a decade’s worth of thrilling exploits under her belt, Mayor recounts her life in a riveting new book, Pink Boots and a Machete (National Geographic Books, $26) . In a series of short chapters, she relives each exhilarating event with uncanny charm and self-deprecating humor. Readers have the rare opportunity to follow the renowned primatologist around the globe as she unlocks the mysteries of the natural world and endeavors to save some of the planet’s rarest creatures. 8pm

Most people live let others tell them who they should be, what they should believe, and what they should do. No more. Learn how to discover what makes you truly you – and then how to live and work in a way that lets you be your best. We all need some help getting into The Greatness Zone ($15) – that place that allows you to do what you are good at doing, and love doing. Author Jay Forte introduces the Five Rules for a Great Life through a story of Mary and Mike, two college freshmen. Mary is confident and clear about what she wants for her life; Mike is not. Mary shares how she learned to know herself and to go after the things in life that matter to her – and Mike uses her approach to make great changes in his life. 7:30pm

By turns inspiring and heart-breaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate (Walker & Company, $24) is Izzeldin Abuelaish’s account of an extraordinary life. A Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Abuelaish has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life – as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers on January 16, 2009, during Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip. His response to this tragedy made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, Abuelaish called for the people in the region to start talking to each other. His deepest hope is that his daughters will be “the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.” 7:30pm

Lauren Book was eleven years old when her new nanny, Waldina Flores, joined the family. For the next six years, Lauren endured daily sexual and physical abuse. In 2002, after being encouraged by her boyfriend, Lauren told her therapist what had been happening. The therapist called her parents and her father fired Flores, who fled to Oklahoma where she was arrested two months later. In It’s OK to Tell (Prospecta, $19.95) , she shares her story. Since the abuse, Lauren and her father have successfully mounted a legislative onslaught against predators in Florida, and she founded Lauren’s Kids to prevent sexual abuse through awareness and education, and to help survivors heal with guidance and support. 7pm
In the latest thriller, Silent Mercy (Dutton, $26.95) , in Linda Fairstein’s bestselling series, Alex Cooper dives deep into the byzantine, sinister world of New York City’s powerful religious institutions. When two young women are found dead in houses of worship – one decapitated and burned inside Harlem’s Mount Neboh Baptist Church, t the other at a cathedral in Little Italy – the killings look like serial hate crimes, but the apparent differences in the victims’ beliefs seem to eliminate a religious motive. Convinced that another young woman is bound to die, Alex mines the depths of Manhattan’s many houses of worship to find a connection between the victims – and uncovers a terrible and perilous truth that takes her into the path of great danger. 8pm

In It’s Not Really About the Hair (It Books, $21.99) , Tabatha Coffey of the Bravo hit Tabatha’s Salon Takeover shares her astonishing life story – starting with her colorful childhood spent in the strip clubs her parents ran with the help of a notorious mob boss and charting her rise up the ranks of the competitive hairstyling world. Tabatha Coffey is more than a hairstylist with incredible flair, a business woman with enviable moxie, and the star of her own hit TV show—she’s an agent of change; a “transformationalist,” as she calls herself. Coffey has made a career out of helping people look on the outside the way that they feel on the inside – a skill she learned, no less, at the feet of beautiful drag queens in Adelaide, Australia. Presented at our neighbors at Design Within Reach. 3pm

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife (Ballantine, $25) by Paula McLain captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group — the fabled “Lost Generation” — that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of this life into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly. They eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage — a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for. 8pm
Live Music, 7-11pm

Ignore the sunny skies and the cheery weather reports. Brace yourself for the Dark Days ahead. Paranormal thrillers. Supernatural romance. Otherworldly adventures. The Dark Days of Supernatural tour is coming to South Florida. Books & Books is honored – moody, otherworldly and honored – to present this authors Claudia Gray, Kimberly Derting and Courtney Allison Moulton for a trio of triumphant supernatural novels. In Claudia Gray’s Afterlife: An Evernight Novel (HarperTeen, $16.99) : When a twist of fate not only transforms Bianca into a wraith but also turns Lucas into a vampire—the very creature he spent his life hunting—they are left reeling. Haunted by his powerful need to kill, Lucas can turn to only one place for help . . . Evernight Academy. But with the vampire leader of Evernight waging a war against wraiths, Bianca’s former home has become the most dangerous place she could be. In Kimberly Derting’s Desires of the Dead (HarperCollins, $16.99) : Violet can sense the echoes of those who’ve been murdered—and the matching imprint that clings to their killers. Only those closest to her know what she is capable of, but when she discovers the body of a young boy she also draws the attention of the FBI, threatening her entire way of life. In Courtney Allison Moulton’s Angelfire (Katherine Tegen, $17.99) : When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. Only Will holds the key to Ellie’s memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream. This event will be webcast live from Books & Books tonight! Live music in our Courtyard with our Supernatural Showcase of Bands. Plus free chocolate (dark, dark chocolate, of course). 7pm
Live Music: Supernatural Showcase of Bands, 7-10pm

Join Florida Grand Opera’s Director of Communication and Community Affairs Justin Moss and Resident Conductor Andrew Bisantz for a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, considered by many to be the most perfect opera ever written. The lively discussion will include the plot synopsis and lively insight into the opera, which opens at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County on April 16. 2pm – 3:30pm
Just how big can a little kid dream? Ask Alexander, as he takes a wild ride and discovers the sky’s the limit! Join Alexander’s adventure with My Name Is Not Alexander (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, $16.99) . Jennifer Fosberry’s follow-up to her New York Times bestseller My Name Is Not Isabella follows a young boy on an imaginary trip through history as he pretends to be some of the innovative men who influenced and shaped our world. Through Alexander’s imaginative journey, he discovers how great men become heroes: the roughest rider can be surprisingly gentle (Theodore Roosevelt), a strong leader is also the most peaceful (Chief Joseph), and sometimes, being brave about what makes you different will not only help you break records, but inspire others (Jackie Robinson). A back of the book “Men Who Changed the World” section features short bios of the famous men Alexander pretends to be. 3:30pm

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill publishes books that you want to talk about, books that lead to great discussions. Now, Algonquin is giving us that great discussion, too. Join us for the first Algonquin Book Club with Julia Alvarez discussing her honored novel, In the Time of Butterflies (Algonquin, $13.95) with Edwidge Danticat. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of four sisters—Minerva, Patria, María Teresa killed in a supposedly accidental wreck, and the survivor, Dedé—speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Gen. Rafael Leondias Trujillo’s rule in the Dominican Republic. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Mariposas live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of political oppression. Two revered authors, one revealing conversation. It’s a book club meeting made in heaven, located in Coral Gables, and webcast live across the nation and at the Pinecrest and North Dade branches of the Miami-Dade Public Library. But this is your chance to join the discussion in person. Tickets required. Tickets cost $10, which can be redeemed for a $10 credit toward any book purchase at Books & Books. Tickets are limited and can be purchased at the Books & Books shops in Coral Gables, Miami Beach and Bal Harbour Shops. Presented in collaboration with the Florida Center for the Literary Arts. 7pm

Created by curly hair evangelist Lorraine Massey—the go-to curl expert featured in Allure, InStyle, Lucky, Seventeen, and The New York Times; owner of the Devachan salons in New York; and creator of a multimillion-dollar line of all-natural Devachan products—Curly Girl: The Handbook (Workman, $13.95) is the surprising bible for the 65 percent of women with naturally curly or wavy hair and a desire to celebrate it. The Curly Girl manifesto is back, now completely revised, updated, and expanded by more than a third with all-new material. It’s all here: daily routines for Botticelli, fractal, and wavy curls; Lorraine’s no-more-shampoo epiphany — handle your hair as gently as you do your best cashmere sweater; homemade lotions and potions. New to this edition: an illustrated, step-by-step guide to trimming your own hair (Remember: It’s not what you take off; it’s what you leave on.); a section on the particular needs of wavy hair; Lorraine’s Down-and-Dirty Curly Boy Routine and much more. Plus goodies and giveaways tonight: Enter a raffle to win a DevaCurl travel kit! 7:30pm

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister’s face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters. Annah’s world stopped that day, and she’s been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn’t feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again. But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it’s up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return’s destruction? Find the answers to these questions at the book launch for Carrie Ryan’s The Dark and Hollow Places (Delacorte, $17.99) . 6pm

Encuentros Letra Urbana, 7pm
On average, people squander forty days annually compensating for things they’ve forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories. Moonwalking with Einstein (Penguin, $26.95) draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top “mental athletes,” he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by Medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories. 8pm

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Blood, Bones & Butter (Random House, $26) follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; the soulless catering factories that helped pay the rent; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends. 8pm

Practical Glamour (RLD Publication, $14.95) written by Constance Dunn is for the female who wants to look and feel gorgeous and confident each day. Cultivate your optimum level of everyday glamour with this ultimate grooming, style and manner resource. Your mindset – not your budget – is the key to lifting your look to its maximum level. And your appearance is a package deal, which includes looks and attire alongside movement, style and spirit. No matter how perfectly pulled together and lovely you may look, without proper poise and attitude, no presentation can be complete. Practical Glamour is your enduring guide to the essentials and the lesser-known ins and outs of presenting your most beautiful, polished and authentic self to the world. 7:30pm

In his spellbinding new history, America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation (Bloomsbury, $35) , David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have limned the war as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America’s greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere. As the Second Great Awakening surged through America, political questions became matters of good and evil to be fought to the death. The price of that failure was horrific, but the carnage accomplished what statesmen could not: It made the United States one nation and eliminated slavery as a divisive force in the Union. The victorious North became synonymous with America as a land of innovation and industrialization, whose teeming cities offered