November in Miami means only one thing for a lot of people – besides Thanksgiving, of course. It’s the month when book lovers unite with authors from all over the world to converge on Miami Dade ‘s downtown campus for the annual Miami Book Fair, now in its 40th year. 

Everyone loves walking the three-day Street Fair to discover new books, peruse the wares of local artisans, enjoy live music from the Off the Shelf stage or take the kiddies through Children’s Alley, but the real treat is meeting the authors. 

An almost daunting schedule of appearances gives you a chance to get up close and personal with many authors promoting their new titles in every genre. Some do readings from their books and talk about their work, others are interviewed by a facilitator or appear with fellow writers in group discussions. No matter the forum, there’s always an opportunity to ask questions, buy new books and get them signed. 

Running Nov. 12-19, the event begins with a free opening night block party with Grammy-winning DJ/producer Louie Vega and kicks off six days of “Evenings With,” a popular nighttime series of author conversations that frequently sell out. Coming to you this year are Jada Pinkett Smith speaking with actor/writer/producer Lena Waithe, Kerry Washington speaking with actor/activist Eva Longoria, and Walter Mosley speaking with fellow author Tochi Onyebuchi, among others. Tickets are already on sale and selling out. 

While the Street Fair is ongoing Nov. 17-19 down on the ground around the college’s Wolfson Campus, you’ll want to seek out the author appearances going on simultaneously in auditoriums and classrooms in surrounding buildings. The choices are infinite, but we’ve picked out some standout titles whose authors would be a treat to meet. 

“Labeled: Ward of the State” is a powerful memoir by Kenisha E. Anthony, who overcame being an abandoned child of drug-addicted parents in Florida’s broken child-welfare system to earning a graduate degree and becoming a respected social worker and advocate for change. 

Her book is described as a vivid portrait of her journey from victim to victor, rising above hardships that could have easily left her defeated and destitute. You don’t have to have been a child in foster care to gain inspiration from her story. For anyone who’s faced adversity, beat the odds and refused to be labeled, her book is worth a read and meeting her in person would be a privilege. 

In “From Death Row to Freedom,” Phillip Hubbart, attorney and author, takes readers through the struggle for racial justice in the Pitts-Lee Case. It’s his insider account of the case of Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, two Black men who were wrongfully charged and convicted of the murder of two white gas station attendants in Port St. Joe, Fla., in 1963, and sentenced to death. Hubbart defended both men for more than 10 years and this book follows the case’s tortuous route through the Florida courts to the defendants’ eventual exoneration in 1975. 

Just when you thought you’ve read everything there is to know about Martin Luther King Jr. comes Jonathan Eig’s “King: A Life.” Vividly written and exhaustively researched, this is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of a courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. 

Eig casts fresh light on the King family’s origins as well as MLK’s complex relationships with his wife, father and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. 

Before there was Joe Frazier and Muhamad Ali, there was Jack Johnson. Adrian Matejka brings us a groundbreaking story presented as a graphic novel about this boxing legend in “Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century.” It offers a front-row seat to the epic showdown in 1910 when Johnson, the world’s first Black heavyweight champion, was paired against Jim Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion then heralded as the “great white hope.” It was the height of the Jim Crow era, and spectators were eager for Jeffries to restore the racial hierarchy that Johnson, the son of formerly enslaved parents, had pummeled. 

Former CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reminds us that Trump didn’t invent right-wing extremism in his book “Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism.” Toobin details McVeigh’s damaging legacy, from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The book provides not only a powerful retelling of one of the great outrages of our time, but a warning for the future. 

In the category of technology, but maybe not really, Miami Book Fair has several offerings, including “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud” by Ben McKenzie about, you guessed it, the mess that is cryptocurrency, from its moment in the sun to its remarkable crash. Those of us interested in crypto charlatans who followed the explosive Sam Bankman-Fried case will want to dive into this read. 

Moving on to the glories of fiction, “Symphony of Secrets” by Brendan Slocumb is described as a gripping page-turner about a music professor who discovers a shocking secret about the most famous American composer of all time – his music may have been stolen from a Black Jazz Age prodigy named Josephine Reed. Determined to uncover the truth that a powerful organization wants to keep hidden, the protagonist will stop at nothing to right history’s wrongs and give Reed the recognition she deserves. Not implausible, is it? 

In the subcategory of historical fiction comes “A Right Worthy Woman” by Ruth P. Watson, which examines the real-life Maggie Lena Walker, a descendent of slavery who became the first Black woman in the United States to own a bank – one of the few to survive the Great Depression. Born in Virginia one year before the end of the Civil War, Walker smashed every barrier constraining Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. Her extensive contributions to the formation of Richmond’s “Black Wall Street” are brought to vivid life in this book. 

Find out when and where all of these authors will be appearing and check out the entire schedule at MiamiBookFair.com. You’ll also find advice on the best way to get there and where to park. Access to the Fair is through Street Fair; admission is free for everyone Friday, Nov. 17; it’s $10 for adults, $5 for those ages 13-18 and 62 and up, and free for kids 12 and under on Saturday and Sunday. Buy your tickets online in advance and you’ll save a bit of money on those one-day access prices. Two-day passes, available online only, cost $15 for adults and $8 for those ages 13-18 and 62 and up.