MITCHELL Kaplan

The Literary Guru

Meet Mitchell Kaplan, founder of Books & Books now with 5 locations in Miami. In aworld of ever-increasing screen time, Mitchell has created a legacy of community-sedbookselling, bringing people together using stories and authors. He began 40 years ago with standing-room-only poetry readings in his first bookstore in Coral Gables to now having over 400 author events a year. Mitchell’s passion has always been to bring the community together through literature, and as he told us, “… I believe people will always want place; who knows what will happen to retail, …but as long as we can think into the future, we will have stories.”

Mitchell grew up on a very different South Beach in the 1960’s that was like a Polish shtetl with the median age of 70. “It was like I had 15,000 grandparents living around me.” But there was so much going on all over the world at the time, on college campuses against the war, free speech and civil rights movements, so he left to college in Boulder, Colorado. He discovered “The Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics” literary center, and for the first time, as a college student, he experienced the wonders of gathering for readings – he began to feel the power of books and community.

Mitchell eventually came back home to Miami and became an English teacher, all along planning his first bookstore. In 1982, he opened his flagship bookstore, and that was just the beginning. Mitchell wanted to do a book festival of some kind, and he was asked with two other local booksellers to start a book fair in Downtown Miami highlighting our multi-cultural community. It was a great success and has grown to become the largest book festival in the country: The Miami International Book Fair, celebrating its 40 th year. Through the successful author events at his Books & Books in Coral Gables, he created the non-profit Books & Books Literary Foundation. He also co-founded The FREADOM Coalition to fight book banning in the State of Florida. For 40 years, Mitchell Kaplan’s passion has been bringing our community together through literature, and we are so grateful.

Watch his full interview to hear about his podcasts, producing successful films of his favorite novels, and how his son has come on board to help Books & Books continue to grow.