Sorry,
we are booked.
Write drunk. Edit sober.
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
“To read is to voyage through time.”
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”
“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party.”
“I would still try to understand myself in the world by reading.”
HEMINGWAY’S · Marina Michou
Good books. Good coffee. Good music. Good friends.
Because reading without reflecting
is like eating without digesting.
Book of the Month
Blind Date with a Book
A wrapped book. A small hint card. A quiet invitation to be surprised. No spoilers, no pressure — just a story that meets you where you are.
Because sometimes the best choices are the ones you don’t overthink. (Your brain can take the night off. We’ve got this.)
Reserve Yours
Wrapped like a secret. Chosen like a fate. Opened when you’re ready.
Blind Date with a Book
A book you didn’t choose.
A story that chose you.
Wrapped. Unlabeled. Slightly dangerous.
No spoilers, no algorithms — just curiosity,
instinct, and a quiet invitation to read again.
Hemingway’s Drinking Club · 2025
We Have a Serious Book Problem.
And we’re not planning to fix it.
Beautiful minds keep showing up. Stories pile up. Conversations run longer than intended. Drinks stay half-full.
Blind Date with a Book — Live
Hosted at Hemingway’s Cocktail Bar, where stories have always been served slightly stronger than the drinks.
You don’t choose the book. You don’t know the author. You arrive curious — and leave a little altered.
An Interactive Reading Club.
With Our Online Readers.
Join us in conversations about books that matter — books that speak to women, challenge perspectives, and leave something behind long after the last page.
So yes. Let’s begin.
Book of the Month
CAROL — Patricia Highsmith
A quiet love story disguised as a road novel. Desire without permission. Courage without applause.
Sorry. This month, we’re booked.
Limited copies. One story at a time. Because reading deserves intention.
Reserve your bookBlind Date with a Book · Candlelight Edition
The Price of Salt
aka Carol · Patricia Highsmith
A Blind Date with a Book — candlelight edition. No spoilers. Just sparks.
This is a perfectly ordinary story—except for the year 1952, when America learned to suspect everything that dared to feel different. Two women meet. They decide to travel together. A private detective follows them, hired to collect proof of their love.
One leaves. One stays behind, thinking. Then she, too, returns home. Between departures: days, miles, motel rooms, cigarette smoke, and the slow, electric education of desire.
Highsmith writes a road novel à la Thelma & Louise, minus the crime — unless loving someone is the crime. What unfolds is not hysteria or doom, but something radical for its time: fulfilled love. Love as luck. Love as choice. Love that costs.
Therese is nineteen, restless in a life that doesn’t quite fit. Carol is married, precise, luminous — and already paying a price for wanting more. Their meeting in a department store feels less like coincidence and more like fate tapping the glass.
The Price of Salt is Highsmith’s only novel where love is not a pathology. Written under a pseudonym, born from a real encounter, it is her most sensual, poetic, erotic work. She would never write like this again.
Because it’s quiet and dangerous. Because it chooses joy without pretending the cost isn’t real. Because sometimes the bravest thing is not the escape — but the return.
Order a drink. Open the book. Let the road begin.
Curated by
Marina Michou
aka Sweet Maryn Jane · aka Frau Feta
Beautiful Minds Inspiration Club
This is not a book club. It’s what happens when curious people, good music, and honest drinks accidentally stay in the same room too long.
Late-night talks while music walks. Ideas passing hands like glasses. Reading as an excuse — connection as the real plot.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
— Margaret Atwood
Book of the Month
The Price of Salt — Patricia Highsmith
First published in 1952 under a pseudonym, The Price of Salt is a quiet revolution disguised as a love story.
At a time when difference was treated as suspicion, Highsmith wrote a novel that refused tragedy. Two women meet, travel, hesitate, desire — and are allowed to experience love not as punishment, but as possibility.
There is no spectacle here. No moral sermon. Only restraint, atmosphere, and emotional precision.
It remains the author’s only novel where love is portrayed as fulfillment — not obsession, not downfall, but courage.
The story unfolds through movement rather than action: department stores, long drives, anonymous hotels, conversations held in half-light.
A road novel without rebellion. A love story without declarations.
The tension lives between what is felt and what is allowed. Between silence and choice.
From Page to Screen
The novel was adapted for cinema in 2015 by director Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
The film received international acclaim for its visual language, emotional restraint, and faithfulness to the novel’s inner rhythm.
It was awarded Best Literary Adaptation at the Frankfurt Book Fair, reaffirming the story’s lasting cultural relevance.
Visual Notes
Fragments of a Life Lived Slowly 2026
No captions. No explanations.
Just moments, light, movement — and what stayed.
What is a Blind Date with a Book?
It’s a small rebellion against endless choice. A reminder that reading is not consumption, but encounter.
You don’t know the title. You don’t know the author. You only know the feeling it might leave behind.
Why Reading Still Matters
Reading triggers dopamine. It creates an immediate sense of well-being and works as an excellent mental workout.
A study even showed that people who read around three and a half hours per week have an 83% higher chance of living longer. Honestly — we’ll take those odds.
A Small Daily Ritual
This year, we’re keeping it simple: at least 20 minutes of reading a day.
At breakfast. Before sleep. On the way to work. Wherever life allows a pause.
What We Read
Our selection is eclectic and intentional: stories of female heroines, books written by women, and themes that touch a feminist gaze — directly or quietly.
Literature as dialogue. Reading as resistance. Curiosity as a shared practice.
