You can’t keep a good bookstore down.
Ever since Canio’s Books — the bookstore located on the southern entrance of Sag Harbor’s Main Street, owned and operated for decades by Maryann Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka — shuttered for good in September 2024, its absence has been palpable. Since Canio Pavone opened it in 1980, the bookstore was beloved not only as a place to buy books, but as a community hub to openly discuss (and thusly, better understand) both classic and contemporary literature.
And today, they still are. This past spring, Canio’s led the charge for the annual Moby-Dick Marathon, a weekend-long reading marathon where individuals recite excerpts from the Herman Melville classic. They also hosted several author events and pop-up shops across the East End.
Their educational nonprofit organization, Canio’s Cultural Café, aims to promote community interest in the cultural arts through discussion and workshops with local authors, artists and educators. CCC maintains an office/meeting space within the Old Whalers First Presbyterian Church (located at 44 Union St., Sag Harbor), on the second floor in room 29. The office is open for visitors on Tuesdays and Fridays from noon to 4:30 pm, and by appointment other days.
“Canio’s Cultural Cafe will host a community-wide marathon reading of The Great Gatsby on May 30, 2026 with accompanying events,” Calendrille says of the classic that turned 100 this year. “Set on Long Island, Fitzgerald’s novel casts a sharp eye on class and race divisions that resonate deeply with our current times.”
Here are Calendrille and Szoka’s picks for classic books (aside from Melville’s Moby Dick and Fitzgerald’s Gatsby) worth reading over again, or for the very first time:
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
This piercingly beautiful and unsettling novel about a young Black girl’s growing self-awareness and her struggle for acceptance, love and community is an American masterpiece, and Morrison’s very first published novel. The writing is lyrical, scenes are riveting, characters indelible.
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck’s last novel, written while he lived in Sag Harbor, describes a small town that looks a lot like our Main Street, but could be Anywhere, USA. And Steinbeck wanted it to be read that way. The novel’s village faces new development pressures; old families resent and suspect newcomers; prejudices and unethical acts are hidden behind cottage doors. Immigrants are suspect. Sound familiar? Published in 1961, this book resonates loudly today.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Ferrante’s explosive quartet known as The Neapolitan Novels is now out in a beautiful new one-volume collector’s edition. The work follows two friends over decades as they grow together and apart in post-war Naples as the city itself changes over time. It’s as much a picture of a nation as it is a portrait of a volatile friendship. Dynamic writing makes the pages fly by. But you’ll want to savor it all over again, slowly. Makes a great gift for the literarily inclined.
Solito by Javier Zamora
A compelling and beautifully-written memoir, the book describes his journey as an unaccompanied nine-year-old, from his home in El Salvador to “La USA”, the United States. With the sharp eye and keen ear of a poet, Zamora brings to life his harrowing experience as a child among strangers. He survives against all odds the often-deadly desert crossing to face an uncertain future in a strange new land. Essential reading for our times. Zamora’s poetry collection Unaccompanied was published by Copper Canyon Press.
Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore
Moore, a philosopher, is a keen observer of our environment. She combines a deep-rooted spirituality with a love of the natural world. Earth’s Wild Music looks unflinchingly at the losses of nature’s music, specifically bird song. But it also celebrates the abundant music the Earth continues to offer, like a loon’s haunting call at twilight, if we only slow down and listen. Moore’s gorgeous prose stays with you and will enhance your own ability to hear the Earth’s wild music.
You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke by Mark S. Burrows and Stephanie Dowrick
In alternating chapters, Burrows, MDiv, PhD, a poet, translator and scholar; and Dowrick, PhD, DMin, a psychotherapist and award-winning author, guide readers in a deep investigation of the life and work of poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Each shows from their own reading and lived experience, how the poet’s words continue to inspire and encourage us through the dark places and into the light of our own lives.
