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Following the wild success of their Open House program, Random House has expanded their event list to include Big Ideas Night: evenings dedicated to a single book that asks readers to consider big, important themes, motifs and questions. This month, bestselling author Jodi Picoult discussed her latest book, SMALL GREAT THINGS, which shines a light on racial tensions, justice, and the gray area between our morals and our actions. Given the timely subject of her book, Jodi seemed like a natural choice, and her fans couldn't have been happier to meet up at Random House's beautiful NYC office to enjoy wine, hors d'ouvres and time to speak with the author.

Tasha Alexander is the author of the beloved, bestselling Lady Emily series. The latest installment, A TERRIBLE BEAUTY, brings Lady Emily to the beautiful, gripping land of Greece. There, she finds herself haunted by history: ancient history, in all its mystery and lore, and history a bit more recent, when her first husband, Lord Philip Ashton, makes an appearance. To celebrate the release of this 11th book in the series, Tasha has written a wonderful piece for us exploring her inspirations for the series, Lady Emily's trajectory as a character, and where her protagonist may venture next.

This weekend, Bookreporter.com's Carol Fitzgerald, our intern Maya Gittelman and I all met up in beautiful Morristown, New Jersey, for what has become one of our most highly anticipated events of the season: the Morristown Festival of Books. Held during the first weekend of October, this fabulous festival brings authors, readers and books together for a full day of exciting programming --- at no cost!

Longtime reader Denise Neary provides her book club's perspectives on Jodi Picoult's new novel SMALL GREAT THINGS.

This year’s National Book Festival was held this past Saturday, September 24th, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Denise Neary, our longtime and intrepid reporter, attended with her husband Chris Kelly, and was more than willing to share her experience with us. Here, she discusses Festival highlights, including panels with Katherine Paterson, Geraldine Brooks, and --- by a serendipitous stroke of luck --- Stephen King.

This past weekend, thousands of booklovers, writers and publishing professionals trekked to downtown Brooklyn to paint the town read at the Brooklyn Book Festival. For the 11th year, dozens of vendors were selling discounted books and related gear at tents around Borough Hall and Cadman plazas, while hundreds of authors spread out nearby to give free talks and readings from their latest works.

This year's Bouchercon --- the world's largest mystery convention --- took place on September 15-18 in New Orleans, LA, and brought together all parts of the mystery and crime fiction community for a weekend of exciting panels and awards. Unfortunately, none of our staff was able to make it out to the Big Easy, but we once again had generous authors and friends do some sleuthing for us. Here, 12 mystery superstars --- Linwood Barclay, Laura Benedict, Jim Fusilli, our very own Joe Hartlaub, Keith Kahla, Clair Lamb, Daniel Palmer, Keith Raffel, Kelli Stanley, Wendy Corsi Staub, Otto Penzler and Lita Weissman --- share with us some convention highlights; although, like all good writers, they leave some things to our imagination.

  Brunch at Brennan's; featuring Lita Weissman, Katia Lief, Alison Gaylin   and Kristen Kittscher [submitted by Wendy Corsi Staub] The Wallet Thief; featuring Greg Herren [submitted by Wendy Corsi Staub]  

To celebrate the release of SANTORINI CAESARS, the eighth book in Jeffrey Siger's mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis, we're excited to share a blog piece that Jeffrey has written exclusively for us. Here, he explores his love of Santorini: its history and geography, as well as the quirks that make this beautiful island a ripe setting for a mystery.

In the August 5th Bookreporter newsletter, I asked for suggestions of authors for my friend Cathy to binge. She had previously read all of Lee Child, Harlan Coben and Greg Iles. Here are suggestions that I got for her from our readers. May you also find some suggestions here.