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Not only do books inform and entertain, but they also have the power to mend and heal, as demonstrated by today's guest blogger, New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice.

Here's one for all you "book junkies", as today's guest blogger, Gregg Hurwitz --- author of THE CRIME WRITER --- discusses the new tradition he and his

If your mother was the Queen of Suspense, what sort of present would you expect to find in your Christmas stocking?

The first author guest for our Author Holiday Blog feature is international bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark, whose latest release,

I have a rather wonderful collection of holiday books that I have been adding to over the years. They now fill three pretty good-sized shelves in my house. Looking at them inspire memories of reading them for the first time --- and the moments I re-read them --- and the magic of the stories inside.

This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Miami Book Fair. For the fourth year I hopped on a plane to experience what has become one of my "must-do" events. This year the Fair had an entire track of programming about graphic novels as well as a pavillion of booths touting them at the Street Fair. Since we are launching GraphicNovelReporter.com in a couple of weeks I wanted to get to as much of this programming as possible, which was going to be a pretty intense hat trick since I usually already have a full plate of literary adventures planned while there.

Last Friday night's event at The Clinton Bookshop was one of the most memorable evenings that I spent with an author and readers. The day had been overcast and grey with driving rain. Ike was raging somewhere in the country and I am not sure if these rains were related to that or the hammering from another storm. I had lost track. I had spent the day writing since about 6AM and thus by 6:15PM I was eager to pack it in, grabbed my slicker and head to the bookstore.

Here are some thoughts from the beach on the Outer Banks last week... 1. When reading and floating in the pool it is best to read advance reading copies. They are paperbacks in a size easy to hold. Hardcovers WILL get wet and manuscripts have too many free floating pages to be near water. Thus it's ARCs in the pool, hardbacks on the couch and manuscripts in the car (where the pages can get stuffed between the seats after you read them).

I love to read and I love to swim. Watching Michael Phelps this week I was thinking that the way he swims is like plotting a memorable book. He takes off from the wall like a great novel grips you and pulls you in. As he moves down the lane, he has his eye on the field the way a good writer watches over all of his characters --- and he stays one step ahead of them. He holds back when he needs to conserve energy as a writer holds back some action or revelation.

I realized that I failed to write about the last panel of the day on Saturday. It was moderated brilliantly by Donna Rifkind who clearly knew each author's work and was very articulate with her questions. The panelists --- Stuart Woods, Dan Fesperman, Eli Gottlieb and Christopher Rice thus were able to shine speaking about their work, and the art of their craft. Rice spoke about writing the books that he would like to read and spoke about growing up in a house where book reading was a mandatory assignment and he was not talking about his mom, Anne Rice's books, but rather Styron or Thomas.