Blog
I have figured out why the holidaze is such a crazy time of year. There are sooo many --- too many --- decisions to make.
After spending four days at the Miami Book Fair I have decided that it is hands down one of my all-time favorite book events. I am not sure what I loved best --- the number of authors, the variety of events or the passionate readers in the crowd. I think it was a combo of the three.
I am lucky that both of my boys are very avid readers. Many of their friends are not. Cory, my 10-year-old son has more time for reading than his older brother, Greg, who is consumed by schoolwork. Cory has one friend, Josh, who reads as voraciously as he does. It's always interesting to watch them together talking about books and sharing what they read. Cory's teacher told me last week that he often rushes through his schoolwork to have more free reading time as they are allowed to open a book as soon as their work is done.
I love it when a series of moments pull themselves together and become a story, especially when you never saw the story coming. For me, the story is about what I am calling "My 24 Hours with Joan Didion."
The clocks changed today. This is one of my favorite days of the year. I get a whole extra hour to spend, which has 60 minutes...and I have 60 different ways to spend this time.
You would think after recommending books to the 1.1 million readers in our Network each month I would find suggesting books to friends to be a snap. But, oh no, this is pressure. In the past months I have found myself sweating my role of what I call, "Book Concierge."
I wanted to share an update on what I read on my vacation. It was a reading and floating kind of vacation.
Today, August 26th, marks the 9th anniversary of Bookreporter.com, and its parent company, The Book Report Network. This week I pulled a late night at the office and went through some old files and paperwork. Along the way I took a trip down memory lane. As I am quite a pack rat, I found the original drawings for our first site, endless papers with all kinds of notes and ideas for features, and screen shots of some of our early "issues" of the site.
Here are the books I have packed for vacation reading:
ALL THIS BELONGS TO ME by Ad Hudler - I have been a fan of Ad's since HOUSEHUSBAND.CASE HISTORIES by Kate Atkinson - This is coming out in paperback in September. Four people including Joe Rivera, our designer, said this is one of the best books that they have read.CHILL FACTOR by Sandra Brown - Beach means read Sandra.CREEPERS by David Morrell - We are doing a Suspense/Thriller feature on David...looking forward to reading him.
I love to read and I am lucky enough to have children who love to read. This is why I loathe, abhor and out-and-out HATE required summer reading for kids. It takes away the pleasure of reading.
I put this in the same category as homework projects that require parental involvement for trips to the craft store, glue of any sort (as ours is ALWAYS dried up no matter how many containers I buy) or participation from me or a skilled professional. I can see you all rolling your eyes and commiserating. But, I digress.
