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Bouchercon 2014, aptly called “Murder at the Beach,” took place in Long Beach, CA, last weekend (November 13-16). Bouchercon is an annual event held by the World Mystery Convention, which brings together all parts of the mystery and crime fiction community for a weekend of thrilling panels and awards. Unfortunately, none of our staff was able to attend  --- our own Carol Fitzgerald has attended eight times in the past and was sorry to miss this year --- but we had a few amazing authors and friends who were kind enough to do some sleuthing for us. Here, seven mystery authors and lovers --- Dana Haynes, Ali Karim, William Kent Krueger, Clair Lamb, Keith Raffel, Wendy Corsi Staub and Wendy Webb --- share some highlights of Bouchercon 2014, including best books, best panels...and best drinks. See our Bouchercon Photo Gallery here.

Established in 1995 by Laura Bush, the Texas Book Festival is an annual event that celebrates authors and their contributions to the culture of literacy, ideas and imagination. Bookreporter.com reader and 20-time Festival attendee Anne Glasgow shares her experience at this year’s event, including a roundup of some of the panels she attended, highlights of the Festival, and how it has evolved over the years.

Last Saturday book group members, leaders and avid readers joined editors of the Hachette Book Group and their authors in New York at the Lighthouse International for Hachette’s Annual Book Group Brunch.

This past Saturday, September 27th, readers and writers arrived in downtown Morristown for a beautiful, sunny day of books and author talks at the inaugural Morristown Festival of Books. The downtown location was a particularly great venue because of the easily accessible parking and literally dozens of places to eat during the lunch break.

If there is one series that has crossed multiple generations and genres, it is the Outlander novels. The books, the first of which was published in 1991, have slowly but surely acquired a large base of fans, many of whom who have been reading the series for over 20 years.

One of my favorite parts of my job is conducting interviews for REAL TALK: Publishing. I get to meet people with the most interesting jobs, and, like our readers, get a sneak peek into a side of the book industry that I likely know little about. Preparing for our upcoming REAL TALK interview with audiobook producer/director May Wuthrich was no exception, and actually, it was extra special, because it came with a field trip! May invited me to watch an hour of her recording session with Mozhan Marnò (“House of Cards” fans will recognize her as reporter Ayla Sayyad), who was narrating READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN author Azar Nafisi’s newest book, THE REPUBLIC OF IMAGINATION: America in Three Books. Here are a few of the most interesting things I discovered:

Last Saturday I spent a lovely evening at the East Hampton Authors Night event at Gardiner Farm. I had been to this event last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to seeing author friends and watching readers buying books and conversing with authors.

As frequent readers may recall a few months ago I got a new phone after years with what I called a “dumb phone,” which was only good for calls and texts, and a Blackberry that I only used for email as it was an older model and too slow to do much else. For the first couple of weeks I was frustrated as I was on a  learning curve with my smartphone, but soon I was tapping away on my Samsung Galaxy S5 with ease. I did not even miss the Blackberrry keyboard that I had coveted so much.

Lawrence Goldstone is an award-winning author and writer, whose articles, reviews and opinion pieces have appeared in The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other periodicals. His most recent book, BIRDMEN: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies, is about the rivalry between famed innovators and airmen the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss --- a rivalry so powerful that it shaped aviation in its early years and drove one of the three men to his grave. Here, Lawrence talks about something a bit more amicable: His daughter, Emily, and the love they shared for John le Carré’s TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. Their enthusiasm fueled many wonderfully obsessive dinner conversations and a sweet surprise that Lawrence never expected.