Archives - Weekly Update

The other night, I discovered a new way to read and float in the pool after dark. I grabbed my pool chair, my book (DEAR DAUGHTER, which was a Summer Reading contest title this week) and my book light, and spent a happy hour relaxing and reading while floating. I highly recommend this as a nice way to unwind after a busy day!

Today in the New York area is one of those picture-perfect days. Blue skies, sun and low humidity. I love it! Flowers are in bloom, including the huge dinner-dish-sized hibiscus plants above that are in their full glory. The flowers themselves only last about a day, thus many came and went during this busy week when I was clocking some very long hours. I ran out to capture these early one morning.

You know when you plan a week and then everything gets turned upside down? THAT was my week! When we left off, I was headed for a hectic Saturday. The Random House "Off The Page" event in Hudson, NY was fun; it was great to have time to speak with book groups about ideas for their meetings and share selections that we suggest. We have a full report on the day from Rebecca Munro with lots of photos here. One breakout session offered us the chance to arrange flowers based on the floral meaning noted in THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. It was such fun to pull my bouquet together. You can see a photo of the “flower market” for this above. I am going to dry these flowers at some point as a nice memento of the day.

On July 11, 1960, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was published. GO SET A WATCHMAN will be published this Tuesday, 55 years later almost to the day. It’s a fabulous moment for readers and book publishing. The Wall Street Journal is running the first chapter, which you can read here. You can use the same link to listen to the first chapter read by Reese Witherspoon, who is the narrator of the audiobook (scroll down a bit on the right). I did both and look forward to reading/listening more on Tuesday. I was interviewed by the Journal, but you need to be a subscriber to read the whole piece, thus here is what I had to say: I am intrigued in part because it was written more than half a century ago. The book was written during the start of the Civil Rights era, and is told from the point of view of Scout as an adult. There is so much to talk about, as it was written first, before MOCKINGBIRD. I cannot wait to read the whole thing and see what readers have to say.

I am ready for a looong weekend --- and it looks like the weather is going to cooperate as well! Flowers around the house are looking spectacular. You can see the hydrangeas above; oddly, there are only blossoms on the bottom of the plants. We also have a potted gardenia tree this year, and I love watching those blossoms POP (another photo above)! After long commutes Monday and Tuesday nights this week, I opted to work from home these last two days, which was lovely, besides being time-saving.