Archives - Weekly Update

Thanks to all who wrote congratulatory notes about the 19th anniversary of Bookreporter! I still am catching up on my replies, as this has been a really busy week. Next week, we take our traditional summer hiatus with no production or updates, giving me and the staff a chance to wind down for a week and recharge. But that means this week has a whole lot crammed into it! It’s going to be a staycation for me again this year; Cory starts classes on Tuesday, and Greg is holding down the fort at the office. With the pool at the house looking spectacular and the flowers bursting with color, it seems a tad crazy to head out of town.

Nineteen candles. That’s how many candles we will be lighting on Thursday to celebrate 19 years of Bookreporter.com! I think back on those early days and smile, when memories of them do not overwhelm me with exhaustion. In those days, we were only seen on AOL, we were using 28.8 modems, we needed to upload any pieces of art we wanted to use 48 hours in advance (and there were strict size restrictions on them) and the code for the site was written in a proprietary program called “Rainman.” You can see what the site looked like to the right.

Last Saturday, our friend Cathy came over for dinner and brought our friend Lisa, who was out from the city. Both are big readers, and cocktail/dinner/dessert conversation was threaded with bookish banter. Lisa left with a huge stack of galleys of books that I have enjoyed; Cathy reads on her eReader exclusively these days, so she took notes. I love evenings like this when I get to hear what readers are interested in and what has attracted them to various titles. Since we started Bookreporter.com, to us it’s always been “all about the reader”!

Last week, I asked our readers their thoughts about coloring books, and I immediately got emails sharing what you love about coloring, what you color and what you color with. It was such fun. I compiled many of the comments, and you can read them here. Inspired, Tom, along with our intern Isabel, created one of our signature bookshelves, "20 Coloring Books for Adults: Inky Adventures, Stress Relievers, Mandalas and More," which features 20 coloring books to delight you. But what to color with? Have no fear, Nicole from our staff compiled a list of colorful pens, crayons, pencils --- and even an eraser --- which you can use to color your pages. I confess that I covet the 150-pencil collection...maybe they even have turquoise and periwinkle blue.