Archives - Weekly Update

This is a milestone week for Bookreporter. I went to my first Book Expo 23 years ago. I knew exactly no one! This year was quite different. Besides seeing authors, publishing colleagues, booksellers and librarians, I interviewed Jennifer Weiner about her novel, MRS. EVERYTHING, which releases on June 11th (you can see a photo of us above). I caught up with Nelson DeMille and his son, Alex DeMille (pictured with me above), before their signing and talked to them about THE DESERTER, which they wrote together; it’s coming out on October 22nd. William Kent Krueger had a long signing line for THIS TENDER LAND, which releases on September 3rd. You can see him above chatting with Carolyn Reidy, the CEO of Simon & Schuster, before he started signing.

Last weekend, it was nice both days of the weekend, which was just lovely and something rare this year (okay, it rained buckets on Sunday night, but at least the daylight hours were lovely). It was so wonderful to be outside. Tom and I wrestled the cover off the pool and started the vacuuming process. There was lots of weeding (lots of weeding) and planting accomplished. The herbs are planted, and all look great in their pots. It’s such a time of beginnings.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in Fairfield for a library event, I stopped by Tutto Pasta, which had been recommended to me by my friend, Annie, who told me that they make wonderful ravioli, which is a favorite of mine. Sure enough, one of the owners made up an order of spinach ravioli for me right on the spot. As I watched him work with the molds to make it, I thought, This could be a fun project.

My mom is a regular reader of this newsletter, so last week I had to pretend that we were doing her milestone birthday dinner at our house on Sunday night when actually we were celebrating at a restaurant on Saturday night. I had myself so convinced that we were doing the dinner that for a while I was cleaning the house and planning a menu. Instead I channeled my energies onto cake and shortbread baking and floral arranging. She loves lemon, so there was a Lemon Ginger Cake, Maida Heatter’s Lemon Buttermilk Cake (Greg got the recipe for this when he was in Mendocino a few weeks ago as it was a hit at the Land Rover Pot Luck) and Lemon Lavender Shortbread Cookies. As a gift, we did a slideshow of 150 photos of her with us through the years, which was fun to pull together. We are going to make it into a book as well. Of course, a book!

This week has been about noise --- a lot of noise. They are rebuilding the subway station outside our office in the city, and there has been a chorus of jackhammers going on and on there for hours. The noise was so relentless that when it got quiet, we actually could still feel the vibrations. Greg and I worked from home yesterday and today. Yesterday at 8am, a tree company showed up at the house next door to clear some dead trees, and for hours there were chainsaws and a wood chipper going. One cannot make this up. As you may know, we have been shooting videos in the office, and our shooting has to come after 3pm to be sure there is no construction noise. Luckily I am really good at focusing, but I would love some sounds of silence.