Archives - Weekly Update

Clearly I came in contact with a cold germ, or two, or three last week, and this week I was down for the count, with sneezing and coughing the only exercise that I managed for most of the week. I literally spent most of the week in bed. Unlike when I was a kid and being home sick meant I would watch television reruns and ring a bell for my mom to bring lunch or a tray of snacks, I was sitting with my laptop and my laptop cooler (the latter to keep my laptop cool while my electric blanket was on heat level 14) answering email and directing projects. I also had eucalyptus aromatherapy in a diffuser and Vicks in the vaporizer. It was like a spa with sneezing and coughing --- and typing.

What a great week it’s been at the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute in Baltimore. This annual gathering of booksellers, publishers and authors is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s been a whirlwind of author talks, industry-focused panels and serendipitous meetings in hallways and at dinners with so many colleagues and authors.

On Monday, I am heading to Baltimore for Winter Institute, the annual conference for booksellers. Then on Friday, I am zipping from there up to Philadelphia for the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me to network with booksellers and librarians, and learn what they are hearing from readers. Authors are going to be in attendance at both conferences talking about their upcoming books, which gives me a chance to scout out what we want to be sharing with you this year. It’s already a great year for reading…and we see a lot more coming!

Well, after a couple of weeks of holiday festivities where I knew my days of the week by the time of day that I went to yoga class, we are back to our usual routine. I feel like this week has been at least two weeks long as it’s been so very busy. But with all good things! We are off to a rip-roaring start to the year.

Last weekend, before I headed back to the office, I completely organized my “work” bookshelves at the house. All the books that I had hoped to read in 2019, but did not have time to get to, were moved to a hallway bookshelf; there are three shelves of these gems that I will get to at some point. Upcoming galleys were organized by month and tagged on their spines, and are neatly shelved on five shelves. The rest of the shelves are old favorites that I love, or older books that I would love to have a chance to read.

I hope that thus far you all have had a great holiday season. We certainly have enjoyed it, with a lot of entertaining, plenty of new recipes made, and many cookies both baked and eaten.

As promised, this is our annual “lighter than usual” update. I have been collecting links to articles of interest, and weigh in on the films that we watched over the holidays, some of which are based on books. Consider this update a lot of "News & Pop Culture," and a chance to catch up on some of the features that you may have missed in the craziness of December. This is a quiet week for publishing, but we already are ramping up for next week's update. By the way, the Golden Globes are on Sunday night, a very early airing for this awards show.