Archives - Weekly Update

I am trying to remember when Halloween became such a big holiday. Sure, when we were little we would plan costumes and the candy hunt, but now you drive through our neighborhood and there are orange lights and all kinds of decorations everywhere. We are way beyond cutting a face on a pumpkin and sticking a candle in it.

On Sunday, we are organizing trick-or-treating in our semi-rural neighborhood. Houses here are pretty far apart with long driveways, and that means a lot of walking for the little kids. So we came up with an idea that we will offer treats at the end of the driveways (we started this last year, leaving treats out during the height of COVID), and some of us have decided that we will be manning our tables from 3:00 to 6:00. My next-door neighbor Stacey and I are going to combine our plans to set up a table…and decorate! I want Tom to run electricity up to the street for some of the decorating ideas I have. I am sure that he is going to find this to be really fun; I can see the eye roll from here.

Over the last week or so, I have had insomnia. When one cannot sleep, the best thing to do is to read! So here’s how I spent my nights. First up was NANNY DEAREST by Flora Collins, which is out on November 30th. Flora is a debut novelist who nails one really creepy thriller about Sue Keller, a young woman who connects with her childhood nanny, Annie, after 20 years. Her memories are warm until she digs deeper and learns what really happened in the house two decades ago. For some reason, I kept thinking of Elizabeth Brundage’s ALL THINGS CEASE TO APPEAR as I read it. It was edgy right to the end.

Ahhh there were so many Mercury retrograde moments this week that my head is spinning. Seriously. After a really lovely three-day weekend, we plunged merrily into a fast-paced four-day work week where the staff literally stopped Thursday afternoon to talk by phone about everything that had gone on!

I always am amused at how many people call us The Book Reporter or Book Reporter or The Bookreporter. We thought our name was pretty simple, but oh, how many times I have edited it!

Last weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed reading SMILE: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl, and I am so looking forward to interviewing her on Tuesday. Austin is a huge admirer of her work; she is a playwright, and he loves the theater. He is going to join me for the interview. Then I skipped over to start reading BOURDAIN: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever, which is told in such a way that I am planning to read it in bits and bites to savor Tony’s story as long as I can.

Temperatures started to dip this week. I had a rude awakening as I left a sliding door open one night, and in the morning I could feel the chill filling the room. Last weekend, I sped read some books to prep for an interview session that I did for a trade show on Wednesday night. I found myself chasing the sun, which clearly was lowering in the sky. There are sooooooo many great books out right now. It’s an abundance of riches!