Archives - Weekly Update

While I love working remotely, I also enjoy catching up with my author friends. Last night, Tom Donadio and I went to a party that was thrown by Jonathan Santlofer at his loft to celebrate his and Lisa Unger’s same-day birthdays, which are on Saturday.

We had a fabulous time talking to Jonathan; Lisa and her husband, Jeff; and many others who were in attendance --- including Harlan Coben, Alafair Burke, John Searles (he has a nonfiction book coming out about Helen Gurley Brown, who ran Cosmopolitan, and the assistants who worked with her), Megan Abbott, Alison Gaylin, Jim Fusilli, Christina Baker Kline and Anne Burt (the first book in their Crystal River thriller series, PLEASE DON’T LIE, releases in September), Wendy Corsi Staub and Otto Penzler.

When we left off last week, I was reading THE MAID’S SECRET by Nita Prose and THE DOORMAN by Chris Pavone. I enjoyed these books for very different reasons, and both are Bookreporter.com Bets On selections. 

You can read my thoughts on THE MAID'S SECRET here. We will share my “Bookreporter Talks To” interview with Nita and our review of the book over the next couple of weeks. I will have my Bets On commentary about THE DOORMAN (which releases on May 20th) next month, along with our review and an interview with Chris.

We are so lucky to have a wonderful community of readers. Thank you to all who shared messages of sympathy with the news of The Book Report Network’s co-founder Jesse Kornbluth’s passing last week. I still am answering your lovely notes and memories. Here is Jesse’s obituary that ran in the New York Times. And here is a beautiful piece that Sean Doorly, also known as “employee No. 1,” wrote that captured Jesse so well.

Early last evening, I received the very sad news that Jesse Kornbluth, who co-founded The Book Report/Bookreporter with me, had passed away. He had been ill for a while, but nonetheless the finality of it put me sideways.

We had been friends for more than three decades. It all started when we made documentaries together, along with Murray Bruce, while I was at Mademoiselle magazine. When we met, I was very much a corporate girl guided by the norms of a 9-5 work life. When I left Condé Nast in 1995 after my second son was born, I was completely unsure of what I wanted to do next.