9th Annual Book Group Speed Dating
June 12, 2020
Over the past few weeks, I have had one very busy virtual life. On Wednesday night, I helped the Plainview-Old Bethpage Library launch their Summer Reading event with a talk about books that readers might want to explore for summer reading. Next week, I will be doing the same for the Rockville Centre Public Library, and I have future events with Fairfield Public Library, Avalon Free Public Library and Baldwin Public Library. I typically have not traveled outside the tri-state area for events like this, but given the restrictions on travel now, I realize that I could book at libraries around the country. If any one is interested in hearing more about the programs that we might be able to work on together, please let me know!
Editorial Content for All Adults Here
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Teaser
ALL ADULTS HERE is a warm, funny and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family --- as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes.
Promo
ALL ADULTS HERE is a warm, funny and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family --- as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes.
About the Book
A warm, funny and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family --- as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes. From the New York Times bestselling author of MODERN LOVERS and THE VACATIONERS.
When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?
Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid's 13-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
In ALL ADULTS HERE, Emma Straub's unique alchemy of wisdom, humor and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.
Editorial Content for Big Summer
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Teaser
BIG SUMMER is a deliciously funny, remarkably poignant and simply unputdownable novel about the power of friendship, the lure of frenemies, and the importance of making peace with yourself through all of life’s ups and downs.
Promo
BIG SUMMER is a deliciously funny, remarkably poignant and simply unputdownable novel about the power of friendship, the lure of frenemies, and the importance of making peace with yourself through all of life’s ups and downs.
About the Book
A deliciously funny, remarkably poignant and simply unputdownable novel about the power of friendship, the lure of frenemies, and the importance of making peace with yourself through all of life’s ups and downs. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of GOOD IN BED and BEST FRIEND FOREVER, BIG SUMMER is the perfect escape with one of the most lovable heroines to come to the page in years.
Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time --- she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media --- so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless.
Drue was always the one who had everything --- except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne is no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She has built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song.
A sparkling novel about the complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, BIG SUMMER is a witty, moving story about family, friendship and figuring out what matters most.
Editorial Content for The Book of V.
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Teaser
For fans of THE HOURS and FATES AND FURIES, THE BOOK OF V. is a bold, kaleidoscopic novel intertwining the lives of three women across three centuries as their stories of sex, power and desire finally converge in the present day.
Promo
For fans of THE HOURS and FATES AND FURIES, THE BOOK OF V. is a bold, kaleidoscopic novel intertwining the lives of three women across three centuries as their stories of sex, power and desire finally converge in the present day.
About the Book
For fans of THE HOURS and FATES AND FURIES, a bold, kaleidoscopic novel intertwining the lives of three women across three centuries as their stories of sex, power and desire finally converge in the present day.
Lily is a mother and a daughter. And a second wife. And a writer, maybe? Or she was going to be, before she had children. Now, in her rented Brooklyn apartment she’s grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires, while also trying to manage her roles as a mother and a wife in 2016.
Vivian Barr seems to be the perfect political wife, dedicated to helping her charismatic and ambitious husband find success in Watergate-era Washington, D.C. But one night he demands a humiliating favor, and her refusal to obey changes the course of her life --- along with the lives of others.
Esther is a fiercely independent young woman in ancient Persia, where she and her uncle’s tribe live a tenuous existence outside the palace walls. When an innocent mistake results in devastating consequences for her people, she is offered up as a sacrifice to please the King, in the hopes that she will save them all.
In Anna Solomon's THE BOOK OF V., these three characters' riveting stories overlap and ultimately collide, illuminating how women’s lives have and have not changed over thousands of years.
Editorial Content for Ghosts of Harvard
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Teaser
In Francesca Serritella's debut novel, a Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.
Promo
In Francesca Serritella's debut novel, a Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.
About the Book
A Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.
Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia, took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.
As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions and illusory enemies --- but what tipped him over the edge? With her suspicions mounting, Cady herself begins to hear voices, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who walked the university’s hallowed halls --- or huddled in its slave quarters. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.
Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves --- her brother’s --- or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?
Editorial Content for The Glass Hotel
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Teaser
From the award-winning author of STATION ELEVEN comes an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events --- a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
Promo
From the award-winning author of STATION ELEVEN comes an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events --- a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
About the Book
From the award-winning author of STATION ELEVEN, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events --- a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: "Why don't you swallow broken glass." High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients' accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan's wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, the business of international shipping, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, THE GLASS HOTEL is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
Editorial Content for Hello, Summer
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Teaser
After her new job at a New York City newspaper goes up in smoke, Conley Hawkins finds herself right back where she started, working for her family's small-town newspaper. Matters come to a head after Conley witnesses a car accident that ends in the death of a local politician --- a beloved war hero with a secret shady history whose death may not be exactly what it seems.
Promo
After her new job at a New York City newspaper goes up in smoke, Conley Hawkins finds herself right back where she started, working for her family's small-town newspaper. Matters come to a head after Conley witnesses a car accident that ends in the death of a local politician --- a beloved war hero with a secret shady history whose death may not be exactly what it seems.
About the Book
New York Times bestselling author and Queen of the Beach Reads Mary Kay Andrews delivers her next blockbuster, HELLO, SUMMER.
It’s a new season...
Conley Hawkins left her family’s small-town newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rear view mirror years ago. Now a star reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or so she thinks.
For small town scandals...
When the new job goes up in smoke, Conley finds herself right back where she started, working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon afloat --- and she doesn’t exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip column, “Hello, Summer.”
And big-time secrets.
Then Conley witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local congressman --- a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the summer.