Greetings from Atlanta. I have spent the last week on the road for business and pleasure visiting both Atlanta and the mountains of North Carolina. Along the way I got to visit Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina and Coffee Buy the Book in Roswell, Georgia. This afternoon we are touring the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, giving this trip a true literary flavor. I hope that you too are finding some terrific places to read this summer.

Our newsletter is coming to you a tad later than usual this week, but with very good reason. We did a topdown redesign of the ReadingGroupGuides.com website. Take a look! Our goal was to make all of our features more readily accessible from dropdown navigation on the top of the site. We feel that there are a lot of features that you were not able to find easily in the past. Also, this will give us a chance to expand the site with even more content in the months to come.

My last month was a whirlwind of bookish travel. I spent 11 days at various book conventions which I am calling: 11 Days, 3 Cities, Dozens of Authors. It truly was a wonderful experience for a booklover. Some women love spas; I love book-related travel. Along the way at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival I had the pleasure of catching up with Lisa See, an author who I know is a favorite of many of yours. She wrote Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and her new book Peony in Love will be in stores next month. It was great to share my early excitement for the book with her. I will be writing more about my adventures in my blog on Bookreporter.com later this week.

I am writing this week from the Outer Banks where I am on vacation with my family. The weather has been spectacular, which is lovely after a gray and drab New York winter. I have been getting a lot of reading done poolside, which is a treat. I usually end up "reading ahead" with books that are coming out in the next few months. One that you are going to be excited about is A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini who many of you know as the author of THE KITE RUNNER. It's just brilliant, and readers will not be disappointed in this sophomore effort. Again the setting is Afghanistan. It's a deeply moving story of two women that takes place over thirty years. It will be in stores on May 22nd. There's also a debut author who I want to have on your radar --- Anita Amirrezvani, whose book, THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS, is set in 17th century Persia. The protagonist is a young woman who is a carpet designer and weaver. I am not a fan of historical fiction, but this story definitely wove its way into my heart. It's on sale June 5th.