Book Expo- Authors Pose With Their Books

One fun thing I like to do at the Book Expo is ask authors to pose with their books. It's nice to put a face with the author's name, and most of them are very happy to oblige.

Caitlin Macy has written Mrs. called a "modern-day House of Mirth" set in my 'hood of the Upper East Side, and featuring a character  who is an "obsessive prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office". Shades of BIllions, perhaps?

The cover of Melanie Benjamin's The Girls in the Picture caught my eye. It's a novel based on the the friendship between Mary Pickford and Frances Marion. Fans of Adriana Trigiani's All The Stars in the Heavens, as well as Melanie's previous novels The Aviator's Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue, will definitely want this one.  

Hallie Ephron's 2013 suspense novel, There Was An Old Woman, was terrific and had a great character, an 80-year-old woman named Mina who was out to solve a murder in her neighborhood. I can't wait to read her new book, You'll Never Know, a mystery that involves sisters, a disappearance and a creepy doll.

This smiling guy is Matthew Weiner, the genius behind TV's Mad Men. His novel is Heather, the Totality, is described as a "chilling novel about a collision course between a privileged family and a dangerous young man." He told us it's a little dark. Hmmmm.

I loved, loved, loved Tayari Jones' novel, Silver Sparrow, and was thrilled to get to tell her so, and get a signed copy of her upcoming An American Marriage, about a young couple whose marriage is tested when the husband is unjustly jailed.

Ben Blum's memoir tells his true story of his goal to be an Army ranger. On his final leave before deployment to Iraq, while his family is waiting to see him home in Colorado, he is in Tacoma, committing armed robbery of a bank with two other soldiers and two other men. Why did he do this? Ranger Games has the answer.

Emily Culliton's The Misfortune of Marion Palm is a debut novel about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled money from her children's private school and goes on the run. This caper is fiction (I hope).

Alice Hoffman is a prolific writer, and many of her books have a magical touch in them. The Rules of Magic even has it right in the title. This one is a prequel to her famous bestseller Practical Magic.

I was first in line to get Eleanor Henderson's autograph on her new novel, Twelve-Mile Straight, inspired by stories of her family. Her debut novel, Ten Thousand Saints, is one of my all-time favorites, and I'm almost done with this one and it is just as stunning. (Henderson lives in Ithaca.)

Kate Moore's book, The Radium Girls, tells the true story of women who were poisoned by their employer  and fought back years later to get justice. This one is for fans of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Silkwood.

Nancy Pearl is the most famous librarian in the United States. (She even has an action figure!) Her novel George and Lizzie is the story of a marriage where the two parties have differing ideas of love and marriage.

I'm intrigued by Sujata Massey's mystery, The Widows of Malabar Hill,  the first in a new series about a young female lawyer in 1920's Bombay, fighting for justice for a group of widows. 

The Queen of Mysteries is Mary Higgings Clark, and I alway stop by to say hello and get a copy of her latest. This one is All By Myself, Alone.

There are always famous people to spot at the Book Expo, like a smiling Savannah Guthrie from the Today Show, signing copies of her children's book, Princesses Wear Pants.

Savannah's Today Show compatriot Jenna Bush Hager was on hand with her sister Barbara Bush, and they had a long line of well-wishers.

Astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year in space, was promoting his book Endurance. 

And every year I take a photo with the incomparable Adriana Trigiani, whose new book Kiss Carlo is fantastic. My review will post on June 21st.