Harper Collins – Book Journey

Good morning! I think I have a Birthday weekend hangover and not from drinking. 🙂 I just had a really busy weekend that was a lot of fun!

On Saturday my friend Amy and I went to the Gatsby Party in the cities. It was a late night as we drove home the 2+ hours after the event but worth it. I was inspired by what they accomplished.

On Sunday, hubby and I went to a movie, American Sniper. SO good. I will review it at some point this week.

Monday…. my actual birthday. I had coffee in the morning with my friend Gail. Then I went and treated myself to a manicure and pedicure. My son Justin who lives in St. Paul came to the house around 3 pm and we went out and bought snacks for the night, went to a movie ( Project Almanac), picked up pizza afterwards, and came back home and watched Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire and Gone Girl. (yes, again on both of them 😀 ).

Justin brought me this really cool wine glass:

The glass says,

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be. ~JK Rowling

Love it!

Tonight is book club and I am so excited! I missed last months as I was on vacation so it will be good to see everyone AND it is at my house. We have a couple of books to hand out tonight for our Harper Collins Book Club Girls event:

I have them all set up on the table:

It’s like out own mini BEA. 😀

As for today, Justin is still here. We will hang out this morning and early afternoon than he has plans with friends and I will put the finishing touches on book club. We are reviewing The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain, an author who I discovered this past fall and LOVED this book as well as a few others I have now read by her. I am excited to see what the Bookies think.

Now… what will I make for an appetizer? 😉

Here is the second of my Book Expo Week posts. Yesterday I shared with you what the “BEA Bloggers” event was like, and today I want to talk with you about the amazing publishing company that is Harper Collins.

Harper Collins is one of the highlight events of the Book Expo. They do such an incredible job on sharing what the “hot titles” will be. I wish I had my notes from the Harper sneak peek of upcoming great reads but I am pretty sure I packed it into a box and the books… have not yet arrived. 🙂 I will have to share in more detail at a later date.

Basically what happens at this event is that the different divisions of Harper stand up in the front of the room and share 2-4 titles each of what they are excited about that is coming out. There is something about someone gushing about a book isn’t there? As I looked at the different titles and covers there may be one that does not really speak to me… but then when someone is sharing the excitement of the book… I pick it up again. How can you not react? 😀

One book that really caught my attention was The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, releasing August 26th of this year.

The cover is GORGEOUS. And listening to the description of the book and the bidding war that went on to win this book (Harper won!) makes me sooooooo curious and EXCITED about this book.

And of course, at Harper is where I get a chance to see my BEA buddies! I am always thrilled to see Kathy from Bermuda Onion, Julie from Booking Mama, Swapna from S Kirshna’s Books, Gayle from Everyday I Write The Book, Nicole from Linus’ Blanket (who I was on the panel with), Candace from Beth Fish Reads (roommate) and of course, Alison from Alison’s Book Marks. (I could kick myself for not getting more group pics!)

If you know my Alison story, you know that we met at the Book Expo at the Harper Collins Party in 2010. We read a lot of the same books and on line, are always sharing audio book suggestions. After that first year and having a picture taken together it has become a standing joke with us that we must get our “Harper Collins picture!” And… we always do: