Lit City – by Lynn Rosen

by Lynn Rosen My husband likes to joke that he is my translator. Sometimes I say something and I think I’m being perfectly clear, and yet my message doesn’t get across. That’s when he jumps in and says: “What she means is…” Of course he doesn’t always get it right....

One of the best parts of being a bookseller is meeting authors, especially local authors. So when I heard that writer Amy Sue Nathan, a Philadelphia native living in Chicago, was moving back to the area, I was excited to meet her and introduce her to our bookstore,...

Beloved children's author Jerry Spinelli visited Open Book Bookstore recently, and we had a wonderful visit! What a joy to see the faces of the kids looking at him as he spoke (and parents and teachers too)! He told great stories about how he came up with ideas for...

I sit in the bookstore and authors come visit and I listen to them spout wisdom and I write it down and share it with you. What fun! Of course, next time I think you should come to the bookstore and hear it for yourself. Because our authors are always kind and...

Another terrific author event this week at the Free Library of Philadelphia with Nicole Krauss and Nathan Englander. As a literary pair, they make a perfect yin/yang combination. She speaks in calm, thoughtful, and complete sentences, every thought perfectly...

Gayle Forman is the author of several hugely successful young adult novels, including If I Stay, which was also made into a film. But for me, she’ll always be the person who convinced me to let my grey hair show. I met Gayle at the booth of the publisher of her latest...

As those of you who shop at the Open Book Bookstore know, we choose our book selection very carefully. When we opened the store, we had to learn more about certain categories of books, and children’s picture books was one of them. Although it hadn’t been that long...

I just returned from a lovely few days in the Hudson River Valley, where I went with my 14-year-old son Oren for a short getaway. We enjoyed beautiful scenery, hiking, and great food. And of course, as we always do when we travel, we visited some local bookstores. One...

I'm on a short vacation right now, and if you could see the amount of reading material I brought with you, you might have a little laugh at my optimism. Never mind the pile of fashion and home décor magazines that I imagined I'd page through in leisurely moments. I'm...