Jenny & Jodi's Book Party Pics

What a wonderful night we had celebrating the new books by Jenny Rosenstrach, Jodi Levine & Margaret McCartney! I'm so grateful to the authors, Jess Galen for leading the Q&A, the HudCo team for being the best hosts, and the community for enthusiastically turning up to support.  You can still pick up signed copies of the books at the shop to set yourself up for some easy and delicious weeknight meals, and the most inspired and eco-friendly crafting.

thank you @goloveny for some of the photos

The Best New Books of Summer 2024

Check out some of the most anticipated books releasing Summer 2024 available to ship nationwide via the Bookshop platform. Make sure you see “Picture Book” in the upper left corner when you checkout to ensure your purchase is credited to our shop.

Find great summer reads like The Memo by (Hastings’ own!) Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling, Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (author of Fleishman Is In Trouble), The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, and Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi

In art books, there is a new gorgeous monograph on Mickalene Thomas that is must-have addition to your contemporary art book collection, and a new Martin Puryear book that beautifully documents the unveiling of his monumental site-specific installation, Lookout, at Storm King Art Center.

For kids, there is a new picture book by Oliver Jeffers out in August, the wonderfully weird picture book Millie Fleur's Poison Garden, and the newest addition to the Cat on the Run series by Aaron Blabey (Bad Guys).

New Novel "The Memo" is Co-Written by Local Author (Rivertowns Current Article)

New Novel "The Memo" is Co-Written by Local Author

The buzzy new book was written by Lauren Mechling and Hastings resident Rachel Dodes

JUN 10, 2024

by Janine Annett

 

Hastings-on-Hudson — Ever had the feeling that when everyone else got a note about how to navigate life, you were left off the list? That’s the premise of the forthcoming novel The Memo, co-written by Lauren Mechling and Hastings resident Rachel Dodes.

In The Memo, 35-year-old Jenny Green is about to attend her college reunion when she starts receiving mysterious texts about “the memo.” At the time, her college friends are all flourishing, and she is floundering. But with an unusual assist from the school’s career office, Jenny has a chance to revisit pivotal moments and make different choices leading to the success she’s always dreamed of… at a cost.

A freelance culture writer and regular contributor to Vanity Fair, Dodes’ work has also been featured in Town & Country, ELLE, Esquire, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Buzzfeed, among other outlets. She also previously co-hosted a weekly news/comedy podcast.

Dodes moved to Hastings-on-Hudson last August with her husband, son, and dog, Coco (who recently escaped the confines of the family’s yard but was secured with the help of the Hastings Police Department). Mechling, author of the 2019 novel How Could She, lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

Dodes and Mechling first became friends while working at The Wall Street Journal. Then, they reconnected when Dodes invited Mechling to be a guest on her podcast. “She’s very funny,” Dodes said. “We share a comedic sensibility.” When Mechling made a social media post about a television show called “Canceled,” Dodes thought maybe that could make for a funny scripted podcast.

The two had a meeting scheduled with a big podcast network on Friday, March 13, 2020, which would have been an ominous day even without a global pandemic that was about to shut down the entire world. The meeting to discuss their “Canceled” proposal was canceled. 

During the height of the pandemic, Dodes and Mechling bonded over their struggle to work while raising kids. Dodes’ husband got a severe case of COVID-19 and was hospitalized, but survived the ordeal. While it seemed like “everyone was baking bread and trying face masks as if they were going to come out of the pandemic like a swarm of perfectly optimized butterflies,” said Dodes, she and Mechling felt like “we just didn’t get the memo.”

The pair decided to write a book about a character who always suspected that she did not get “the memo.” Dodes said writing the book with her friend allowed the pair to “escape the misery of our pandemic existence” and focus on an alternative universe.

Rachel Dodes

The Memo, which will be available on June 18th from Harper Perennial, is receiving praise from writers such as J. Courtney Sullivan, Laura Zigman (who called the book “smart, sharp, darkly funny, and every women’s fantasy”), and Laura Dave, and has been named one of the 20 best books of the year so far by Vogue. Production companies responsible for other successful TV shows and movies like Mare of Easttown, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and The Devil Wears Prada have already optioned the novel.

Lauren Mechling and Rachel Dodes will be signing copies of The Memo at Picture Book in Dobbs Ferry on Friday, June 14th from noon - 2 PM.

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https://rivertownscurrent.substack.com/p/new-novel-the-memo-is-co-written

Lyn Slater's Book Signing News Coverage

Thank you to local news maven (and author!) Janine Annett for covering our book signing with Lyn Slater, the Accidental Icon last Friday. The article appeared in Janine’s new substack Rivertowns Current and was also picked up by The Hudson Independent.

Author with Roots in Dobbs Ferry Puts New Spin on "How to Be Old" by Rivertowns Current

"Accidental Icon" Lyn Slater, 70, takes a positive approach to aging

Read on Substack

DOBBS FERRY

Author with Roots in Dobbs Ferry Puts New Spin on "How to Be Old"

"Accidental Icon" Lyn Slater, 70, takes a positive approach to aging

MAY 12, 2024

by Janine Annett

Dobbs Ferry — In a world where many women hesitate to reveal their age, Lyn Slater is a breath of fresh air. At 70, she’s upending preconceived notions of what it means to be a septuagenarian woman in her new book,  How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldy from the Accidental Icon.

A cultural influencer, model, writer, content creator, and former professor, Slater became an “accidental icon” at age 61, when she started a fashion blog by that name. Soon after, Slater took social media by storm, acquiring more than half a million followers on Instagram and nearly a million followers across all platforms.

Slater turned to fashion blogging after she couldn’t find any websites or magazines that spoke to her, offering an “urban, modern, intellectual aesthetic” aimed at women who live “interesting but ordinary lives” and are “smart, creative, fashion forward, fit, thoughtful, engaged, related, and, most importantly, clear and comfortable with who they are," she states on her website.

 “The year I turned 59, I couldn’t find anything to wear,” Slater writes in How to Be Old. “Everything that hung in my closet or on racks in stores no longer inspired.” In the book’s prologue, Slater shares that her own mother lived until 95.

The author goes on to discuss the ups and downs of reinventing herself, and challenges readers to live boldly at any age and think about aging and fashion and beauty standards in new ways.

In March, Slater celebrated the release of her book with an appearance at the New York Public Library, where she was in conversation with New York Times writer and author Chloé Cooper Jones.

At a recent appearance at Picture Book, the pop-up bookstore inside the co-working space HudCo in Dobbs Ferry, Slater chatted amiably with visitors and signed copies of How to Be Old for fans of all ages.

Not only did Slater grow up in Dobbs Ferry, she has strong connections to Hastings as well. “That’s where my mother lived as a child, and at the end of her life, she lived at Andrus [nursing home]. My brother-in-law also grew up in Hastings,” Slater told the Rivertowns Current. For high school, Slater attended Our Lady of Victory Academy, at 565 Broadway in Dobbs Ferry (now the site of Mercy University) which closed in 2011.

Slater currently lives in Peekskill and writes a column for the Peekskill Herald called “How to be Old in Peekskill.”

Rivertowns Current is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Mother's Day Gift Guide May 2024

Here are a few recommendations for treating the moms in your life.

FOR THE BRAND NEW MOM

Probably not the time to get her a long involved novel. This mom needs sleep, appreciation, and good maternity leave policies. Give her something sentimental or humorous that works with her attention span.

How to Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings by Liana Finck is a wryly personal and deeply relatable graphic memoir for grownups skewering the "traditional" parenting book to chronicle the absurdities, frustrations, and soaring joys of new parenthood—from the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist and author. It is THE book to help moms feel seen, and to help find the humor in the hardships.

You Broke It! is a picture book also by the acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck. This collection of classic parental nags are cleverly betrayed by the situations shown, in which it's made clear that the child knows better. Each scenario is worthy of a giggle, adding a lightheartedness to the inevitable dynamics between parents and children.

FOR THE MOM WHO IS A GRANDMA

More Books For MOMS

Event Photos: Becky Pitts' Book Signing

I was so delighted to host a book signing for Becky Pitts debut book Jane Jacobs: Champion of Cities, Champion of People in November 2023. It’s the first biography for young people on Jane Jacobs, the visionary activist, urbanist, and thinker who transformed the way we inhabit and develop our cities. The photos below capture just some of the community who came out to congratulate the author at the signing.

The first week of May is Jane Jacobs Walk week which is a series of free neighborhood walking, biking, and transit tours that help put people in touch with their environment and with the people who live in their community. Becky will be dropping off some cool pins to go with the signed copies of her book in celebration, so if you missed the original launch event it is another great time to stop by!

Independent Bookstore Day Online Deals

This Independent Bookstore Day, we can celebrate our love for indie bookshops while also enjoying great deals! There is FREE SHIPPING all weekend on all Bookshop.org orders. Libro.fm is also offering tons of great audiobooks on mega sale!

Thank you for supporting my little independent bookshop year round. I put my whole heart into Picture Book and it means the world to me that you appreciate it too.

 

Event Photos: Jesse Kanzer's Book Signing for Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky

Back in October 2023, Picture Book was so delighted to host local author and friend Jessie Kanzer at the shop again for the release of her second book Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky: Lessons We Can All Learn from an Unexpected Leader. It was wonderful to see the community come out and support her and we captured some of the moments in the photo below. The sunflowers in honor of Ukraine were from Lemon Terrace and the cheese was of course from Bloomy.

I need to credit Jessie for helping me come up with this format of book signings during shop hours, which offer an intimate opportunity to meet and congratulate authors on their book releases. We’ve repeated the format since then for Rebecca Pitts, Lynn Schmeidler, Lan Phan, and the forthcoming signings for Alison Cupp Relyea, Lyn Slater, and hopefully many more!

Thank you to everyone who came out to show your support for Jessie and for my shop.

Spring's New Books

Here are Picture Book’s highlights of the most anticipated books coming out this Spring! Click the covers below to learn more about these books you’ll find featured in the shop, or click on the Bookshop.org link to shop the entire selection of exciting Spring releases.



VIEW ALL SPRING RELEASES ON BOOKSHOP

Women's History Month

Pick up a great read this Women’s History Month

PICTURE BOOKS

For further books on Women’s History for kids and to ship nationally, see the curated list on the Picture Book Bookshop..org site: Women’s History Month for Kids

ART BOOKS

We have even more books on women artists in the shop and in our archive, so please ask if you are looking for something special! For further books on Women’s History for kids and to ship nationally, see the curated list on the Picture Book Bookshop..org site: Great Women Artists

New Releases - March 2024

There are a whole bunch of wonderful books out this March.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last is the new novel from New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez (Olga Dies Dreaming) delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death.

Half Lives is the new short story collection from local author Lynn Schmeidler. The author will be doing a signing at Picture Book Friday April 5th, with a talk the night before at the Dobbs Ferry Public Library. Pre-order the book now to pick up at the events.

Find ALL of March’s New Releases on our Bookshop.org page

Did you catch all of last month’s new releases highlighted on the blog?

Find all of Picture Book’s selection of this Winter’s new releases on our Bookshop.org page

February's New Releases

February, a month of love and a month of Black History, is also a great month for books. Some highlights from this month’s releases include:

Alphabetical Diaries

A little over a decade ago, Sheila Heti—the award-winning author of a string of modern classics including How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood, and Pure Colour—began looking back at the diaries she'd kept over the previous ten years, searching for signs of deeper change inside herself. She loaded all 500,000 words of her journals into Microsoft Excel, to order the sentences alphabetically and seek out patterns and repetitions. How many times had she written, "I hate him," for example? With the sentences untethered from the narrative of her diaries, she started to see herself—and The Self—in a new way: as something quite solid, anchored by shockingly few characteristic preoccupations. Returning to the project over the years, something more universal and novelistic emerged.
Alphabetical Diaries is the sublime and probing result—one that rises to the heights of artistry and insight for which Heti is rightfully acclaimed.

Wandering Stars

The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There ("Pure soaring beauty." New York Times Book Review) delivers Wandering Stars, a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

"For the sake of knowing, of understanding, Wandering Stars blew my heart into a thousand pieces and put it all back together again. This is a masterwork that will not be forgotten, a masterwork that will forever be part of you." —Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez

Couplets

Out in paperback this month in rhyming couplets and prose vignettes, Couplets by Maggie Millner chronicles the strictures, structures, and pitfalls of relationships—the mirroring, the pleasing, the small jealousies and disappointments—and how the people we love can show us who we truly are. 

The Book of Love

In the long-awaited debut novel from bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle. The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love--from friendship to romance to abiding family ties--with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Find ALL of February’s New Releases on our Bookshop.org page

Did you catch all of last month’s new releases highlighted on the blog?

Find all of Picture Book’s selection of this Winter’s new releases on our Bookshop.org page

Black History Month

This February, Picture Book is featuring many of the important books on Black History. Keep in mind we also have all of these amazing titles (and more!) year-round too, not just during the shortest month of the year. Click on the covers below to learn more.

NON-FICTION

FOR KIDS

Find more Black History themed books for kids on Bookshop.org, many titles are eligible for 15% off with code BHM24

BLACK ARTISTS

Find more beautiful monographs on Black Contemporary Artists on Bookshop.org

NEW FICTION BY BLACK AUTHORS

MORE KIDS BOOKS WITH BLACK MAIN CHARActers

Find more on Bookshop.org, many titles are eligible for 15% off with code BHM24