Adventures in New York City
More about the whirlwind Book Tour
New York was super exciting, zipping around in strangers’ cars on Lyft rides. I stayed at the The Renwick, 118 East 40th Street with a lobby that looks like this.
And the Renwick Hotel lobby also had graffiti that looks like this:
I got to eat at a fancy restaurant at the fantastic Beekman Hotel, 5 Beekman Street. The sitting area of the hotel looks like this:
The restaurant was called Le Gratin, a Lyonnaise-inspired Bistro, and this is the interior:
My dinner companions were my agent Bill Clegg, my editor Jill Bialosky, my W.W. Norton publicist Erin Sinesky Lovett, and I ate a fish (brazino) that was served looking like a fish and was creamy and delicious.
We talked about the activities for the following day (the Jenna Book Club on the Today Show), about possible future events (National Book Festival in Washington), and there was some publishing gossip and news that went right over my head because I didn’t know the people involved. And then a Lyft home!
The following day was a whirlwind, and then it calmed down and I got to see my old friend Marcia Bricker, a participant on one of our Eastern European bicycle tours, 1989, and Marcia looked great. Not only that, but her book of photos Kibbitz & Nosh: When We All Went to Dubrov’s Cafeteria, has just won the Jewish National Book Award. A little more about that if you click here.
And I also met my new friend, Courtney Kealy, a dynamic reporter who is now on ABC after spending much of her career as a war correspondent. Check out her website here. She kindly talked me through my Today Show anxiety! Here we are at the Penn Station food court, where we walked after my NBC store book signing. Courtney is gorgeous! She is as tall as me, though not as old, so we felt sisterly!
Then my handsome brilliant agent Bill met me at the food court. He was carrying his dog in a soft crate, and he bought me a sandwich and a cookie and whisked me onto the Amtrak to head out of the city and to Rhinebeck, where we had a conversation at Oblong Books. More about that soon!