December 20, 2009

With a half-foot of downy white blanketing the Middle-Atlantic states and a roaring fire in the hearth, here's wishing everyone a healthy, cheer-filled holiday, and a prosperous, peaceful New Year.

The Friend household is especially proud this week: my wife, Nancy Paulsen, as reported in Publishers Weekly, was given her own children-and-young adult imprint at Penguin-Putnam, Nancy Paulsen Books.

Also...a fond farewell to Milorad Pavic, the boundary-breaking Serbian novelist (author of the enchantingly mystifying Dictionary of the Kazhars), who passed away this week at age 80.

And one final tip for last-minute holiday shoppers. This season's ideal gift book, recently published by Rodale, is a volume I worked on this past year with Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter and Robert Risko, along with esteemed colleagues David Harris, Martha Hurley, Feifei Sun, and Jon Kelly: Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire.