Fifteen years after leaving teaching to raise her children and focus on writing and about to become an empty-nester this spring, Julie Gerstenblatt, 52, celebrated a milestone this week with the release of her debut novel, “The Daughters of Nantucket.”
A reunion of former co-workers who gathered for an early 2019 dinner put together by recently retired PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi may have sparked the beginning of a revolution. It certainly sparked some revelations during dinner conversation, led to the writing of a new workplace g…
When Candace Rechtschaffen graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1992, she was “arrogant enough” to believe she had enough life experience to write a book about herself. Years later she realized it wasn’t her story she needed to tell, but the story of her family, notably her father, Rudolp…
A prominent local community member is also now a published author.
The hottest ticket at Scarsdale Adult School (SAS) this term was to see Bonnie Garmus, author of the “it” book of 2022, “Lessons in Chemistry.” More than 200 people Zoomed in for her conversation with cultural historian Lori Rotskoff in the early afternoon Nov. 7.
If your teenage daughter wants you out of the picture while she goes to the mall, runs to the village for an acai bowl, or, well, breathes, you’re hardly alone. But then there’s Sasha Forman, 16. “My mother is my best friend,” she says. (Kid swap, anyone?)
When the author Washington Irving declared that “never need an American look beyond [their] own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery,” he likely had in mind one corner of the nation more than the rest, his “first and last love,” the Hudson River and Valley. Irving’s best-…
New York artists/writers Elaine Sexton and João Nemi Neto will be the central characters in a virtual Saturday morning brunch featuring authors from New York and Paris Nov. 5 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The program is hosted by the Scarsdale Salon and Salon de Bellville through the Scarsda…
Braid together absurdist humor centered around a slightly untethered writer on a book tour with serious social commentary on racial violence in the U.S. and you get one “Hell of a Book.” That also happens to be the title of the 2021 National Book Award winner by Jason Mott, the visiting auth…
With Queen Elizabeth’s passing and Charles’s ascendance, our attention is currently fixed on England. But earlier this year, many of us were focused on a different royal title: “The Magnolia Palace,” a novel by Fiona Davis that debuted in January and rocketed to the bestseller list. Book gro…
The pandemic raised the urgent question of how we could keep our families healthy. But another question wasn’t far behind: How we could keep our children’s development healthy as well. With most of their usual activities off limits, from in-person school to playdates, we grew more concerned …
Ken Caminiti was a gritty, larger-than-life Major League ballplayer most notably for the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres in his 15-year big league career that ended in 2001. Two years after making a groundbreaking admission of steroid use to Sports Illustrated magazine in 2002, Camin…
The Scarsdale Shakespeare. It’s a catchy title, and now there’s someone fit to claim it: 18-year-old Greenacres resident Riddha Iyengar. Her drama, “Rainbow Clouds in the Night Sky,” has won a slot in the annual Writopia Lab Worldwide Plays Festival, and will be performed at Bryant Park on S…
The raging tide of the pandemic appears to be ebbing. Yet undeniably, it’s left havoc in its wake. As we check our scales — and scaled-back bank accounts — it’s clear that many of us got into hot water.
Scarsdale resident David Arnow’s new book, “Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism,” explores the topic of hope, largely through Old Testament narratives, and reveals how religious traditions sustain hope. Though the book is written for a Jewish audience, it has broad appeal. Arnow’s extensi…
Scarsdale continues to be fertile ground for homegrown novelists and nonfiction authors. This holiday season, the Inquirer highlights three gift-worthy reads for family or friends, all available through Bronx River Books on Spencer Place.
Barbara Josselsohn found a way to keep her readers happy and herself busy during the COVID-19 pandemic. She’s released four books in her Lake Summers series, the first in March of 2020, the latest coming out on Monday, Nov. 15.
“Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
The terrible images captured on Sept. 11, 2001 will haunt us forever, always reminding us to remember and never forget. But few people saw what happened behind the scenes after 9/11 the way Bill Groner did.
“I’m in,” you think, as you pick up Sara Arnell’s memoir, “There Will Be Lobster,” assured you’ve been invited to a saucy summer romp of a book. Sunny graphics and ginormous lobster claws on the cover seem to promise glam parties and plenty of A-lister “dish.” But while Arnell — a living leg…
People of a certain age may remember the notorious Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, as well as the Secretary of State under the first President Bush, Larry Eagleburger. Both were acquaintances of Dr. Fran Murphy, former superintendent of Scarsdale Schools in the early ’90s, when he was di…
It’s not everyday that $5 billion falls into someone’s hands, but as Heathcote resident Sandor Frankel, 77, writes in his memoir, “The Accidental Philanthropist,” that very unlikely scenario became his reality.
There always seems to be one “book of the summer,” a scrumptious page-turner that everyone snaps up, devours, and raves about to friends. By the looks of it, “The Last Thing He Told Me” has easily won the crown this year. The thriller, about a woman whose new husband disappears, is the No. 1…
In an uncertain era such as the present one, who couldn’t use a few words of wisdom from somebody who’s lived a rich and multifaceted life? Now there’s a way to get almost 100 thought-enlightening adages in one fell swoop: by getting a hold of “The Book of Normanisms,”penned by Quaker Ridge …
While Passover is a joyous holiday, the Seders— the two consecutive dinners during which the story of the Jews’ liberation from slavery is retold — have their fair share of somber moments. Jews gather for one or two evenings to eat, drink, pray and read from a Haggadah, a text that guides th…
In writing “Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb,” journalist Robert Marchant of Croton-on-Hudson sought to tell the story of American history in a particular place. “I’m continually fascinated by the way suburbs differentiate themselves from the city … how the wealthy want to be perceiv…
What if a groundbreaking technology designed to gather and channel contemporary insights from the world’s most brilliant leaders — Churchill, Gandhi, Lincoln — took a sharp detour and exposed long buried secrets of its creator and his family? In his debut novel, Scarsdale author Marc Sheinba…
The COVID pandemic has, by and large, been a time of sorrow. But Brooke Diamond, a Scarsdale High School 10th grader and Fox Meadow resident, has distilled her experiences over the past year into something extraordinary: a beautiful — and now prizewinning — poem. Her composition, “Movement o…
Luminaries Steven Spielberg, Barbara Corcoran and Albert Einstein are among the scores of smart, creative, out-of-the-box thinkers who have struggled with dyslexia, a disorder that distorts a person’s perception of letters and numbers, making word recognition and math equations a formidable …
The present, as we know all too well, is a scary time to be living in. But what will the future be like? Gish Jen, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based author and Scarsdale High School distinguished alumnae, Class of ’74, explores the possibilities in her latest novel, “The Resisters.” The paper…
Leslie Kimmelman’s latest book, “The Eight Knights of Hanukkah,” tells the story of a diverse group of children — mounted on steeds and clad in armor — who save the Jewish holiday that marks a miracle: a menorah burning for eight days and nights on a single night’s worth of lamp oil.
Writers, it’s often said, draw inspiration from the most random of sources. For Scarsdale’s Brooke Lea Foster, lightning struck while she was vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard and saw a magazine ad for a rental property called The Swindle. Something about the charming three-bedroom cottage, s…
Given everything 2020 has thrown at us so far, who among us wouldn’t like to escape — if not from the year itself, at least from the monotony of staying home? A getaway is, sadly, rather difficult to arrange right now. But crack open “The Bluebell Girls,” the third novel by Scarsdale residen…
Before COVID-19 became 2020’s boldface shocker, Americans were fixated on another story: the college admissions scandal. The public first got wind of the tawdry tale in the spring of 2019, when U.S. federal prosecutors announced their investigation into the matter, code-named Operation Varsi…
While writing a story from the point of view of a quirky 12-year-old boy with learning differences, Edgemont resident Diana Harmon Asher approached the task by summoning her own inner child.
While most of us have found little more than monotony in quarantine, some have discovered opportunity — a chance to clean out a long-neglected attic, for example, or start a new exercise routine. For Hanna Eisenstein, 20, of Quaker Ridge, the pandemic has given her a chance to achieve a drea…
Growing up in Edgemont and Scarsdale (class of ’87) Christina Chiu said she “didn’t fit the Asian nerd stereotype at all.”
Moving from the city to the suburbs can be a big adjustment — and not always a smooth one. It’s something psychologist and writer Stephanie Newman, Ph.D., understands extremely well. She’s captured this major life event, in all its pain and hilarity, in a new novel, “Barbarians at the PTA.”
Billy Collins found his voice while living and writing in a little cottage on a larger estate on Old Army Road in Edgemont in the late 1980s. When he moved to Somers in 1989, Collins took the voice that has been the most recognized among American poets of the last 30 years with him.
Jared Diamond had two goals when he began his career as a professional sportswriter at age 22: 1) To become a beat writer covering a Major League Baseball team and 2) to write a book.
If you like juicy whodunits — and the idea of supporting our local authors — you’ll want to visit Bronx River Books in Scarsdale Village Sunday, March 1, between 4 and 6 p.m. That’s when longtime Scarsdale resident Ellen Shapiro will be on hand to read from and sign copies of her debut novel…
In his acclaimed book, “Land of Hope — An Invitation to the Great American Story,” Professor Wilfred McClay doesn’t try to rewrite history. Instead, he sets out to bring America’s pivotal moments into sharper focus and explore a more complete narrative that, he says, has been routinely overl…
With frigid winds whipping through the village, it’s understandable that one might long for summer. Luckily, you can easily satisfy your yearning for the sultry season’s pleasures: “The Lilac House,” a new novel by Scarsdale writer and teacher Barbara Solomon Josselsohn, is available for pre…
Cuisine is defined as a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes associated with a culture, country or geographic region. In his new book, “American Cuisine — And How It Got This Way,” author Paul Freedman serves up a full course of gastronomic facts, …
Scarsdale High School 2012 graduate Rachelle Gage thinks the art education offered in her hometown was what allowed her to become an artist full time in her adulthood. Also a Skidmore College graduate with a B.S. in Communication Design and now a full-time graphic designer at a Manhattan fas…
Reviewers for publications from Good Reads and BookList to The Washington Post and The Seattle Times have all said the same thing about Susan Isaacs: she writes female characters like no one else. Known as a writer of witty, snarky novels that turn stereotypes of women’s fiction on their hea…
Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan of Larchmont formed a fast friendship some 15 years ago. They bonded in the same way many Westchester moms do — while volunteering at their children’s schools. “We had a lot of time to chat while we were working our various shifts,” Harrington recalled.
Scarsdale resident Brian T. Brown isn’t new to producing content people want to read or watch. A 15-time Emmy winner, Brown has written and produced for 12 Olympic broadcasts as well as appearing in The New York Times, San Diego Union, and on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, PBS, ESPN, HBO and others.
Ann Cefola has been writing poetry since she was a young child growing up in Scarsdale. She moved through the Scarsdale school system and went on to receive an MFA in poetry writing from Sarah Lawrence before becoming well-versed in French by working with several French companies after gradu…
As a young girl growing up in Scarsdale, Kate Stempel loved to play sports. “My dad was my coach for travel soccer, and we were undefeated for like eight years,” she shared. “I played on the Raiderettes.”
Even the most happily married couples have rare occasions on which they don’t work well together. Miriam and Ronald Schulman are no exception: “When I’m driving we don’t do well, because you’re telling me what to do the whole time,” Miriam joked. Ronald agreed. “Not my finest moment,” he said.
