In which I am recovering

Goodness me, but wasn't BookExpo exhausting! It was a great time, as ever, but I made the same mistake I made last year--trying to cram everything into 48 hours. Insanity, really. I had three signings and a lunch with ABA booksellers, a great dinner with my editor and five fabulous writers, a cocktail party on a Manhattan rooftop overlooking Times Square, and a lovely afternoon of roaming the city with my agent. Phew! (I have to admit, the rooftop party did feel particularly swish.)

I picked up two books to bring home--a biography of Cleopatra that looks delicious, and Laura Joh Rowland's newest--and I can't wait until they get here. I shipped them home, along with my dress and heels from Thursday's signings. I thought it would be far better than schlepping them around the city, so I pootled over to the shipping pavilion where everyone else was packing up thirty and forty-pound boxes of books. My little five-pound box got a good laugh from the Teamsters, but I don't care. Platform heels are HEAVY and would have just slowed me down as we scurried around town.

An afternoon is nowhere enough time to appreciate Manhattan, but the great thing about having a single afternoon is that there's really no pressure to do anything specific. We walked from the convention center to the Highline Garden--a must-do for anyone on the west side of the city. I took a few pictures to upload for Monday, but they won't do the garden justice, I can promise you. New Yorkers are fierce when it comes to their communities, and we met several of the locals who have lobbied and worked so hard to make the garden a reality. They've done a tremendous job, and if you have a few minutes to spare, you must stop by. It's astonishing how removed you feel from the hustle and bustle down below, and yet how connected it seems to the city as a whole. Well done, New York.

After that, we cabbed from the West Village to the Frick, which honestly, I'm pretty sure is an anteroom to heaven. Lovely, peaceful architecture--I have a thing for enfillades, we've discussed that, right? And the art is an extraordinarily cohesive collection. The five-o'clock shadow on Holbein's portrait of Sir Thomas More alone makes the museum worth the trip. There isn't a cafe, but there is a tiny gift shop on the way out with some really luxurious books and paper goods to tempt you. And if you follow a trip to the Frick with some strolling down Madison Avenue, as we did, it's amazing how much the gorgeous windows will seem like art installations.

So I am back and I hope you are well, and if you are here because we met at BookExpo, don't forget to follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook!