Books

The first thing you notice about Jennifer Donnelly is her passion. Whether you’re reading one of her novels or talking to her about them, expect the experience to be intense.
Donnelly, who lives in the Hudson Valley, will be at Oblong Books and Music in Rhinebeck, NY, Saturday, Aug. 20, at 7:30 p.m. to read from her most recent novel, “The Wild Rose.” The book is the third in a series about an English family in 1914 London.
Another thing her books all have in common is their historical backdrop.

When St. John’s Episcopal Church held its annual book sale last fall during Salisbury’s Fall Festival, organizers unexpectedly found themselves in the unique ­— and dazzling — world of rare books.
While sorting volumes in a box of ordinary contributions, Gaile Binzen noticed a pair of slipcases, each containing a Lewis Carroll book “prettily bound” in leather.
Perhaps they were worth more than the usual five dollars, and probably Dan Dwyer, owner of Johnnycake Books, would know.
And so opened a mystery and a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience for both Dwyer and St. John’s.

On and off for two years, Anne Day, bearing cameras, lights, lenses, stands and once even shovels, traveled from Salisbury to The New York Public Library. Her mission was to photograph, inside and out, the massive and ornate building on Fifth Avenue for a centennial edition of Henry Hope Reed and Francis Morrone’s book: “The New York Public Library: The Architecture and Decoration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.”

Matthew Patrick Smyth lives in the rarefied world of high interior design where rooms often say more about the designer than the clients. You know a Buatta or Donghia room when you see it. Yet Smyth’s style — restrained, unpretentious, more classical than baroque, filled with small details rather than grand statements — gives clients spaces to live as they want, not as he wants.