I was just checking my Facebook feed, thinking it was probably about time for Lexie Riley Bonitabus’s fourth baby to be born when, bam, there was the announcement! 


“Giovanni Antonio Bonitatibus arrived at 11:09 this morning, December 11, 2013, weighing 9 pounds, 4 ounces, and measuring 21 1/2 inches. Mommy and baby are doing well (Daddy too)!” A hearty congrats to the whole Bonitatibus clan!


And in other creative endeavors, it was just announced that Sarah Wagner’s second coauthored book is about to be published. Wagner is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University in D.C. The book, Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide, will be published by the Cambridge University Press this year. Using an interdisciplinary approach and more than 10 years of fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina and surrounding countries, Wagner traces the genocide’s reverberations in the book—many of which have implications for post-conflict societies around the world.


Also hitting the bookshelves this month is Brigid Pasulka’s second novel, The Sun and Other Stars. Set in a seaside village on the Italian Riviera, the book tells the story of a widowed butcher and his son in which the characters’ losses are transformed into hope. Having very much enjoyed Pasulka’s last novel, I am looking forward to reading this one too; nothing like recommending a book to your book club where you can jauntily toss out that you “happen to know the author.” Congratulations, and good reading to all!


—Suzie Fromer, 26 Irving Ave., Tarrytown, NY 10591; suziefromer@gmail.com