There comes a moment in every neighborhood blog editor’s career when he must embrace life’s conflicts of interest, face up to reality, and toss any pretense of objectivity aside like some sort of useless, depleted husk.
For your Bernalwood editor, that moment is right now…
Neighbor Leslie Jonath lives on Precita Avenue. She is a very talented book editor, producer, and packager who specializes in creating highly visual coffee table- and gift-style books that are both fun to read and gorgeous to look at.
In addition, she is your Bernalwood editor’s sweetie. In fact, we live together. In fact, we sleep together, and do the full gamut of life-partner activities together. In fact, as your Bernalwood editor writes this now, at 11:16 pm on Thursday night, he can even confirm — EXCLUSIVE SCOOP! — that Neighbor Leslie is downstairs at this very moment, watching her favorite legal-procedural drama on TV.
So, with all that fully and properly disclosed, Bernalwood is extremely proud to tell you that Neighbor Leslie will be giving a little talk at the Heartfelt Pop-Up Store at 301 Cortland on Sunday, November 16 at 4 pm to reveal how you go about creating beautiful coffee table-style books, and why (somewhat counter-intuitively) these kinds of books are now more popular than ever.
Neighbor Darcy Lee from Heartfelt says:
We are thrilled to announce that local author Leslie Jonath will be schooling us all on how to create a book, at Heartfelt’s newly curated Pop-Up location.
If you haven’t already heard Leslie’s the real deal!
Here’s a little more about her:
Leslie Jonath has been producing cookbooks, art books and kid’s books for over 20 years. Some of her favorite projects include The Pleasures of Slow Food, Miette, The Model Bakery Cookbook, Arts for the City, Postmark Paris, and The Dictionary of Extraordinary Ordinary Animals. Bee & Me, a book she co-wrote under the pen name, Elle j. McGuinness, sold over 150,000 copies. and was on both the New York Times best-seller list.
Before launching her book packaging company, Connected Dots Media, she was a creative director and editor at Chronicle Books for 18 years. Upcoming titles include three books on floral design, two cookbooks, and an inspirational journal called Give Yourself a Gold Star: Celebrating Life’s Little Achievements.
Yummy surprise refreshments will be served!
PHOTO: Neighbor Leslie Jonath in Paris, by a totally biased Bernalwood editor
Bernalwood 
I would say “Run, don’t walk!” if you have the chance to spend a few hours listening to Leslie Jonath talk about making things, creating books, and just about anything. I had the good fortune to cross paths with Ms. Jonath during her time at Chronicle. She is excited and exciting and you feel like you can certainly tackle any creative project that has been incubating in your heart and mind. I treasure my copy of Postmark Paris. Inspired and inspiring. Fun. Clever. True.
What a delightful moment in my work-filled morning! Thank you! Todd, I’ve suspected that occasionally, some of your posts weren’t completely unbiased and opinion free…This was a joy. Prior commitments regretfully prevent me from attending. I hope the event will be even more wonderful than I imagine.
Linda & Magic
That was the sweetest promotional I’ve ever heard!
This is the best post ever, Todd. And Leslie deserves every word. Her joy and knowledge are infectious….we are so lucky.
A book about hamburgers would be good, if it wasn’t too expensive. Or one about pharmacies, as long as it wasn’t about big chain ones.
+1!!!
Sad to have missed this! Please tell me she will be doing this again in the future!
– Sad Bernal neighbor