Lily Koppel

Rescued from a dumpster on the Upper West Side of Manhattan by Lily Koppel, a young writer working at the New York Times, the journal paints a vivid picture of 1930’s New York--horseback riding in Central Park, summer excursions to the Catskills, and an obsession with a famous avant-garde actress. ... (more)From 1929 to 1934, not a single day's entry is skipped.
For more than half a century, the red leather diary lay silent, languishing inside a steamer trunk, its worn cover crumbling into little flakes. When a cleaning sweep of a New York City apartment building brings this lost treasure to light, both the diary and its owner are given a second life.

A New York Times reporter discovers a diary hidden away in an old steamer trunk in a dumpster and, with the help of a private investigator, finds its owner, ninety-year-old Florence Wolfson, in Lily Koppel's captivating book, The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal ... (more)(HarperCollins). Based on interviews and on diary entries, which span the years 1929 - 1934, The Red Leather Diary brings to light a delightful, nearly forgotten world.

LILY KOPPEL
reading & booksigning for "The Red Leather Diary"
Wednesday, September 10 at 7:30 pm

"The Red Leather Diary" tells the true story of a teenage girl’s discarded, Depression-era journal rescued from a dumpster in modern day Manhattan and eventually, and remarkably, reunited ... (more)with its now elderly author. Found by a young writer, journalist Lily Koppel, who read its vivid entries as if letters to herself, this artifact of a forgotten time reveals the lost world of a New York teenager ­ a young woman who dared to follow her dreams.

Lily Koppel writes for the New York Times and other publications. She lives in New York City. For more on her and her book, see www.redleatherdiary.com

This Booksmith sponsored event will take place at The Booksmith (1644 Haight Street in San Francisco). For further information, call 415-863-8688 or visit www.booksmith.com If you can't attend this event and would like to order a signed copy of the author's new book, please email or phone our store.

Lily Koppel - The Red Leather Diary - Thursday, September 4 at 7:30pmPlease check back soon for more event information.

A discarded diary brings to life the glamorous, forgotten world of an extraordinary young woman.

A found diary, written during the years 1929 to 1934, reveals the life of an intensely creative young woman living in New York, and enchants its finder, New York Times journalist Lily Koppel, with tales of art and theater, literary salons, the diarist’s obsession with avant-garde actress Eva La Galliene, ... (more)and her love affair with an Italian count. Charmed and intrigued by the life unfolding in the diary pages, Koppel sets off to find the journal’s author, and to recreate the magical world portrayed within its pages.