Club Calvi talks to a pioneer in the online book community

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Club Calvi is getting an inside scoop from a pioneer in the online book community. When the internet was young, and long before Booktok and Bookstagram, Carol Fitzgerald started Bookreporter in 1996, and it's still going strong. 

Fitzgerald says the enthusiasm from readers and connecting them with authors keeps the site going. "It's this fabulous experience that you hear from readers about their excitement about books and authors," Fitzgerald said.  "It just fuels you all the time."

Bookreporter.com posts book reviews, author interviews, and book news. Fitzgerald has seen big changes in the industry . "Back when we first started, you knew something about the author from the back of the book," she told Mary. "That was: She lives in San Francisco with her husband and her dog, and that was it. Now, authors have become personalities. We follow them on social media. We hear about their lives. They do newsletters. They keep us informed. So, it's become a totally very different author-reader experience than maybe just seeing them in a bookstore if you're lucky."

Fitzgerald shared with Club Calvi two books that she's looking forward to in early 2026. Fitzgerald says "Strangers" by Belle Burden, set to be published in January 2026, is an amazing memoir. "This is what I love about this book: she is exploring her marriage from the end of it going backwards," Fitzgerald says. "Her husband walks in one morning, when they are sheltering in their home in Martha's Vineyard from Covid. It's about a week in. He's been making fires and cocktails for her. Everything has been beautiful. And he comes in and he says: I don't want to be married anymore, you can have the house and the children. He walks out. She starts to look back at their whole marriage of where were their signs of this that I might have missed. It's just beautifully written."

Fitzgerald also recommends "Blade" by Wendy Walker to be published in February 2026. "Here's what I love about "Blade," Fitzgerald says, "Wendy was training to be a professional skater from the time she was 13 to 16. She lived out in Denver, on her own. Think about being a teenager with this goal in mind. She's taken this thriller and written it from that point of view. A young skater has been accused of murder."

You can read more information about the books, and pre-order them, below.

The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. 

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"Strangers" by Belle Burden 

From the publisher: In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.

In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed "Belle the Good"—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.

With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.

Belle Burden lives in New York City.

"Strangers" by Belle Burden $23

Blade by Wendy Walker 

From the publisher:  Ana Robbins was an Olympic star in the making—until tragedy forced her to leave that world behind. At the age of sixteen, she gave up her dream and never looked back.

Fourteen years later, she's a successful defense attorney, revered for her work with minors. But when her former coach turns up dead, Ana lands right back where it all began, and abruptly ended: The Palace, a world-renowned skating facility nestled high in the mountains of Colorado.

Ana returns to The Palace to defend the young skater accused of the brutal crime—Grace Montgomery. Despite her claims of innocence, all evidence points squarely at Grace's guilt, and she's days away from facing charges of first-degree murder.

But Ana's investigation dredges up childhood memories of her own, triggering the fear that permeates this place where she once lived and trained far from home as an "orphan." With a blizzard raging outside, and time running out for Grace, Ana is determined to uncover the truth—even if it means exposing her own secrets that she buried here long ago

Wendy Walker lives in Connecticut

"Blade" by Wendy Walker $23 (Hardcover), $14 (Paperback)