I was only twenty-two when I was hired as an Associate Editor by Grosset & Dunlap, which was my entrée into the world of books and the New York literary scene. The job was an amazing opportunity for someone my age because it allowed me to rub elbows with the likes of Mario Puzo, James Jones, Garson Kanin, and other stellar literary figures who became influences and in some cases, mentors. A lunch with the legendary literary agent Swifty Lazar led to the company publishing RN, the controversial memoirs of ex-President Richard Nixon. As Grosset was pioneering the “coffee table” book with titles like Marilyn by Norman Mailer, my specialty became oversized illustrated trade paperbacks on pop cultural subjects, and I had the opportunity to work on many interesting ones, both on staff at Grosset and free-lance. Among them was Reggie Jackson’s Scrapbook, which featured a text I created by using a comprehensive photo-retrospective of the Yankee slugger’s career to interview him in the wake of hitting three dramatic home runs in the 1977 World Series. But perhaps the two books that most exemplify the diversity of my interests were The Woody Guthrie Songbook and The Things I Love by Liberace. I was able to put together the Guthrie book with the full cooperation of Guthrie’s family and associates, and it became the definitive collection of his music, art, and musical annotations. The Liberace book was exactly what the title implied, with suitably extravagant four color spreads of the star’s gaudiest homes, pianos, furnishings, jewelry, clothes and cars, along with a text rendered in his own unctuous and campy voice with the help of the BBC’s Tony Palmer. All three books were early and very successful examples of what would become a whole trend of illustrated “scrapbooks” in trade publishing.