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The Red Leather Diary
When young New York Times journalist Lily Koppel left her New York City apartment one morning in 2003, she had no idea that the contents of a dumpster outside her building would change the course of her life and that of 90-year old Florence Wolfson in an unforgettable way. In The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal, Lily Koppel unveils the vivid and dynamic life of a young woman growing up in Manhattan in the 1930s. Compelled by the hopes and heartaches captured in the pages, Lily set out to find the diary's owner, her only clue the inscription on the frontispiece—"This book belongs to …Florence Wolfson." A chance phone call from a private investigator led her to Florence, a 90-year-old woman living with her husband of 67 years. Reunited with her diary, Florence journeyed back to the girl she had been, rediscovering a lost self that had burned with artistic fervor. The Red Leather Diary: Reclaming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal is published by HarperCollins. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. From The New York Times: "On its own, the diary offers a dusty window into an extraordinary life. With her skillful reporting, fine prose and excellent eye for period detail, Koppel has given it a lovely shine..."
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Koppel recovered the diary, among other artifacts, in a steamer trunk that had been discarded after years of languishing in a long forgotten storage unit. The journal painted a vivid picture of 1930s New York. Its nearly two thousand entries, written in faded black ink, captured the passions and ambitious of an intensely creative young woman.
Lily Koppel writes for The New York Times among other publications. A graduate of Barnard with a degree in English and creative writing, she studied at Oxford and in Paris. She lives in New York City. 
