The life of a writer is a lonely and isolated place to be. Day after day, we live on an island fashioned in our own mind, carrying on conversations with people who don’t exist, driving down highways that don’t exist, and winding up in the middle of odd and unusual circumstances that don’t exist in towns that don’t exist. After a while, we wonder if we even exist or if we are merely scattered fragments of somebody else’s imagination.

Several years ago, when my son Josh was only about five years old, I was feverishly working night and day to finish a novel. About noon, my life Linda called me in for a quick and easy summer-time lunch.

Josh sat down at the table asked me a question.

I didn’t answer.

I was sitting there scattering fruit and salad with a fork and, mumbling to myself and carrying on dialogue with two of my characters. I heard them talking. I had not heard my son.

Josh looked up at his mother and asked, “What’s wrong with Dad?”

Linda smiled and told him, “Son, it’s time you began to realize that we live in one world, and your father lives in another.”

So it goes.

The writing of books would be even more difficult without Norm Goldman, the publisher and editor of www.BookPleasures.com. He is the one friend authors have when the rest of their friends have given up and consider them to be only about three shift keys and one misspelled word away from the grave.

Norm Goldman looks as though he has just swaggered into a courtroom, the man in the catbird seat, armed with information that no one else possesses. That’s the way he is supposed to look. With a law degree from the University of Montreal, Norm was an attorney for more than thirty-five years, finally deciding that it might be time to retire from his business but not from life. He traded legalese for the patchwork of words torn from the brains of wordsmiths.

He turned his attention to reviewing books. In the beginning, it was only a hobby. Reviewing books became his passion and finally his profession. He began with travel and travel adventure, eventually moving to such genres as business ethics, sports, historical adventure, politics, photography, music, and all sorts of fiction and non-fiction. At last, serious writers had someone to read their work, grade their work, validate their work, and let them know what they should or shouldn’t do to improve their work. His review was the boost they needed to go on in their lonely, isolated little worlds.

Norm Goldman became their lifeline. His ripped their books from behind a veil of anonymity, and introduced them to the reading public. He gave unknown writers an opportunity to become known. A writer could ask for nothing more.

Through the years, Norm and his international community of reviewers – professors, scientists, attorneys, journalists, authors, and teachers – have conducted more than 500 author interviews and reviewed more than 5,000 books.

Norm knows that authors live in different worlds. He understands the worlds they have manufactured in the deep recesses of their minds. He is comfortable there as well. For many authors, his reviews have been a godsend. Writers plow new ground and plant the seeds. Norm Goldman helps with the harvest. He’s made a difference for me.

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