The paperback of my latest book, "The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad," (Viking Press) came out in July, 2006. When enough time has gone by, I think I'd like to write an article about what it was like to work on a book about the NYPD. (It was very hard.)

My second book, "Waiting for My Cats to Die: a morbid memoir," (St. Martin's Press) came out in 2001. It's about my mid-life crisis on one level, but really, on a deeper level it's about this: I don't want to die.

I'm also a commentator for the NPR show, "All Things Considered."

In 1990 I founded something called Echo. It's a NYC-based online service filled with people who log in everyday to talk about whatever -- work, love, how hard life can be, and what's on TV (my favorite obsession). I wrote about Echo and the internet in a book called, "Cyberville: Clicks, Culture and the Creation of an Online Town" (Warner Books). I stopped doing anything to promote Echo years ago, but I'm glad it's managed to survive. In between writing and research, TV, and the occasional movie or book, I love talking to people on Echo.

I grew up on Long Island, got a B.F.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and a graduate degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. I was once a telecommunications analyst for the Mobil Corporation. It feels like so many lifetimes ago. I can't believe I used to wear a suit almost every day. Still, learning how to function in that envirnoment was a good education. I continue to use everything I learned.

What else? I've been singing with the Grace Church Choral Society for my entire adult life, (soprano) and I've been a samba drummer with The Manhattan Samba Group since I turned forty.

I'm currently working on a book about the former Duke Parapsychology Laboratory. Scientists have always disdained parapsychology, but there was a time, from the 30s to the 60s, when the scientific community thought, well, okay, ectoplasm, seances and table rappings aside, maybe there is something going on. Duke opened a lab to study the various phenomena, and for a few decades, a group of serious scientists and graduate students tried to find if there was anything there. I'm writing a book about what they did and did not find.

If you go to my personal website you'll find a lot of posts about TV and my cats. I think the flavor tends towards the melancholy and the nostalgic, but it's hard to really have an objective sense of what you put out there.