Peter D Warner

Peter had just celebrated his 79th birthday when he died on September 9 of complications of myelodysplastic syndrome. Peter had a wide-ranging life while rooted in one place, metropolitan New York.

Born in Philadelphia, he grew up in Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, amidst a cluster of close-knit Russian Jewish families. His father, Robert C. Warner, was a biochemist at New York University Medical School, and his mother, Myra Spector Warner, was an attorney with the Manhattan firm Buchman & Buchman. Peter attended public schools in Queens and Manhattan and spent his summers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where his father worked at the Marine Biological Laboratory. He graduated from New York University and pursued graduate studies in English literature at the University of Minnesota.

Peter began writing when still in high school, short stories that foreshadowed his lifelong love of puns and intricate plotting. His first novel, Loose Ends, is both a perceptive commentary on life in 1970s Boston and a suspense novel that inverts traditional conventions, featuring two alternate endings.

Peter worked for Book-of-the-Month Club and the Museum of Modern Art, before joining Thames & Hudson in 1979, where he was publisher and president of their North American division until he retired in 2009. While leading T&H, he developed and edited a number of influential books, including Suzi Gablik's The Reenchantment of Art, Art Since 1900, and Joseph Cornell's Manual of Marvels, and developed illustrated series ranging from World of Art to Hip Hotels to Most Beautiful Villages.

Peter's second novel, Lifestyle, was published in 1986, and reissued in 2016. A pun-filled romp, it delights in the eccentricities of the New York media world, focusing on the beleaguered editor of a flagging lifestyle magazine.

He met Jill Sansone at Book-of-the-Month Club; they married in 1983 and moved to Hoboken not long after. A year after marrying, they had twin daughters, Emily and Cynthia, followed eight years later by Nicholas. Publishing and raising children occupied him fully-but his third novel slowly gestated.Peter published The Mole: The Cold War Memoir of Winston Bates in 2013. The 'memoir' of an unlikely spy, the book follows Winston's fumbling path to power as he haplessly betrays major figures in American politics-all set against the meticulously researched landscape of Cold War Washington, DC.

Peter was a true man of letters: member of The Writer's Room and the Century Association, author, publisher, raconteur, voracious reader, and someone with well-chosen words for each occasion. He connected with people effortlessly and genuinely, finding common enthusiasms from his seemingly endless store of interests. He was a consummate chef and host; a gentle and loving presence to his family; and a man with deep and lasting ties to each community he was part of, from Sunnyside to Hoboken to Woods Hole.

Peter is survived by his wife Jill and their children, Emily, Cynthia, and Nicholas; his sisters, Jisho Warner and Victoria Kaufman; his grandsons Ari and Robert; and innumerable friends.