Aug. 27, 2014:  John Peter Mollman died on July 30, 2014, at his home in Carmel, CA. The chronic lymphocytic leukemia he energetically battled for eleven years had transformed into large cell lymphoma.

Peter is survived by his lovely wife Carol of 16 years, his daughter, Sarah Underhill (Robert) of Bronxville, son, Eric (Mary) of Winnetka, IL, and stepson, David (Janet) Moga of San Mateo, CA, and by eight grandchildren: Molly and Sam Underhill; Maddy, Tim, Annie, and Ellie Mollman; and Zoe and Ava Moga. He is also survived by his nephew John Mollman (Kimberly Andrews) and children Hadley and Soren and niece Melanie Mollman. His marriage to Jane Kendall Mollman, in 1953, ended in divorce.

John Peter Mollman was born on February 8, 1931, in Belleville, IL, to Kenneth John and Maureen Farrow Mollman. He graduated from Belleville Township High School in 1948 as president and valedictorian of his class. He went on to Washington University in St. Louis, MO, on a full academic scholarship and received his BA in 1952. There he was president of Phi Delta Theta, a guard on the basketball team, and shortstop on the baseball team.

After graduating, he joined the advertising department of General Electric in Schenectady, NY. In 1954, during the Korean War, he was drafted into the Army; he joined the Army Security Agency and was stationed at Fort Devens, MA.

Publishing was in his blood, and in 1956, Peter returned to the Midwest, where he joined his father at the Mollman Publishing Company in Millstadt, IL, a weekly newspaper and magazine publishing business. During that time, he served as president of the Southern Illinois Press Association.

In 1965, he made the big move to New York publishing, where he started out at Monarch Press and quickly shifted to Harper & Row, where he became a vice president. He was also publisher of Harper's Magazine Press, where he published, among others, the work of Annie Dillard, Pete Axthelm, and Bill Moyers.

In 1974, he became executive vice president of manufacturing at Random House, Inc. In 1981, he moved to Chicago to become first executive vice president and then president of World Book Publishing. In 1991, Peter was contacted by Bill Gates, who was venturing into electronic publishing. The challenge was compelling, and he moved to Seattle and served as director of intellectual property development at Microsoft for six years before easing into retirement as a consultant. His fascination with the potential impact of technology on the industry continued, and he became involved with the early development of ebooks; at that time, content was limited to literature expressly written for that medium.

Peter had an exceptional zest for life, and his signature laugh was contagious. He was a voracious reader; his appetite for books was fundamental and unquenchable. His passions included art, music, theater, travel, food and wine, sports, and all things Italian.

His volunteer commitments reflected these interests: he served as director of the publications advisory board for the Art Institute of Chicago; a member of the board of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; a member of the Committee for Libraries at Washington University; and the president of the Carmel Public Library Foundation. With his wife Carol he was actively engaged with Chamber Music Monterey Bay, hosting concerts and dinners for the musicians at their home.

As Peter himself described it, one of the most delightful and memorable moments in his long publishing career was meeting Marcella and Victor Hazan and his subsequent role in the development of The Classic Italian Cookbook. Peter had signed up for an Italian cooking class with the Hazans in New York, in search of the food he had come to love in his travels; the authenticity of their food was nowhere to be found in American cookbooks at the time. A friendship and partnership were born, and the first edition of this seminal work on Northern Italian cooking was published by Peter at Harper's Magazine Press in 1973.

In retirement, he channeled his immense creative energy into the design and development of an Italian food website: www.classicpasta.com. The site is rich with Peter's recipes and photographs; sources for authentic ingredients; suggestions for wine pairings; restaurant reviews. The site was purely his own, and Peter's distinctive voice and boundless enthusiasm resonate on every page.

There could be few better ways to spend an evening than around Peter and Carol's table in Carmel: Bill Evans playing in the background; courses of delicious, beautifully presented food emerging from the kitchen; excellent wine flowing; fascinating and far-reaching conversation punctuated by laughter, or song (preferably from Guys and Dolls or another favorite musical, but equally likely to be the Illini fight song), or a pause to pull a volume off the nearby shelf. In spirit, he will forever preside over such gatherings.

A celebration of the life of John Peter Mollman will take place at his home in Carmel on a date to be determined. Donations in Peter's honor may be made to the Carmel Public Library Foundation, PO Box 2042, Carmel, CA 93921-2042, 831-624-2881, or to Chamber Music Monterey Bay, PO Box 221458, Carmel, CA 93922.