Boston Book Festival

I spent the day at the 2nd annual Boston Book Festival. There were only two afternoon events that were on my 'must see' list which meant I got to spend my morning wandering through all the tents of booksellers and lit magazines. My own little book buffet - and yes, I bought a heavy bagful!


The first event for me was From Page to Screen. The first disappointment for me was that AM Holmes (I will forever associated her Music For Torching with my trip to Paris with Bill) was ill and could not attend. In her book, a family sets their own house on fire, the mother has a lesbian affair on her kitchen floor, the father gets a tattoo, and the kid is in a school shooting - now that is a women I want to hear on a panel!!

Dennis Lehane and Tom Perotta (moderated by Ty Burr) did their best to make me forget her. Lehane was casual, funny, and had some great Hollywood anecdotes. I wish someone had whispered in Tom's ear piece that he needed to sit up straight - this picture doesn't really show it but he was physically and conversationally second banana to Dennis throughout the event.

Until my second disappointment of the day when Tom announced that he had another event to attend as part of the festival and needed to leave before this event was over. What?? If the man is in two events couldn't they have scheduled them so they did not overlap?? And to think, some people paid a $25 priority seating option.


I thought I was going to experience my third disappointment of the day when I got in line for Bill Bryson. This was the view behind me (that gray block on the side is a building - poor picture framing on my part)....


And this was the view in front of me. The line wrapped literally around the entire block.


But fate was on my side. I got in. I got the book. I stood in line and he signed it. Unlike Franzen, he clearly had a personality but they rushed us through so fast I didn't get to say anything to him other than 'thank you'. I should add that there was a second author in the panel - Tony Hiss - with Bill Bryson moderated by Robin Young. It was a bit sad because it was clear that everyone was there to see Bryson. Ok, maybe Tony's aunt and a few Boston cousins on his mother's side came to the event. I think they probably wanted to see Bryson more too. The questions were all for Bryson. The signing lines for Bryson required a serpentine queue arrangement to fit everyone in whereas the few interested in Tony could just walk right up. That's Tony's ear in the bottom right side of my picture.


I saw a lot of people buying books today; I saw a lot of people excited about authors and scurrying from one event to the other- and I love that. Even though I didn't got to a lot of the events, I could feel the book loving frenzy in the air and really enjoyed just being there. Makes me want to have my own festival in Newburyport....