I saw a load of authors at the 10th annual National Book Festival today. I went last year, but it was raining and I didn’t stay as long. Today, I was at the festival from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., so it was a full day. (Plus, I was on call for work, so I carried around my laptop in my backpack the whole time and took a couple breaks to post website stories.)
I started the day by taking a picture of this PBS “Super Why” character. Why? Because I actually recognized him. When I was in Illinois visiting Amy, I watched “Super Why” with her son, Andrew, one morning. So I had to take a picture to send to him.
Then, I stood in a security line to get into the tent where Laura Bush would be speaking. That tent was fenced off, with agents at the gate doing security checks and limiting the people to specific capacity numbers. I entered shortly after she began speaking (while they were using the one-in-one-out policy).
Jonathan Franzen (originally of St. Louis) was speaking in the neighboring tent at the same time, so I skipped out on Bush a little early to hear Franzen for a bit. He spoke about the elements of autobiography in fiction writing.
Then I headed to the children’s tent to hear the author and illustrator of “The Phantom Tollbooth” (Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer). I’ve decided I want to re-read that book and some other childhood books that I recall, so I’ve now added that, “Homer Price,” “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “Bridge to Terabithia” to my reading list. (“Bridge to Terabithia” author Katherine Paterson was also at the book festival, though I didn’t hear her speak.)
Next, I crammed into a tent to see the very popular Ken Follett. I’ve never read his books, but I had heard a lot about them. And after hearing him speak and learning more about his recent books, I’ve added “Fall of Giants” (the first in his new trilogy) to my reading list.
Jonathan Safran Foer, author of “Everything Is Illuminated,” was my next stop. I didn’t realize he was so young! He was only 25 when “Everything Is Illuminated” was published in 2002. He spoke mostly about his newest book, “Eating Animals,” which sounds like an interesting and disturbing look at factory farms. I’ve also decided I want to read his novel about 9/11, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”
My last author stop was to hear James McGrath Morris, who wrote “Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power.” He spent most of the time talking about Pulitzer, so it was pretty interesting. St. Louis was, of course, mentioned. However, most of the focus was on Pulitzer’s time in New York with the New York World.
In between, I saw Craig Robinson flanked by autograph-seeking children. I figured out who he was because he was towering above the kids. I realized a former basketball player was one of the authors in town and it was pretty easy to figure out that was him.
I also bought the Congressional Club Cookbook. I didn’t know much about the Congressional Club, but it’s a group of wives of Members of Congress. They publish a cookbook, and they were selling them at the festival. Because I’m cheap, I bought the old edition of the cookbook, which was $20. The new edition looked very nice, but it was $45 and I was trying to spend very little money. It’s a huge cookbook, though, full of recipes from Members of Congress, their wives and their children. The variety spans the country, and each recipe says who submitted it so that’s fun.
