A Journey into Book Country

by

Lauren Roberts

Well, I didn’t have to pack a suitcase or apply for a passport. Nor did I have to arrive at an airport a ridiculous number of hours ahead of my trip. I did, however, take bottled water and spent a silly amount of time debating the merits of my canvas Santa Barbara Public Library bag with comfortable shoulder straps vs. that of the larger Book Sense burlap bag (that often elicits a “Where did you get that?” comment) with the wooden handles. After all, when a bibliophile heads to the largest book festival in the United States, the bag into which the soon-to-be-purchased books are going is not an insignificant detail. It must be large and it must be comfortable.

This weekend, the last one in April, sees the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books bloom on the gorgeous UCLA campus in west Los Angeles. But this campus is an island of natural serenity, grass and trees and peace, and when it overflows with readers and booklovers, authors, publishers, and book and reading-related vendors it becomes a dreamland, albeit a crowded one.

This year was no different. Though I missed Saturday due to a nasty bug in my digestive system that appeared late Friday night I did get there on Sunday. And what I found was an even better festival: the children’s area had expanded as had the food court, and tables and chairs were more attractive and more abundant.

Book festivals vary in size and complexity, and this one is the largest in the country. It must be enormously difficult to pull off, but due to the immense number of UCLA employees, festival volunteers and staff and LAPD officers, it comes off without a hitch and, with the exception of a small parking fee, absolutely free.

This year was its twelfth, and included in the celebration were not only the hundreds of authors and events, but around 150,000 people over two days. Given the dire predictions one often hears about books and reading, it brings joy not only to my heart but (I am sure) to many others to see a young boy trailing his mother and brother while his eyes are riveted to the pages of the new graphic novel he has just bought or to see a group of teenagers craning their necks to check out the books in a discount bookseller’s booth.

And that’s not all.

I arrived at 8:45 and received my press badge before heading off hit one of my favorite vendors, Ten Speed Press. They are no longer small since they publish about 150 nonfiction books each year, but Ten Speed is well known for its cookbooks and parenting books. If it sounds familiar, it’s probably because you know the Moosewood and the What Color is Your Parachute? books. Every year they bring thousands of books and mark them all at 50 percent off. Their strategy pays off because their booth is jammed from Saturday morning through Sunday closing. (I am pleased to say that I was able to grab more than a half-dozen of their lovely or amusing books.)

Immediately after dropping those in my car, I headed to Books About Books, my first panel at 10:00 a.m. Among the panelists were Wendy Werris, author of An Alphabetical Life (which I bought), and Nancy Pearl, the Seattle librarian whose fame rests on Book Lust, More Book Lust and Book Crush as well as the Librarian Action figure for which she was the model. Despite the early time, the turnout was stupendous and enthusiastic.

A quick (but not too quick) stroll down the main strip took me past several booths where I had to stop and buy: the Gerry Museum yielded Photographers of Genius and Marguerite Makes a Book. The latter is a children’s book, but it is also as is noted in the back, a book “inspired by a group of Parisian manuscripts in the Getty Museum’s collection that date from around 1400 to 1425—a golden era in the history of French painting.”