 A Book Festival in BookmarksbyLauren RobertsNormally, when I go to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books I try to collect as many bookmarks as I can. It doesn’t matter if they are from the festival, from booksellers, from authors, or anyone else. If it’s a bookmark it comes home with me. But this year was different. I selected only bookmarks that I didn’t already have and that I knew I wanted. I came home with four, though those four represent the full range of the festival’s participants: founder, library, authors, bookshop.
The festival bookmark differs each year. In the past, they’ve used a mouse, an octopus, children, parents. It’s always been a fun, family design. For this, its fifteenth year, the design, while featuring a child, chosen gives me the creeps. There’s something about the kid—his hairlessness, his jellybean body, or maybe it’s his teeth, sharp, jagged, shark-like—that is just plain weird. Who chose this design, I wonder. I do like the fact that he’s standing precariously on a stack of books while reaching up to grab a book from another shelf. The book has a rocket ship, one of my favorite childhood themes, but that’s small comfort compared to those teeth. I simply can’t get past them. So while I will keep this bookmark I am looking forward to getting it into my storage binder as quickly as possible.
The second bookmark comes from the Los Angeles Public Library. It was one of the first booths I visited, and I was pleased to see that even in the early hours of the first day it already had nearly a dozen people crowding around it. The bookmark promotes the Children’s Reading Club that will take place between June and August. The website page isn’t updated yet, but the bookmark notes that the booklist for younger readers will include The Princess Knight; Behold…the Dragons!; Merlin and the Making of the King; The Bravest Knight; Good Night, Good Knight; and Boogie Knights. Older readers will be reading Future Knight; Igraine the Brave; How to Be a Medieval Knight; The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great; and Real Samurai. Sounds like fun nightly (knightly?) reading. The bookmark’s illustration with the knight and the horse both reading is a delightful preview of the era and times in which the participants will spend their summer.
Women Writing the West is a writers’ organization to which a friend of mine belongs. As their name indicates, it is composed of authors who write and promote the “Women’s West.” Not all members are published but many are through a number of different publishers. What they all have in common is a desire to “focus on the western landscape and themes and the roles of women within them . . . in a way that illuminates them authentically.” Given its focus, it’s not surprising that the bookmark’s background is brown. The image is a landscape of cacti under a cloudy sky, providing a western feeling. It’s the sturdiest of the four bookmarks, one that can be used with fear of it becoming, well, used looking.
The final bookmark I picked up is from a bookstore: The Book Shop in Covina, California. This store carries both antiquarian and used books, and it had a quarter-century history with its original owner before being bought out by a young couple, Brad and Jen. Brad had worked in the shop from age fifteen and claims knowledge of the shop’s 40,000 volumes. (I’d like to test him out one day.) But they also note on their About Us page that when they play hooky (in Cabo San Lucas) you might find her mom, his mom or grandmother or sister or brother or even one of his good friends behind the counter. The front is the best thing about this bookmark, though. the Groucho Marx saying, one probably most booklovers know well, is highlighted with an amusing picture of a floppy-eared, oversized dog who seems to be thinking, “So read then!” Four bookmarks. That’s rather amazing to me since I tend to collect them the way I collect books. This past weekend was an austere one, budget wise, but based on the books and bookmarks I did bring home it wasn’t a deprived one. I feel as if I found connections with the whole spirit of the festival. These bookmarks will always help keep that with me. NOTE: I didn’t come home with just one of each other. I do have others so if anyone would like one feel free to e-mail me. First come, first served. Bookmark specifications: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Bookmark specifications: Knight Time Reading Bookmark specifications: Women Writing the West Bookmark specifications: Outside of a dog . . .
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