Festival of Books | Book Chatter

It’s already MARCH. Unbelievable. As everyone prepares to attend bookish events on the East coast, us West Coasters are beginning to get excited over the L.A. Times Festival of Books which takes place April 24-25. Last year, I hooked-up with a bunch of local book bloggers and we had a great time. This year, we plan to do the same but I may not be able to go. The family business is moving in April and it’s quite possible that the move will fall on the same weekend as the Festival of Books. I sure hope not.

Another bookish event that is coming up very shortly is the Impatient with Desire book party. I am going to list the dates below in case anyone wants to attend. If you’ve heard of the book but don’t know much about it, you can read my review here, and you can check out the author’s website by clicking here. I am going to try to attend the March 26th event.

Thursday, March 11th 7:30pm
Wine & Words
Warwick’s
7812 Girard Avenue
La Jolla, Ca. 92037

Friday, March 19th 7:30pm
Reading & Party
Village Books
1049 Swarthmore Avenue
Pacific Palisades, Ca. 90272

Friday, March 26th 7:00pm
Reading & Party
Book Soup
8818 West Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, Ca. 90069

Friday, March 31st 7:00pm
Reading & Signing
Chaucer’s Books
3321 State Street
Santa Barbara, Ca. 93105

Happy Sunday!! I am dragging today. As some of you know, I went to the Festival of Books yesterday which was held at UCLA. It was a gorgeous day and the panels were great but the highlight of the event was meeting some of my blogger buds.

This is a two-day event, but I opted to attend only the one day (Saturday). There were tons of vendor booths to visit but I spent most of my time attending the panel sessions. Here’s what I attended:

Fiction: Reimagined Lives

This one had Zoe Ferraris (Finding Nouf), David Wroblewski (Edgar Sawtelle) and Joan Silber (The Size of the World). David was extremely funny and made some interesting comments. One of which was, “Reading is an artificial act.” I will let you ponder that one.

Fiction: Window on the World

This one had Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of a Hedgehog), Vanina Marsot (Foreign Tongue), Jonathan Rabb (Shadow and Light), and Lisa See (Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love, etc.). This one sort of threw us a bit because they ended up talking a lot about film and its influence on their writing. I sort of liked this aspect of the discussion because one of my majors just happened to be film so I was able to follow all the film references but the general audience could not. Vanina Marsot was charming and I was just recently introduced to her work when The Literate Housewife posted an interview with her. You can check the interview out here.

Fiction: Intimate Strangers

This one had Janet Fitch (Paint it Black, White Oleander), Jean Hanff Korelitz (Admission), Andrew Sean Greer (The Story of a Marriage), and Gina Nahai (Caspian Rain). This was a lively discussion on character development and what it means to the story. I think this was my favorite panel because the panelists talked to each other and it was more a dialogue than a “panel”. Additionally, the panelists were very candid and I found Andrew Sean Greer to be so funny and charismatic that I went right out to buy his book! Seriously, I hit the Vroman’s tent and picked it up.

Here’s a pic of some of the group, from left to right: Natasha (Maw Books), Amy (My Friend Amy), Tracy (Gentle Reader – Shelf Life), Ti (That’s me! Book Chatter), Jill (Fizzy Thoughts), Trish (Hey Lady Whatcha Readin’?), Lisa (Books on the Brain).

After our day of fun, we all met at Jerry’s Famous Deli for some much needed food. We were all pretty hungry from walking around. For dinner, some of the folks that missed the morning picture were able to make this one. From the far left, going around the table: Trish, Ti, Lisa, Amy, Florinda (The 3 R’s Blog), Wendy and her husband (Musings of a Bookish Kitty). I had a great time. Meeting everyone was a total blast!