Last week a group of us saddled up and headed to the big city for Book Expo America. If you’re unfamiliar with this shindig, it’s an enormous conference held at the Javits Convention Center in New York City where publishers, authors, booksellers, librarians, and all manner of book-related folk come together to take a look at what’s new, what’s coming out in the fall, meet and greet and talk shop. And to go to parties. And overdose on hors d’oeuvres. And gather up as many tote bags as will fit on two shoulders at once.
Here’s a mostly photographic recap of BookPeople’s experience in New York.
Our week kicked off Monday morning when, along with a few hundred booksellers, we grabbed granola bars and coffee and settled in to hear author and indie champion Richard Russo talk about Why Indies Matter. “I don’t want independent bookstores to survive. I want them to thrive,” Russo said to a receptive crowd. It was a great way to start the conference, hopeful and optimistic and confident about our role in the lives of readers and in the industry. Why Indies Matter is a new campaign to explain, you know, Why Indies Matter (it’s a statement, not a question).
Tuesday the conference officially opened and we headed to the Javits Center for the first of many, many, many, many, many trips around publisher booths.
Look! It’s Jennifer Weiner!
We had a chance to say hello to Rachel Joyce, whose novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has been getting a lot of positive early buzz. We snagged a copy, so a review is forthcoming. (And I’ll say that after ten pages, Harold Fry’s charm and the unique story of his wandering and his relationship with his wife has totally grabbed me, I’m really looking forward to digging into this one.)
Look! It’s Olivia!
AND THEN WE FOUND OUT THAT MICHAEL BOLTON WAS SIGNING!!!
More on that later…..
One of the new presences at BEA this year was Read Russia. Panels and presentations on the Russian book market, new Russian literary titles, and the opportunity to meet modern Russian authors made their enormous booth (and their very awesome parties) among the top stops on our list.
Before all of our wandering Tuesday morning, though I was a little, ahem, tired from the Read Russia party the night before, I tore myself from my hotel bed and made it to the first Book and Author breakfast, hosted by Stephen Colbert and featuring Junot Diaz, Barbara Kingsolver and Jo Nesbo. And it was totally worth it.
In the spirit of the current bookselling climate, Colbert made every effort to include as many 50 Shades-style references to a certain part of the male anatomy as he could. Diaz spoke of his inspiration for writing about love from a boy’s perspective, and about his upcoming collection This is How You Lose Her (pubs in September; I read one of the stories from the collection – put this book on your list NOW.) Barbara Kingsolver had many hopeful and reassuring things to say about the evolving world of bookselling (her new novel, out in November, is Flight Behavior). And then Jo Nesbo rounded out an awesome talk with his story of being a stockbroker by day and rock star by night until he burned out and became a writer instead. Who knew! (Head to Nesbo’s site and you can catch video of the whole breakfast.)
Later on Tuesday afternoon we had the pleasure of running into Kevin Powers, author of one of the other highly buzzed-about books of the Fall, The Yellow Birds. Powers is a Michener fellow and, it turns out, we’re his local bookstore. While chatting with him, a gentleman wandered up, pointed at him and said, “Wait, you’re the author of this book?” and then proceeded to gush about the novel, which describes the experience of two soldiers struggling together in Iraq, for the next ten minutes. Yup, pushed this book to the very top of our list.
AND THEN LATER WE MET MICHAEL BOLTON!!! (His book, The Soul of It All: My Life, My Music comes out in November.)
On Wednesday came perhaps THE highlight of the whole convention – the conversation between Patti Smith and Neil Young. Easily the most high profile event of the week, Smith and Young talked for a long time about Young’s new album, the changing shape of music and how we listen to it in our digital world, stories from his long career in music, and his new memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, due out in October.
The two legendary musicians covered a lot of ground in between the two standing ovations the audience gave them, including the story of how Neil came to write Ohio. Apparently he and David Crosby were “smoking weed in the redwoods” of California when someone came in and dropped a magazine in front of him with a photo from Kent State on the cover. Neil picked up his guitar, worked through some changes and wrote the song on the spot. The next day they recorded it, pressed a hundred or so acetates and sent them out to the radio stations. I cannot wait for this book.
And then, of course, there were the parties…..
View from the Hachette party:
View from the Dutton party (that’s the space shuttle on the Intrepid there on the left):
The dessert tree at the Lemony Snicket party:
It was a great week talking books, meeting authors and walking at least ten miles a day around Javits. We have come home very excited about what the Fall season has to offer and very excited to tell you all about it. Once we’ve read it all. Which we’re working on. I did read George Saunder’s new short story collection, Tenth of December, on the plane home, and if that book is any indication, I can tell you it’s going to be a very good Fall, indeed.
BookPeople 