A Festival of Books

Except for Thanksgiving, this is my favorite weekend of the year. The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and Festival of Books (FOB ) take place on the last weekend in April. I've been going to the FOB since its inception 13 years ago. I've been helping at the Book Prizes for about 10 years. Karen has joined me at both for the past 4 years. This weekend has everything - books, authors, music and family. This year it also had unbearable heat. Okay KJ, let's both say it together, "But it's hooooooooot!" Fortunately, Karen and I mapped out our day so we mitigated the 90 degrees of it all.

We helped at the Book Prizes. This means we go to the hotel that we're staying at, check names off a clipboard while we get authors on board a bus to go to the pre-event dinner. I'm currently reading Faust in Copenhagen, so when I checked off Gino Segre's name, I was all over him about how much I love his book. It was true, which makes it better. He totally brings these great physicists to life. Besides, he's a charming man.

Another charming man was the master of ceremonies at the Awards ceremony, Gay Talese, former New York Times reporter and hero to all young journalists. This is him at the Festival the next day. Remember how hot I said it was. Look at him. Dapper despite it all. He is tall and elegant and moves with a slow grace. Yet, he also looks like he could start tap dancing at any moment. Karen and I met him a couple of years ago just by chance. He sat with us for a while. I'm hooked.

The Awards were great for meeting authors. One of the highlights is the reception after the awards. They serve the most interesting food there. I had none of it this year because the patio was just too packed with people. Horrible. I found the only chair in the room, the one at the table for authors to come by and find out how to get to the shuttle to the hotel. Pretty cool, because I had the answer to that. Karen scored some interesting green stuff from one of the food tables. She is so imperturbable.

The next day we went back to UCLA for the FOB. We saw John's band, Murphy's Flaw, play bluegrass. Karen and I were late because we went to an author's panel on Urban Renewal. It was a cute title for a disparate group of authors who use different cities as characters in their writing. Always enjoyable to listen to what they have to say about their books. I may be interested in getting Scott Simon's new book, Windy City, because of the panel. We got to hear about 3 songs by the Flaw and say hi to Tom and John. It was way too hot to stick around and we had to get up hill to see our next panel, so Karen and I begged our leave. It actually looked like John needed help carrying his banjos, not that that had any influence on our hasty adieu.

Our next panel was a bunch of scientists. Segre was there to talk about the book I already have. The guy who wrote the prize winner, I am a Strange Loop, was there. Not impressive, despite the prize. This is not a book I would look for. Karen had a nice discussion with him on the way over to the FOB that day, so it was like seeing a nice guy who becomes loopy when talking about his book. Dava Sobal was there. She wrote Galileo's Daughter a couple of years ago. I've already read that one. It was interesting, but we had to fly across campus for our last panel, so we left early. I don't fly, so we had to leave really early, after they had all talked a bit about their books.

Our final panel was with Michael Connelly (on the left) interviewing Joseph Wambaugh. Karen and I really like Connelly's books. He is very reserved when you meet him and when he is on a panel. Wambaugh didn't want to be there, but he was because he has a new book to sell. I don't think I want to read it. I really want to read Connelly's next book which is about Harry Bosch meeting the lawyer from The Lincoln Lawyer. Now that should be very good. I was tempted for a second to get Wambaugh's previous book, but it isn't on Audible and I'm not interested enough to spend my "physical reading" (reading real books) time to this trashy stuff. Obviously, I will listen to trash. :)

We had dinner at our hotel, Angeleno, overlooking the westside of LA. It was gorgeous. This restaurant has horrible service and questionable food, but my companion was great so it was a good evening. We won't be able to go to the FOB next year so this was a swan song. Maybe when I move back to Berkeley we can make a girls weekend of it. Maybe.