Book geeks on the Mall
Yesterday, propinquitine and I went to the [National Book Festival], which was quite awesome.
Naturally I spent the whole time at the Children's and Teen's Pavilions. :) Highlights included the launch of [The Exquisite Corpse Adventure] (an online only serial novel, with each chapter written by a different children's author, and an utterly ridiculous beginning by Jon Scieszka), where the panel of authors also gave a really nice shout-out to libraries and librarians that made me all squishy and happy; Mo Willems, on whom I have a giant author crush, and seeing him only made it bigger because I was grinning madly the entire time; Lois Lowry AND Judy Blume, both excellent authors and queens of banned books (both in the top ten lists of most frequently challenged books/authors quite frequently), and they are both wonderful in person; random authors in between, and no one disappointed me at all, which is always a win. :D
But one of my most favourite parts of the National Book Festival is how many people attend. It's so wonderful to see all those book geeks! And I love getting on the Metro and spotting people who are obviously attending because they are studying their festival maps or wearing their purple event staff t-shirts. It makes me so happy to reaffirm that, yes, there are still lots of people who love books and authors and reading. ♥
After the festival, propinquitine and I grabbed takeaway from Teaism and then went back to my flat to procure Merlin, which we had great fun watching and nitpicking and bemoaning and giggling over together. :D
So it was quite a happy day, although interspersed with bits of sadness as I was, of course, thinking of Coach Watkins, too.
And today I spent doing homework all day to make up for yesterday's frivolousness.
Naturally I spent the whole time at the Children's and Teen's Pavilions. :) Highlights included the launch of [The Exquisite Corpse Adventure] (an online only serial novel, with each chapter written by a different children's author, and an utterly ridiculous beginning by Jon Scieszka), where the panel of authors also gave a really nice shout-out to libraries and librarians that made me all squishy and happy; Mo Willems, on whom I have a giant author crush, and seeing him only made it bigger because I was grinning madly the entire time; Lois Lowry AND Judy Blume, both excellent authors and queens of banned books (both in the top ten lists of most frequently challenged books/authors quite frequently), and they are both wonderful in person; random authors in between, and no one disappointed me at all, which is always a win. :D
But one of my most favourite parts of the National Book Festival is how many people attend. It's so wonderful to see all those book geeks! And I love getting on the Metro and spotting people who are obviously attending because they are studying their festival maps or wearing their purple event staff t-shirts. It makes me so happy to reaffirm that, yes, there are still lots of people who love books and authors and reading. ♥
After the festival, propinquitine and I grabbed takeaway from Teaism and then went back to my flat to procure Merlin, which we had great fun watching and nitpicking and bemoaning and giggling over together. :D
So it was quite a happy day, although interspersed with bits of sadness as I was, of course, thinking of Coach Watkins, too.
And today I spent doing homework all day to make up for yesterday's frivolousness.