*flails all over*

[winkingstar]

It's almost time for the National Book Festival! Okay, it's not for two more weeks, but still.

Last year, there wasn't anyone I was particularly looking forward to seeing, but of course I went anyway because, you know, book geek and I was vaguely interested in some of the people, just not bouncing-off-the-walls. Mostly the authors I popped in at

Comments

[flyakate]

Jon Scieszka is awesome. He came and spoke at grad school last year and he was so adorable and told us all about the questions that kids ask when he comes to visit them and it was cuuuuuute.

Lovely list of cool people! I am excited about (hopefully) getting to meet Jeanne Deprau, who wrote City of Ember (the other ones I still have to read).

Yay books and the people who make them!

[winkingstar]

Oh, yay! I'm glad to hear he's awesome! I'm always extremely apprehensive about seeing beloved authors in person, as it's always such a disappointment when they turn out to be rather dull.

I hope Jeanne Duprau is awesome! :)

[propinquitine]

You met Mercer Mayer?! The very first book I ever read by myself was his "Just Me and My Dad". I remember it so clearly, sitting upstairs in my parents' bed, looking at this book that I'd paged through countless times before, and all of a sudden, something clicked in my brain, and those letter shapes on the page were actual words that made sense all strung together. It was such a revelation! I ran downstairs to show my parents, and at first they thought I was just reciting from memory, but I was so excited and insistent that no! Something different was going on here, and it was amazing! Books! Those things my parents and older brother spent so much time with! Now completely accessible to me! Thank you, Mr. Mayer!

So yes, v. envious that you get to hang out with my hero-authors! Please to be fangirling Alexander McCall Smith for me? No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is brilliant!

[winkingstar]

That is so cool that you remember the moment when reading became reading!

Yes, Mercer Mayer was truly awesome. He was the Festival Artist last year (I have one of the posters!) so his talk was a bit longer than most other authors'. And he doodled stuff on a big white paper pad and played the ukulele. He wins at life. ♥

Alexander McCall Smith is also pretty awesome. I've seen him before, when he gave a lecture at UCSB. He wears a kilt to authorial occasions. And also says witty/amusing/interesting things. You could come down for the weekend... *tempts with cookies and fabulous authors* I do have plenty of floor space, you know. Or a futon. Though I can't guarantee having two bathrooms.

[propinquitine]

Oh, man, visiting for the Festival would be awesome. Kay Bailey Hutchison is going to be there! And I could tell Philippa Gregory how I managed to ruin the ending of "The Other Boleyn Girl" for a reading group in college. (SPOILERS Anne gets beheaded. Some of my friends . . . did not know this. It was one case where I didn't really feel bad about spoiling someone.) I'll have to check the bus lines and see if it's financially feasible, but -- that would be so much fun! Alexander McCall Smith in a kilt? How can I resist?

p.s. That's a hot reading icon. I wonder if Tolstoy will be there?! (Along those lines, have you ever seen Improv Everywhere's report of the time they held a book reading for

[winkingstar]

OH MY GOD, YOU TOTALLY RUINED THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL FOR ME. I DON'T THINK WE CAN BE FRIENDS ANYMORE IF YOU ARE GOING TO GO AROUND SPOILING THINGS.

Coooooooome to the Book Festival! *wheedles* I tried to get Brittany to come, too, but she can't since she has a friend visiting from Israel the next day.

JFlan + books = hotness.

And that Chekov thing is totally brilliant! :D (I would have been one of those dubiously excited people, too.)