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shadowkatI really should not be permitted near a book festival when I'm in book buying mode. [Apparently I've inherited this compulsive tendency from my father, whom my mother tells me cannot enter a book store without acquiring at least one book and usually, a hard-back, non-fiction, policy or history book. Drives her crazy.] At church today or on the way into it, JM (the greeter - who I had a crush on last year, but have now, wisely, decided he's too much of an asshole to bother with it) asked how I was doing, I said fine, but was rather distracted by the Brooklyn Book Festival - which to my credit was just around the corner and I had to wander through it to get to church.
JM: Yes, that sounds like something that would definitely distract someone like you.
Me: You've no idea.
Sort of reminiscent of my co-worker, who asked, "Are you one of those people who is always reading a book?" My response: "Often more than one."
So, I wandered into the Brooklyn Book Festival (determined not to buy any books) - every year I tell myself that I'll skip church and do the Festival in the morning before it gets too crowded and every year I don't and live to regret it. I also tell myself I won't buy any books. The dang thing was packed to the gills after church. But I was determined to visit as many booths as possible. Better selection this year than last, each year it gets a bit better. More minority writers, less self-published young adult romance novels - which seemed to take up half the booths last year (resulting in less book buying on my end last year), didn't see any this year. I think that trend may have finally reached its saturation point (we can only hope).
Also managed to listen to a few speakers. The organizers wizened up and instead of long lines, do it by click - they count off and close off the room once it hits capacity and have the bigger, more popular events outside where more people can attend. I didn't stay long enough to see Naomi Novik, Temeri, Hamil, or Cat Valente...which is just as well, they were all speaking around 3-5pm, I left at 2:30pm, due to information overload and low blood-sugar (I hadn't eaten anything since 9:30 am and had a headache coming on as a result.
I did watch and for a bit, listen to Tony Danza discuss his experiences teaching in the Philadephia inner city schools, Julia Glass (The Three Junes) discuss writing methodology, Naomi Wolfe (The Vagina) on the new female sexuality, Kate Bornstein discuss the Beauty myth from the perspective of queer jewish boy who wanted to be a girl, and I meet Denis Lehane, Edwidge Danticat, and Nandi Keys. Also saw Walter Mosley.
I told Edwidge Danticat that I don't normally like to get autographs. They embarrass me to be honest. But with writers, especially novelists, I can't help myself. She told me as a writer she appreciated that greatly. And wrote in her autograph - to continue to "read dangerously". Which is an interesting sentiment. Although it was clearly a play on words - considering she was signing her award-winning book of personal essays, Create Dangerously. Still I found it inspiring, as both a reader and writer. I'd picked up a book to get Lehane to sign, mainly because I wanted to personally thank him for his writing on the tv series The Wire - he joined in S3, and wrote a lot of episodes in Seasons 4 & 5. The man understands gritty urban ambiguity quite well. Not a very tall man. Quite small in stature. Makes me think of Jimmy McNulty for some reason.
Julia Glass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Junes) published her first novel in her 40s. She talks about how writing is an incremental process that does not happen quickly. That people who insist you have to write every day are full of bunk. As long as you write, it is fine. Glass bemoans all the gadetry. We aren't given enough time inside our own heads any more - where the creation begins. We're so busy keeping track of everything, plugged in 24/7, that there is no time to dream. Which made me feel better about not upgrading my cell phone and not walking around with it on or constantly texting people. (Or losing patience at T-Mobile and leaving before they could upgrade it to a Samsung Galaxy RS.)
Another inspiring speaker was Kate Bornstein who as a fat chubby Jewish boy who desperately wanted to be cute and pretty, she got the beauty myth. She spent years aneorexic, filled with self-loathing because she did not meet society's view of beauty or gender. She just wanted to be a girl.
And was sadomasochistic - she is a masochist sexually and likes it. It's okay to be different, Kate Borenstein stated. To be who you truly are. Naomi Woolf agreed, explaining how a spinal injury made her realize that the pelvic area is an erogenous zone and a great deal of female organism comes from stimulation in that area. (I sort of already knew that, didn't need a spinal injury to figure it out.) Am tempted to grab Bornstein's book on the Kindle.
Then there was Nandi Key - the author of The True Nanny Diaries - who is promoting her somewhat controversial book on her own - a small booth, with dated credit card equipment. She hails from Trinidad and is a struggling writer for 20 years. She wrote...to "a fellow life traveler". I felt for her.
And, while I didn't stick around to meet Salman Rushdie, I did purchase two autographed books by Rushdie. Midnight's Children and his memoir entitled Joseph Anton which was recently published. Joseph Anton is about Rushdie's experiences publishing the Satanic Verses and living with a death threat over his head. The struggle to write, under the threat of death.
It's odd, I felt no writer's envy towards these people, just a sense of kinship and gratitude for providing me with the gift of their stories. Their strength. Their uncertainity. And their struggles. The bond between reader and writer...as opposed to the competitive envy of writer to writer. And I think the reason why is their stories are such deeply personal ones. It takes guts to write these stories. Time and guts.
I entitled this entry...the people who do not love to read books will not understand...because I've met so many of these people. In Kansas, growing up, most of my friends and acquaintances did not like to read. And if they did, they read the latest quick best-seller, which required little attention. For reading requires work. You have to train your mind to slow down and translate the words into pictures. To see the story. And to see how the writing style frames it. It's not something you are born with, you learn to read. It takes time. And effort. It took more effort for me, than it does for a lot of people - because I was born with a type of dyslexia. So the way they were teaching me how to read in school (phonics) did not work for me. I could not learn that way. But I loved books. I loved the tales inside them. I loved being read to. I took books to bed with me. Slept with them the way someone might sleep with a doll or a teddy bear. And once I figured out how to read them - in the 2nd and 3rd Grades, there was no stopping me. I read whatever I could find. I devored books. Not always remembering what I devoured. I read every spare moment I could find. My favorite gift at Xmas was the new books under the tree - priceless treasures that I started reading immediately. My favorite moment was when we'd all gather as a family beside the fireplace, on couches, chairs, the rug and just read.
People who do not love to read bewilder me. Yet, they appeared to be the majority. Oh they'll read work-related materials, or magazines, or the newspaper, but not a novel. God forbid a fictional one, because it's not real.
For me...it's the opposite. I live because of stories. I cannot breath without them. They comfort me. Books make me happy. Not always the authors. But always the books. And today I picked up 6 more of them, five signed, one not.
JM: Yes, that sounds like something that would definitely distract someone like you.
Me: You've no idea.
Sort of reminiscent of my co-worker, who asked, "Are you one of those people who is always reading a book?" My response: "Often more than one."
So, I wandered into the Brooklyn Book Festival (determined not to buy any books) - every year I tell myself that I'll skip church and do the Festival in the morning before it gets too crowded and every year I don't and live to regret it. I also tell myself I won't buy any books. The dang thing was packed to the gills after church. But I was determined to visit as many booths as possible. Better selection this year than last, each year it gets a bit better. More minority writers, less self-published young adult romance novels - which seemed to take up half the booths last year (resulting in less book buying on my end last year), didn't see any this year. I think that trend may have finally reached its saturation point (we can only hope).
Also managed to listen to a few speakers. The organizers wizened up and instead of long lines, do it by click - they count off and close off the room once it hits capacity and have the bigger, more popular events outside where more people can attend. I didn't stay long enough to see Naomi Novik, Temeri, Hamil, or Cat Valente...which is just as well, they were all speaking around 3-5pm, I left at 2:30pm, due to information overload and low blood-sugar (I hadn't eaten anything since 9:30 am and had a headache coming on as a result.
I did watch and for a bit, listen to Tony Danza discuss his experiences teaching in the Philadephia inner city schools, Julia Glass (The Three Junes) discuss writing methodology, Naomi Wolfe (The Vagina) on the new female sexuality, Kate Bornstein discuss the Beauty myth from the perspective of queer jewish boy who wanted to be a girl, and I meet Denis Lehane, Edwidge Danticat, and Nandi Keys. Also saw Walter Mosley.
I told Edwidge Danticat that I don't normally like to get autographs. They embarrass me to be honest. But with writers, especially novelists, I can't help myself. She told me as a writer she appreciated that greatly. And wrote in her autograph - to continue to "read dangerously". Which is an interesting sentiment. Although it was clearly a play on words - considering she was signing her award-winning book of personal essays, Create Dangerously. Still I found it inspiring, as both a reader and writer. I'd picked up a book to get Lehane to sign, mainly because I wanted to personally thank him for his writing on the tv series The Wire - he joined in S3, and wrote a lot of episodes in Seasons 4 & 5. The man understands gritty urban ambiguity quite well. Not a very tall man. Quite small in stature. Makes me think of Jimmy McNulty for some reason.
Julia Glass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Junes) published her first novel in her 40s. She talks about how writing is an incremental process that does not happen quickly. That people who insist you have to write every day are full of bunk. As long as you write, it is fine. Glass bemoans all the gadetry. We aren't given enough time inside our own heads any more - where the creation begins. We're so busy keeping track of everything, plugged in 24/7, that there is no time to dream. Which made me feel better about not upgrading my cell phone and not walking around with it on or constantly texting people. (Or losing patience at T-Mobile and leaving before they could upgrade it to a Samsung Galaxy RS.)
Another inspiring speaker was Kate Bornstein who as a fat chubby Jewish boy who desperately wanted to be cute and pretty, she got the beauty myth. She spent years aneorexic, filled with self-loathing because she did not meet society's view of beauty or gender. She just wanted to be a girl.
And was sadomasochistic - she is a masochist sexually and likes it. It's okay to be different, Kate Borenstein stated. To be who you truly are. Naomi Woolf agreed, explaining how a spinal injury made her realize that the pelvic area is an erogenous zone and a great deal of female organism comes from stimulation in that area. (I sort of already knew that, didn't need a spinal injury to figure it out.) Am tempted to grab Bornstein's book on the Kindle.
Then there was Nandi Key - the author of The True Nanny Diaries - who is promoting her somewhat controversial book on her own - a small booth, with dated credit card equipment. She hails from Trinidad and is a struggling writer for 20 years. She wrote...to "a fellow life traveler". I felt for her.
And, while I didn't stick around to meet Salman Rushdie, I did purchase two autographed books by Rushdie. Midnight's Children and his memoir entitled Joseph Anton which was recently published. Joseph Anton is about Rushdie's experiences publishing the Satanic Verses and living with a death threat over his head. The struggle to write, under the threat of death.
It's odd, I felt no writer's envy towards these people, just a sense of kinship and gratitude for providing me with the gift of their stories. Their strength. Their uncertainity. And their struggles. The bond between reader and writer...as opposed to the competitive envy of writer to writer. And I think the reason why is their stories are such deeply personal ones. It takes guts to write these stories. Time and guts.
I entitled this entry...the people who do not love to read books will not understand...because I've met so many of these people. In Kansas, growing up, most of my friends and acquaintances did not like to read. And if they did, they read the latest quick best-seller, which required little attention. For reading requires work. You have to train your mind to slow down and translate the words into pictures. To see the story. And to see how the writing style frames it. It's not something you are born with, you learn to read. It takes time. And effort. It took more effort for me, than it does for a lot of people - because I was born with a type of dyslexia. So the way they were teaching me how to read in school (phonics) did not work for me. I could not learn that way. But I loved books. I loved the tales inside them. I loved being read to. I took books to bed with me. Slept with them the way someone might sleep with a doll or a teddy bear. And once I figured out how to read them - in the 2nd and 3rd Grades, there was no stopping me. I read whatever I could find. I devored books. Not always remembering what I devoured. I read every spare moment I could find. My favorite gift at Xmas was the new books under the tree - priceless treasures that I started reading immediately. My favorite moment was when we'd all gather as a family beside the fireplace, on couches, chairs, the rug and just read.
People who do not love to read bewilder me. Yet, they appeared to be the majority. Oh they'll read work-related materials, or magazines, or the newspaper, but not a novel. God forbid a fictional one, because it's not real.
For me...it's the opposite. I live because of stories. I cannot breath without them. They comfort me. Books make me happy. Not always the authors. But always the books. And today I picked up 6 more of them, five signed, one not.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-24 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 02:34 am (UTC)Nothing like the NYC Book Festival. Or most music festivals (which I avoid like the plague). Live music and me are unmixy things - because those are always packed with people.
At any rate, agree books and large crowds are unmixy things - it makes it hard to browse.