My BEA Recap: A Fairly Pitiful Story

Before I begin, I just put my BEA loot on the floor to take a picture of it, went to get my phone, came back, and the cat was already dozing on my pile. She is a smart cat. (Yet don't let that fool you because in this photo, you can still see a glimmer of evil in her eyes.)


Anyway, my BEA experience ended up being...well...pretty pathetic. I knew I wasn't going to get to spend much time at the conference itself—only half a day or so when I could take a break from work. I had RSVPed, though, to several blogger events and was looking forward to attending and mingling.

And then the dreaded summer cold struck. A cold in the summer! What sacrilege! I woke up Monday with a scratchy throat, faded quickly throughout the day, and chose an early bedtime over all post-work activities for the day. I stayed home, feverish, on Tuesday, and mustered up enough strength to get to BEA Wednesday morning before heading back to work. I started the day by waiting in line for Sharon Creech's new book, and I immediately questioned whether that was such a good idea; I was woozy and clammy and overheating and feared fainting before I reached the front of the line. I made it through, though, and had a pretty good rest of the morning, despite feeling like total crap.

My small take-away pile includes:

• The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech — Chasing Redbird was in my top 3 as a kid, so this was a lady I was excited to meet.
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward — I've heard this author's name before, but I'm not sure where. In my pre-BEA planning, I deemed this one worthy of a read.
• Dare Me by Megan Abbott — Also made the grab list; plus I ran into someone I know from college who happens to be the publicist for this book.
• Edenbrooke by Julianna Donaldson — Oh, English countryside romances; a perfect selection for armchair summer vacation.
• Teresa Giudice's Fabulicious! Fast & Fit Italian cookbook — My work BFF demanded I accompany her to this booth so she could meet Teresa and I could be the photographer. This is now the second Housewife I have met with her, but at least I got a free cookbook this time.
• Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun — I saw a stack of this in a booth and took one because a book with such a subject is always helpful on your average work day.

Maybe next year, BEA. Maybe next year.

The Obligatory BEA Week Planning Post

I'm just gonna hop on the bandwagon and throw a quick note out there about next week's exciting book adventures in the Big Apple. It's BEA and Book Blogger Con...yayyyy!

As a resident New Yorker, I haven't been anticipating next week as a major event since I don't have to go anywhere or really plan anything...and I also still have to work all next week, limiting my time at BEA (one, I thankfully work for a company that has a booth and I will get to attend at some point during the day; two, never fear, I did take a personal day for BBCon). Also, my attendance at the BBCon reception is completely dependent on if I happen to already be at the Javits Center during BEA hours on Thursday. However, there are still lots of fun activities outside of my working hours and beyond official BEA events that I will be attending.

The two big ones:

• HarperCollins' Celebration of Book Bloggers at the Algonquin Hotel on Wednesday night (the 26th), 7—9 pm.
• Goodreads' New York City Literary Pub Crawl on Thursday night (the 27th), starting at 7pm. This one starts at Housing Works Bookstore in Soho with a cocktail hour and readings by Amy King, Colson Whitehead, and Emily St. John Mandel; then heads on to Botanica, Tom & Jerry's, and KGB Bar. Can't make any promises as to how far I'll crawl, but I'm aiming for at least half.

For some excellent compilations of signings, conferences, events at BEA, check out the lists Jen has posted at Devourer of Books.

I'd love to meet as many fellow booknerds as I can, so feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email and I'll keep my eye out for you! And if you have a hankering to explore the rest of the city and have questions about anything NYC related, please ask!

BookExpo America 2009!

I was lucky enough to attend BEA using one of my company's passes, and it was pretty much just heaven for a booknerd like me. At least, it seems to be heaven if you don't have to work the company booth. In that case, I hear it's rather boring. Anyway, I attended some of the pre-conference panel sessions on Thursday and returned on Friday afternoon to check out the exhibition floor in full swing. And wow. Every kind of book, publication, and publisher you could imagine was present. The best part was, of course, the free books you could get through author signings, and most of these were ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) that don't hit the shelves til late this year!

From my three-hour stint at BEA, I came home with a good collection of books to read. I spoke to several of the authors, all of whom seemed excited to meet people who were clearly avid readers. So look for early reviews of the following books in the coming months.

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

Eli the Good by Silas House

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Stitches by David Small

Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle

Beg, Borrow, and Steal by Michael Greenberg

Also, the Times wrote an interesting article about BookExpo and what it showed about the future of publishing.