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Decatur Book Fest 2012
Obviously, my weekend peaked when Meg Cabot accepted my Ron Swanson inspired mug (and then tweeted about it– go me!), but here are some other highlights from the Decatur Book Festival.
3 books for $10! And this was not some BS book sale with a bunch of books you’ve never seen before or 30 copies of Twilight from publisher’s remainders. Oh no. These were books you might actually want. Given that I’ve managed to accrue 50 e-books this summer, I resisted the urge. But it was tempting.
It’s nice to know that even book festivals, very classy affairs, still advocate for all kinds of fried foods.
You can’t host a book festival in Georgia without nodding to Gone With the Wind in some way. My apologies to this couple, whom I do not know, but you are very cute here, for what it’s worth.
A nice touch: The Wish Tree. Just hang your wish on a branch and let it float in the breeze.
Here’s my wish:
But I saw this one, and I thought it was just charming. My heart swells when people get excited around books.
Bookzilla at the court house:
A growing trend: little libraries. People leave these little boxes around town and other people leave and take books from them in a community of book sharing. They got local artists to create their own little libraries and hosted a silent auction.
It’s not a festival without a fancy frozen treat from King of Pops, Lemon Basil to be exact. Later, my hair stylist told me how much she reviles King of Pops because he causes traffic on her street, and she can’t wait for Michael Jackson’s lawyers to take him out. I nodded, but I still had the delicious taste of Lemon Basil in my mouth,
The Jane Austen Society of North America made a showing, and they did not let the heat stop them from their cosplay.
That parasol looks nice, but that girl is roasting. Poor thing. I respect her commitment.
And finally, there’s always money in the banana stand.
Conversations with Books, Part 3
Here’s more of my imagined conversations between my books. For an explanation of this, see here and here.
Here we have the mythology shelf, where two very different males engage in personal odysseys through a modern world populated by the ancient gods. Teenage Percy Jackson and his pals might be frightened by hardened criminal Shadow from American Gods. True that Percy’s faced down snake-headed ladies and fought death itself, but Shadow’s a little rougher around the edges. Shadow would probably order a straight vodka with his breakfast and Percy would say, “Uh, I’ll have OJ. Straight.” Shadow would smile and say something manly and Percy would shoot a panicked look at Annabeth, who would roll her eyes and reach for Edith Hamilton’s Mythology to correct everything it got wrong.
Here we have a little stack of nice YA romances, and I’d like to send all of them on a triple date together. True that one of them is dead (I won’t say who), but we’ll pretend they’re all alive and healthy enough to sit around a table at a kitschy diner with a fantastic jukebox. Nick and Norah would be engaged in lively debate about music with Audrey and James, and Hazel and Augustus from The Fault in Our Stars would share a milkshake and grins while they listened. Eventually the talk would turn to bad ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, Augustus would impishly play “Audey, Wait,” and the whole group would end up dancing like maniacs.
This is where the upper class hangs out. Naturally, Emma is holding court in the middle and happily telling the Annes from Persuasion and Jane Austen in Scarsdale exactly who they should marry and when. The Annes are making eye contact over head and rolling their eyes. Luckily, Emma has a couple of disciples in Megan from How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls and basically all of the teenagers in Sweet Valley. Emma would really like to be sharing tea with Gatsby, but he considers her to be too frivolous and the rest of them to be too nouveau riche for his tastes. Jessica Wakefield is confident she’ll be BFFs with Daisy though because Jessica Wakefield is delusional.
Conversations with Books, Part 2
Here’s more of the imagined conversations between the books on my new bookshelves. See Part 1 here.
The road trip books are crowding the top shelf and trying to ignore my scrapbook from study abroad at Oxford. They’re like, “Look, unless this journey of yours is a metaphor for finding yourself, we’re not interested.” The Murry kids from A Wrinkle in Time are sitting next to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I’m sure they’re comparing notes to see if they met any of the same people. Richard Mayhew from Neverwhere is eavesdropping and trying to get up the nerve to jump in. I put both of John Green’s road trip books next to As I Lay Dying because I figure those smartie pants kids will feel smug about sitting next to William Faulkner. Also, Alaska and Margo can get together and form the “John Green Dream Girls” club. I’ve helpfully supplied Amy and Roger with a handful of guidebooks, though Antarctica would be a long drive for them. Finally, the Tolkien hobbitses are feeling bewildered on their perch next to manic Maureen Johnson and her 13 Little Blue Envelopes series. She’s loving it, of course, and she’s asking many inappropriate questions about Sauron.
Elsewhere, Mindy Kaling is dropping bon mots to an impressed Bridget Jones and a slightly confused Elizabeth Bennet. Bridge is proposing cocktails, Mindy is proposing cocktails and crazy manicures, Elizabeth is finding modern English much too familiar, and Georgia Nicolson is scheming to swipe some booze and trying to pick up tips from Ms Jones. Mindy tries out her best fake British accent, and the other three dissolve in laughs. Ruby Oliver from The Boy List is craning her head around the others to exchange wry looks with Sloane Crosley and Daria.
Ah, the dreaded Vampires and The Women Who Love Them shelf. Bella takes up a lot of room here (of course she does), but there’s room for a kind of support group moderated by the author Dead Travel Fast. He’s like, “You guys know these are creatures who actually want to kill you, right?” And Elena of The Vampire Diaries is like, “Yeah, but have you seen them? Super good looking.” Bella high fives her and makes some comments about sparkling. At this point, Vlad Dracula turns his head and clears his throat meaningful while pointing to his gross and sparkle-free face and Meena Harper from Insatiable makes a gagging sound. Finney of My Dead Girlfriend scratches his head and says, “So, none of you are dating ghosts? Why am I here again?” And that’s when I sheepishly admit that he just fit into the space really nicely.
Next time: A date night for some YA couples and the children of the Gods have brunch.
Conversations with Books, Part 1
A while ago, I found this suggestion online:
Imagine your books are persons. Then arrange them according to the conversations they could have with their neighbors.
Naturally, it captures my imagination to think of my books waiting until I flick off the lights to engage in their after dark chats. When I built my new bookcases and rearranged my home office, I spent hours one Sunday afternoon arranging many of my books in this way. I’ll be sharing some of my favorites over the next couple of days.
The books about precocious kids all got together for a wild rumpus on one of the lower shelves. Allie Finkle is pretending to be a foreign ninja warrior princess with Betsy and Tacy, while Turtle Wexler and Flavia de Luce start a girl’s detective agency. The kids from The Goonies (Yeah, I have the movie novelization. Jealous?) are joining up with Stanley Yelnats and the other delinquents from Holes to find a way to rescue the Lemony Snicket kids (“Orphans never say die! Down here, it’s our time!”), while Matilda and Kat Incorrigible sip tea and discuss Regency era romances and take turns moving things with their eyes to freak out the other kids. I thought about pairing Nanny from The Nanny Diaries with a cute single memoir guy, but I needed someone to wrangle the moppets at bedtime.
I like to imagine this stack gathered around a flashlight at a sleepover when a storm is brewing outside. Catherine from Northanger and the nameless new Mrs de Winter from Rebecca could get themselves all in a dither with their tales of gothic fright. Then the ghostly narrator from The Lovely Bones could be like, “You guys are weak sauce. I have a better story about a creepy neighbor guy who built an underground cave.” And then Ms Roach, who would be surprised to find herself on my bookshelf in the dark, would roll her eyes and tell them that so-called “mediums” used to stuff gauze up their ladyparts to trick people into thinking they were spewing ectoplasm and, sorry Susie Salmon, but you probably don’t exist. But then Rory from Name of the Star would be like, “Uh, hey, I see dead people, so maybe they’re right.” And then thunder would boom through the room and they would all scream and jump.
On this shelf, Katniss from The Hunger Games and Katsa from Graceling compete in a super intense archery contest complete with flinty stares while Peeta and Po sit to the side drinking beer and exchanging war stories. They’d kind of be hoping for a Girl Fight when the lost boys from Lord of the Flies would come over the hill screeching that they’re going to kill the pig, but they’d stop dead when Katniss and Katsa turn the power of their stone cold gazes on them. Peeta would say, “Hey, guys, have a beer or something. The girls will shoot us a pig for dinner later. Where’d you get that face paint? Do you have any left? That really takes me back.” And Po would say, “I sense these guys could use a bath.” They’d all have a good laugh, and then they’d discuss survival skills and form an alliance to take down the rest of the bookcase.
Tomorrow: Mindy Kaling and Bridget Jones have lots of questions for Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy and a bunch of books take a road trip together.
M. Dabski 