Texas Book Festival 2009It's fall again and time to get ready for the Texas Book Festival 2009. The Texas Book Festival first started in 1996. Last year, Jim and I were both disappointed that there were not more "collectible authors" invited to the Book Festival. We thought maybe the timing just before the election had something to do with it perhaps. Other people we talked to at the Festival felt the same way. Evidently, someone in charge noticed that the crowds and the book sales were down. Because this year there are a lot of very collectible, big name authors who will be signing their books! Jim and I were thrilled with the author list. Friday Before The 2009 Texas Book FestivalJim and I arrived in Austin on Friday afternoon. As usual we checked into a hotel in the north part of Austin and then went out book scouting. We first visited Book People ... a new and used Book Store.
The store is laid out well. It has areas both upstairs and downstairs are devoted to various genre. They have hardback and paperback books ... a few are signed as they have quite a few author signings at the store. While we were in the literature aisle we found two first of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin - a National Book Award nominee. On the discount tables we located first edition copies of March by Geraldine Brooks. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. I talked with a very knowledgeable saleslady in the young adult department. She said that they had heavily promoted The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins last year. There were no firsts. The book is in the 9th printing. I did buy a signed copy of Kristin Cashore's second book Fire. Ms. Cashore had signed a shipment of books. She didn't actually sign in person. We also visited two Half Price Book stores. One we really like (on the north side of Austin near where we were staying) has a large rare book room. We have not seen other stores that have a room like this. It also had a lot of common books we would not have considered rare or expensive. We browsed for a while but did not see anything we wanted. After dinner we got our books ready for Saturday. Saturday at the 2009 Texas Book FestivalSaturday was the most hectic Book Festival Day that I can remember. Partly due to the number of authors but also because of the expansion of the Festival into nearby theaters and even a church!. Jim had brought about 80 books to be signed. I had about 10 books to be signed.
My first trip was to the Paramount Theatre which was a few blocks away on Congress Avenue. The Paramount was apparently once an old movie theatre seating about 1000 people. At 10 AM the theater was full with parents and a lot of young pre-teen children and teenagers. We were all there to see Rick Riordan . I had a book, The Lightning Thief, I had bought two years ago to be signed. While I was at the Paramount, Jim was attending Richard Russo's presentation at a Presbyterian Church next to the Festival tents.
He said Mr. Russo apologized before his reading since it contained off-color language. He had never read from his books in a church. After the signing, I loaded up with Jim and my Buzz Aldrin books and walked back to the Paramount Theatre. After the Buzz Aldrin signing, I went back to the signing tents. We both had books for him to sign afterward. Jim also got Dan Chaon to sign his National Book Award nominated books for him. I had Motherless Brooklyn and his latest book Chronic City. We both went our separate ways for the rest of the afternoon. We met up later at the Paramount Theatre ... for the Margaret Atwood signing. We missed her readings but fortunately there were first edition books available. The Year Of The Flood, is her latest. And most importantly, she was kind enough and patient enough to sign all the books that people brought in to her. She could have limited the number of books but she didn't and Jim and I were very grateful. She is one of the greatest living Canadian authors. We appreciate authors like her that came this year to Texas Book Festival 2009. Unfortunately, I spent about half the day standing in line to get books signed. That's how it is sometimes. I would have preferred to be able to listen to a few more authors.
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Jim went to a reading by Jonathan Lethem. 
