Chekhov’s Mistess

When I Was Not Me or The BookExpo Photo Report Part IV

Over three days at BookExpo I spoke to more people than I might in a month otherwise. I felt as though I were someone else; some outgoing, hand-shaking, card-taking, smiling nodding guy with a camera around my neck and a bag full of books. At home on Sunday I melted down and did little more than lay around the house and the park (literally, it was nearly ninety here yesterday and much of today was spent buying hauling and installing air conditioners throughout our palace).

[this post is too long for the front page. Please follow the link below to read the rest.]

This was my first BEA so I had few expectations. In my own past history, I’ve gone to a great number of political economy type conferences where most of my time was spent in discussions on the intricacies of currency boards, bond covenants or other such arcana. I didn’t think this would be much different, other than the topic at hand, which, so I thought, would surround the secrets of the mysterious beast we know of as the publishing industry. So my biggest surprise was that most of BEA happens on the exhibition floor – and a fine floor it was too. Most conventions leave you burdened with knicknacks like nerf footballs or bottle openers, but at BEA the booty is books books and more books.

And if you looked hard enough, there were other goodies too. There were t-shirts…

Moleskine, for one had a home down amongst the bookmarks, reading pillows and greeting cards. Nathalie, the Tireless Ed Champion and I swept down upon the Moleskine booth and started pitching potential customers (theirs), interviewing the sales manager (Ed did this), and lifting a handful of the new reporter’s notebooks (I got two of those and three of the small ones).

They barely knew what hit’em, but since I’ve written about their fine little notebooks before, I felt entitled to a few freebies – enough so that when they offered me unruled notebooks as part of the press pack, I snubbed my nose at them and asked for something more appropriate for the pencily challenged.

I also confirmed (and I use that word loosely in this case), that it was indeed a Moleskine notebook that Che Guevara (Gael García Bernal) used in the recent film “Motorcycle Diaries.”

But the show wasn’t just about grab-bags of goodies and sullen bagpipers, it was about books and the people that write them and edit them and review them and publicize them and sell them.

I happened upon a couple of book signings and while that was far from my purpose of being there (as undefined as that might have been), I couldn’t resist. Earlier I posted a photo I took of Robert Pinsky. He had a signing later that day, which I attended. He was an amiable guy and he thought Chekhov’s Mistress was a great name (making him a great guy in my eyes).

I had a surprise when I saw what he was signing. I had hopped in line, not knowing anything about the book and thought I was going to get a poetry treat. The book had my name scrolled on the title page before I even saw that it was The Life of David, rather than a book of verse. Still, we’ll see what it looks like and I’ll report back when I’ve had a chance to delve in a bit. The Pinsky title is the first in the “Jewish Encounters” series by Nextbook and Schocken.

There were of course many signings going on, but another one I happened upon was Spike Lee’s, for his forthcoming memoir/biography that is characterized as being “told to” the author. I thought that sort of “as told to” was reserved for those that couldn’t write and weren’t afraid to admit it. I can hardly imagine that Shelton Jackson Lee (as the book tells us he was christened) couldn’t pound out his own memoir, but I have to say that I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far. I couldn’t resist telling Spike that I lived in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn where his offices are located and close to where some of his films were shot. But if I can quote from his book, you will see how silly it was to think that I would endear myself to Spike by telling him about being his neighbor: “in Do The Right Thing wherein Spike attempted to comment on the gentrification of Fort Greene, as poor blacks moved out to be supplanted by an influx of the white middle class attracted to by the burgeoning artistic reputation of the area.” The smile says it all.

Closer in some ways to my literary purposes, there was one more signing I stumbled upon. The author of the forthcoming children’s book, “Drift House” (Bloomsbury) was none other than Dale Peck, literary critic and, as he might be described, father of the snarky book review. Most of the folks in the Bloomsbury booth didn’t know if it was the same Dale Peck, so I spoke to his publicist and sure enough. He appeared to be a nice enough guy, certainly not the same guy that has damned entire careers and managed to get himself slapped, or slugged, by Stanley Crouch.

Stay tuned for part V of the BookExpo Photo Report where I talk about some of the many small press people (the presses are small, not the people) that I met, a panel on book reviews and exclusive pics from the wonderful world of the book business. See TEV, Nathalie, Sarah Weinman and the Tireless Ed Champion for more (in depth) coverage.

Read widely, think well, and write often

comments

No Comments Next entry: A Book For Every Home: BookExpo Photo Report V
Previous entry: BookExpo Photos

« Back to main

About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: June 06, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Reading Railroad: Events

• Comments:0
• Links to this Post: Technorati

Recommended Links

- top -