Witnessing the Enduring Power of Books
at the 7th Annual Los Angeles
Festival of Books

Approximately 150,000 book lovers, including many with their spouses, kids, and friends in tow, converged on the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) campus this past weekend,  April 27 and 28, 2002.  Their numbers corroborate the enduring power of books.  Each year the festival grows and feeds the public’s thirst for the written word.  At the festival, book lovers came to hear their favorite authors lecture, speak on panels, read, and sign their autographs.  They browsed and purchased books and related ware from about 260 exhibitors.  As you looked around from Ackerman Union to the North Campus, and tried to make your way through the crowd, you knew why the Los Angeles Festival of Books, hosted by the Los Angeles Times newspaper and UCLA, is the largest book festival in the nation.

There was something for everyone—and lots of grassy areas to rest, eat, and observe the crowd.  Kids could create art at the Arts and Craft Area, listen to performances and readings of children classics, like “Charlotte’s Web,” and “Peter Rabbit," take in Native American music, dance, and storytelling, snap pictures with the Bruin mascots, and watch Barney dance and sing his favorite songs. Pascal Biet, an illustrator of children's books, whose illustrations graced this year's book festival artwork, also participated in a solo lecture on Saturday morning entitled, "Worth a Thousand Words: The Craft of Illustration."  Food lovers gathered around the Cooking Stage where various authors and chefs held shop.  Among the 375 authors featured were celebrity-authors, including Quincy Jones, Fran Drescher, Steven Martin, Julie Andrews,  Dom Deluise, and 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning author, A. Scott Berg (“Lindbergh”). 

Long lines wrapped around various lecture halls and the quad for the most popular writers, including LA Festival of Book's favorite, Ray Bradbury, who at 81 and sitting in a wheelchair, spoke to  hundreds of fans packed in Royce Hall’s auditorium on Saturday afternoon.  Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn introduced the prolific writer of more than 30 books, and promoted the author’s book “Fahrenheit 451,”which has been selected for LA's “One Book, One City” campaign.  Following in the footsteps of Seattle, where city-librarians launched the program, LA city officials hope this book-club will encourage civic pride and literacy.

Across the way at the Barnes and Noble Stage, Maya Angelou held court, in conversation with Michael Silverblatt.  Hundreds of fans huddled like worker bees to hear the distinguished poet, who pleased the crowd with her readings, insights into her creative process, and messages of hope. Those whose books she was unable to sign were told to send them with a self-addressed envelope to her publisher for her autograph.

If politics interested you, you probably were one of many standing in a mile-long line on Saturday afternoon to hear and get the autograph of three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Paul Conrad, the former LA Time's chief editorial cartoonist in conversation with Robert Scheer, or on Sunday to get in Royce Hall’s auditorium for the panel, “The Abuse of Power.”   Among that panel were the Oscar-winning director and writer, Oliver Stone, and Arianna Huffington, author of “How to Overthrow the Government,” and a nationally syndicated columnist.

At the same time Sunday, hundreds huddled again at the Barnes and Noble Stage, to hear consumer advocate, author, and lawyer, Ralph Nader.  Mr. Nader, a Green-party presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, spoke about his recent bid for the Presidency, which is thoroughly discussed in his new book, “Crashing the Party.”  His canny ability to recite statistics about pollution, auto safety, cigarette smoking, Black Lung disease, the state of the two-party political system, etc., made the statistical numbers come alive, and you were truly enlightened.   

In conjunction with the Book Festival, the 22nd Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony was held Saturday evening at UCLA’s Royce Hall.  Ten authors were honored with prizes for their excellence, for their books which were published in 2001. The book prizes fell into nine categories:  biography, current interest, fiction, young adult fiction, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and first fiction.   Award winning author-actress, Sandra Tsing Loh (“A Year in Van Nuys”) moderated.  The winners were:

·    Tillie Olsen, recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award (named for the novelist, editor, teach, and late LA Time’s book critic), which rewards a writer living in or writing on the American West.  Ms. Olsen is an  author, editor, teacher, feminist, and community activist.

·  Rachel Seiffert, recipient of  The Art Seidenbaum First Fiction award (named after the late LA Times columnist, writer, editor, and founder of the Book Prize program)  for “The Dark Room,” published by Pantheon Books.

·   Edmund Morris (1999 Pulitzer Prize winner for “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt”)  for the biographical sequel, “Theodore Rex.”

·  Barbara Ehrenreich, current-interest winner for “Nickel and Dimed:  On (Not) Getting By in America, ” published by Metropolitan Books, imprint of a Henry Holt and Co.

·  Mary Robison, fiction winner, for “Why Did I Ever,” published by Counterpoint.

·   Rick Perlstein, history winner, for “Before the Storm:  Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus,” published by the Hill and Wang Division of Farrar, Straus and Girous.

·  T. Jefferson Parker, mystery/thriller winner, for “Silent Joe," published by Hyperion.

·  Anne Carson, poetry winner, for “The Beauty of the Husband:  A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos,” published by Alfred A. Knopf.

·   Richard Hamblyn, science and technology winner, for “The Invention of Clouds:  How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies,” published by Farrar, Straus and Girous.

·  Mildred D. Taylor, young-adult fiction winner for “The Land,” published  by Phyllis Fogelman Books (Penguin-Putnam).                      

[Back to the Top]

Click the "One Book, One
City Link in the article to
get the LA Public Library
site, which lists all US
cities participating in the
program and the books
they are reading!!! Or Click
HERE!

___________

EMAIL US!!!

Bludogbiz would like to
hear from you if you have
any questions or
comments. Click here to
Email Us!

__________

Go to Web and
Entertainment Legal
News to read the latest
cases affecting the web
and you!

____________

Hear the keynote
addresses from the 3
days at the Internet
World Spring 2002 and
Streaming Media West
2000 by clicking to the
Streaming Media West
link in the article, or
click HERE!

___________

See who are the 2002
Top Female Leads in the
Movies, as of April by
clicking here!

BACK TO HOME PAGE