Festival of Books

Today was the first day of the annual Los Angeles Times book festival. Rode my trusty 21 gear steed out to USC to check it out (after a breakfast panaderia stop with DH).

It wasn't as crowded as in year's past and one wonders how the economy is affecting book sales. I saw Pulitzer Prize winning The Swerve at the Book Soup tent, but thought, Eventually this will be at the library....

Similarly, the Harvard University Press tent had a book titled Florence and Baghdad. The thesis was that the art of perpective actually originated in Baghdad. The book had beautiful color plates, and obviously the author was quite learned. Even so, I just made a mental note to remember that "perspective originated in Baghdad" and walked away empty-handed, but with $40 still in my account.

My first purchase was from The Travelers Bookcase (their delightful bricks and mortar shop is on 3rd Street, just east of La Cienega). They sell slightly damaged (undetectable to me) Lonely Planet Guides for half off. I picked up a Rome city guide and two titles from the new Berlitz "Secrets" series--Paris and Marrakech.

(I've been thinking about Rome a lot these days, just way more than is normal or appropriate. I nearly bought a Rough Guide Rome but was embarrassed, seeing how I had a Fodors Rome at home and that would bring the total to three.)

What else? A book about older ladies backpacking ("We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill", or somesuch), and a volume by Carol Muske-Dukes. I loved her anti-Iraq war poem, and she also wrote a kind remembrance of Adrienne Rich.

So, antiquity-art (Rome), adventure-inspiration (Mountains), one city I'd like to get to know better (Paris), another city I don't know at all (Marrakech), and new poems to tuck into.

I love it how one can spend $70 or so on books and feel fantastically (en-)RICH(-ed).

Try doing that on frigging Rodeo Drive.