Book Country No More

[sdelmonte]

So next Sunday - October 3 - is New York is Book Country.

http://www.nyisbookcountry.com/

I went last year for the first time in ages, and had a ball. Naturally, since I thought it was perfect, they ruined it.

This year, the event moves to Washington Square Park, a nice area but not as majestic as Fifth Avenue. And the book fair, the outdoors stroll from bookseller to bookseller, is much smaller. And it's on Saturday.

This is New York. What kind of fools move a program TO Saturday in a city with this many observant Jews? No, we are not a huge market, but Jews read.

Then again, we are not missing much. The emphasis of the festival has shifted from the book fair to a slew of panel discussions. Some of them sound vaguely interesting, including a discussion about "graphic novels" with Kyle Baker, Frank Miller and Paul Levitz (who have so little in common). But the panels are indoors at NYU, and that makes them sound rather ordinary. This is New York, where you can probably find book talk in a dozen places every night.

Now, these programs are free, but the indoors events still require tickets, whoich you can pick up at a local Borders. There 4 Borders stores in Manhattan, and I am not near any of them. These might as well be standard ticketed programs with a fee, as some of them would be worth buying and then mailing in a check to get the tickets.

On the whole, it sounds all wrong to me. Now it might be that there are still authors at the booksellers' tables. And there will be a graphic novel pavillion again, appropriately if coincidentally at Schwartz Plaza. But the website and the insert in yersterday's Times say nothing about what will be going on at the tables or at the comic book site, and like I said, the tables will be gone Sunday.

So I am miffed.

The same day, however, is the annual ren faire in Fort Tryon Park, and that never changes. I'm not sure I want to go there again - especially since it's Sukkot and I doubt there will be a succah for me to eat lunch in - but I think it might make a nice alternative now that the book fair is not so fair this year.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

This is disappointing news. I loved the book fair, and used to go every year. Met a lot of authors I loved. Have a lot of good childhood memories of the event.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

I'm also miffed about the book fair. The past few years it has been on yontiff, or it was cancelled for 9/11, so I haven't gone since about 1999 or 2000.

There's also a book fair at the 26th St. Armory that used to occur over Saturday/Sunday, but now it's Friday 5-8 pm, Saturday 10-4 - exactly timed so that No Observant Jews Need Apply.

I tend to go to the book fair of the Long Island Antiquarian Book Dealers Ass'n, which is Sat-Sun Nov 6-7 this year, in Garden City as usual. LIRR stops about 10 minutes walk from the fair; that's how we usually go.

http://www.flamingoshows.com/calendar.shtml

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

Yep, it definitely sucks. I really enjoyed last years fair. Oh well.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

A lot of the great and even decent NYC bookstores are a thing of the past, thanks to increasing rents. This is not the book country it used to be.