Festival of Books, Day 2

Sunday saw us back at UCLA, for a shorter stint at the Festival of Books.

Our morning session was on "Pleasures of the Text" - though a more accurate title for the panel's focus could be "The Sky is Falling: Why No One Reads Except the People in this Room." I think this was partly the fault of the moderator, again Times book reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds. The other panelists were 2005 Erin's Library star Jane Smiley, star translator Gregory Rabassa, NEA administrator and poet Dana Gioia, and Publishers Weekly editor Sara Nelson. Nelson verbalized a sensation I knew well - that I just had to have a book with me, that I didn't feel right if I was without reading material. On the other hand, Gioia and Nelson also ruined it by explaining that they were able to read so much because they didn't sleep. Also, Gioia claimed not to have a life. I am okay with giving up some extracurricular activities in favor of reading - obviously I do so already, and my coworkers already mock the time I spend with my newspaper and New Yorker. I am emphatically not, on the other hand, interested in giving up sleep.

I'm getting off topic a little though. The discussion also talked about how these great readers became readers, what they thought of the ebb and flow of "the novel" and whether it as a form had lasting appeal (yes), and why young people aren't reading. Gioia presented some sobering statistics (downloadable report), and Nelson and Smiley both discussed how their children saw reading. Conclusion: in the past, children read "great works" that were child-appropriate; now there is a pedagogy of children's literature, which young people - sensing condescension - scorn. Etc. Etc. I walked away thinking about the roles I could play in encouraging reading, and reaffirmed in the importance of reading in my own life.

The afternoon session, which had the sparsest attendance of any we went to, was a conversation with Times editor Dean Baquet. Interviewing him was Kevin Roderick. His take on the interview (and links to other bloggers at the Festival) is here. They discussed blogs, local/national/international coverage, Baquet's plans as he enters his second year at the helm, major issues facing Los Angeles, and more... Baquet seemed very human, which I liked, and extremely ambitious about the paper. It was sitting there that I realized how many changes had been implemented in the year that I've subscribed. I still don't know that it's the paper of my youth, but it's a pretty amazing paper. (For contrast, the Bay Area offers three major dailies, all of which seem profoundly mediocre.) The audience itself was interesting, and can be split into three major categories. First: Times staffers or watchdogs; Second: younger people - maybe college journalists?; Third: the unclassifiable folks like us.

Take for the second day: significantly smaller. More chai and some purchased (but deeply discounted) books.