National Book Festival -- Washington, DC, Sept. 24-25

I'm finally getting around to blogging about my trip to the National Book Festival in DC.  What a wonderful event!  It is put on by the Library of Congress and is very well run.  It takes place on the National Mall, and there are tents set up for the different genres of books that are represented.  There is also a Barnes and Noble tent to purchase books from the authors who are speaking, and a book signing area.  Let's talk about what we did at the festival.



On Saturday, we arrived at the festival around 10am. The first place we went was the C-Span bus.  As dorky as it sounds, I was really excited about this because I'm a big fan of C-Span.  They were handing out free cloth bags which was convenient for carrying things around of course; but it's also a great souvenir.  The bus was located right next to the History & Biography tent, and C-Span had its own little tent to interview the authors after they got done speaking.


We didn't really visit any tents in particular on Saturday, although we did stop to watch a few minutes of a presentation by Edmund Morris, who wrote a book several years ago that my husband likes about Ronald Reagan ("Dutch").  His current book is about Theodore Roosevelt.  We then went to the Barnes and Noble tent and I bought an autographed copy of a book about Lincoln and slavery ("The Fiery Trial") by Eric Foner.  I could have bought lots of books, but I kept in mind that I had to transport them all back to Green Bay, and I could always buy them there.  But Foner's book was a trade paperback and signed, so a good candidate to purchase and bring back. We then proceeded  to the Pavilion of the States tent, where there were tables to showcase local authors.  It was pretty crowded so we just checked out the Wisconsin tent.

In all, we didn't spend a lot of time at the festival on Saturday as I was most interested in seeing David McCullough speak on Sunday.  So we spent the rest of the day at the Air and Space Museum.  I'm always amazed at the quantity and quality of FREE things to do in DC.


Then came Sunday, the big day and the reason we came to the festival.  On arriving at the Mall, we first checked out the line for David McCullough's book signing.  I had my copy of "The Greater Journey" with me for him to sign if I got a chance.  It was over an hour before it began and the line was really long already.  This was a problem for me.  As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I tore my Achilles tendon this summer.  I had worn my boot most of the time in DC, but I was having heel problems so I just wore tennis shoes on Sunday.  There was pretty much no way I was going to be able to stand in line for what could have amounted to two hours.  We looked in the B&N tent several times during the day to see if they were selling autographed copies of the book, but if they had them I never saw them.  So I had to pass on getting my book signed.  There was just no way I could have done it.
 
For the same reasons, I was really concerned about getting a seat in the History & Biography tent for McCullough's speech.  I did not want to have to stand for that either.  Therefore, I went to the tent two authors early to make sure I got a seat.  I saw Kristie Miller talk about her book "Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson's First Ladies" and Carla Peterson talk about her book "Black Gotham: A History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City".  They were both really interesting and I'm definitely going to read both.

Then it was time for David McCullough's speech.  I was in the third row, and turned around to see an absolutely packed tent, with rows of people standing in the back.  There were also people sitting on the ground in front and to the sides.  He was introduced by the Librarian of Congress, which I think is one of the coolest job titles around. When McCullough came onto the stage, he got a standing ovation.  His talk focused on a couple of things.  First, he talked about the importance of libraries and teachers, which drew shouts of support from the crowd.  Then he talked some about his book.  In reality, it wasn't anything I hadn't heard him say before; but seeing it in person made it all seem new.  He's a very good speaker and seems passionate about what he does.  After his 40-minute speech, C-Span did a live interview with him.  Unfortunately, I had to go meet some friends and couldn't stay for that so I'll have to check C-Span's website for the video.
 

I really enjoyed the festival.  We were lucky to have great weather (after there had been pouring rain on Friday) and the Library of Congress does a great job.  I will continue to keep an eye out each year for who is speaking, and will definitely go again.  It was a great experience, and I recommend that anyone interested in books and reading go at least once, or if nothing else, watch it live on C-Span.