Things To Do: Book Readings

A bunch of different bookstores in the area have authors come and do book readings/Q&As. There's definitely a diversity of authors. From Toni Morrison to Christian Siriano from Project Runway (asymmetrical hair cut, "that's a hot tranny mess", "fierce", "farouche" -- that guy). It really seems like every author comes through at some point. What's great is that the majority of these events are free (unless someone huge comes and it gets moved to a bigger venue to house everyone; then it usually costs a couple of bucks). Sometimes the various Borders or Barnes & Nobles in the areas have authors come. Though the best authors usually go to either one of these amazing, locally-owned bookstores: Politics & Prose and Busboys & Poets. These bookstores seem to have the monopoly on awesome authors. And, if you ask me, Politics & Prose takes the top spot. And that also happens to be my favorite bookstore (a bookstore that has been around for 25 years).

Some of my favorite book readings have probably been (in no order):

1. Sarah Vowell, for The Wordy Shipmates

This was our first book reading in DC. Sarah is just as nerdy as I imagined (and hoped). And she is effortlessly super sarcastic; which I love. The crowd at the book reading was not the crowd I imagined. I think I imagined a much younger crowd. There were young people, but there were a lot of older people. But upon further thought, it did make sense. These were well-educated, public-radio-listening, history-loving type of people; of course they would like Sarah Vowell.

And these people were obsessed with Sarah Vowell. Several people brought her flowers. I have never seen that done before, and haven't since. These fans would ask really detailed questions --like, "On page 47 of Assassination Vacation you said 'this', and it reminded me of what you said in The Partly Cloudy Patriot on page 76...could you elaborate?" And Sarah would look at them dumbfounded.

A lot of the people that asked questions were super nervous and awkward in their question delivery (how many people get starstruck standing in front of Sarah Vowell?!). And I've got to say, there were some weird questions. On more than one occasion Sarah looked a little flustered because she had no idea how to answer these people. You could tell she wanted to say, "I don't know what to say, because that's a really weird question." Like one lady said, "I did some research on my family genealogy and [way too much information and background on her family], and I discovered I'm distantly related to Sarah Palin. But then I also did some research on this side [even more information and background on her family], and I'm also distantly related to Barack Obama. What do you make of that?" That was really her question. I'm not exaggerating. Her question was what Sarah Vowell makes of this lady's distant, distant family tree. I think Sarah ended up saying something like "uh, I don't know...that's interesting. Next question." You could tell Sarah wanted to be more cynical and sarcastic, but these are her fans...and they brought her flowers.

One person said, with creepy dedication, that she and her husband listen to Sarah every time she's on the radio. They never miss her. I was seriously expecting that lady to finish that sentence with,"...my husband and I make love while you're on the radio. It puts us in the mood." This totally was a couple I could imagine seeing on an episode of Real Sex.

After her book reading, we got to chat with her for a little bit. We expressed our love for all her books and talked with her about Montana/Bozeman (she lived in Bozeman, where Eagan grew up). She seemed really glad to talk about Bozeman, the way people are glad to talk about places they've called home with others that know exactly what they're talking about and can relate.

2. William Julius Wilson, for More Than Just Race

If Sarah Vowell's crowd was creepy fans and socially awkward history buffs, William Julius Wilson's crowd was our kind of crowd. Chock-full of sociologists and other social science academics. People asked really interesting and thought-provoking questions. A debate even started on the issue of whether African Americans should be critical of Obama or whether they should be more supportive of him. There were accusations from some in the crowd that William Julius Wilson wasn't being critical enough of Obama for the fact that he's not doing much for the African American community. And he responded that Obama IS doing a lot for the community -- and he gave examples; and that Obama does have a lot on his plate; and that the black community shouldn't be so critical of him. It was an interesting discussion.

I love this old-school picture of Wilson

There were a lot of great questions/comments, and people were bringing up interesting articles and studies that Wilson should check out. William kept telling people, "Oh that's great, will you e-mail me that information. My e-mail address is..." I thought that was neat. I left the event with my little notepad filled with things I needed to look up.

3. John Hodgman, for More Information Than You Require

This event had the young crowd that I had imagined would have been at Sarah Vowell's reading. Though there were some "usuals" -- older people that I think just attend every reading that comes to Politics & Prose, regardless of who it is. I can imagine their confusion, "A guy that writes a book on made-up trivia?! Kids these days!"

John was unbelievably hilarious. I was laughing so hard throughout the entire event. He was constantly on. He had the most awesome, random funny stories. He didn't read from his book as much as he told stories and went on hilarious tangents. He talked about being a "famous minor TV personality". He said now he's rich enough to buy a tux. He said most of us common folk have to rent a tux, but he owns a tux. He said this is in direct contrast to when he was just a lowly book agent and he had to rent regular pants because he couldn't afford clothes. And he just ate Ramen -- but he couldn't afford water so he just ate the noodle cake and snorted the powder.

This guy thought he was John's doppelganger...

You know how just about every book event (or any event with a "famous person") there is some fan in the audience that tries to let the "famous person" and the audience know that they are the biggest, most dedicated fan? And this usually involves the superfan just spewing random knowledge about the famous person. So this particular fan said, "You know, you sell yourself short. You're not just a minor TV personality..." and John interjected, "famous, minor TV personality." The fan continued, "...you're not just a famous, minor TV personality; you're also a famous, minor movie personality. You've appeared in movies and you have some movie roles coming up. Like you're going to be in [movie name] and [movie name] and [movie name]..." and John interrupted him and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, what was your last name again, IMDB?" It was pretty awesome that he said that. It was like when Chuck Klosterman said to one superfan, "Why am I not surprised you own bootlegs?"

We also got to chat with John Hodgman for a little bit after his book reading. And on top of being hilarious, he's a really friendly guy. I don't even remember how it came up, but we started talking about Simon Fraser University and he said, "Battlestar Gallactica was filmed there!" How many people have that trivia floating around in their head? It was a great book reading and I walked away with a mild, unexplainable crush on him.

4. Eduardo Galeano, for Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone

This event was super packed. There are obviously a huge amount of Galeano fans in the area. It was standing-room only an hour before the event even started! It was such a great experience to hear Eduardo Galeano read his beautiful, poetic essays. He's such a legend. He also talked about his life and his writing career. He talked about Uruguay and how he was imprisoned. It was a very fascinating talk.

Coordinating shirt, sweater, jeans, and eyeglasses case. Adorable.

As a side note, during the book reading, Eagan and I were standing by this guy that we run into everywhere. He just randomly appears wherever we are. We first saw him at a Politics & Prose book reading. Then we'd see him at another. And another. Either he goes to all of them, or we have similar taste in books. Then we'd see him at restaurants or stores. And we see him in different parts of town. It's not like we just run into him in the same neighborhood. One time we were downtown and there was a protest going on about getting rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". And guess who is participating in the protest?! He apparently was participating in the protest but decided to take a break from walking and holding up a sign (hard work), and took a breather on the very corner that we were walking by. He's like Kris Kristofferson and Eric Roberts...they suddenly appear everywhere you look.

5. AJ Jacobs, for The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment

This reading was actually the same night that Nick Hornby was doing a reading for, Juliet, Naked. There was a lot of back and forth before we decided to go with AJ Jacobs. Although I'm a huge Nick Hornby fan, I'd say I more closely follow AJ Jacobs. I've read all his books (which I love) and get them the first week they come out. I can't always say that for Nick Hornby -- despite High Fidelity being one of my favorite books. And I know there will be another opportunity -- Nick Hornby will come back. Plus, I knew that AJ Jacobs would be hilarious. I would definitely rather talk to Nick Hornby about music. But in terms of doing a book reading, I would imagine AJ Jacobs to be more entertaining. And that he was. He was absolutely hilarious and has the most awesome amount of trivia and pop culture knowledge.

He's such a dork, and I love him

He wasn't as socially awkward as he comes off as in his books. But I can't get over how some of my favorite authors have kind-of-awkward, weird voices (AJ Jacobs, Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris, I'm sure I'll think of more later...). Oh, and if you've read any of AJ's books, you know he is kind of a neurotic, germaphobe type of person (my favorite!)...Anyway, the coordinators of the book event left a glass of water on the table for him. It was sitting there 30 minutes before he even came into the room. I was thinking, "Is there any way AJ is actually going to drink that water?" It's not sealed. It's been sitting on the table for a while. What's the cleanliness quality of the glass? For most of the reading he didn't touch it, and I thought I was going to be right. But then during the questions, he did take a sip. Damn!

AJ talked about all his past experiments/books and what they were like, and what the aftermath has been like. And he said his next experiment is to live a healthy life. He tries different exercise regimens and diets. I'm excited to see how he will turn that into hilarity.

In addition to all the great book readings throughout the year, there's a really cool annual event called "The National Book Festival" on the National Mall. It's put on by the Library of Congress. It's an all-day event of book readings and talks with the author. There are several different tents set up based on different genres, and so several readings happen at the same time.

This year they had young adult author greats like Lois Lowry and Judy Blume. As well as several popular authors like James Patterson, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Nicholas Sparks, John Irving, Ken Burns, Gwen Ifill, Sue Monk Kidd, Azar Nafisi... Even Paula Deen was there. And, Holly & Davis will appreciate this, Rickey Minor! In addition to book readings and signings, the festival has different activities and book sales. Unfortunately we weren't able to make it this year due to a family situation, but we're looking forward to next year's.