Here a Book Fair, There a Book Fair -- Celebrations East and West

Books and all things literary -- including bookstores -- were celebrated at book fairs on the East and West coasts on Saturday, July 19. The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) hosted its eighth annual Books By the Bay Festival, held in San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens. And QBR: The Black Book Review sponsored the Fifth Annual Harlem Book Fair. The Harlem Book Fair was held on 135th Street, which was closed to cars for the well-attended fair. Both fairs were free, outdoors, and included various literary activities, readings, book signings, and displays by independent booksellers.

Books By the Bay Book Fair at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens.

Books By the Bay Book Fair

The Books By the Bay Book Fair, which was at the Yerba Buena Gardens for the third year, featured over 60 authors, including Book Sense 76 favorites Gina Cacone (Life al Dente, Atria Books) and Christopher Moore (Fluke, William Morrow). And, as in recent years, it drew a large crowd. Hut Landon, NCIBA executive director, was pleased with the nine thousand-plus attendance. "We were very grateful that given the economic woes, especially here in California, that our attendance was comparable to the past two years," he explained.

Landon said that the fair was a celebration among booksellers and their customers, noting that book buyers "come to see the authors, but they stay to see all the booksellers." He added, "Each booth looks completely different from the next. And the books in one stall are absolutely different from the next."

One of the big changes from last year, said Landon, was the rental of a theater, which seated 500. In previous years the fair organizers set up a tent and hundreds of chairs, but this year they were able to rent the more convenient theater to present featured readers, including Richard Rodriguez (Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Penguin), Cristina Garcia (Monkey Hunting, Knopf), and Christopher Moore, whose lively performance made him a favorite, said Landon.

Mystery author panelists David Corbett, Laurie King, Gillian Roberts, G.M. Ford, Cara Black, and moderator David Lazarus, who reviews mystery books for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Another positive change was the increased attendance at the panel discussions. Landon said the numbers doubled from last year, with the panel Redefining the Literary Magazine as the crowd pick. McSweeney's Managing Editor Eli Horowitz, writers Doug Dorst and Ann Cummins, and Tamara Strauss, editor in chief of Zoetrope, discussed their magazines before a standing-room only crowd.

At the end of the day the most often heard comment was how smoothly the fair went, Landon said. But for him, one of the most striking things was the variety: "It's a perfect example of independent bookselling because there was A Clean Well-Lighted Place, which is a large, well-known bookstore in San Francisco, next to Builders Booksource, a specialty architecture and design store. Or next to Stacey's, another big store, was Boadecia's Books, which is a small gay and lesbian bookstore. It showcased independent bookselling in all its diversity. It makes you realize how important it is to have all of us around."

Harlem's Fifth Annual Book Fair

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, attendance at the Harlem Book Fair was estimated at twenty-five thousand. Book lovers walked along 135th Street between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. boulevards, browsing at the booths of over 200 vendors, including those of nearly 70 self-published authors. More than 50 authors read and signed books, including Walter Mosley and Ishmael Reed. Author panels at the nearby Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture were broadcast on C-Span and covered issues such as publishing for the African-American market and writing as activism.

The festival was founded and sponsored by QBR. "QBR created the book fair because we realized there was no public celebration of literacy or literature in the home of the Harlem Renaissance," said Max Rodriguez, the publisher of QBR. "It was the right time and the right place to launch the book fair for a community in which reading and writing are so critical."

The street fair was the culmination of a weeklong celebration including award ceremonies, readings, and other events, which began on Sunday, July 13. Clara Villarosa, co-owner of Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem, hosted a booth at the street fair, as well as events leading up to the fair. Hue-Man hosted a poetry reading, the first annual Harlem Book Fair Spelling Bee, and other children's events, which included groups from nearby day camps.

Of the street fair, Villarosa said, "It was a great success. It's the perfect opportunity for our bookstore and other independent bookstores to promote interest in books and authors and to let people know where they can find us." --Karen Schechner