Festival of Books

Ever been to the L.A. Times Festival of Books? It's held annually at UCLA and is truly impressive. Tents set up across the campus offer everything from free K'orans to live music to speakers like Tori Spelling (she wrote a book!), a massive food court and mini bookstores.

Besides the enormity of the event, the most striking thing about it is that it is packed. It took a good 20-30 minutes to get to campus from the Sunset exit of the 405 (and here I thought everyone would be approaching it from Wilshire.) This was at 10:30 in the morning too. The popularity of the event really becomes evident once you're on campus. There are thousands of people there. People lining up at the Ray Bradbury booth; people waiting in line to shop in a specialized bookstore; people munching on food while listening to speakers talk about cooking. But because these are readers, the vibe is mostly laid back and friendly.

I went to the Festival to see a college classmate, Gene Healy, speak on a panel. Gene works at the Cato Institute and wrote "The Cult of the Presidency," a book about how the office of the President has gotten too powerful. His panel was called "Irreconcilable Differences? The Future of Power and Partisanship." Matt Miller of NPR's "Left, Right, and Center" moderated. The other panelists were Farai Chideya, Mickey Kaus and Lawrence O’Donnell. I didn't recognize any of their names but apparantly other people did because the auditorium was pretty full. The topic was a little heady for me at the 11 o'clock hour but Gene opened it on an entertaining and informative note and the hour went by quickly.

I caught up with Gene as he was headed to his book signing table. It had been YEARS since I'd seen him but he was still the same 'ol guy. He's always been a Libertarian and now makes a living being a Libertarian. Cool! He didn't think many people were going to ask for his signature so he spent about 15 minutes at the signing booth before deciding it was time for an afternoon cocktail. (Before we took off, I picked up a free copy of Lawrence O'Donnell's book "Deadly Force: A True Story of How a Badge Can Become a License to Kill." After asking about my politics and rambling a bit, he signed it "Thanks for listening.")

The closest place I could think of to take Gene that wasn't a pain to get to from the north side of campus was the Hotel Bel-Air. It really is a great, albeit expensive, spot. All of the tables on the patio were taken or reserved when we arrived so we decided to have lunch in the dark dark bar. (When I say dark, I mean "your-eyes-need-to-adjust-to-the-sunlight-after-coming-out-of-a-movie-theater dark.) It was awkward for a minute in the empty room but the libations kept the conversation lively. It was nice seeing Gene and I am glad I made the effort to get to UCLA when it wasn't exactly convenient. I mean, how many times do I know someone on a panel at the book fest?