Bookfest!
Posted November 4, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
Edgar Allen Poe is famous for spewing vitriol about Boston and the literary habits of its inhabitants, pretty much from the moment he left Boston to the day of his death. (The thing that makes it funny, of course, is that today the only Bostonian monument to Poe is a plaque on the side of a Boloco two blocks from his long-demolished childhood home. They are, grudgingly, going to install a statue of him eventually. Lesson: do not crap on a city, because it will always outlive you and have the last laugh.) It’s true that Boston isn’t a literary city on par with New York or San Francisco, but it’s not a book wasteland, either. I mean, we have to have something to do in the winter when the internet’s out.
So: the Boston Book Festival, or BookFest, is a huge one day celebration of all things bookish. It takes place in Copley Square and is, get this, entirely free. You have to have tickets to some of the more popular author readings or panel discussions, but even those are free. I’ve volunteered for it for the last few years, and I’ve had a really amazing time, mostly because I end up working at events that I normally would have no interest in (poetry or sports writing, say) and still get drawn in by the presenters or the writing and writing down titles to check out of the library later. (My library card always gets a lot of mileage on it in the days after BookFest.)
As a former young adult librarian, seeing the huge turnout crowds for the YA events is always a plus, too – this year’s Rick Riordan keynote had people lined up around the building by 9am, even though it didn’t start until 11. All of the YA events at BookFest have been moved to the biggest venues because they always attract hundreds of audience members, which is amazing. Look! It’s not all tumblr and poorly-spelled texting, you guys, teens are reading, too! In huge numbers! And most importantly, they are passionate about what they read. They love these books. Hope for the future: restored. Thank you, BookFest.