For the Love of Books

Today Judy and I drove to the UCLA campus to attend the 2009 Los Angeles Times' Festival of Books. This annual event brings publishers, bookstores, libraries, and other organizations associated with the love of books to one place where booths are set-up to promote books, reading and other cultural activities.

Authors come to talk about their books and writing styles during various panel discussions while others come to sign their books for excited fans. There are cooking demonstrations, live music, poetry readings and other great entertainment. It's a heck of a lot of fun for adults and children alike.

This year's attendance seemed just as strong as in the past (it's a free event for the public) although we did notice that several of our favoritie bookstores (including one really large chain) and a few other regular vendors were not present. There also seemed to be fewer free little gifts which are often handed out at booths. All this we are definitely chalking up to the current state of the economy.

Still, it was a lovely day. Our only complaint? As usual, the weather forecasters got it all wrong. In years past, we've often experienced blazing hot sunny weather for the event. This year, all the weather gurus promised partly cloudy skies with temperatures in the 60's. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! It was sunny and warm to start and it just kept getting warmer and warmer as the hours passed. You'd think we would learn what to expect weatherwise after all these years. Sigh...