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Better Read Than Dead

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I know it has been a week and a half since the tents for the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Festival were folded up and stored until next year. But a few thoughts have been running through my mind that I wanted to air.

Admittedly, the Festival was a boon for people who love to read. I did not, however, feel that the tens of thousands of people who thronged the fair were necessarily book lovers. Probably there were more people there who wanted their offspring to become book lovers just so long as they themselves did not have to crack open a volume.

What made me feel this way? Perhaps I saw too many people thronging the booths that offered trashy genres such as romance, “cozy” mysteries, and dungeons & dragons type fantasy. The big local bookstores were well represented, but they were so crowded that I couldn’t get close to them. The only exception was Small World Books on the Venice Boardwalk: They were not super-crowded because they dealt mainly in poetry.

As in previous sears, I found the Small World Books Poetry Stage the most comfortable venue in the festival. There was a different poetry reading every twenty minutes, and many of them were top notch. Even some of the poets who weren’t that good were wonderful performers of their poems.

I attended both days of the festival. On the first day, I was appalled by the long lines and high prices at the high-toned food trucks scattered throughout the grounds, so I stepped outside the festival and patronized the Mexican and Central American food vendors by the campus gate. On the next day, I discovered the restaurants outside the grounds of the festival at the University Village, where Martine and I got a tasty lunch without having to wait an hour and were able to sit comfortably at one of the outside picnic tables.

A Gathering of Readers

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Looking Out from the South Entrance to the Festival of Books

For the first time since the event moved from UCLA to the University of Southern California campus, I attended both days of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It was exhilarating to see so many people in one place who were united by the simple fact that they liked to read. Also, many of the attendees brought their children along because they wanted them to read as well.

Based on what was on offer, many of the books were not to my taste. I did buy titles by Jeddu Krishnamurti, Gabriel García Marquez, Magda Szabo (a fellow Magyar), Gwen Katz, and Dorothy B. Hughes; and I will probably read all five within the next couple of months.

On Saturday, I attended two panels by Times reporters, one on world travel and one on homelessness. Because the seat next to me was vacant at both panels (was it my deodorant?), I found myself answering the inevitable question as to whether I was saving the empty seat with something obscene in Hungarian.

Times Panel on Editorial Policy

Most of the time, I was in remarkably good temper. I didn’t like buying my lunch from food trucks, as there is a certain mediocrity built into the delivery medium. Three of the best remaining bookstores in L.A. were represented with interesting selections: Vroman’s Bookstore from Pasadena, Book Soup from the Sunset Strip, and Kinokuniya from Little Tokyo.

There were a lot of booths manned by authors who were using the Festival to push their books. I felt a little sorry for them, but I can understand how they felt, dishing out so much cash for so little return. (I make one exception: Gwen Katz, who was recommended along with her book by my friend Bill Korn).

It’s great that the MetroRail Expo Line is now fully operational, as I would much rather pay $1.20 for public transportation than $12.00 for parking in a distant structure. I am already looking forward to next year’s Festival.