Love is in bloom at the LA Books Festival
We keep hearing, in this age of microscopic attention spans and digital addiction, that the printed word is doomed. Someone forgot to tell the 130,000 people who thronged the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the UCLA campus April 24-25.
What I saw at the festival was love in bloom. In Southern California weather — sunny, mid-70s, little humidity, a caressing breeze carrying the scent of blossoming flowers — beaming book lovers crowded around white caravan tents on the grounds. They listened to music, attended panel discussions and stood in line to meet their favorite authors and get their books autographed.
Publisher and writer Dave Eggers set the tone for the weekend’s happiness with a distinctly contrarian analysis of the future of the printed word. “It’s the best time in the history of the printed word to be a publisher or a writer,” he said. “People want to declare the death of the printed word. It’s always our tendency to assume something is dying. It’s a fun thing to do, but it doesn’t always make sense.”
That may be wishful thinking. But he may be right.
For full column, click here
