Literary Weekend

I spent last weekend surrounded by books and memories. It was a lovely feeling, a bit bittersweet at times, but lovely nevertheless.

First up were the activities associated with the Utah Humanities Book Festival For us, the preparation starts months beforehand, when the booksellers who will vend at the event get together for the Author Lottery. It's a gathering akin to a sports league draft except that I actually care about it. Each bookseller arrives with a list of the authors she'd most like to sell at the event. Then we take turns choosing authors until every author who'll be joining the Festival has a store to sell his or her books. It's thirty to forty minutes of what probably seems mundane to many, but to us it's exciting. What happens during that time sets the stage for the Book Festival to come.

The Festival itself was enjoyable as always. What bookseller can rightly complain about being surrounded by books, their authors, and the people who love them? I so enjoy standing at our booth in the Urban Room of the Salt Lake City Public Library and talking with the passersby. I did disappoint one man who responded to my, "Let me know if you have any questions," with an actual question, "Is there a God?" I think my answer disappointed him. But the book related conversations I had were delightful, scintillating, heartening. It makes me happy when people tell me how much books mean to them; how their lives are richer; how much they've learned; how they laughed and cried. And it makes me just as happy to listen to Festival goers talking with the writers they know and love, and the ones they've just discovered. And there was a lot to love: from the immensely talented local favorites Sara Zarr and Shannon Hale to East Coast writers Dylan Landis, Jed Perl, and Edwin Torres. It does a bookseller's heart good.

This year the Book Festival concluded on Sunday with a presentation by Selected Shorts. Yes, they do leave Symphony Space once in awhile. Isaiah Sheffer and two of his talented actors read some pretty bleak Utah related stories to an auditorium of eager listeners. There was also a sing-along quiz during intermission. Envision, if you will an auditorium filled with a variety of voices singing, "Don't fence me in," after Mr. Sheffer sang, "Oh give me a land, lots of land, under starry skies above," and you get the idea. Actually, that was our best song. The responses to his other first lines were much weaker. We didn't know as much of the great american songbook as I thought we would. Oh the shame! While the stories were recorded for broadcast at a later date, I doubt the sing-along was — and you should all be grateful for that.

Sitting in that auditorium for the first time since I attended Sam's memorial service there was the bittersweet experience to which I referred. Tony used to call Sam and Lila on Sundays to tell them to listen to Selected Shorts. Sam would run the tuner up and down the dial and pronounce that he couldn't find it. Their radio didn't "get FM." But Sam loved radio. And he loved the writings of his friend Wallace Stegner. When the actors read two Stegner stories I couldn't help reflecting on how much he would have enjoyed being there. He would have emoted loudly, possibly at awkward moments, and provided a running commentary that would've driven the engineer recording the event wild. He would have embarrassed me. And he would've loved every minute of it.

Each year of the Utah Humanities Book Festival has a different mojo. While this one was a bit quieter than Festivals in the boom years, it was no less enjoyable. I found great books and made great some great memories. And as I walked out the doors on Sunday afternoon, I was already looking forward to next year's authors lottery.