The Obligatory AWP Book Post

Here's my obligatory photo, albeit a bit dark, of the books I got at the AWP, all of them from the bookfair:

I brought a backpack full of library books to AWP, and I thought of not buying any.  The first wandering through the bookfair is so overwhelming that I often flee.  Here's a sketch I made of my first impression of the bookfair:

But the lure of a good deal on the last day of the book fair gets me to return.  I stopped at the Norton table and found great deals in the $5 box:  Molly Peacock and Sandra M. Gilbert.  The Hoagland book was on sale for $10, and I got the collection on women and ambition for $10 too.  I confess it was an impulse buy, triggered in part by my various insecurities that this conference produces.

The 3 books by Lynda Barry were a different kind of impulse buy.  I went to the last panel I would attend, one on using glitter, legos, and other kinds of arts and crafts supplies/approaches to inspire writing.  One of the panelists had studied with Barry, and I was remembering how much I loved her book Syllabus when I checked it out of the library.  The panelist mentioned it was on sale at the bookfair, and one of the audience members mentioned another book that was good.

After the session, in the last hour of the bookfair, I raced back to the publisher's table, and it was still there, along with the other 2.  I said, "Could you make me a deal for all 3?"  I just went to Amazon, and it wasn't such a wonderful deal that I got, but I want to believe that the publisher got more of my money than if I bought through Amazon.

Now I need to actually read them.  I am now surrounded by stacks of books, with boxes of them out in the cottage waiting for some decisions.

But of all the books I read during my journey, the one that stays with me is Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers.  What a wonder of a book!  The subject matter sounds heavy, and it is, but I loved it.

It was interesting to read that book, see her speak on Thursday, and the next morning going to a panel on Angels in America--interesting to think how the subject of AIDS wove its way through the conference.  And as I think about what most fed my intellect during the week, those 3 events (reading the book, hearing Makkai and Tayari Jones on a panel, and the session on Angels in America) are the ones that did the most.

It was cool to be at a conference that did so much for both my intellect and my creative soul.  More on the creative inspirations tomorrow.