Texas Pages

Whenever I cover the Texas Book Festival, it's with an unspoken acknowledgment that any single person purporting to cover such a sprawling event is a liar. I figure I'm able to sample maybe 10 percent of the weekend's events, and that counts sneaking out of some sessions early, slipping into others late and running into authors at barbecue joints afterward.

So I read alternative coverage with interest.

And I'm happy to see that Publishers Weekly came away with a positive take as well:
"The celebratory atmosphere was palpable; as debut novelist Victor Lodato commented, 'the energy here was terrific: a festival that actually felt festive.' "

The hometown paper, the Austin-American Statesman, made it to the festival's opening gala and let Colin Beavan sum up the weekend:

Beavan, author of No Impact Man," his tale of trying to live an extremely green year -- no electricity, no fossil fuel transportation, no meat and only local food -- started his talk by saying, "For a writer, it's pretty amazing to see so many people in one place who still care about books."

Sales were clearly brisk at the Barnes & Noble tent, where the good people running things told me that the big sellers included many you'd expect -- Buzz Aldrin, Margaret Atwood, Gail Collins, Richard Russo, Jeannette Walls. Long lines were forming for Barbara Ehrenreich and Douglas Brinkley when we spoke.

I noticed a massive line for cookbook author Lidia Mattichio Bastianich as well.

Among the surprise big-sellers: Stuff White People Like, Luis Alberto Urrea, Po Bronson (NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children) and Jon Scieszka, who was the first author for children featured at the Friday night gala.

I spoke with festival literary director Clay Smith as things were winding down awhile ago, and he seemed pleased with how things had gone. Attendance, he estimated, was probably in the predicted 30,000 range -- which would be a nice feat, considering that this year featured a lot of literary fiction, which does not tend to draw the crowds that a political nonfiction blockbuster does.

(Correcting some earlier info: He gave me the final estimate for the crowds at Buzz Aldrin and Margaret Atwood. I had guessed 600, then 750; he said 800, and that's my final offer.)

I told him that I had found myself listening to quite a bit of gloom-and-doom talk in several of the sessions, and Clay pointed out that the festival, which features only books that have been released within the past year, can be a good reflection of the state of the publishing industry, which is a reflection of where we are as a society. And he noted that by pulling together so many people willing to think about difficult issues, the festival can act as a balm to all that anxiety.

Which is a good a note as any to close on. Except that I'd like to give you the last word: If you were there, what was your experience like? If you weren't there, what would you have liked to have seen in the coverage?

Do not tell Barbara Ehrenreich to have a nice day.

She's not technically against it, but her book, Bright-Sided, How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America is not for the blindly optimistic.

Ehrenreich talked about her book has roots in her breast cancer battle, which exposed her to a world of pink ribbons that she wanted no part of.

"When I was being diagnosed, I was waiting in the radiologist's office, looking at the local newspaper -- I had an idea it was going to be bad news -- and I found an ad in the classifieds for" (she spits these next words out) "a pink breast cancer teddy bear.

"And that was an existential moment for me. Because I realized at that moment, 'I am not afraid of dying. But I'm terrified of dying with pink breast cancer teddy bears."

Ehrenreich, who holds a doctorate in cell biology, wanted no part of the "mandatory optimism" the culture seemed to demand of her. And she noted that contrary to popular wisdom, there is no scientific evidence that having a positive attitude helps fight cancer. And yet, she knows of women who have been excluded from support groups after the disease metastasized, because it was feared their condition would bring other women down.

My nominee for best line of the festival goes to Luis Alberto Urrea. The author of nto the Beautiful North was on a panel with fiction writers who have dealt with Mexico.

Urrea, son of a Mexican father and American mother, was explaining how he dealt with borders, both real and mental, when he stated the basic message he wanted to get across:

"There is no 'them.' There is only 'us.' Sometimes we forget that."

I've ended up at a lot of sessions that have an Apocalyptic air to them, so it was nice to stop in on Jeannette Walls (whom Chris Vognar wrote about recently) and get some inspiration.

Walls, as Chris' article noted, comes from a famously dysfunctional family, and her new book, Half Broke Horses, talks of her grandmother's hardscrabble life.

Walls sought to use the dark parts of her background to bolster the audience and encourage them to embrace the rough spots in their own lives. For example, there was the time she asked her mother why she was in a particularly good mood one day.

"She said, oh the most delightful happened today. I fell off a horse."

Her mother, she said, was well-known for being able to look at the positive side of anything. But the author was bemused. "How could even you think that falling off a horse is a good thing?

"She said, 'Jeannette, Any fool can ride. Knowing how to fall takes great talent.' "

Walls continued: "There's no shame in falling. The only shame that comes is if you don't think you have what it takes to get back up. We all have the strength to get back up."

I slipped away from this morning's David Wroblewski session (I'd interviewed him last night for a story that will run ahead of his upcoming Dallas appearance) to see what was happening in one of the sessions at the deepest end of the Capitol complex. That well-attended session was Daniel Kalder talking about Strange Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse from Moscow to Siberia.

The parts of the talk that I caught offered the type of surprise that makes this festival so much fun: Here was a Scotsman, now living in Austin, talking about how he'd penetrated Vissarion Christ, a cult deep inside Russia.

I had a few moments to chat with him about his work afterward, and the conversation covered another city in Russia, this one dedicated to chess, and a man who became Chief Druid in the wake of Communism's collapse.

I have no idea what I will do with this information, but it's delightful to have it.

Thinking of writing a family memoir? Be ready for some cold shoulders - from your family. That was the word from Tad Friend and Danzy Senna, who joined with moderator Blake Bailey for a Saturday panel by turns sad and entertaining.

Margaret Atwood had a crowd of about 750 people waiting to hear her at the Paramount Theater, and the only person who had reason to be less than delighted was her interviewer, Benjamin Moser. She made him work.

Luckily, Moser was a witty and capable host, even as he served as foil and punching bag to the Canadian author. She joked, poked and even took a photo for her Twitter feed during her time on stage.

Are Nobel short-listers supposed to be this funny?

Andrew Ross Sorkin turned in maybe my favorite presentation of the day as he discussed his book on the economic collapse, Too Big to Fail.

I'm not particularly a junkie of financial journalism. But I am an admirer of reporters who are able to take sprawling, complex issues and reduce them to simple concepts and stories.

Sorkin did that in his presentation.

He said the model for his book was the movie Crash, which I don't think was an intentional pun, but rather an analogy to discuss how he tried to weave together several stories that are seemingly unrelated but all end up being interrelated.

"I think we all woke up in September [2008] and it felt as if the world had fallen off its axis, and for me the goal of the book really was to solve the mystery, to put the puzzle back together. Which is to say that it didn't seem as if it had ever really been a mystery. That some of these pieces must have been in place much earlier."

At the root of the collapse, which we all know now featured complex financial transactions that nobody actually understood, were basic terms.

"Debt. Leverage. So no matter how complicated the products themselves were, when they knew they were putting one dollar of your own money in, and you're borrowing thirty from somebody else, that was effectively the problem." And some of the failed investments of Lehman Brothers were as easy to comprehend as overpriced commercial real estate.

"The moral of the story, in an odd way, is that so many of these firms got into so many other types of business that we never really thought of as part of the banking world."

I have to confess to being somewhat disappointed in Buzz Aldrin's generally well-received memoir, Magnificent Desolation. I respect and admire his willingness to discuss his battles with alcoholism and depression after his famous mission, but it certainly felt to me like a memoir that was dictated into a recorder (his co-writer was Ken Abraham), and since he'd written about going to the moon before, he didn't spend much time discussing his actual flight in this book.

On the other hand, the guy walked on the moon. Which makes him an American hero of Olympian stature. Which is why I joined about 750 other people at the Paramount Theater to hear him interviewed by Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune.

For someone who has been open about his battles for years, he did not go in depth about them. And even some of his moon stories had the charming but rambling quality of an beloved uncle who has told his tale so many times it just starts to overlap with the next one before he's actually wrapped up the first.

But when he started talking about mistakes NASA has made, and the future of human spaceflight, he was focused and sharp as the tip of the F-100s he used to fly.

I was able to catch the final moments Jeff Abbott's session that drew an overflow crowd to one of the Senate committee rooms. Minute for minute, he provided some of the best laughs of the day. Such as when he discussed research he did for his recent thriller, Trust Me, at radical Web sites:

"One of the sites that I went to was a neo-Nazi site. And you would think they would all be, oh, how to build a pipe bomb, or here's our YouTube video on how to do this, or how to steal an identity -- all these things that they were interested in doing to facilitate their operation."

That wasn't necessarily so.

"The neo-Nazi site had recipes. And movie reviews. And book reviews. And a dating service. Because, you know, they're so picky. And plus -- who wants to date the neo-Nazis?"

"I just wanted to bleach my eyeballs sometimes."

But he revealed his true genius in a couple of ways. Both involve bars.

The first bar involves how he landed his first book deal.

I like asking people what they've been reading. Tells you a lot about someone's interests. So on Saturday, when I talked to novelist Jonathan Lethem (whose new book Chronic City is now in stores), I asked him to name the last five books he has read. He was nice enough to oblige with an answer. (Actually he was just nice in general).

1. The Blunderer, by Patricia Highsmith

2. The Women, by Hilton Als ("a very poetic and theory-inflected short memoir by the New Yorker critic")

3. Curious George Flies a Kite, by Margret Rey and H.A. Rey (Dude has a two-year old, so stop snickering)

4. The Complete Stories of JG Ballard ("I read it all summer and wrote about it for the Times")

5. The Interrogative Mood, by Padgett Powell ("It's a short book that consists only of questions. It's a great literary stunt and it's very good").

The fiction writers Colson Whitehead and ZZ Packer teamed up Saturday afternoon for a panel entitled "About Race: Identity and American Fiction." Moderated by University of North Texas English professor Walton Muyumba, the discussion walked a tricky line; as Muyumba said, "We were trying to find a way to talk about the matter and not talk about it at the same time."

On a crisp fall morning in Austin, I thought I would start of the day with an uplifting chat on whether everything I write about is doomed to collapse.

(Aside: If books are dead, my office is gonna smell awfully ripe by the time I get back next week.)

The consensus of the panel, moderated by Bob Carlton, vice president of marketing and business development at Austin-based LibreDigital, is that books are alive and well.

"We are in, to some extent, a golden age of reading and writing," he said. "More books were published last year than at any point in modern civilization. More words were written, on page or on the Internet, than at any time in civilization. Literacy continues to grow year by year. But the businesses that surround it are under significant change."

Panelist Allen Weiner, research vice president for Gartner's Media IAS service, spoke of the "cosmic tumblers" for e-books being at least a year away from locking in place and opening up a new era of reading.

Some of the obstacles range from the technical -- too many competing formats, readers are too expensive for the people who will actually use them -- to the human -- most people still learn to read via ink and paper, and it will take a generation for that to fade.

As Carlton said, "It's clear that writers and readers will continue to exist;" this festival is a celebration of the connection between those two. But, he said, the future of everything in between those two points -- think libraries or (gulp) editors -- is uncertain, or at least will need to evolve.

If you're looking for information about authors headed to Austin this weekend, here's a roundup of some of the coverage from the books pages of The Dallas Morning News.

We have interviews with Gail Collins, Jeannette Walls and Richard Russo.

We have reviews of Jeff Abbott's Trust Me, Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, Jimmy Santiago Baca's A Glass of Water, Colin Beavan's No Impact Man, Taylor Branch's The Clinton Tapes, Douglas Brinkley's Wilderness Warrior, Sandra Brown's Smash Cut, Oscar Casares' Amigoland, David Eagleman's Sum, Nadine Eckhardt's Duchess of Palms, Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided, Jeff Guinn's Go Down Together, Victor Lodato's Mathilda Savitch, C.M. Mayo's The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, John Pipkin's Woodsburner, Jason Sheehan's Cooking Dirty, Willard Spiegelman's Seven Pleasures and Luis Alberto Urrea's Into the Beautiful North.

This being the internet. I'd love your thoughts on any of those books, or on any of the other authors anyone is hoping to see.

I'm packing up and headed down I-35 to the Texas Book Festival tomorrow. You can watch for updates here and on Twitter, where the official tag of the day is #TXBF.

News is officially breaking already, as the Writers' League of Texas just unveiled the winners of its 2009 Book Awards, which it will present 3:30 p.m Saturday in Room 2.026 of the Capitol Extension at the State Capitol.

Those winners are:

Fiction: The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block, Brooklyn, NY (Random House, April 2008)
Nonfiction: A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Big Horn, the Last Great Battle of the American West, by James Donovan, Dallas, TX (Little, Brown, March 2008).
Children's: The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt, College Station, TX (Atheneum, May 2008)
Poetry & Literary Prose: Meditations on Rising and Falling, by Philip Pardi, Phoenicia, NY (University of Wisconsin Press, February 2008)

The awards will be presented during the Writers' League of Texas Book Awards Ceremony at the Texas Book Festival at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, in Room 2.026 of the Capitol Extension at the State Capitol in Austin.

Until 2008 the awards were known as the Violet Crown Awards and the Teddy Children's Book Awards. Each winner will receive a $1,000 prize.

The Texas Book Festival just announced that Julia Glass has canceled her appearance because of illness.

In announcing the lineup of the Texas Book Festival yesterday, Laura Bush did offer a few peeks into the reading habits of the former first family, just not their home.

As was noted in this morning's print edition, the former first lady told reporters, "One of the very best things about being back in Texas is that I have a chance to be part of the Texas Book Festival again." Mrs. Bush founded the festival in 1995 and remains its honorary chair.

Discussing the importance of encouraging children to read, she said, "One of the best ways parents can do that is by modeling it themselves. Turn off the television and read or read to your children or read out loud. It's really a very fun family activity to read out loud. I remember reading the 'Hank the Cowdog' series with Barbara and Jenna and George. It's a funny series. it was fun to read out loud and laugh with them."

Asked about e-books, she enthusiastically noted, "George loves his Kindle. He uses it all the time."

She said that the former president just finished Pat Conroy's South of Broad and that "he liked that a lot." She's reading a memoir by Nuala O'Faolain and then dryly noted, "We're both writing memoirs. I'll put in a plug."

Asked whether Dallas might someday have its own large-scale book festival, Mrs. Bush said. "Dallas has a couple of festivals that I think are pretty good, and really, I hope Dallasites will go to the Texas Book Festival. It's a really terrific one."

As for a peek inside the Bush home -- well, there wasn't much of one. But because several people have asked me about it, I offer the following impressions.

(Staff photo by Vernon Bryant)

The Texas Book Festival lineup was announced last night at the home of Laura Bush. More on that in a moment; here is our story about the highlights.

And below is the list of authors, as provided by the festival. (More details at their site.)

Austin has the Texas Book Festival. But Dallas has Laura Bush. And festival organizers like to emphasize that the festival celebrates all of Texas, not just the city where the former first lady established the event in 1995.

All of which explains why the lineup for this year's event will be unveiled this evening at the Bush home. We'll be posting the lineup soon afterward and reporting from the scene as well.

The National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. has announced a lineup that includes John Grisham, John Irving, Jodi Picoult, Judy Blume, Julia Alvarez, Ken Burns and Gwen Ifill. You've got until Sept. 26 to make your way there.

A complete lineup is posted here. [The earlier link was to the 2008 festival.]

Can't make it? Keep in mind that the Texas Book Festival comes to Austin Oct. 31-Nov. 1. Their lineup is due to be released in September.

David LaBounty produces one of Plano's finest literary journals, The First Line. TFL is coming up on its 10th year, which is quite amazing for any publication of any kind, when you get right down to it.

But he always has a unique perspective on the Texas Book Festival. I blog it from the vantage point of a journalist scrambling from event to event. He writes about it as a vendor/participant who sees an entirely different side of things.

Here's his insightful take from this year's event.

[Updated 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to correct name.]

There's a long road to Dallas stretching out ahead (hey, that sounds catchy -- maybe I should record a country record while I'm here in Austin), so let me post a roundup of observations before I head out on that long stretch of blacktop. (Cue steel guitar.)

The Austin American-Statesman's story today commented on an apparent lack of interest in political topics this year. Although festival literary director Clay Smith acknowledged that some of the large venues were less than full, many smaller ones were overflowing. (That's in general, not just on political topics.)

Personally, judging by the number of Obama shirts I saw, the Austin crowd is still an Austin crowd, as keenly interested in the issues as ever. And political issues came up from almost every speaker I sampled.

But there's no real way to capture any one theme for this festival. If 40,000 people attended, there were really 40,000 individual festivals. It would be possible to see nothing but current events authors. Or just contemporary fiction. Or kids.

I like to think of these dispatches as splotches on an impressionist painting. Put them all together with your own observations, or with whatever others you can find, and draw your own conclusions.

From conversing with people today, though, I think the following pronouncements are safe:

I always approach a large book event with a carefully thought out plan, which lasts all of one or two events. Which means there is a lot of serendipity involved in the events I actually attend.

Which is how I ended up hearing Scott Simon discussing Windy City today.

What a delight. I suppose it should not be surprising that a nationally known radio host would draw a huge crowd, or be able to charm them so. But I was captivated by the power and humor of his words while he took on the persona of a veteran Chicago alderman, reflecting on the people who actually get elected to public office:

He talked about the wonder of diversity in our society. Some of the remarks went right up to the edge of pandering to a university-town crowd. But the wonder in his voice seemed sincere when he noted the number of men who voted for a woman president this year, and the number of whites who voted for a black man this year, and how one way or another, we are about to have the first multiracial family in the White House this year (he noted John McCain's adopted daughter.)

Ethnicity, gender and background, he said, "are just the way small minds keep score."

And he spoke a universal truth when, in the voice of his character, he pointed out how our crazy democracy seems to actually work.

Although William Least Heat-Moon drew a respectable crowd to the Senate chamber this morning -- I'd guess maybe 100 people -- I expected a bigger audience for one of America's pre-eminent nonfiction writers. Maybe it was the curse of being the opening author on Sunday morning; maybe his fans were still hungover from the Texas-Texas Tech football catastrophe/celebration (depending on your point of view.)

In any case, those who were there were treated to the pleasant discourse you would expect from a professional wanderer.

He was one of the surprisingly few authors I have seen make proper note of their venue, when he kicked things off by asking, "Before we get started, is there anybody you want me to impeach?"

And although I seriously doubt he had time to read the enthusiastic review of Roads to Quoz that we ran this morning, he indirectly responded to some of the criticism directed at him -- namely, that at moments he can be a little ... precious with his language.

On his choice of "peculiar words," he noted, "We have the greatest vocabulary, that is, the largest vocabulary, of any language on Earth. More than 400,000 words. Shakespeare -- so I read, I haven't counted them -- used about 30,000. Now, I have been keeping track ... of the number of words I use in a book. And I think I'm only something up to 15,000, only halfway to Shakespeare. So people who complain I'm using too many strange words, well, I have respectable people behind me who are really in trouble."

And along those lines, he said: "It's good to put a few things in the book that are quite obvious that some reviewer can go after -- keep them off of the big questions."

At the moment, there are more people standing in line to get into Mr. Pickens' House session than are preparing to hear the former MASH star in the Senate.

I checked in with the staff at the book-sales tent. They report brisk traffic for Alice Scheoeder's The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life; David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife; H.W. Brands' Traitor to His Class; Roy Blount Jr.'s Alphabet Juice; Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship; books about oil (I'll track that panel down shortly;) and Jon Katz.

They report that the children's tent had massive crowds for R. L. Stine.

(Updated, 5:30 p.m.) Today's other big sellers included Scott Simon's Windy City, H. Joaquin Jackson's One Ranger Returns, William Least Heat-Moon's works and John Stauffer's Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

Mike Farrell had a long line winding down as I left the signing area, and T. Boone Pickens was about to be mobbed.

The biggest crowd I saw today was for Roy Blount Jr. and Peter Sagal, who drew several hundred people to the Senate chamber -- so many that people were turned away, and some who made it in had to be swept from the aisles as they crowded to hear the radio stars.

Ironically, the acoustics were lousy in the upper levels of the Senate chamber, and several people left early complaining that they could not hear. (Which was fine with me -- I wouldn't have made it in otherwise.)

Mr. Blount was discussing his new book, Alphabet Juice.

Mr. Sagal was discussing his new-in-paperback release of The Book of Vice.

He provided one of those only-at-the-Texas-Book-Festival moments when Mr. Sagal, under the watchful gaze of giant portraits of great Texans who have filled the august chamber, spoke at length about dining with porn stars and his experiences in swingers clubs, which he visited strictly for research purposes. (He also explained how it was a Republican's involvement in such clubs that led to scandal that enabled an Illinois legislator named Barack Obama to get elected to the Senate.)

For his part, Mr. Blount contributed a discussion of the sounds pigs make in various languages.

It was a fitting end to the first day of the festival.

Getting personal for a moment: One of the many delights of attending these festivals is getting the chance to meet people who are masters of their craft -- in this case, Susan Orlean -- and discovering that they are really nice people, too.

Ms. Orlean, whose usual realm is narrative journalism, was gracious and unflappable in a miserably stuffy tent while she read from her new book for children, Lazy Little Loafers. When it came time to sign books, she spent more time getting her signatures just right than any author I have seen -- to the point that when she mis-copied a name, she insisted on buying the "ruined" copy and sending the happy parent back for a fresh copy.

We had a pleasant chat at the signing table about the differences between writing for children and for adults. And we also discussed her next project, which has a Texas connection.

I'm going to give my award for best effort in book-selling to H.W. Brands, whose newest title is Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

His engaging presentation to several hundred people filling the First United Methodist Church focused mostly on Eleanor Roosevelt and their marriage. He spoke of their courtship, her self-esteem, his infidelity, what polio did to his own sexual ability, her apparent lack of interest in sex and began to discuss her apparent sexual orientation. And then, as time was running out, he said:

"If I had another 45 minutes or another three hours, I could tell you how it contributes to becoming the great war leader he became." Guess we'll have to read the book.

From the moment the 2008 festival lineup was announced, Christopher Buckley (at right, with Steven Isenberg) promised to be one of the main attractions. His recent political activities made him no doubt the newsiest.

And, with the witty Mr. Isenberg as his foil, it made for great entertainment this morning at Austin's First United Methodist Church.

Mr. Buckley caused, as he put it, quite a "kerfuffle" recently when he endorsed Barack Obama for president. The news that the son of William F. Buckley Jr. caused such outrage among readers of the National Review, where he wrote a regular column, that, he says. "I thought the honorable thing to do would be to offer to resign." (Beat.) "The offer was crisply accepted."

Now, he says, "I find myself in the awkward position of being fired by something I partly own."

Mr. Buckley, perhaps a living definition of East Coast elitist, took pride in expressing his Texas roots. They're deep.

Is there some rule that says: As communications technology becomes smaller, there is a commensurate decrease in the size and quality of the thoughts transmitted via said technology?

Consider: Gutenberg press.
Weight: A ton or so.
Ideas conveyed: Foundation of Western thought.

Now consider: Journalist with new iPhone.
Weight: An ounce or so. (Plus the journalist.)
Ideas conveyed: The last several blog posts. (Now with many correct spellings added.)

In any case, as much as I enjoyed the convenience factor of that little rectangle, I'm looking forward to giving you fuller thoughts later this evening, when I can type with something besides my thumbs.

So far as Day One of the festival goes, I was going to say that the crowds seem quite a bit thinner, but the audiences seemed to grow as the day went on. The quality of the speakers has been terrific as ever, and the only complaints I have heard have been along the lines of too much stuff, too little time. (That, and the acoustics in the upper level of the House and Senate chambers can be pretty bad at times.)

After a nice chat with Susan Orlean (actual detail to follow, I promise), I have slipped into the Roy Blount/Peter Sagal session. Which took some doing, because a perturbed trooper was shooing the overflow crowd out of the Senate chamber.

Dallas author Jim Donovan is holding forth on George Custer, a topic he knows more than a little about.

In a sign of public interest, the fire marshal is having to turn people away at the door.

Dallas' Kathleen Kent is speaking to a full committee room about the Salem Witch Trials. And it's not even Halloween.

Serious interest in the topic is obvious among the audience. And her authority is equally clear.

I've left the discussion on the "War of American Ideals" in order to secure a good seat for Christopher Buckley, who is a few dozen seats shy of filling First United Methodist Church.

More on that first session later, but suffice to say that as the first wave of historian-types weighs in, things do not look good for the former Texas governor.

As Mr. Buckley prepares to weigh in, I do not expect things to get better for him.

As the opening session on "The War Over American Ideals" gets rolling, there as still quite a few seats here in the House Chamber.

That's a contrast from previous years, but not surprising. Some of the festival's bigger names are yet to come. And I hope to be there.

Let me open this year's coverage with a scene-setter by noting that access to my capitol-area hotel was delayed 45 minutes by, among other things, a giant banana, a man in a bath towel and a sorceress who was not wearing pants, as best I could tell.

This were among the clusters of interesting pedestrians clogging the nearby streets and blocking traffic. At 1 a.m.

Ah, Austin at Halloween.

The crowd at the festival is usually more sedate. But then, with reality like this, who needs fiction?

For the record, the most popular costume for young men in Austin this year would appear be The Joker. The most popular costume for women would be trollop.

Ed Nawotka caught up with Michael Dirda ahead of his appearance this weekend at the Texas Book Festival. You can read the entire interview here.

As someone whose job is somewhat tied to words on pages, I was especially heartened by this observation from Mr. Dirda, who has been to his share of book events:

"The country has a lot more readers than we realize. When I've gone to festivals, I've seen people from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds. There does seem to be a real enthusiasm for books that we sometimes forget about. What's more, there often is a little something for everybody at such things, so it's a great day out."

Amen, brother. I'm looking forward to soaking in that atmosphere myself.

If you're one of those readers who will be in Austin this weekend -- let's hear what you're looking forward to. And if you're not able to make it this year -- check back on the blog all weekend. I hope to have it filled with nuggets of wisdom. Or at least a photo or two.

Our review of Alphabet Juice appears in today's Guide Sunday and on GuideLive.

If you're interested in catching Roy Blount Jr. in Austin, he'll be with NPR's Peter Sagal 3:30 Saturday in the Senate Chamber. Details are posted here.

You can find the full schedule of authors here.

Youtube has this amusing clip of him recording the audiobook version:

And if you're really a fan, and have somehow missed my half-dozen other mentions of this, you can go into our archives for my 2007 interview with Mr. Blount.

The Texas Book Festival has released its list of authors coming to Austin Nov. 1-2. Watch for a story in today's GuideLive.

The complete list is posted below. Full details about the festival are posted here.

And if you see a favorite on this list -- tell the world why you think they'd be worth the trek down to Austin. (Use the "Leave comment" button.)

As the state's librarians convene in Dallas, the Texas Book Festival today is announcing that it is awarding more than $200,000 in grants this year to 72 public libraries.

The festival has awarded more than $2 million in library grants since 1996.

In a state that traditionally has struggled to properly support its libraries, every little bit helps.

Meanwhile, fans of the festival can mark their calendars and book their hotel rooms for Nov. 1 and 2.

UPDATE: Here's a look at the local libraries that will benefit. Spokesperson David Shaw says via e-mail that the Dallas area will get about $22,500 or a little more than 10 percent of the statewide total..

David and Robin LaBounty, who publish The First Line up in Plano, were in Austin viewing the festival from a different perspective: As exhibitors.

Read their take on things, and see some photos, at their site.

While we're at it -- they told me that Dallas's lack of a large independent bookstore has made it difficult to sell their quarterly journal, which has been coming out successfully for a decade, here in their hometown. Anybody want to suggest possible sites for them?

Clay Smith, literary director of the Texas Book Festival, has had a chance to catch his breath and reflect for a moment on the weekend. Here are some final tidbits from the festival:

The crowds: Anecdotally, Clay says, the crowds seemed to hold steady from last year. "I didn’t hear about panels being miserably underattended. I think the difference is that in 2005 and 2006, the crowds were there early," for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. "The difference this year is that we had the same number of people, but they came as the day progressed."

Who was hot: Early Sunday, Jeffrey Toobin packed the House chamber to discuss the Supreme Court. He was followed by an equally popular Carl Bernstein (discussed elsewhere on this blog.)

Jenna Bush's event was full, as was George Saunders and Marlee Matlin. Diane Ackerman and Joseph Ellis also drew healthy crowds, Clay says.

Padma Lakshmi packed her event, as were many others in the cooking tent, Clay says. The new Lifestyles tent as a whole was a success, and Clay says it will return.

While I was in Austin, apparently there was some kind of racecar thing over north of Fort Worth.

Which brings to mind this comment from Roy Blount Jr.'s reading in the House chamber. Roy was explaining that although he does not fit the mold of the stereotypical Southerner, he hasn't adopted all the ways of the frozen North, either:

"I don't like hockey. And it may be a bad thing to say in this great House, but I don't like NASCAR. The only way to get me to watch NASCAR would be to have them run over a hockey player every couple of laps."

I suspect that, on a books blog, he might find some kindred souls.

Jim Lehrer, author of "Eureka," was a late addition to the festival. I caught up with him just long enough to hear this great tale about his beginnings in journalism -- at The Dallas Morning News.

His first job? Writing obituaries.

He says, "I did an obit that said, 'Funeral services for Lamar N. Smith are pending Friday for Billy Bob ... Whatever. And it turned out that Lamar & Smith was the funeral home. And Billy Bob was the deceased."

"The editor came over to me and said to me, essentially" -- and here his voice shifted to a menacing drawl -- " 'Lil' boy, there are a lot of important things at this newspaper. But there is nothin' more important than gettin' the name of the God-damned deceased right in an obit!"

I told Mr. Lehrer, who has won almost every honor available to a broadcast journalist, "You seem to have recovered from that."

"Yeah, I got over it," he said. "But I also never forgot it."

Allow your humble blogger to close out this wave of reports with an indulgent moment, which also shows the terrific diversity of interests represented at the festival.

As someone who has always been passionate about the power of journalism, it was an honor for me to have a few moments someone as iconic as Mr. Bernstein. And to hear him swap a few stories with fellow journalism icon and author, Jim Lehrer. (More on that later.)

But after our conversation, I found myself outside the Capitol, not too far away from the children's tent, which for the most part I have avoided.

The person doing the reading was one Roscoe Orman, who did a reading from the book he just wrote and illustrated, "Ricky and Mobo." Mr. Orman was a delightful reader, patient and respectful with the children, equally pleasant to their parents.

Most of whom, like me, know him only as "Gordon," from "Sesame Street." Which we watched almost every day of our late '60s-early '70s childhoods. (except when the Watergate hearings were on, as I recall.)

Yeah, I got to go up and shake his hand.

I love this festival.

In a short interview after his speech, Mr. Bernstein offered some fresh insight on Hillary Clinton's performance in last week's debates:

"I think if there is a watershed moment, to use a cliche, in the campaign that has interrupted this notion of inevitibility, that debate was probably it. ... Hillary Rodham Clinton has had a difficult relationship to the truth."

He says her campaign has been designed to partly to help her avoid such questions, "and now they will have been unsuccessful at avoiding it. And that's what the campaign represents -- a failure to keep that question from coming front and center."

"Now both the opponents and the voters, I think, are confronting this aspect of her history. And that's a big change from two weeks ago."

Asked to use his expertise to predict how she would respond, he said: "The worst thing I am is a predictor. You're talking to somebody who thought O.J. Simpson was gonna be convicted. I'm very bad at predicting. But I think part of it is in a statement that I just saw online. They trotted out Bruce Lindsey to say he hadn't been instructed to keep anything secret. Well, that's not the question. Again, it's kind of obfuscation."

Carl Bernstein -- who is scheduled to speak at the Barnes & Noble, Preston at Royal at 7 p.m. Tuesday -- had the first standing-room-only event of the weekend that I attended. And his discourse on Hillary Clinton kept the crowd enthralled from beginning to end.

I thought I knew a bit about Mrs. Clinton, but his insights seemed sharp and especially timely, given her prospects in the upcoming primaries. I have always thought of her as a purely political creature. Her foundation, he says, is in religion and family. “It turns out, her religiosity is the key to everything,” he says.

Her dedication to family, he says, helps explain why she never left Bill Clinton despite his infidelities.

He noted how unlikely it would have seemed a few years ago to be talking about her as a serious presidential contender. But he notes her ambition: The very moment the Senate was voting at the climax of the impeachment crisis, she was in an office with Harold Ickes, going over a map of New York, analyzing her prospects for a Senate run.

“She pulled it off,” he said. “Don’t underestimate her.”

His remarks were mostly nonpartisan, but the crowd showed its leanings toward the end of his discussion, when he discussed the prospects of a woman being elected president. He noted that Ms. Clinton was certainly viable; he suggested that Kay Bailey Hutchison would have been as well. Then he added, “We certainly couldn’t do much worse than we have done.”

To which the Austinite crowd erupted with riotous applause.

We reviewed his book favorably when it came out, but his comments made me want to go out and get a copy myself.

I realize it’s the big names – the Carl Bernsteins, the Roy Blount Jrs. – who bring people out to the festival. But I’ve decided that the real spirit of the event lies in the smaller sessions.

Last year, it was sessions on Texas nature writing and rising Texas writers that stuck with me the longest. And this year, the best exchanges I have seen took place in yesterday’s “revenge” session and my first panel of this morning, “Stretching Exercises: How I Became Someone Else in My Fiction.”

Among the writers: Wesley Stace, whose novel “By George” is partly written from the point of view of ventriloquist’s dummy; Darryl Wimberly, a middle-aged white male who wrote “The King of Colored Town” from the point of view of an African-American girl at the end of the segregation era; Clifford Chase, who wrote “Winky” from the point of view of his teddy bear, of the same name; and Kim Powers, who took on the personas of Truman Capote and Harper Lee in “Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story.”

Any aspiring writer or involved reader would have enjoyed the non-scholarly discussion on technique. Especially when it contains revelations such as Mr. Chase pointing out that Winky, a real bear, had been inherited from his mother, who called him “Marie.”

“So he’s also a transgendered bear,” he noted.

And Mr. Stace brought along the actual dummy that had inspired his book, one that his grandfather had once used. When asked how he came up with the dummy’s voice in the novel, he replied: “Just look at him!”

Writers hearing voices and transgendered bears. Interesting way to start off a Sunday morning.

I am starting my Sunday at the Book Festival at the Little City coffee house on Congress Avenue, a block from the Capitol. This is the second year in a row I have done so. I guess that makes it a ritual.

The coffee is sweet, the music is "Abbey Road," the walls are covered in funky art and another day of interacting with really smart people lies ahead. The vibe is so perfect it has me wondering: Why can't we do this in Dallas?

As I see it, all we have to do is relocate the captial, import the university and its Ransom center and a few thousand intellectuals, tear down a Starbucks or two to add an independent coffee shop, and presto! We have a book festival!

Hmm. Maybe there is more to it than that.

OK, try this: I could envision something at Fair Park, Dallas' most underused cultural gem. Something in the spring, to catch all the touring authors not hitting the Austin festival. (Let's assume there are plenty of authors to support our festival and not detract from the excellent author series already in town, such as Arts & Letters Live, Writers Studio and the others.)

I'm not sure who could rally the thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars necessary for such an undertaking, but consider this: Laura Bush established the Austin festival. Then she duplicated it in Washington, D.C.

Say what you will about her taste in husbands, but the lady knows bookfests.

She's allegedly moving to Dallas. And will have a lot of time on her hands while Mr. Bush builds his library.

Hey Mrs. Bush -- whaddya say?

Here's more scenes from Austin courtesy of Rick Barrick:

Joseph Ellis, while signing "American Creation" on Saturday, said that tours that promote his books can be frustrating. He likened them to a political campaign because he is in one city one day and another one the next. His favorite part of a book tour is answering questions.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison takes a Sharpie to the back of Earlene Jackson's T-shirt Saturday at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Ms. Jackson, of Georgetown, was a volunteer. When asked what were the weirdest items she'd ever signed, Ms. Hutchison paused. Other T-shirts, she remembered, galleries of books, a motorcycle. Then she recalled, "A man asked me to sign his arm." The man planned to get the signature tattooed, Ms. Hutchison said. She is the author of "Leading Ladies."

Joe Ely, a Texan singer-songwriter, signs "Bonfire of Roadmaps." "Body parts, cars, ceiling fans," Mr. Ely replied to a question about weird items he's been asked to sign. "And a gas pump in Georgia. Give me a Sharpie and I'll go for it."

Rick Barrick offers these views from Saturday's events:

Lynne Cheney smiles after signing her book, Blue Skies, No Fences, about noon Saturday

Bud Shrake, author of "Custer's Brother's Horse," was one of the slowest signers at the festival Saturday. It could be because any question from a fan fetched a story from Mr. Shrake: He remembered that Bootlegger's Boy, the autobiography of Barry Switzer he helped write, was the subject of a multimillion dollar lawsuit that failed.

Jenna Bush, author of "Ana's Story" and daughter of President Bush, said \ that going to high schools is her favorite part of her book tour "because I like to talk with the kids."

I just witnessed another classic TBF moment: the sight of Tom Perrotta reading a section from "The Abstinence Teacher," where a group of reprobate sex-ed teachers discuss sexual encounters they regretted.

I can't quote it. But as he said, this is language that certainly has been used in the Texas House chamber before. Just never at a microphone.

Historian Joseph J. Ellis, speaking on why he goes back to the 18th century so often to find interesting subjects, quoted noted literary expert Willie Sutton who, when asked why he robbed banks, replied: “That’s where the money is.”

Mr. Ellis was talking about the historical mother lode in that part of history. Given his popularity, it might be a literal truth for him as well.

His presentation showed why he has found such success: He was lively, funny, thoughtful and able to hold forth on whatever topics got thrown at him.

This morning’s session on “Getting Even: The Literature of Revenge” was the TBF at its best: A panel full of interesting writers, room full of eager listeners, and the prospect of a fistfight.

OK, that’s a little hyperbole. But Bud Shrake and Shalom Auslander did have a tasty exchange about the nature of Mr. Auslander’s anti-God book, “Foreskin’s Lament.”

Mr. Shrake said it was “egocentric" to envision a vengeful God who spends his time thinking up ways to single out a misbehaving individual.

Mr. Auslander shot back: “I didn’t make it up.”

Mr. Shrake also eloquently traced the history of revenge writing back to “Merchant of Venice.”

Mr. Auslander told him: “Shakespeare’s got nothing on God.”

Unlike last year, some of this year’s venues seem to be swallowing up some of their speakers. Kristin Gore was warmly received by those who filled the Senate chamber to hear her – but it was a bit of a strain for those of us in the cheap seats. (That’s what I get for trying to sneak in late after covering another event in the same time slot.)

Alas, I missed Jenna Bush entirely, so I can’t give you a comparision of crowds for offspring of presidents and those who might have been president.

So many authors ahead … such an easy building to get lost in. But it leads to great overheard elevator conversations:

“Are we going up, or down?”

“I hope I’m going to see Barbara Jordan.”

“Barbara Jordan is no longer with us.”

“Not to me. In my mind, she lives forever.”

Author Max Sherman (“Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth With Eloquent Thunder”) can look forward to one rabid fan if she finds her way there.

The streetside vendors are warming up the gyros; country music fills the street outside; and the accordian player is tuning up below the microphone where the Texas Speaker of the House usually stands.

Must be time for a book festival.

It’s a lovely day for a festival. There’s not a cloud in the ceiling. I’ll post observations as time and internet connections allow.

The list of authors is ever-growing for the Nov. 3-4 event. Here are the latest additions, not yet visible on the festival's Web site.

Sherman Alexie - "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"
Douglas Brinkley - "The Reagan Diaries"
Johnny Bush - "Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk"
Roz Chast - "The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!"
Todd Gitlin - "The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals"
Kristin Gore - "Sammy’s House"
Elmer Kelton - "Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer"
Marlee Matlin - "Leading Ladies"
Cullen Murphy - "Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America"
Editors from The Onion - "The Onion: Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth"
Jerry Pinkney- "Little Red Riding Hood"
Joshua Piven- "Bad vs. Worse: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lose-Lose Decisions; Piven co-wrote the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook titles"
George Saunders- "The Braindead Megaphone: Essays"
Bud Shrake- "Custer’s Brother’s Horse"
Maxine Swann- "Flower Children: A Novel"
David Talbot- "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years"
Alice Waters- "The Art of Simple Food: Notes and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution"
Mo Willems- "There Is a Bird on Your Head!"