Thursday, March 15, 2012

Don't Bring Around a Cloud

UPDATE:
LITFEST PASADENA POSTPONED UNTIL MAY 12th.
With what's being called "100% chance of rain" Saturday, I guess it had to happen.
The links are still good! However, I promise to keep you informed.


John and I have a two bedroom house with a den. The den is my office, the extra bedroom is John's office and we share the master bedroom. (The dining room is Boz's bedroom. He keeps office hours on the front porch.)

I tell you this not to give you a home tour but to give you an idea of how many places we have for stashing and stacking books: shelves in the offices; the coffee table as well as built-in shelves (okay, we have some DVDs, too) in the living room; matching nightstands in the bedroom, each with a shelf for books, not to mention--okay, I'm mentioning--the books lining the tops of the dressers; plus the boxes in the garage full of books we haven't found shelves for. But we will, because we need to make room for more books.

Which brings me to the first annual LitFest Pasadena, Saturday, 9am to 5:30pm at Central Park, just south of Castle Green. Come on down! Admission is free. There'll be writers, panels, booksellers, booths, a children's area, fabulous food trucks and more. The full LitFest panel schedule is here.

Can't wait to see you!

Rain, you say? Yes, well. Ahem. There's a chance of rain.

Oh no! Wait. No. Oh joy! Wait.

Well, I hope the rain waits 'til Sunday because everyone's worked so hard. But we need our rain around here and we take it when we can get it. If rain happens, check the Pasadena Star-News online for contingency plans.

19 comments:

Book Dragon said...

dang, I got all excited until I saw the times...I just don't do mornings well and already have something on my calendar for 9:30 a.m. ....not sure I'll make it ;)

I hope it is a success so I can attend next year

Unknown said...

I think house without books can't be house.
And it hurts me to see houses from modern magazines and sites with room with the proud name "library" what contains only one bookshelf with 10-15 magazines and 2-3 books.

Kalei's Best Friend said...

Bet it will only drizzle!.. I love books, right now reading The Paris Wife.. Got through reading The Art of Fielding... Have u ever gone to the book event in Westwood? I have always wanted to venture there but the size of it scares me- actually the huge crowds make it seem intimidating kinda like a Comic-con event w/out books.

BaysideLife said...

In a perfect world I wouldn't let 3,000+ miles keep me away from a lit event; however... Hope the weather holds out for all of you. I'm betting that at days end you'll have added to your need for more storage space. As for your house, I loved the tour. Sounds like a place where you can always sit down with a "friend."

Petrea Burchard said...

Book Dragon, I hope you finish early and come in the afternoon. If you do, come find me. I'll be (mostly) at the "grown-ups" stage. I forget what they named it, it's the one on the east side of the park.

Hello, Artem. I agree! When people don't read they know only the borders of their lives, and that's a very small country.

Kalei, I haven't been to the Westwood book fair but it doesn't scare me. I've been to the LA Times Festival of Books a few times (coming up in April) and it's huge, but very doable.

Thank you, Bayside. Come on over!

Kalei's Best Friend said...

@Petrea: that's the one I meant... it flows into Westwood, right? I think that if I went to the L.A. one, I'd need a wagon for those books.. I am so addicted to reading!.

Cafe Pasadena said...

Do your neighbors know you're running a bookstore in their residential neighborhood?! Btw, can I give u a couple of boxes of books to store for me - temporarily, of course.

Petrea Burchard said...

UPDATE:

LITFEST PASADENA POSTPONED UNTIL MAY 12th.
With what's being called "100% chance of rain" Saturday, I guess it had to happen.
The links in the post are still good. I'll keep you informed.

Kalei, we're talking about three different festivals. The LA Times Festival has been held on the UCLA campus in the past, but never flowed into Westwood to my knowledge. Last year and this year, it's being held at the USC campus. West Hollywood has its own festival.

Cafe, my books aren't for sale! I've been known to give some away, though.

Kalei's Best Friend said...

@P.: my bad, I always think of UCLA and Westwood as one and the same since they're a stone's throw from each other...

Bellis said...

They shouldn't have cancelled! It was only the LitFest that was bringing the rain. Now the clouds will veer away over the ocean - no event to ruin, why bother? Seriously, though, let's hope the meteorologists have got it right for a change. We desperately need rain, and much more than the one and a half inches forecast.

We have hundreds of books in our house and keep buying more. I can't bear to part with any that I've enjoyed. The removals men in England were shocked that we were taking boxes of books from the old house to the new house. They said that once they'd read a book they threw it away. Why, they wondered, would we keep them?

Cafe Pasadena said...

I like that you give away your books after you've read them, PDP. If you love a book, set it FREE!

Petrea Burchard said...

I keep my faves, Cafe, and donate the rest. I don't know how generous that is!

Speedway said...

I once knew a man who grew up in a house w/o books. When I saw the place and met his parents, I then understood his narrow attitude. His parents were worse. We grew up an environments that were about the same financially, with similar education levels, but the difference in my home was books. Not great books, *not literature,* but encyclopaedia, dictionaries and an atlas, plus others, but that's what I remember. Those books and my library card took me to places outside my door I could never hope otherwise to see.

Here, I have a lot of history books stacked around my small apartment, many of which have helped me acquire some understanding of why the world outside my door has become what it is today. I recently purchased a Kindle onto which I've loaded a lot of old history books about topics that would otherwise not have been available to me. And some Charles Dickens, too.

pasadenapio said...

It's a hard decision that had to be made. Pasadena Public Library was to be one of the exhibitors. The new date of May 12 will be cloudless and spectacular!

Margaret said...

Oh! Maybe I'll be able to go now.

Ms M said...

We have a house of books, too. It just wouldn't be right without them.

I hope May's weather is more promising for LitFest.

Petrea Burchard said...

Speedway, I can't imagine growing up without books. When I was a kid, we practically had the internet at home because we had an actual library room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books.

PIO, you've got that right. And this will give the out-of-towners (Bayside, Speedway, etc) more time to plan their trip. Truly, though, I hate to see it happen and yet I know how badly we need the rain. I read that there's a 100% chance of rain Saturday, which is kind of a sure thing.

Ha! Margaret, I can picture you at Central Park, all alone with your umbrella.

Ms. M, May is usually lovely here with 0% chance of rain.

Susan Campisi said...

It's a shame the much-needed rain had to arrive the same weekend as LitFest, but at least we can look forward to the perfect day in May.

Petrea Burchard said...

It never rains in May. It's not possible. And I admit it was a bit cozy this morning, waking up to the rain.