By the Book

For a town that can find the majority of the riders on the subway with their noses stuck in a book, it was surprising that Boston had never had a book festival. Well, that all changed. The Boston Book Festival was a great way to spend a rainy Saturday. It took place in Copley all around the Boston Public Library. There was a great color coded chart of the various events and speakers. The best part, it was free. (There were a few ticketed events but those were identified on the chart).

The events I wanted to see was going to result in some speedy sprinting from point A to B but I had faith I could do it. I started out at the Old South Church to see the delightful John Hodgman being interviewed by Tom Perrotta. The church was packed and I was lucky to squeeze into a seat. It was a great interview with a ton of laughs. Even the oft annoying audience questions were entertaining.

I then had to sprint over to the library to attend the The Future of Reading: Books without Pages event moderated by David Pogue of the New York Times. It was insightful to see learn more about the massive book digitization project Google is undertaking. While there are now several e-book readers on the market now, I was surprised to learn that that no matter which brand of e-book reader you use, the market for material is limited to only a few providers of content. That seems to narrow the playing field a bit. While the technology is impressive to me (imagine thinking of a book, downloading it on the spot and reading it) I have issues with the DRM constraints and the fact that, as a very tactile person, I love feeling the pages beneath my fingers.

It was a long day but I managed to get a head start on my Halloween costume. It took a few stores to find just what I needed but I was ultimately successful. I credit the organizers of the book festival and truly hope this is an annual event.