BEA Spotlight: Thursday's Plenary Session, the ABA/Book Sense Lounge, ABFFE's Store & Silent Auction

ABA "Day of Education" Plenary Session

BookExpo America (BEA) begins next week, with ABA's "Day of Education" on Thursday, June 2. Open to all ABA bookseller members registered for BEA, the full day of programming focuses on helping booksellers increase their store's bottom line. The day will begin with the plenary session, "George Soros: In Conversation With Peter Osnos, His Publisher," from 8:30 a.m. - 9:15 a.m., in the Special Events Hall. This session will start at 8:30 a.m. sharp. Attendees are urged to be in their seats by 8:20, as Soros will be appearing at BEA -- live via satellite -- from the Ukraine.

Soros is the author of eight books, including The Bubble of America Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (PublicAffairs, January 2004) and a new book to be published by PublicAffairs in the fall of 2005. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC and one of the world's most prominent philanthropists. He is chairman of the Open Society Institute and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union -- but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the U.S. -- these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. In the 1990s, ABA worked with George Soros and the Open Society Institute to offer a series of Booksellers Schools in the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe.

Peter Osnos is the publisher and chief executive of PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group. He was previously publisher of Random House's Times Books Division from 1991 to 1996 and, before that, was a vice president and associate publisher of the Random House imprint.

The ABA/Book Sense Lounge

The ABA/Book Sense Lounge, Room 1E 07-08, will open at 9:00 a.m. every morning, from Thursday, June 2, through Sunday, June 5. On Thursday and Saturday, it will be open till 6:00 p.m. On Friday, it will close at 3:00 p.m. for ABA's Town Hall and Annual Membership Meeting, and on Sunday, the last day of the show, it will close at 4:00 p.m. The lounge will offer a welcome break from the show floor for weary booksellers. In addition to providing a place to relax, check e-mail, and grab a snack, the lounge serves as one-stop-shopping for booksellers to gather information about ABA/Book Sense products and services and to meet with ABA staff and with representatives of ABA's affinity programs.

The ABA/Book Sense Lounge will also include:

• An information station about ABA educational programming and all things BEA;
• Live demonstrations of the Book Sense Gift Card Program, Book Sense Bestseller List reporting, BookSense.com, BookWeb.org, and Constant Contact;
• A place where ABA members can log onto computers or plug in laptops -- sponsored by BookLog;
• A comfortable, convenient spot to kick back with other booksellers or talk with ABA Board members and staff, and enjoy some light refreshments, including teas courtesy of The Republic of Tea;
• Book Sense author autographing, including the Hyperion/Miramax Cafe;
• Information about Book Sense Best Children's Books: Favorites for All Ages Recommended by Independent Booksellers from Newmarket Press;
• Free samplers of music CDs from the sponsor of ABA's Celebration of Bookselling, Putumayo World Music. A 16-title, freestanding listening station will also be on display, as well as other display options and information for booksellers.
• Information about The Quill Awards. The deadline for bookseller participation in the inaugural nominating process has been extended, and booksellers will be able to sign up in the Lounge;
• Representatives from ABA/Book Sense affinity programs.

The ABFFE Silent Auction & The ABFFE Store

BEA is always a great place to show support for the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), and once again ABFFE will be raising money to support its work in the fight for free expression through its Silent Auction and the ABFFE Store. Both will be located in Javits Convention Center's Crystal Palace Lobby. The ABFFE Silent Auction offers great bargains on hundreds of items of interest to booksellers and other book industry professionals including books, sidelines, sports and entertainment events, travel packages for all of the regional bookseller shows this fall, and airline tickets. The Silent Auction will run all day on Friday, June 4, and Saturday, June 5, and will end at noon on Sunday, June 5. At BookExpo, ABFFE will be auctioning off many autographed books, including copies of Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Other highlights include an original print by three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning comic artist Paul Conrad and an autographed broadside of one of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's latest poems. ABFFE will also be running an online auction, which will include package deals for the regional bookseller trade shows this fall, autographed books and posters, a collection of Lord of the Rings books signed by artist Alan Lee, and tickets for the Washington Nationals and other baseball teams. The BEA auction preview may be viewed at http://www.abffe.com/silentauction.html. The online auction can be sampled at http://www.abffe.com/onlineauction.html.

The ABFFE Store, adjacent to the Silent Auction, will feature a BEA souvenir T-shirt and poster. This year's art is based on the famous 1932 photograph of steelworkers eating lunch on a girder suspended high above New York City. (For more about the poster, go to news.bookweb.org/read/3478.) The store's hours are 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., Friday through Sunday.

In addition, ABFFE will be selling black T-shirts and buttons with its FREADOM logo, as well as a selection of T-shirts and posters from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Harry Potter T-shirts, a favorite at last year's convention, will also be on sale.

For complete trade show information, go to www.bookweb.org/aba/convention/.