Book Sense Favorites on Center Stage at BEA Reading Room

Late Saturday afternoon -- after two and a half days of busy trade show activities -- the Book Sense Reading room offered a literary respite for BookExpo America attendees. From 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., four of independent booksellers' favorite authors, including two Book Sense Book of the Year winners, read from their works. The featured authors were:

• Blue Balliett, author of Chasing Vermeer (Scholastic), the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Children's Literature winner and a 2004 Summer Kids' Pick;
• Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Bloomsbury), the 2005 Book Sense Book of the Year Fiction winner and a September 2004 Pick;
• Betsy Burton, author of The King's English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller (Gibbs-Smith), an April 2005 Pick; and
• A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Be the Smartest Person in the World (Simon & Schuster), an October 2004 Pick.

Dan Cullen, editor-in-chief of the Book Sense Picks, opened the event by thanking the "authors who have been kind enough and generous enough of their time to join us ... [and] their publishers for their special support as well."

The idea for the Reading Room, Cullen said, "was put very eloquently at the ABA convention in 1987 by Gail See, a terrific book woman. She told me, 'We need to showcase the authors who are the reasons we got into bookselling in the first place -- to share the titles booksellers feel most passionately about.' That's why these four authors are here."

After reading a selection from her book about bookselling, Burton expressed her goal succinctly, "Pick good books, pass them on."

Clarke was the final author to read, and, before beginning, she said, "It's just such a pleasure to sit quietly and be read to. This is the third event I have attended [here], but it is by far my favorite."

After the event, Cullen told BTW, "This year was especially enjoyable. The authors' works were wonderfully complementary, and they each quickly established a rapport with the audience." --Nomi Schwartz