After BEA16

I was so exhausted after Day 3 at BEA that I was not able to do a post.
And I’m fortunate to live in the suburb, just about 20 mn by train from downtown Chicago. I can’t imagine how others survived, especially if they stayed for BookCon this Saturday, plus a long flight back home. I know there were bloggers from Sri Lanka and Singapore among us!!
But, they are young, I’m not, I start feeling the difference, or rather, my muscles do. This morning when I got up, I could feel the miles in my legs. I walked a bit on the Appalachian Trail last Summer, it was nothing compare to 8 hours or more of walking the long aisles at BEA for 3 days.
Do it while you are young, lol!

I know you can’t wait to see what I brought back.

As you would expect my first pile is “the French connection“:

It was a nice surprise to see Béatrice Peltre (author signing) was there to sign her gorgeous French cooking book, My French Family Table, (the book at the bottom of the pile), with just 5 people in front of me in the line. She was very sweet and we chatted a bit in French. It was a shock though to discover the book was maybe 5 lbs or more, and that was my very first book of the day!
The bag was already heavy!!

It was a total surprise to find books by Black, Lemaitre and Laurain. They were not listed, but I found them at the speed-dating session. I only learned about this event the day before, and had not signed up at the beginning of May when requested, but when I saw the door open, I went in and sat in the corner. The moderator saw me and showed me there were sill some available seats. She was so very sweet to do this for an ignoramus!
I loved a lot this session: you are assigned at a table with other bloggers. There are several piles of books in the center of each table, and several publicists and/or publishers come and give you their elevator pitch for each book!
It was so cool to see how enthusiastic they were about each book they were ready to give you.
There were a few other books related to France I wanted to get. One I missed because it was given away on Wednesday, and I stayed the whole day with the Bloggers conference; and the other one, which I was ready to buy, was not for sale until BookCon (??!!!), even though there was a whole pile displayed. I was mad and had to refrain from slapping the agent.

Here are more goodies I felt convinced enough to bring back, for my own interest:

I was not going to miss the latest book by Ann Patchett!
But the most thrilling may well be a book I discovered at BEA: The Other Einstein, which sounds like a fantastic historical novel. I also listened to the author Marie Benedict on stage (right picture), and I really enjoyed her presentation.

And here is finally my third pile, books I picked or accepted exclusively thinking about the members of my book club:

So that’s a total of 32 books, crazy compared to the 6 I wanted to bring back, but still reasonable. I also received all kinds of incredible goodies:

 
tote bags (literary theme on left, other on right)

 
another cool Penguin tote-bag,
buttons, Christmas ornament to color, leather coaster,
cool cup (“Life is better with a plot”, yes!)
451 Fahrenheit matches (!), lip balm!

 
cool bookmarks and images

 
pens, notepads,
and various things, including a 3D wooden dolphin to put together!

I just spent some thrilling time filling tote-bags with all these goodies to give to my book club members next Friday!

So obviously BEA is about discovering new books, new authors, and the bonus of getting them free, with all kinds of other things, but it is also the joy of meeting book bloggers face to face and other book lovers – authors, publishers, publicists, and even book binders.
I discovered several book bloggers I knew were actually living also around Chicago!
I also talked with people from several other countries: France, Switzerland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and China!

On a previous post, I mentioned book bloggers I was thrilled to see, I can add to the list:

• Sheila at Book Journey

• Julie at JulzReads

• Katie at WordsforWorms

• Candace at Beth Fish Reads – who was just chosen as the Audio Publishers Association’s 2016 Audiobook Blogger of the Year. Congrats!

• Shel, Bel, and Nat at BiblioJunkies

• Erika at Maniacal Reader (booktuber)

• Caitlin at The Book Shire

• Sasha at Abookutopia (booktuber)

• Nathasha at Tashapolis (booktuber)

• and many more!

Be sure to come back on Monday, I will share about other cool people and things I saw at BEA16!