Monday, June 04, 2007

BEA/HNS conference trip, days 4 and 5

The good news is... nobody had broken into my box in the mailroom overnight, so yesterday morning we sealed it up (after acquiring a few more ARCs in the exhibit hall) and mailed it off. There wasn't all that much going on at BEA on Sunday - a few people I meant to talk to had left already - so we took the shuttle back to the hotel, hung around a bit, and found lunch.

We didn't stay for Tracy Chevalier's LongPen signing at 1:30, though I did see this technology demoed earlier that weekend, as Margaret Atwood signed several books remotely (via video and computerized pen) on the Saturday afternoon.

I guess the bad news is that this is it for BEA for me for another two years - it's in LA in 2008, and I really have no desire to go to southern California in the summer. New York at close to 90 degrees and humid was enough. ALA is also in California next year (Anaheim), and I don't plan on attending that either, so 2008 may be the year we finally make it back to Europe for vacation.

On the train ride back to Hartford, I began reading Tim Willocks' The Religion, which is very good. I'm up to p.100. I wasn't sure it was my type of book, but after finding that I've enjoyed more than a few books I didn't think I would, I'm redefining what "my type of book" is. It's an epic adventure about the siege of Malta, first in a forthcoming trilogy, and begins with a very violent scene - I'm sure there will be more of these to come - but it's extremely well written.

I have no real plans for today other than laundry and thinking about tomorrow's workshop, though I've already prepared about as much as I can for that.

4 comments:

  1. Enjoy your break :) And I hope the workshop goes well.

    Looking forward to your blogs from Albany *sniff* *sniff*.

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  2. I just finished "The Religion" by Tim Willocks and enjoyed it. I would like to see how you liked it when you are finished. I love reading this blog!

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  3. Hi Kathryn, thanks very much - and I'm about halfway through The Religion and still enjoying it. I'll post more about it whenever I'm done (in a couple weeks, at this rate!).

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  4. Anonymous5:22 AM

    Tim Willocks' big, sprawling historical fiction novel ‘The Religion’ will be the subject for discussion at the next meeting of the Elysian Isle Reading Group on Second Life. The meeting will be on July 17th and will be held in the Rose Garden on the island at 8pm GMT, all are invited.

    The Elysian Isle Reading Group meets every month to discuss a specific book, the meetings usually last an hour or so. The venue is the Rose Garden on Elysian Isle, an island within Second Life that is dedicated to books, their readers and authors.

    Anyone wishing to attend needs to have a Second Life account (free from www.secondlife.com) and the current version of the Second Life client loaded onto their computer. Then use the following link to have your avatar teleport directly to the meeting: - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Elysian%20Isle/101/203/26

    I look forward to seeing you there,

    Nick Gloucester, Elysian Isle Reading Group organiser

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