new Arriving at the Washington Convention Center, I was immediately was swept up into mild convention hysteria of the sort one experiences when packed into a colossal venue with thousands of people on the prowl for free things to fill their tote bags with as soon as possible.
To assuage my anxiety until I acclimated to this new altitude of sorts, I decided to peruse the offerings of several better publishers. I stopped by Graywolf Press to say hello to publicist (and Lux Lotus reader!) Mary Matze, and FSG to chat with one of my most favorite people, Jeff Seroy. From there it was on to Coffee House Press to meet marketing director Molly Mikolowski and publicist Lauren Snyder before continuing on to Soft Skull Press and pr director Kristen Pulkinnen, quite capably holding down the fort while publisher Richard Nash is getting married abroad (longtime readers have the inside scoop!). Later in the day, I met Henry Holt and Company marketing director Richard Rhorer, and scored an early copy of a book I'd had my eye on in the fall catalog.
At the Lonely Planet booth, I admired representative Tamara Barr's vintage candy-red cats' eye frames and requested a copy of the latest guide to Central Europe. I also got information on a cheeky forthcoming title, Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Self-Proclaimed Nations, "a fully illustrated, humorous mock-guidebook to the nations that people create in their own backyards -- most of which can be visited (for example, Sealand, an island off the coast of Britain; and Hutt River Province, which seceded from Western Australia in 1970)." My curiousity was most piqued by a new compendium entitled, The Perfect Day: Lonely Planet Authors and Their Secrets to 100 Cities, including Bali, Bogota, Glasgow, Helsinki, La Paz, Manchester, Seoul, Tallinn, and more.
At the other end of the pavilion, I chatted with a publicist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, highlighting "recent books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture."
From there, I moved on to Mark Batty Publisher, which specializes in "popular culture, design and typography," and has some truly amazing titles! Some that managing editor Buzz Poole correctly surmised might be of interest include Talk Back: The Bubble Project, a project by Ji Li, who puts blank bubble stickers on ads and then photographs the results when passersby fill them in and add a new layer to dialogue in the public space while subverting the corporate paradigm; Caroline Archer's Paris Underground, a detailed study of graffiti through the centuries in the catacombs beneath the city; and New Visual Culture of Modern Iran by Reza Abedini and Hans Wolbers. Other intriguing books that I will be keeping an eye out for:
- Dime-store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell by Charles Simic (New York Review Books, September 2006)
- Welcome to Big Biba: Inside the Most Beautiful Store in the World by Steven Thomas and Alwyn W. Turner (Antique Collectors' Club, Autumn 2006)
- My Most Secret Desire by Julie Doucet (Drawn & Quarterly, June 2006)
- Non Intentional Design (NID) by Uta Brandes and Michael Erlhoff (Daab, July 2006)
The glossy art-book circuit was a high point. Notable from teNeues is the forthcoming title Face Design edited by Dr. Alexander Berstein: "This highly utilitarian volume has an introductory essay examining the place of aesthetic surgery in today's world, and providing an overview of the trends in facial contouring and re-shaping." Eek, but it's here. Assouline was slightly disappointing -- too much icing, not enough cake. Lead titles: Boys and The Bikini Book. I admired The Proust Questionnaire and picked up a gorgeous seasonal catalog (The New English Dandy and Fornasetti look compelling) before moving on to Taschen for a substantive improvement and to request a review copy of Small Interiors. At the Palm Pictures booth, I got two documentaries on DVD that I plan to discuss later at length: Who Gets to Call it Art? and William Eggleston in the Real World. I suggested to the company representative that they expand the Director's Label Series to include "some chicks." Seriously. It's gross.
The bloggers' soiree at the Big Hunt was fabulous. Many members of the Lit Blog Co-op were there, and familiar faces from last night, and new appearances by one of my clients, writer and translator C.M. Mayo (Madam Mayo), and friends like Antony van Couvering (Names@Work), Katherine Lanpher, Martha Burzynski (Alice Ayers) who I saw across the room but couldn't reach, same with C. Max McGee (The Millions) and Sarah Weinman (Galleycat), and Lizzie Skurnick (The Old Hag) and poet and critic David Orr. And I met Gwenda Bond (Shaken & Stirred) -- she is extremely stylish, and had on an incredible short-sleeved, black lace jacket with cream underlay, paired with quite possibly the perfect blond bob -- who said, "I have a present for you," and pulled out a black cat mask, complete with whiskers and pink nose! I wore it on top of my head and slightly off-center for the rest of the party and was over the moon (to "Dress Like a Cat...," natch). I liked meeting two bloggers I admire, Thomas Scott McKenzie (Slushpile) and John Biggs (Gizmodo). Also: Mr. Bat Segundo showed up! Sadly, #1 fan Ed missed it. Too bad for him.
At another private party for A Public Space, co-hosted with BOMB magazine and Melville House Publishing, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting MHP's Valerie Merians, who has published some fantastic books that I've really enjoyed: Justine Levy's Rien de Grave (Nothing Serious) and Joan Taylor's Conversations with Mr. Prain. And I chatted too briefly with author Bruce Bauman, whose new novel And The Word Was, is just out, and his publicist at Other Press, Terrie Akers, who has a certain glamour and bummed me a cigarette just so I could enjoy the decadent thrill of smoking in a bar (unheard of in New York)! It was fantastic to meet Kelly Link and Gavin Grant of Small Beer Press, who are both charming in addition to being trendsetters in leveraging their online presence wisely and expanding the audience for short story collections and independently published fiction. I gladly grabbed a free copy of Alan DeNiro's Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. The back cover mentions "A woman [who] excavates her living room in order to discover what has become of her marriage," which is rather instantly evocative of a Gregory Crewdson photograph, at least in my mind, and I like that sort of thing.
At Soft Skull's booth, I picked up a copy of Transition 95, which boasts the most excellent cover line, "Lights! Jungle! Action!" Although it has the oddly incongruous distinction of having being published in 2004 when everything else at BEA about hyping titles six months into the future or more, it's the one I'm most excited to read at the moment.
Damn, I was at both of those parties and didn't meet you!
Posted by: Bookdwarf | May 23, 2006 at 05:30 PM
Thanks for the thorough wrap-up of photo books. My agent was there trying to sell my next book: "The Book of Signs--The Twentieth Century"
Posted by: Matt | May 23, 2006 at 11:53 PM