Bama Book Festival ’07

We made the trip to Montgomery for the second annaul Alabama Book Festival. This year’s festival was twice as big as last year, taking up two city blocks of Old Alabama Town. There were even a few more authors speaking. Including Pulitzer-prize winner Robert Olen Butler.

Hopefully more folks will come out next year and the event will keep growing. Here is a pretty pitiful write up in Montgomery’s local paper. The reporter didn’t really look into the festival or what it was about. I think they missed a great opportunity for a neat human interest story.

But anyway, here are a few pictures I snapped while weaving in and out of all the publisher’s tables and author signings.

Moleskine hard drive!?

I love my Moleskine notebook. It’s small, durable, has no lines and has a pocket in the back for business cards and driver’s license. I have tried (and still try) other less expensive brands, but none of them could take the wear and tear or hold their ink. My Moleskine is the best notebook for sketching, note taking, etc.

But this guy has taken it to an all new level. My inner geek in me is creaming “Hell yeah!” while another part is silently weeping of what could have been made of all that beautiful grade paper. But at the end of the day… this is still very cool.

Chicago flip-flop

The Chicago Tribune is blazing a new trail for its Books Section (via GalleyCat). While most papers are downsizing their book sections, the Trib is moving theirs to Saturday, which will allow the section to expand. They are also backing up the move with a renewed online webpage and books blog, all to be unveiled soon.

I hope this move turns out to be profitable for them and other papers start to take note. This would be a great model for other newspapers to emulate.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham