A Festival! Of Books!

Sorry about the light posting this week. I’ve been, as they say in the old country, busting my ass to get work done because next week is the Virginia Festival of the Book here in Charlottesville. Which means I will spend a goodly portion of next week being the book super-fan that I am. Last year, I saw Mary Roach speak. Mary Roach! And the year before that, I saw the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg. I’m afraid that I did the intellectual equivalent of throwing my panties. Worse, I’m afraid that I meant it.

This year, as always, there’s some great stuff. A.J. Jacobs, of The Year of Living Biblically, is speaking on the Nice Jewish Boys Gone Wild panel. Logan Ward, who wrote See You in a Hundred Years, is speaking on the Virginia Stories: Reconstructing the Past panel.

Jennifer Ackerman wrote Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body, a book I’m dying to read. Her panel is moderated by Susan Tyler Hitchcock, who’s also a fabulous writer. Her latest is Frankenstein: A Cultural History. Susan is also participating in a panel called Dracula vs. Frankenstein: A Monster Mash of Fact and Fiction. A thousand years ago, as an undergraduate, I took a fiction writing class with the other guy on the panel: Paul Bibeau. I really liked his writing then, and I’m looking forward to reading his first book, Sundays with Vlad.

And if you happen to be around, I am requesting your presence at the panel I’m on, called Self-Help, Twelve Steps, and You. I’ll be doing the thang that I do with Practically Perfect. My co-panelist is Martha Woodroof, whom you might know from NPR or her book How to Stop Screwing Up: Twelve Steps to a Good Life and a Pretty Good Time. We’ll be at the City Council Chambers on Wednesday at 6 p.m., and the parking garage is right there. My inner Judge Judy is hoping there is a gavel for me to use.