SUNDAY: BEA Day 3 + Guggenheim + The Strand (again)

So today was the last day of BEA. *weep* Laura and Sharon were there already because apparently Laura wanted to get up at 6:30? So I wandered in but I couldn't find them so I looked at everything on the lower level one last time, wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything before heading back upstairs to find them! Eventually we started wandering the whole upstairs as well, what can I say, I wanted to make sure I saw everything! I had much less on my schedule for Sunday and also a lot of the bloggers weren't going to be there that day. Here's another picture of the floor!


After a little snack I headed over meeting Elizabeth Scott one final time, she was signing her book Something, Maybe. Here's a picture! She is so so sweet!


After meeting Elizabeth I went down to the shipping area to ship my box off and that's when I discovered the 4 books that I hadn't been able to fit inside and set on the top had vanished. I figured it would be ok since a lot of other people were doing it, but just my luck I'm the one that has stuff stolen :( Anyhow I shipped my box and after some more wandering went upstairs to the Little and Brown Young Readers booth to meet Michelle Zink and her family one last time! Here are some pictures.


After that everyone started packing up and really there wasn't much more to see. Here's a few pictures, sorry Steph I looked horrible in all the ones you took of us...


Before I headed back to my hotel me and Mitali went and had some ice cream, very nice as it was a bit warm outside! Here are the books I ended up with the last day, and also all the swag I collected over the whole weekend.

After stopping at the hotel me and my mom headed over to see the Guggenheim before it closed. For the most part everything was Frank Lloyd Wright related and while I do like him, I don't think seeing architecture plans and models is really all that exciting, rather just look at a book for that... I was hoping to see far more modern art. But I did like the building itself, how amazing. And I was thankful they had so many benches my feet were still so sore from the day so I kept sitting down.




After that we headed over to Little Italy for some dinner and gelato. I really liked all the walking to and from the subway stops we did that afternoon even if my feet hurt. Here's a picture I took, love those buildings.

At dinner I realized my trip was quickly coming to an end since we were leaving the next morning so I was determined to visit the Strand one last time and I did! Here's what I picked up.
And that's pretty much the end of my trip. Went back to the hotel that night and I tried to balance my books between my carry ons and luggage as to not go over the weight limit (I didn't). One of my carry on duffel bags ended up being like 40 solid books weighing about 30 pounds. Ouch!

So there we have it that's my trip!

SATURDAY: BEA Day 2 + Geektastic Party

Today I got to sleep a bit later (thank god) Oh shoot I waited to long and my memory is started to get fuzzy! I'm pretty sure I met up with Gail and we looked around. Oh yes, we went to the Bloomsbury booth and also stopped by the Hachette booth, where the large chained up bin of "banned books" was finally open. It turns out the banned book was a new YA book by James Patterson called Witch and Wizard, great marketing I say! After roaming around for a bit we headed over to the Firebrand/Netgalley booth for my 10am Blogger "Signing" slot. Here are a few pictures.

Here's Gail taking a quick breather at the booth, she had a lot to carry!

Over to the right is Dawn one of my buddies for the hour at the booth talking to Fran who we have to thank for setting this all up!

To the left we have Candace of Beth Fish Reads who was my other partner in crime for the hour!

Here's the table with some of the awesome trading cards and also a little sign showcasing my blog!

Directly across from the booth was Sourcebooks!

I had a lovely time at the Blogger "Signing" Booth chatting with fellow bloggers and also a few very sweet people that came over and said Hi to me, it was very nice chatting with you guys!

Here are some more highlights and of course a picture or two!

Meeting Matt de la Pena and also meeting both Rachel Vincent and Gena Showalter at the Harlequin booth, anyone else super excited for the new Harlequin Teen line of books???

Gail getting me a signed copy of Another Faust because I got stuck upstairs. Thank you Gail!


Meeting Melissa Marr who gave me tips on taming curly hair and also Rachel Vincent again! Rachel is in the red, and Melissa was behind the lady in blue lol!

Listening to the Consumer Panel: Teens Sound Off... one of the moderators looked awfully familiar :P

Walking into the extremely crowded (yay!) room for the Book Bloggers panel!

Meeting Leigh Brescia, Sara Zarr, and Justine Larbalestier and talking about their covers of course!

Meeting Laini Taylor and Jim De Bartolo the author and illustrator, respectively, of Lips Touch!

At the end of the day Gail and I really wanted to sit down so we got something from Starbucks and took a seat! Once BEA came to a close that day I headed back to the hotel to lay around. I think I may have taken a nap, can't remember! I know I had Burger King for dinner, how horrible am I! It was around the corner!

Then it was time for the Geektastic Party at Lucky Strike Lanes! I went to meet Amy at her hotel and we headed over! Gail, Bethany, Laura, and Sharon were already there chilling on a couch! And we found Lenore later on! Now here's my problem, for me to talk to a complete or almost complete stranger I have to know something about them to bring up. So a ton of people I didn't know there so I sort of hid on the couch, but it wasn't just me! Some wonderful authors came over and chatted with us including Barry Lyga, Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Elizabeth Scott, and Sara Zarr. I bet you wouldn't be surprised to find out I talked to a few of them about their book covers LOL!

I took next to no pictures, I'll blame it on being exhausted! Anyhow it was a lot of fun! Sadly this was the last time I saw Amy and Lenore as they weren't going to be at BEA the next day, they were nice enough to walk me back to my hotel when the cranky cab driver didn't want to take me over there!



Next up Sunday...

FRIDAY: BEA Day 1 + Tiger Beat + Jim Hanley's Universe

Got up at oh 4:30, met Bethany and Gail in my hotel lobby and we walked down the street to the Javits Center. It was raining which was a bummer but it was only about a 15 minute walk down the street. We got there and there was like no one in sight, eventually we got into the building and were sent on a wild goose chase trying to find the ticket line. At least we got to see part of the building before it was really crowded! Eventually we found the right place and got in line with some other fellow bloggers. It was nice having a bit of time to chat with them!

Afterwards I headed back to the hotel and dried off a bit and did some final planning before heading back. Once I got there I took a seat in the lobby and waited for Sharon to arrive and for Gail and Bethany to finish at their author breakfast. It was funny seeing all the people come in, sit down and take off their sneakers and put on their fancy shoes. There was no way I could have survived in anything but sneakers. Here's what the lobby of the Javits Center looks like, love all the glass!




Friday we got to know how BEA was set up, found where everything was and also quickly discovered there was time to do a lot more than we had originally thought! We did a lot on Friday so here are a few highlights and a picture!


Got Sharon and myself lost looking for the autograph area and ended up at a back loading dock or something! She thought I was going to take her down! :P

Met Janicu at the Blogger Meetup at 9:30 while at the same time losing Sharon and finding her again! LOL! Janicu is so sweet, she got me a signed copy of Rachel Vincent's Pride! Thank you!

Finding an ARC of School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari which was a recent Waiting on Wednesday pick!

Talking to Sarah MacLean after her time slot in the autograph area.

Meeting Adriana Trigiani! While waiting for the line to open up she came up to us and said "Are You Waiting For Me?!" I almost died, what a sweet lady!!!!!!!

Meeting James Dasher, Shannon Hale, and Elizabeth Noble!

Sitting down on the ground, to eat. The pizza wasn't very good but OMG did I need to sit down right about then and I didn't care where!

Being 1 of 5 people to get a signed copy of Tara McPherson's Lost Constellations. I had no idea how long her line would be so I went early and turns out I was the second person there! She was going to be signing these "signing card" postcard things and then right before she arrived the lady at the booth said the first 5 people would get signed copies of the actual book OMG!

Meeting Tom Dolby and Trenton Lee Stewart!

Getting to sit for awhile while waiting in the Catching Fire line, this is what it looked like before the line started moving! That white stuff up there is where the actual line starts!


And to end our day at BEA Gail and I got to meet Natalie Standiford who was signing her new book, How to Say Goodbye in Robot. I think her book is one that I am most excited about and it's definitely one of my new favorite covers!

Once I got back to the hotel I changed quickly and headed back out the door to Books of Wonder. Lots going on over there, a bunch of authors hanging out and wouldn't you know it, some of them were there to rock!

Here's Rachel Cohn and David Levinthan also known as The Infinite Playlist? That's what they call themselves right? And they opened for the band Tiger Beat!

Tiger Beat is made up by authors Libba Bray, Daniel Ehrenhaft, Barnaby Miller, and Natalie Standiford! What an awesome show they put on! Here is a video of one of their songs if you are interested!

After that we went to the hotel so I could sit down some more and stop whining, after having some Subway (I know I know, not what I should be eating- it was across the street!) We headed to one final comic book store, Jim Hanley's Universe. It was within walking distance from our hotel and also right near the Empire State Building. This was definitely my favorite comic book store there. They had a lot of interesting stuff which I just couldn't help but buy! Here's what I got:

The coolest thing I found there was this little box of comics called Carnival Comics, I'm all about cute stuff and how cute is that! It had all those comics just to the right of it in it. Can't wait to read these.

After that we headed back to the hotel and I crashed! Up next Saturday...

THURSDAY: Teen Author Carnival + The Strand or OMG OMG OMG!

And thus begins my NYC/BEA series of posts, hope I don't bore you too much...

So got into the city Thursday early afternoon and hit the ground running. Left our bags at our hotel's front desk and then stopped by the Javits Center and got my badge and then headed to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art and then stopped for a lovely lunch at Wendy's (what can I say, when pressed for time other things matter more than what I eat!). During the lovely dining experience (with a creepy bathroom) Sharon and I realized we were very near each other in the city. So we met up in the Manga section of Forbidden Planet! I was actually about to skip Forbidden Planet for some other comic shops but the girl working at the MOCCA said it was a great one and see was right!

This is what I got:
I only picked up a few things because I knew I would have to carry around anything I bought for the rest of the day. That cat thing with 3 eyes is a Tara McPherson toy. I knew I would be meeting her tomorrow at her signing so I figured that was just perfect! That little duck thing is apparently a zipper pull but I just think it's cute!

Determined to hit up another comic shop no matter what Sharon or my mom said (:P) we headed into what we thought was St. Marks Comics but turned out to be St. Marks Bookshop, don't even ask, I was like frantically running for stores. We did end up going to St. Marks Comics as well, er, I guess the blurb I read about it made it sound better than it was, but that's ok. After that we stopped for the cupcakes that Sharon blogged about, see them here.

After that it was time to head to the Jefferson Market Branch of the NY Public Library system for the Teen Author Carnival! And holy crap was that the coolest thing ever! Met up with a bunch of bloggers and authors! You all know who you are! Here's a few pictures!

Steph Su and Sharon waiting for the festivities to begin!

Here's Sarah Cross and one of her blogger pals coughstalkerscough Sharon! :P

Here's Sarah signing a copy of Dull Boy, not for me but for one of you! Stay tuned....

Here's Maureen Johnson signing a paperback copy of Suite Scarlett for me!

Here's Michelle Zink signing a copy of her book Prophecy of the Sisters!

Here we have Jessica Burkhart, Sarah MacLean and Micol Ostow!

Me and Melissa Walker!

So the Teen Author Carnival was split up into 3 different sections because there were so many authors! A Q & A section which I forgot to get a picture of, a meet and greet, and a signing area! So the authors were split into 3 groups and rotated around!

I brought a handful of books to be signed and they also had Barnes and Noble there selling copies of the authors books as well, so of course I had to buy some more. That's what you see pictured below along with some other "prize books". They made sure we didn't leave empty handed! All in all this was awesome and a big shout out to everyone involved in making it happen!

When the Teen Author Carnival ended myself, Sharon, and Steph Su headed over to The Strand to meet Gail and Bethany! We went out to eat (I had pizza) then we had to say bye to Steph Su! Next we headed back over to The Strand.


The Strand Master aka Sharon showed us around before she had to take off so she could get to bed at a reasonable time. The stuff I bought at The Strand plus the Teen Author Carnival pretty much filled the duffel bag I brought! Here's what I got:


After checking out we parted ways and hopped into some cabs so Gail, Bethany, and I could meet up at 5am the next morning to head over to the Javits Center to get tickets for Catching Fire!

Next up Friday.....

Book Readings and Signings: David Sedaris

It had been my goal for a few years now to be able to go to a book signing and I finally did it! Mr David Sedaris read from his new book When You Are Engulfed In Flames and then signed books. Boy was it exciting! He is so hilarious it could brighten anyone's afternoon! He's gotten pretty well known but was such a nice man signing multiple copies for people.



I wasn't sure what to expect as far as lines so I got there about an hour early. It was at a Borders so they used their colored wristband system that they also use for midnight book releases. I ended up in the third group. All in all it was everything I hoped for. I hope I can go to another one soon. I wish I knew a website to check to find out about upcoming events. I just happened to see a sign at my own Borders for the event.



Have you gone to a book signing or reading? What was it like?