Had a hoot attending this year's Brooklyn Book Festival with my friend Leah, herself an accomplished memoirist. This excusion is getting to be a habit with us -- we saw Benjamin Anastas ("Too Good to Be True") and Eric Erlandson of Hole speak about their memoirs in 2012, plus the great Nile Rodgers -- and then last year I got to talk about mine. Yesterday we saw panel dubbed Modern Families featuring -- you guessed it -- memoirists Charles Blow, Kate Bolick, Augusten Burroughs and Robert Christgau, in which the writers debated the merits of Tolstoy's famous quote: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” While the jury's still out on the answer to that one, all four had interesting insights about the writing process, memories and how much is too much to share. (We found out one them had a "narcotized" penis in his 20s, so that tells you everything you need to know about the third one!)
Later, we perused the various exhibition booths then had lunch in The Heights, before walking down to the park on one of the most glorious days of the year yet. If you haven't attended the Brooklyn Book Festival, definitely look into next September. I've been three times and have always come away impressed -- and if nothing else, you get this:
No comments:
Post a Comment