This past weekend was the 2nd annual Bay Area Book Fest in Berkeley, California. I went last year with my family and had a blast. This time I grabbed one of the Book Girl Gang, Karly, and we drove to the closest BART station (Fremont!) and jumped on a train. We both brought a tote bag. I grabbed one of my smaller ones so that I wouldn’t be tempted to pick up too many. Especially since we were going to have to bring all the things back on the train as well as carry it around the festival. When we got there though, Half Price Books was giving out free totes if you signed up for their mailing list. We did this (with me super scared, I have no willpower!).
As usual, the booths set up were amazing. There were small presses, bookstores,
writing groups, among others. We didn’t get to see any panels, but there were a l
ot of great ones I would have liked to see. They separated their booths with cute bookish names like Maker’s Lane, Writer’s Row, Eco Alley, Radical Row, and Literary Lane, just to name a few.
If you look above at the header, they had what they call the Lacuna, which included 500,000 donated books for people to just take! We got there after stopping for lunch and drinks and it was already really depleted! I don’t know if more were put out for Sunday, but I was really glad we got there on Saturday. I lost Karly a bit and she came back with a full tote…her second tote. The one Half Price gave her.
We also got to meet up with Rae, who I’ve met via Twitter and is a fellow Book Girl Gang member and Book Riot fan. We had a lovely time going through the books and booths. It’s always a great thing to meet up with book people.
All in all, this is what we ended up with. I stuck with my single tote! I bought two books for my kids, six for me (two wereonly two dollars so they almost were free, right?), and two from the Lacuna. We had a blast. I love being around bookish people and this was no different.
If you went, what was your favorite part?
Book fests are the best! I’m super amazed at your willpower not to bring home all the books, kudos! Looking forward to your thoughts when you get to your stack, they sound promising 🙂
I finished WHAT LIES BETWEEN US. Great writing, the end I wasn’t expecting though and usually would make it a book I would avoid. I don’t want to say too much because spoilers and all.
Waiting for that from the library!
Ok once you read it, you’ll get it! It’s a great story.
What fun! I want to go to a book fest soon. But it will have to be close since I can’t be trusted not to come home with a ton of books.
California has the most & best book festivals, it seems.
I think you got a reasonable amount of books. I would have gotten a lot more ,haha. I’m scared for my wallet the next time a book festival comes to my city.