Despite the cold snap yesterday, readers from all over New York City attended the sixth annual Brooklyn Book Festival. Reportedly, it is the largest book festival in the Northeast. In the video embedded above, you can meet some of the participating authors.
Pulitzer prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri won this year’s Best of Brooklyn, Inc. award (BoBi). Lahiri was born in London, but now calls Brooklyn home. Each year, the festival recognizes a literary figure whose work embraces and speaks to the Brooklyn spirit. Previous recipients of the BoBi award include John Ashbery (2010), Edwidge Danticat (2009), Walter Mosley (2008) and Paul Auster (2007).
Festival founder and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz commented: “It’s all about the written word and how important reading is for all of us. Whether we’re kids who use reading to make ourselves into what we’re going to be in our life or whether you’re an elder person, like myself. Knowledge doesn’t stop at a certain age; it continues for life.”
At the festival, Lahiri joined book critic Liesl Schillinger for a literary conversation. Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer spoke at a panel for the 50th anniversary of The Phantom Tollboth, a book they wrote and illustrated. Other children’s authors at the festival included The House that Baba Built author Ed Young, If I Stay author Gayle Foreman and Birthmarked author Caragh M. O’Brien.