Toni Morrison makes a memorable first appearance at lovefest known as the National Book Festival

The Washington Post. By The Reliable Source

Author Toni Morrison at the Hay Adams Hotel luncheon Friday honoring her National Book Festival's Creative Achievement Award . (Photo by Dan Chung ) In her storied career, author Toni Morrison had somehow never made it to the National Book Festival on the mall. It took 11 years for her to come, which is probably why organizers decided to give her the festival’s Creative Achievement award.
You’d think Morrison — who’s won a Nobel, a Pulitzer and just about every other literary prize there is to win — might be blase about another crowd of adoring acolytes. You’d be wrong.
“What’s really comforting for me, being here, is being among people where I don’t have to defend books,” Morrison told the audience at the Library of Congress Friday night.
The 80-year-old Morrison admitted she enjoys reading books on her iPad — especially turning the virtual pages. But when she really covets a book, she insists on holding the real thing in her hands, underlining passages, basically “ruining” it. That’s love.

Saturday’s crowd at the festival on the Mall. (Megan Buerger/The Washington Post ) The festival, now in its 11th year and expanded to 115 authors and two days over the weekend, was all about the old-fashioned, ongoing love affair with reading.
Full piece at The Washington Post.