The Brooklyn Book Festival is an annual book fair held in Brooklyn, New York. It was begun in 2006 by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who wanted to showcase the "Brooklyn voice" in literature, as numerous authors reside in the borough. However, in recent years the fair has expanded its scope and hosted many non-Brooklyn writers, including Joan Didion, Dennis Lehane, John Reed, Rosanne Cash and Dave Eggers.
Unlike most book fairs, the Brooklyn Book Festival caters to the adult readership, although they also feature numerous activities and readings for children. In 2009, attendance reached 30,000.
The festival includes themed readings and panel discussions. The 2010 festival took place on Sunday, September 12, at Brooklyn Borough Hall/Columbus Park, St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Historical Society, with "bookend events" elsewhere in the borough from Friday, September 10 through the 12th.
Famous quotes containing the words brooklyn, book and/or festival:
“I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black texts—especially texts by black women. A working-class Jewish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.”
—Claire Oberon Garcia, African American scholar and educator. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B2 (July 27, 1994)
“With a few exceptions, the critics of children’s books are remarkably lenient souls.... Most of us assume there is something good in every child; the critics go from this to assume there is something good in every book written for a child. It is not a sound theory.”
—Katharine S. White (1892–1977)
“Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme, I have tried; I can find no rhyme to “lady” but “baby”Man innocent rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn”Ma hard rhyme; for “school,” “fool”Ma babbling rhyme; very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)