Commentary: Book festival a best seller

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- In the three years since its beginning, just a few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, the National Book Festival has risen in stature to rival the Kennedy Center Honors in celebrating and distinguishing excellence in American culture. Both events pay tribute to their honorees by inviting them to Washington for a weekend of parties at the White House and a gala, culminating in a series of elegant performances.

The Kennedy Center occasion takes place in the Opera House and includes only selected participants. The Book Festival, however, sits on the national Mall and invites the general public to meet 80 authors, poets, illustrators and storytellers and share in the wealth of their individual contributions to American arts.

First Lady Laura Bush welcomed the honored guests to this year's festival in the East Room of the White House, speaking of the "power of books to bring us together." Indeed, that room gathered well-known biographers such as Walter Isaacson and David Maraniss, together with popular mystery writer Catherine Coulter and literary novelists Wally Lamb and Sue Monk Kidd. Basketball legend and author Bob Lanier, who leads the NBA's Read to Achieve program for children, presented the first lady with an all-star jersey for her efforts.

In her remarks, Mrs. Bush struck a note of commonality -- how we all love good stories. "The story of our nation is a good story," she said, "pieced together like a quilt."

James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, a position he has held for 16 years, shared the podium. The Library of Congress sponsors and hosts the festival, although Mrs. Bush is a guiding force in its continuing success.

When asked to comment on the festival's future beyond the tenure of Mrs. Bush, Billington told United Press International that it is "hard to predict, but the Library of Congress may go forward," in sponsoring the event.

Billington said the festival "fills a national need" and every year has "gathered momentum and added new elements." This year, the new elements included the Poetry and Home and Family pavilions. "More and more new homes are building libraries," he said, and spoke of the explosion in publishing of books on design, gardening and cooking.

The Library of Congress engaged in 3 billion transactions in 2002. Billington noted that the variety of the printed word increases by 6 or 7 percent a year. He sees the festival as an opportunity to celebrate that expansion and applaud the great diversity of American authors, in particular the diversity across generational lines. He said he thinks reading and the "physical presence of books -- not just school assignments" are sources of success for many people he has known.

Recently, Billington accompanied Mrs. Bush to Russia for its own first-ever book festival. Asked if that festival was similar to ours, he explained it was for school librarians and involved individual projects. Nevertheless, "They were thrilled to see our first lady," he said.

What makes our National Book Festival thrilling and delightful fun is the presence of celebrities and television personalities among the highly respected, yet perhaps less universally visible, writers. Actress Julie Andrews, now a children's author, conducted a news conference with very young journalists, and Paige Davis and Frank Bielec, from The Learning Channel's television program, "Trading Spaces," traded jokes, promoted their books and demonstrated how to make fake tulle bows that will not wilt in humidity. During their presentations, the pavilions overflowed with eager spectators.

Certainly, though, all the pavilions were SRO for most of the day. Even as the afternoon waned, good crowds lingered in the poetry tent, absorbed in listening to Indonesian-born Chinese poet Li-young Lee and Kay Ryan, a poet whose brevity is mesmerizing.

If there is any fault with this event, it might be there is so much going on. In addition to reading and speaking, each author signs books and interacts with fans for an hour. One could go a little crazy trying to do it all -- to hear and meet all the authors. How to choose between Juan Williams in History and Biography and James Patterson in Mysteries and Thrillers? Should I stand in line for Pat Conroy, or Anita Shreve, or R.L. Stine? Although selection and sampling are imperatives, for book lovers, these are pleasant dilemmas.

The one genuine problem I noticed this year -- an almost comical one -- was in the sales tent. Lines to buy books were slow and clogged. The book displays were difficult to peruse, and congestion was worse than Washington's Beltway at rush hour. Even so, this drove home the point that commerce is not this festival's focus. Various corporations do sponsor parts of the event, yet their presence is unobtrusive. The heart of the day was the lively interaction between some of our country's most active, prolific and popular writers and their devoted readers.

Each year, the numbers attending the festival have grown, proving Billington's statements about momentum and expansion. I watched thousands of happy faces in the throng, heading for the Metro and staggering under the weight of satchels filled with newfound treasure. Surely, the National Book Festival is now a Washington institution and will continue, appearing in our city as regularly as the opening day of the Supreme Court, the first weekend in October.