Brooklyn Book Festival 2011

The Book Gods smiled on Brooklyn Sunday and bestowed perfect weather for the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival. Tens of thousands of book lovers got a chance to meet their favorite authors, browse tables full of books and hear interesting viewpoints. The festival is getting bigger every year and draws huge names in literature.

Jhumpa Lahiri was honored with the “Best of Brooklyn” Award (BoBi). Other authors and luminaries included Larry McMurtry, Terry McMillan, Jennifer Egan, Eoin Colfer, John Sayles, Joyce Carol Oates, Craig Thompson, Walter Mosley, Adrian Tomine,Amitav Ghosh, Jean Valentine, Jules Feiffer, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Rachel Hawkins, Sam McBratney, Jacqueline Woodson, Mo Willems and Pete Hamill.

Author talks and panels included Laura Flanders (founder of GRITtv), Jeremy Scahill (Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army) and Alia Malek (A Country Called Amreeka) shown above on the Main Stage in Borough Hall Plaza. They spoke about what has changed for the worse since 9/11/2001.

At the Borough Hall Courtroom, above, Mary Karr (Lit: A Memoir) and Nelson George (The Plot Against Hip Hop) discussed their books and the role that music and other media plays in their work.Karr said that she writes TV shows to sell her books -- "What a nerd I am." George said that The Wire  is "one of the greatest narratives of our century." Tim McLaughlin moderated.

Some pretty surprising things took place in the tented Target Children’s Area. For example, while the incredibly popular Mo Willems was reading a book about pigs, a giant sized pig and elephant walked into the tent, setting off a frenzy of pig hugging. We learned on Wikipedia that Willems earned six Emmy Awards as a writer for Sesame Street.

At the Youth Stoop, comic artists drew on command. Shown above: audience members give suggestions about what to draw.

Or you could just browse the books, take them home and read them.

Photos by MK Metz

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