Auckland Writers & Readers Festival 2012: it's here!

In a few minutes, literati from all around the region, and I among them, will be homing in on the Aotea Centre for the opening event of the 2012 Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, the New Zealand Listener Gala Night, titled What the Dickens? And there's more! I am also one of the invitati to the party afterwards. I wrote "afterwords" and then corrected myself, but you know, it might have been a Freudian slip. In fact, Books in the City will be posting a slew of "afterwords" on Festival events, from a swarm of charged-up librarians.

In our absence, I like to imagine our books will be enjoying themselves too, like those in this wonderful video which an art director named Sean Ohlenkamp filmed in a Toronto bookstore. I enjoyed seeing The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook go by, a book I haven't thought about in years. Or at least I think I saw it -- it all happens pretty fast!