But what of the other readers? I enjoy hearing writers talk about their books, even onscreen, but I have missed the other readers. I have so much missed sitting in an audience with people who love the same authors I love, to hear a conversation — perhaps even raising my hand and joining the conversation — about a book that has made me see the world, or myself, just a bit differently.
To be read to is a form of holiness. A hush falls over the chattering, rustling crowd. Everyone grows still, giving themselves over to the spell that carefully chosen words can cast. It’s a little like being a child, settling on the classroom rug and waiting for your teacher to read the next chapter of an absorbing story.
Thank God book festivals are back this year, seemingly none the weaker for their forays into cyberspace. In fact, they may be stronger than ever, if only because so many of them now include livestreamed or recorded sessions that allow distant readers to tune in. Book festivals are a year-round joy, but fall is their high season — just look at this list from Bookreporter! — which only makes sense: Fall is publishing’s high season, too, and many of the most anticipated books of the year are coming out right now.
I’ve been to book festivals as a writer, but I’m not traveling with a new book this year, so I will be back at the Southern Festival of Books, my hometown festival, mainly as a reader. This book festival and I got to Nashville at nearly the same time — I in 1987, the festival in 1989 — and it is no exaggeration to say that it has been a crucial part of my entire adult life.
As a high school teacher, I would take my students to meet some of the storied writers on their school reading lists. As a mother, I took my own children to hear their favorites. During the time when I worked as a freelance editor for Humanities Tennessee, which hosts the book festival each year, I came to understand just how much work it takes to put on a literary event with something to offer every kind of reader, and tiny future readers, too.
The food trucks, the live music, the picture-book characters come to life, the giant tent where festival authors’ books are for sale and the smaller tents where publishers and literary organizations showcase their work — I love them all. Being on the plaza at a book festival is like going to a party where you have something to talk about with every single person there, whether you already know them or not, the kind of party where, unbelievably, no one is a bore.
Most of all I love the quiet, indoor parts of this gathering, the hushed moments, in big rooms and small, when I can sit down with other readers and surrender to the magic spell of language and the transporting power of story. It is an experience, as Mr. Bennett’s reader-queen reflects, that is both common and shared. In this age of divisions, could anything be more necessary?
Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the books “Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South” and “Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.”
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