Books Are Jazzy

If you don't follow us on our instagram account, you probably missed that I went to New York City for BookCon for the first weekend of June! It was my first time attending a book convention in the U.S. but was by no means my first bookish convention ever, and I have to say... I was not at all prepared for it. If you've been following us for a while, you'll remember that me and Anna used to attend the Helsinki Book Fair, and I went to Worldcon in Helsinki. Those were my previous experiences at conventions and what I expected to find in New York as well.

Instead of being able to walk from panel to panel, or signing to signing, or even booth to booth, at BookCon I needed to line up at least an hour in advance for everything. I quickly realized that the packed schedule I had made for myself - sometimes even hoping to go to multiple signings during an hour-long time slot - had to be cut down by a lot.

I had also hoped to be able to go to ARC drops, but those were also behind long lines that my schedule just didn't accommodate for. Even when surprise drops were announced on Twitter, the books or items were gone within minutes. I did manage to grab one ARC during the convention, but I received it as a gift after buying another book from the booth. I received an advance copy of The Magicians: Alice's Story by Lilah Sturges, a graphic novel showing the events of the first Magicians book from the point-of-view of Alice. This was one of my most anticipated books of 2019 and I honestly started crying and had to walk away from the booth when I was given a copy!



Despite my lack of preparedness, I still had a super fun time at BookCon, plus now I know how to prioritize my schedule better if I go next year as well! Next time, I think I'll skip ticketed signings and try to focus more on in-booth events (and maybe try to get a ticket to BookExpo, which has less of a crowd and more ARC drops from what I've heard).

Even though it was only my first year at BookCon, I was lucky enough to score tickets to some exclusive events happening during the convention. Firstly, I won a raffle to attend "Snacks and Superheroes with Marissa Meyer". This was an event hosted by Macmillan on the show floor, but it was ticketed and the only way to get a ticket was through the raffle. Snacks and Superheroes with Marissa Meyer was held on the second day of BookCon and focused on her new-ish book series Renegades (hence the Superheroes) with the last book, Supernova, being released in November! We received a ton of swag and I was able to purchase a few of her books that I was still missing. We also got to chat with Marissa for longer than in a regular signing, and got to take pictures with her, as well as some group pictures!





The second exclusive event that I was invited to was an ice cream social hosted by Penguin Random House! This was on the first day of the convention and was hosted off the show floor but still inside the Javits Center. The ice cream social was hosted for bookstagrammers and was by invitation only. We got to meet marketing teams from Penguin Random House's various imprints and chatted about upcoming summer 2019 releases! I really liked this event since it allowed us to form connections with other people who love blogging about books, as well as some working in the publishing industry as well!




Overall, I loved having the chance to step off the show floor on both days of the convention, to calm down and collect myself in a semi-private area, as well as getting the chance to eat something. If you have the chance to attend anything similar during BookCon I highly recommend it!

This year I grabbed signing line tickets to as many authors as I could, and like I already said, I don't think I'll do that again in future years. While I did love getting my books signed, most of the signings had a purchase requirement and didn't give me as much time with the authors as I would have liked. However, I was super excited to meet the authors that I did even if I didn't get much time with them. On Saturday, I had tickets to the signings for Evangeline Lilly, the author of The Squickerwonkers novels as well as an actor known for her roles as The Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Tauriel in The Hobbit movies, and Cassandra Clare, the author of The Shadowhunters novels. On Sunday, I had signing tickets for N.K. Jemisin, the Hugo-award winning author of The Broken Earth trilogy, and Victoria Aveyard, the author of the Red Queen series.






Quite possibly the highlight of my BookCon experience was meeting V.E. Schwab in an in-booth signing line where she was signing posters promoting her upcoming novel Tunnel of Bones. She was also kind enough to sign books for anyone who had any with them, and even signed a sticker for me that I could place in one of my books at home! Schwab is one of my current favorite authors and I cannot wait for Tunnel of Bones to come out!


All in all, I really enjoyed the opportunity to go to BookCon and getting to see what it was like with my own eyes! I know have a much clearer understanding of what conventions (both bookish and not) are going to be like in the U.S. so I won't go in with too high expectations again.

Have you been to any bookish convention or to BookCon itself? What were your experiences?

-Laura

A lot has changed since last year's book fair. Neither one of us lives at home anymore and thus I no longer live close to Helsinki. Because of this and considering that the book fair was our tradition, I decided already a long time ago that I would skip the event this year. So I arranged other plans for this weekend and did just that. But I did have four moles at the event to tell me some inside details.

Firstly and most excitingly the guest of honor was Dan Brown, whose autograph I assigned one of my trustworthy moles to fight for (though it is not actually for me but my father who received Brown's newest novel as a gift). In retrospect I must say it would've been cool to be there with such a world class visitor present.

I have also been informed that the fair has put much effort into presenting Harry Potter and the newest addition to the family, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which has recently (finally!) been translated into Finnish. I can feel the excitement of all the Finnish fans who have waited this long to read the play! Though I must say that had I any acquaintances who did not understand English or who would largely prefer Finnish, I would have read (acted??) out the play for them translating it myself (I know, I will make a good bedtime story reader for my kids one day :D).

And as always, the fair is the mecca of books, bookstores, publishers, authors, comics, and about everything else that has anything to do with literature. And lets not forget all the lectures and speeches that often represent a colorful array of different topics and cover so many genres that everyone is bound to find something of interest.

Also, a sneaky plus is that at the time of the book fair Messukeskus also hosts the annual Food and Wine Fair. So in between book fandom there is no need to go hungry, just march on upstairs and start strolling and tasting samples. I was a little jealous when I saw that Goodio, the brand of my favorite (and Finnish!) raw chocolate, has a station there and is serving free samples of EVERY flavor. :D

Next year I would love to visit the Turku book fair as I am now living in the city. But while we wait for that, there is still time to head over to the Helsinki fair tomorrow! And have a great Halloween next week!

-Anna

Last weekend me and Anna headed to the Helsinki book fair again! During the previous years, we had chosen the day we go based on the events going on. This year however, we were only able to coordinate going on one day, so naturally we went on that day...

There weren't too many events we wanted to stop by at but as per tradition we went to an interview with Salla Simukka where she discussed her new book, Sisarla.


Mainly we walked around, checking out the stalls different bookstores had set up, seeing if anything interesting caught our eye. I purchased two books from the fair this year: Noitaympyrä by Pentti Haanpää and The City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itäranta and I'm very excited to start reading them!

All in all, we had a fun time spending a day at the fair. If you have any bookish events in your area, I'd highly recommend going to them!

-Laura

Furthermore is the newest novel by bestselling author Tahereh Mafi. It's a cute middle school fantasy book. It follows the story of young Alice Alexis Queensmeadow as she explores the land of Furthermore in hopes of finding her missing father. Simultaneously it explores important themes of friendship and individuality.

It was released on August 30th, while I was traveling in New York. As soon as I heard I got myself a ticket to the launch event hosted by Books of Wonder at the New York Public Library. When the day of the event finally came, I stumbled in wild-eyed and nervous, not knowing anyone there. Within minutes I felt comfortable. Something about being surrounded by people who are like you makes it easy to strike up a conversation, and thus I spent the time before Tahereh showed up chatting with other fans.

The event was so well planned it was amazing! I got there quite early and thus got a good spot in the line to get your cop of Furthermore personalized. Unlike other similar events I've been to you were assigned a number and they only had 10 people line up at a time. Thus you didn't have to spend the entire event waiting in line and miss all the other organized activities. Beyond the autographing portion, there was an interview with Tahereh moderated by her husband and fellow author Ransom Riggs! The couple was so cute and I loved their chemistry. Beyond that, there was a lot of merch that was given out as well as an airbrush tattoo station. Finally, they were selling copies of all of Tahereh's and Ransom's books all signed, but Ransom wasn't personalizing any during the event. Overall it was a lot of fun and I'm extremely happy that I happened to be in town while it happened!

-Laura