BEA in pictures

Pre-BEA, I was so excited at the thought of blogging about it. I was going to title the post BEA-utiful, like Jim Carey said in Bruce Almighty (which I thought was kind of a cute movie.)

And then I got there and it was more like BEA-OMG-WTF? But a few people had asked for pictures so--better late than never--here they are:

My first view of BEA. Kind of like my high school gym on crack. What's up with the 100-foot ceilings? Do the Javits people build battleships in between conferences?

So this is what 90% of BEA looks like: Booths, suits, and people wandering everywhere.

Okay, so maybe there were a couple unusual sightings. (Non-globetrotter is a normal-sized man.)

What are these people camping out for? Free money? A spot on that apocalypse arc in the movie 2012? Nope, this is where you stand in long lines for autographed galleys and hope they don't run out before they get to you. Spoiler: they probably will. The only line I even considered was for Libba Bray's The Diviners (actually an in-booth line if you can imagine that madness) and I'm pretty sure that line would have went fifty blocks to Central Park if the organizers had let it. All I can say is: you guys want autographed galleys waaaaaay more than I do.

I stalked the Penguin booth for hours trying to get a clear shot of this Breathless Reads display, but no, everyone loves Penguin. They were so packed up from dawn (that's 11am in Fiona-speak) to dusk that I didn't even get to talk to them until the end of the second day.

BEA isn't just about the USA. There were really big display booths for Russia and Spain, and smaller sections from other countries. (I have no idea who the dude with the pointy nose is. Do you?)

So, despite the chaos, I enjoyed BEA because I got to meet lots of Apocalypsies and book bloggers. But my second favorite part of my trip to NYC was this amazing show at the Union Square Theatre. If you go to BEA, or anything in NYC, I highly recommend it. Photo from the tracesusa.com webpage, taken by Michael Meseke.