I spent the weekend in Boston with two friends from Simmons College GSLIS, to attend my first ever ALA conference. I picked up several ARCs while I was there. ARCs are not giant boats that you may need in the event of flooding but they are Advanced Reader Copies that publishers give away! Most of the time ARCs are unproofed but they're free so I'll take one, and then another, and another and before I knew it I had at least 25 books. Some of which were not ARCs at all but regular books. NEW! Hardcover! Autographed by the author. Perfect for giving as gifts.
In addition to gathering up as many free books as possible from publishers, I also attended an author forum which featured 4 authors whose books have been made into movies; Eric Van Lustbader, Chuck Hogan, Tracy Chevalier, and Julie Powell. I had never heard of the first 2 authors. Tracy Chevalier is the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. Julie Powell is the author of Julie and Julia, which was recently made into a movie starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.
Immediately following the author forum, I scurried down to the Exhibit Hall to fork over $10 for Tracy Chevalier's latest novel, Remarkable Creatures. She was there autographing books so I even have an autographed copy. It's the story of a young woman, Mary Anning, in the 19th century who is an amateur fossil collector whose discoveries were, well, remarkable.
On Saturday after collecting more ARCs from publishers, I attended a lecture by a former US VP who is fond of speaking about the environment. It felt like he was preaching to the choir so I left and went back down to the Exhibit Hall to, yes, you guessed it, collect more ARCs.
By mid-afternoon, my fellow student, Laura and I had bags of ARCs and decided we needed to get rid of them before we could continue with the rest of our day. After a semi-quick trip on the MBTA back to Cambridge to drop off books, and headed to Copley Square to visit the Boston Public Library. I used to work in that neighborhood back in the 80s and occasionally ate lunch in the courtyard but it had been decades since I'd been inside the old McKim building. It's so gorgeous!
We headed up Boylston to Lir where we attended a social hosted by the DLS, Distance Learning Section is their official name but when we arrived they told us that the acronym also stands for Drinking Librarian Section. Providence was at work yet again when I was sent that email!
After hanging with the DLS for a while, Lexi showed up and we decided to depart and form our own DLS. After wandering the upper end of Newbury Street we settled on Daisy Buchanan's. Not exactly the experience I was looking for, but it was inexpensive and not crowded at all.
Another semi-quick trip on the MBTA back to Cambridge, we stayed up way too late chatting and finally called it a night at 11:30.
It was a really FUN, yet exhausting time, and I've managed to find room in my book shelves for all of the ARCs.
