BookExpo America 2013

This past weekend I was able to attend BookExpo America for the second time. BEA is "the largest annual trade book fair in the United States". The expo is meant to showcase books that have recently been published or are going to be in the upcoming year by publishing houses. Everyone from authors, librarians, buyers, and fans have attended since the first show in 1947. It's the comic con for the book industry, where everyone can come together to share their love of literature. Since 2009 the event has been held at the Javits Convention Center in new York City. 

The best part about BEA is scoring all the free books the publishers give away all weekend. Over the course of two days I easily brought home 100 books, everything from a non fiction WWII history book to a finger puppet book called "Little Penis"- not even joking. I also attended Penguin Publishing's Bird Bash where I mingled with famous authors such as Elizabeth Gilbert of 'Eat, Pray, Love' and David Schickler, who wrote one of my favorite novels "Kissing in Manhattan".

At the expo itself I was also able to meet more authors, including David Levithan, which has been on my To Do List for a while now. Levithan is known as young adult novelist, but my favorite of his works is an adult novel called "The Lover's Dictionary", which is about the course of a relationship defined using words:

If you love books period, add this book to your list immediately. Other known works of Levithan include "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", "Lily and Dash's Book of Dares", "Boy Meets Boy", and "Will Grayson, Will Grayson". Levithan was at BEA signing his new book "Two Boys Kissing"that comes out August 27th. I finished it last night and it was amazing, a review for it will go up sometime later this week. I also met Tony Kushner, who wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's film "Lincoln". He was an adorable man who took my fangirling to heart and signed a copy of his book for me. 

However, the highlight of the weekend was meeting Grumpy Cat. Yes, the one and only queen of Internet memes: Tardar Sauce herself. I skipped out on meeting Jim Carrey and waited in line for two hours to meet this feline and it was so worth it. 

That time Grump Cat & I hated everything together

Now I have enough books to keep me occupied for the rest of the summer, not that this will stop me from buying even more books, of course. =) What books are you guys excited to read this summer?