My BEA Recap: Part 2

[Find Part 1 of my BEA Recap here.]

BEA Day 1

On my first full day in New York my alarm went off at 4:50am. With less than 5 hours of sleep I somehow was rather chipper that morning! I quietly showered (without, hopefully, much disturbance to my roomies) and walked the few blocks to the convention center. I had to get in line for tickets for some big name authors, and I’d heard that tickets were only handed out until 6:45am. I arrived at the convention center at 5:30am to find only two people in line ahead of me, and that’s when I saw the sign: “Tickets will be handed out beginning at 6:45am.” So yeah, I was a bit early! No matter though – many more people started arriving within 15 minutes.

After picking up tickets for Cory Doctorow, Rick Riordan, and Matthew Reinhart (those last two were at Kiddo’s request) I sat down for a relaxing chat – and some tea – with a group of bloggers. It was great to have this time to simply relax before the craziness of the day began.

While wandering around before the convention I ran into two bloggers I’d met before and one I was very happy to meet:

Wendy @ Caribou’s Mom, Serena @ Savvy Verse and Wit, “The Girl” and Anna from Diary of an Eccentric, and me

At 9am the convention opened and I began browsing the booths. To say that there was an overwhelming number of booths would be a serious understatement. It is simply incredible to me how many different kinds of publishers and book-related businesses were exhibiting!

My first big plan of the day was to get Cory Doctorow’s new book, FOR THE WIN, which he’d be signing at 10am. I spent about 30 minutes in line for that and was thrilled that his was the first book I picked up at BEA.

Cory Doctorow signing books

I browsed a few more booths then headed over to pick up another book I really wanted. Co-author Jon Bowe was signing copies of CROSSING ANTARCTICA, which chronicles his own experiences there. I love reading about the polar regions so this was a must-have for me.

For lunch I met up with three other bloggers and we headed to Chipotle (yes, we ARE addicted to Chipotle!) We were all so tired and hungry that there really wasn’t a great deal of chatting, but we had fun all the same.

My lunch buddies: Jill @ Fizzy Thoughts (with Billy the Goat) and Jenn @ Jenn’s Bookshelves

And me with Jen @ Devourer of Books

After lunch I again browsed the booths (all this browsing does involved picking up books too!) then got in the enormous line for Rick Riordan’s new book, THE RED PYRAMID. Kiddo was especially excited about the chance to have this book signed by the author to him. I had a great chat with my fellow line-mates and educated some of them on what book blogging is all about.

Rick Riordan

I immediately hoped over to the Matthew Reinhart line (also VERY VERY long) to get the gorgeous new pop-up book ENCYLOPEDIA MYTHOLOGICA: GODS AND HEROES. This is no ordinary pop-up book! Kiddo has one that is about ancient sea creatures and it is simply amazing. The detail that’s included is unbelievable.

Matthew Reinhart

The rest of my day was spent methodically working through the booths. I did make time to hook up with Dot Lin, my long-time correspondent from Tor Publishing. It was wonderful to meet her and I’m just sad that I didn’t think to take a picture.

That evening Harper Collins hosted a Book Blogger Reception – look for details and photos in my next post!

TO BE CONTINUED ...