After spending four days at the Miami Book Fair I have decided that it is hands down one of my all-time favorite book events. I am not sure what I loved best --- the number of authors, the variety of events or the passionate readers in the crowd. I think it was a combo of the three.

It was interesting to talk to readers in the audience, many of whom were Floridians staying in local hotels to ensure that they could attend the maximum number of events. Everywhere there were people with shopping bags of books. When we would sit waiting for an event people would chat enthusiastically about other panels and lectures. If one person started chatting soon everyone around them started chiming in.

From my previous blog you know about Joan Didion's moving Thursday evening talk. On Friday, I worked most of the morning and then toured the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne to take pictures for my older son, who loves lighthouses. The small tour I was on had almost all Europeans, many of whom were on a cross-America adventure. There was something special about seeing people with Yosemite and Yellowstone t-shirts speaking in a foreign tongue.

Friday afternoon I shopped at the Books and Books store in South Beach and had a nice relaxing late lunch there. The owner of Books and Books is Mitch Kaplan, who is one of the founders of the Fair. Authors and readers rave about his stores and I wanted to be sure to see at least one this trip. Browsing it was fun to see the books I have read and those I want to read --- and how they were displayed. The menu for lunch was wonderfully varied and appetizing.

The rest of South Beach was nowhere near as cool as it has been described. I saw a lot of people trying way way too hard to look cool and flunking badly.

Friday night I had a nice dinner with Tess Gerritsen at Pacific Time, a Sobe restaurant that the concierge at the hotel managed to get us a last-minute reservation at. May I say again how much I love concierges, especially when I show up at the desk with a list of places I want to go and they meticulously map out how to get there for someone who has little sense of direction! I am a long-time fan of Tess' work so a relaxed dinner with her was a real treat. We talked a bit about the research for the book that she currently is working on. Meeting with authors, I enjoy hearing about the attention to detail that goes into writing their stories. In the elevator going to my hotel room I saw Jennifer Weiner and we both lamented the toll that Florida humidity takes on one's hair. I am not sure I would have ANY good hair days if I lived there!

Saturday I started the day at a panel done by Tess, Edna Buchanan and Christine Kling. They were paired well and the conversation was lively. I enjoyed Tess talking about how a Chinese chick from California who was a doctor came to write suspense/thrillers. Buchanan talked about her history as a reporter in Miami and how it influenced her writing. Kling told a fun anecdote about her life on a boat and how boats will share books often by tossing a Hefty trash bag of paperbacks from one boat to the next as they headed out to sea. She recalled one boat tossing a bag and then heading out to sea quickly. When she opened it she saw it was filled with only Louis L'Amour titles!

Joseph Finder caught up with me at this panel and again it was great to see a familiar face. We grabbed lunch and chatted about his upcoming novel, KILLER INSTINCT, which releases in May 2006, which I read in manuscript a few weeks ago and really enjoyed, as well as the plans for COMPANY MAN in paperback this spring. At Joe's panel that afternoon he told some great anecdotes about the research that he has done for his novels. He mentioned that CEOs will agree to be interviewed for a novel and will give up many more secrets in those meetings than they would for journalists doing hard news pieces. Which is why Joe gets so much great background information for his books.

I found my way back to the author reception area and caught up with Mary Kay Andrews, actually I caught up with Kathy Trocheck who writes as Mary Kay Andrews. We talked a bit about her upcoming book, SAVANNAH BREEZE, which is a followup to SAVANNAH BLUES. As soon as I finished SAVANNAH BLUES in manuscript I knew this one begged a sequel and I am looking forward to reading it. Kathy also shared that next holiday season she will have a holiday novella in stores, which is called BLUE CHRISTMAS. Now you know with Kathy's writing that a Christmas tale will be anything but blue!

I caught Kathy's panel where she talked about HISSY FIT. Also on the panel were Jo Manning, the author of MY LADY SCANDALOUS, The Amazing Life and Outrageous Times of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Royal Courtesan. Her descriptions of the real meaning behind "on the town" and some other oft-used expressions made her talk very spicy! Also, on the panel was PJ Parrish who shared why her books are set in the '80s. Quite simply she wants to write of a time pre-DNA. She enjoys solving crimes with detective work instead of a microscope.

Conflicting panel times meant that I missed Lynne Cox, author of SWIMMING TO ANTARCTICA: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer. Given my passion for swimming, I was sorry to not catch her. I did get to hear Neal Bascomb talk about his inspiration for THE PERFECT MILE: Three Athletes, One Goal and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It.

That evening I attended the author party where I met a new humor author, Chuck Goldstone whose new book is THIS BOOK IS NOT A TOY: Friendly Advice on How to Avoid Death and Other Inconveniences. He was lots of fun to chat with, as I guess one can expect from a humor writer, and I look forward to reading his book.

At one point during the party a plane flew very low overhead. Tess, who had joined us, looked up and said, "You have to watch planes flying from that direction. The planes often are coming from South America and people stowaway and plummet to the ground when the landing gear comes down." She said this quite casually. For the rest of the evening Chuck and I winced and ducked every time a plane came in from that direction. Listening to Tess I decided that suspense/thriller writers see the world a whole different way from you and me!

A group of us then drove caravan style to a party in Miami Beach. We parked far from the house and as we walked towards it I was reminded of high school when I attended many a house party just like this where I was headed with friends to a party where they would be the only people I knew --- and I would spend an hour or so trying to figure out who the host actually was. Wild how something like that can take you back in time.

Sunday I confess that I slept in and skipped the morning panels. Paul Levine and I caught up for a lovely lunch with his wife Renee and then we went on to his panel. Paul has a great sense of humor, which translates into his book, SOLOMON VS. LORD, as well as the second book in the series, THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI. Luckily, the other two panelists, Jeff Lindsay and Dylan Schaffer had just as much spunk in them so the discussion became a banter as much as anything else. The audience was howling most of the time. Levine's protagonists are two mis-matched attorneys, Schaffer has a protagonist dedicated to both the law and preserving the music of Barry Manilow and Lindsay has a serial killer driving his books. There is a real skill in writing a likable serial killer! Note that Lindsay's DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER will be a Showtime movie in the near future.

From there I caught "A Conversation Between Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson." At this event I was pleased to meet Miriam Kassenoff, one of our readers, who also is the author of a book called MEMORIES OF THE NIGHT: A Study of the Holocaust. We had been corresponding in the weeks before the fair and it was great to finally put a face with a name. We both had attended different panels so there was a lot of discussion on what we both had seen. This led to others around us also chiming in in the inimitable style of true booklovers.

The Barry/Pearson talk included, among other things, Barry riffing on jealousy when neighbors get power after a hurricane, Ridley talking about their writing on PETER AND THE STARCATCHER and the two of them singing a song all about hurricanes. I got the distinct impression throughout the weekend that a lack of power and water can inspire a lot of writing and musing. South Florida was hit by Wilma a lot harder than we saw on the reporting here in the New York area. In some ways I got the distinct impression that the media was "burned out" on hurricane coverage after Katrina and Rita since there was so little mention of the Florida damage.

The last speaker of the fair was Scott Turow. When the announcer indicated this was the last event the audience all sighed. You could tell people were very vested in the fair and the events. Turow was a great way to wrap the weekend. He walked readers through how his dad inspired ORDINARY HEROES, as well as how he was drawn to write this story. After he finished people lingered for a while. I could tell they were savoring the experience of the weekend.

When I got home I searched the Miami Book Fair site looking for the dates for next year's event. I wanted to get them on my calendar NOW. I can see this, like the Virginia Festival of the Book, getting a permanent booking on my calendar. For those of you who enjoy seeing, hearing and meeting a wide variety of authors, events like this are truly memorable.

I am lucky that both of my boys are very avid readers. Many of their friends are not. Cory, my 10-year-old son has more time for reading than his older brother, Greg, who is consumed by schoolwork. Cory has one friend, Josh, who reads as voraciously as he does. It's always interesting to watch them together talking about books and sharing what they read. Cory's teacher told me last week that he often rushes through his schoolwork to have more free reading time as they are allowed to open a book as soon as their work is done.

Moms at baseball games, birthday parties and school events often tell me how hard it is to get their boys to read. Because of this, Cory and I pulled together this list of books that he thinks are GREAT Boy Reading. Yes, these titles also will appeal to girls, but they will capture the attention of boys, who often are much more reluctant readers. Please note that while Cory is ten, many of these books will appeal to older boys as well, since he is a precocious reader.

Here you go:

Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz
The Gatekeepers series (only book one is out now) by Anthony Horowitz
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet
Wright 3 by Blue Balliet (series)
Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo
His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman
Spiderwick series by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey
Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
Maximum Ride by James Patterson (first in a series)
Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry
The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson
The Lionboy Series by Zizou Corder

A note here. Stephen, one of Cory's pals, does not enjoy reading. One night when he was over Cory gave him a copy of The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp and told him to try it. Months went by, but then the boys HAD to read a book for school. Stephen read Kropp and said to Cory, "I never will doubt you again when you tell me to read a book. That one is really good."

Moments like that inspired me to share this list. We will keep adding to it. I hope it helps you connect a boy you know with a book.

I love it when a series of moments pull themselves together and become a story, especially when you never saw the story coming. For me, the story is about what I am calling "My 24 Hours with Joan Didion."

Last night I attended the National Book Awards, an literary evening where Toni Morrison introduced Norman Mailer, who won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet-founder of San Francisco's City Lights Books was awarded the first Literarian Award in a ceremony emceed by Garrison Kellior. I sat in the upstairs press area, having declined an invite to sit on the main floor since the press area is about absorbing and inspires thinking whereas the main floor is all about hard core socializing and networking, neither of which I was much in the mood for as I am nursing a rather annoying cold/cough.

As many of you may know by now, Joan Didion won the award in the nonfiction category for THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. Her win and her acceptance speech where she said, "There's hardly anything I can say about this but thank you... thank you all" --- set the course for last night and today.

I had read an excerpt of THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING in the New York Times Magazine and been moved by it. We had reviewed it here on Bookreporter.com. I had the book on my "to read" pile and over the last weeks had wanted to make time for it, but pressing schedules and projects kept me from picking it up. I made a note to pack it for the plane ride today drawn to do so by Didion's graciousness last night as well as the fact that I knew she was going to be reading tonight at the Miami Book Fair, at the first event I planned to attend.

After driving home through a particularly hellacious rainstorm, I packed a bag and my laptop and way more books than I will have time to read the next four days. And then I started reading MAGICAL THINKING,picking up beyond the excerpt that I already had read, until I dropped off to sleep. This morning I read more in the airport, on the plane, sitting by the pool, through an early dinner and even while blow drying my hair (reading while drying is an art form that I have perfected!). I have about 20 pages left, but as I want to savor them, I am writing this blog first.

For those of you who are wondering about the plot of this memoir, it goes like this. On December 23rd, 2003, Didion's daughter Quintana fell prey to an illness that began as the flu turned into pneumonia and then complete septic shock. On December 30th she was in an induced coma when Joan and her husband, John Dunne, visited with her at the hospital. When they arrived home Joan made a fire in the fireplace and a dinner that they sat down to eat in the living room when Dunne had a massive coronary --- and died.

The book explores the next year of Didion's life as she learns to live without Dunne, while wishing him back, and Quintana rallies, relapses and enters in a course of ongoing treatment for an illness that no one really understands. (Note that after the book ends, Quintana dies at the end of this summer of 2005.)

I have said many times that I am not a fan of author readings. Tonight at the Miami Book Fair I saw an exception. Didion read about 13 pages, and the passages resonated with me even more vividly with her reading. I had my book with me and I found myself reading along re-living a story that already had captivated me....in the author's own voice this time.

She answered questions from the audience (hundreds were in attendance)with the same graciousness that I had seen in her acceptance speech last night. There were some moments where the questions were a tad naive, and the audience tittered, but Didion responded to each like she was being interviewed by NPR or Charlie Rose. What I also took away was her fairness. Instead of striking blame or pointing fingers when talking about Quintana's illness, she rather understood the plight of the doctors who were treating her.

As she was talking and reading I took a long look at the cover and saw the four letters in Didion's name and the book title that spell J-O-H-N were colored differently from the rest of the cover. I had missed that before. It was a perfect way to visually show how Didion and Dunne were so intertwined. Except for the first five months of their marriage they spent nearly every day together for almost forty years.

After the event I headed to my car and was almost there, when I turned back and walked to the end of a very long book signing line. I am not one who has a collection of signed books, but somehow I wanted this one. As I stood waiting, I thought of people who I knew would appreciate this book. The woman in front of me shared that she had lost her husband three years ago and how she wanted to read the book as she still is processing her grief and her memories and what Didion said stayed with her.

When I got to the table, I told Didion I had been at the award ceremony last night and I wanted to congratulate her. She looked up almost surprised that I was saying this. Of course, that was a natural reaction as we were in Miami and not New York. Again she was gracious.

What I did not say to her was that I wish she had letters from Dunne to re-read. I had just finished reading the pages where she said that while they spent most of their time together and spoke a few times a day on the phone when they were apart, she had no letters.

Reading this book will inspire you to do something to live your own life more fully and embrace those around you a bit more and tug them a bit closer to you. For me, it will make me sure to write more notes and letters to the ones I love so that they have something besides memories to live by. Of course, Didion has Dunne's work, but there is a part of me that thinks she would have loved a big thick stack of letters to read and re-read and treasure.

Last night and today I had no idea that any of these pieces would come together as they did. I had never read Didion, but I can see myself wanting to explore more of her work.

It was a perfect way for me to kick off the Miami Book Fair. If any of you have read THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of it.