Book Festival’s Second Chapter Draws Diverse Cast of Characters

There she was, standing alone amid an ocean of unturned pages Saturday at the second annual outdoor Festival of Books on the UCLA campus. A library of colorful paperback books stacked on tables to her right. Big fat hardcovers on the leaf-shaded hill to her left. Famous authors signing bestsellers at a booth just behind her.

And what was Monica Zordich doing?

She was patiently reading a book, of course, lost in her own little world of fiction.

“You bring a book with you everywhere you go in Los Angeles,” said the Pacific Palisades resident as she looked up from her mystery novel. “You bring it to work, to the dentist, while you’re in the car. Get stuck in traffic? Lost in a crowd? No problem. You pull out your book. You read. You laugh. You relax.”

Zordich was in good company Saturday at the book festival, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. There were readers of every size, shape and age wandering the center spine of the UCLA campus. Men in berets, walking their dogs. Women carrying cameras. Fathers holding their children by the hand. There were eggheads and school-age jocks--all of them either carrying, browsing among, ogling, buying or talking about books.

They ranged from the avid to the merely occasional page turners. There were novel freaks and mystery lovers, history buffs and self-help fanatics. There were comic book readers and poetry fans. People who read in English, Spanish, French or Swahili.

“This is totally cool,” said Paddy Rees of Ojai, as she rubbed shoulders with other book-lovers, waiting in a line of more than 200 fans to get an autograph from Australian illustrator and author Graeme Base. “For anyone who loves books, this is truly heaven. You want to devour the whole thing. But how can you?”

Despite cloudy skies that threatened to rain on this book parade, it was a bustling day on which writers carried the cachet of rock stars. Fans wore T-shirts bearing the visage of their favorite authors. Teenage girls swooned as they rushed to a Michael Crichton talk.

Organizers said the festival, which featured free-of-charge talks by scores of popular authors from Crichton to Ray Bradbury to Mary Higgins Clark, was expected to attract 100,000 visitors during its two-day run that ends today.

This year, there were outdoor storytelling stages for the children and countless booths featuring million-selling books and newcomer tomes, reading accessories and even admission to reading and writing clubs. The booksellers ranged from the big publishers to the little ones, from Simon & Shuster and Harcourt Brace to Last Gasp Publishing and the Kitchen Sink Press.

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“This is the best of L.A.,” said event producer Mark Flaisher. “It shows that Los Angeles is truly a literate place, that people love books here as much as they do anywhere else.”

Organizers learned a few lessons after last year’s crowd surged to an unexpected 75,000, with many complaining of long lines and inaccessibility to authors. “Last year, we were too successful for our own good,” Flaisher said. “We had so many people we couldn’t even provide enough spaces to sit at the author panels.”

So planners secured more than 40,000 audience seats, compared to just 10,000 last year. And a local ticket company provided a ticket system so fans wouldn’t wait in line only to find there wasn’t enough room to see their favorite author.

Said Flaisher: “I guess you could say we read the writing on the wall.”

Some fans could only feast their eyes on the scene of so many books.

“Our family lives in Hemet, where you’re talking, like, one bookstore,” said Shelley Collett as she waited in line to buy a T-shirt. “We’re here to buy every book we can get our hands on. And we’ve got some competition. Just look at the number of people here!

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“For me, this certainly dispels the rumor that L.A. is populated by fruits and nuts with nothing more to do than go to the beach all day.”

For Jack and Kaya Beery of Venice, the festival was a family affair. Her braces gleaming on the overcast day, 9-year-old Kaya was buying books for everyone from her cousins to her grandmothers, with her father toting the load. She also brought along a first-edition copy of Crichton’s “The Lost World” for the author to sign.

Said Jack Beery: “I’m glad my daughter is such a reader and glad there’s an event like this in Los Angeles for us to do this together.”

Nearby, Sisters in Crime, a support group for women mystery writers and readers, was signing up new members. Founded by author Sara Paretsky on the idea that women mystery writers get short shrift compared to the men, the group has expanded nationwide.

Its members include author Carroll Lachnit, who said group members have cheered her on through two published novels, which she sold with the help of the book-selling bible promoted by Sisters in Crime, called “Shameless Promotion for Brazen Hussies.”

One surprise visitor to the fair was Irving Kanarek, Charles Manson’s lawyer during his trial. Kanarek bought a copy of “Headline Justice,” by the late Theo Wilson, the former reporter for the New York Daily News who covered the Manson trial.

Inside the Jan Popper Theater, more than 500 science fiction fans sat spellbound through a talk by Bradbury on everything from where he gets his ideas to the sorry state of local TV news.

The crowd guffawed when Bradbury explained that the origin for his book “Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas” came from seeing a single happy-go-lucky dog on the street one day. “The way they hang out the car window, sniffing the air, it’s as if they were drinking gin,” Bradbury told the crowd.

In the last row, Eric Lorensen of Los Angeles said that the only thing better than reading Bradbury’s books was hearing him talk. “This man,” he said with a drop-dead serious look, “is my hero.”