Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

I love this festival! It’s about books. It’s about the books! There are hundreds of vendors, selling everything – about the books.
First you have bookshop vendors. Then you have authors, selling their own books. Then you have persons selling everything else related to books. I go for the author talks. It’s not often where you get to hear authors speak of their works. And often at least five in one day.
Nowadays, they also have music vendors and other performers. It makes for a great 3 days.

I volunteered at this festival this year and had quite an experience like none other, but there were a couple things that really irked me. Having volunteered for the Tucson Festival of Books in 2013 and 2014, I have to give the edge to the Tucson Festival in terms of my volunteer experience.
I volunteered on Sunday of the festival weekend. I still had my old Tucson Festival of Books volunteer shirt from 2014, so I decided to pull a Michael Jordan and wear my blue Tucson Festival of Books volunteer shirt underneath my kiwi green LA Festival of Books volunteer shirt.
I actually did NOT know what I was going to be doing until I checked in. After checking in, I signed up to do crossword puzzles (which I did in Tucson the previous year) in the morning and cooking stage in the afternoon.
I was assigned to crossword puzzle #2 alongside a fellow volunteer. We encouraged attendees to solve the puzzle, which was completed about 5 times during our 3-​hour shift (we waited most of the 1^st hour since there weren’t too many attendees at the time). Some people were really good. I remember a man who didn’t speak a single word at all, but solved half the puzzle by himself!
After lunch, I went over to the Cooking Stage. I had to report to a Michael Weisenberg, who managed that stage. I couldn’t find Michael, but I saw a man who was running around the stage doing various duties. I asked him I was looking for Michael, and he said he was Michael. However, he was so busy doing 100 other things he blew me off!
It took about 15 – 20 minutes before he finally told me that NCIS’ Pauley Perrette was going to make an appearance and that NOBODY was to come close to her. The area around the cooking stage was security-​infested; they didn’t even allow attendees to pass by the stage on either walkway. Even as a volunteer, I was scared. As a matter of fact, one of the security guards was rude to me simply because I wore a UCLA hat.
Before the show, Michael tasked me to advertise Pauley’s book «Donna Bell’s Bake Shop» to attendees and invite them to her show at 2 PM. So that’s what I did. I just casually walked around with the book in my hand trying to show it to as many people as possible. Some people took notice, and I told them the news. Several people wanted to see the book. I was a little nervous, but decided to let them see it. To let them keep it, however, was a big N-​O. I took a peek at the book myself, and it had a lot of interesting desserts! A definite recommend for all chefs!
During Pauley’s show, I was the Q&A Liaison. She didn’t know my name, so when she asked who had the microphone, I had to stand tall and twirl the microphone to get her attention. She also asked me for my name so she wouldn’t keep calling me «the man with the microphone.» After being shaken from my encounter with that security guard, you could imagine how nervous I was. When the first question was asked, I actually looked in a different direction and ran past the first hand, which I never saw. FAIL! :(But after that, it was smooth sailing.
A mother told me her 4-​year old daughter had a question. When Pauley was ready for the next question, she looked in a different direction, but I told her the 4-​year old had a question. I knelt down next to the 4-​year old; it took her a good 5 seconds to ask, «Will you be making another batch?» and hide her face. Laughter ensued. Believe it or not, Pauley asked that 4-​year-​old girl to come up to the stage to try the biscuits that she made during the show!
After the penultimate question, Michael took the microphone from me (without thanking me at all), so I walked behind the audience to enjoy the rest of the show. When Pauley was getting ready for the last question, she said «Oh Derek where are you?» I yelled out, «I’m right here! But I don’t have the mic anymore!» Then I saw Michael getting Pauley’s attention to answer the last question.
After the show, I made good conversation with a girl who asked Pauley a question. During the show, I had a difficult time finding that girl. It wasn’t until when Pauley said, «Oh I’m sorry about your arm!» that I realized she had a broken arm. After the show, I saw the girl and her mom looking at a map and offered my assistance to them. That’s when we had our nice conversation. She even thanked me for wearing a UCLA hat on USC territory. I had done the same thing last year in Arizona Wildcat country, so I wasn’t afraid, even though USC was more hostile than U of A for UCLA alums. After about 10 minutes, we parted ways, but not before I wished her a speedy recovery (she had been in a cast for TWO MONTHS at the time… hopefully by now it’s healed).
It was a good experience, but I’m not so sure I’d volunteer next year because I definitely did NOT feel as appreciated for my volunteering compared to the Tucson Festival. I worked under 7 different liaisons in Tucson in 2014 and 2 liaisons in LA in 2015. No liaison in Tucson was less thankful for me than either of the liaisons in LA.

My boyfriend and I came to the LA Festival of Books while they were at USC in April 2015. I was pretty excited about going since I am a book nerd, but this place fell a little short for me. It may have been partly our fault, but this is what I experienced:
Pros:
*Lots of vendors
*Authors doing readings and book signings
*Lots of books to pick from (I walked away with one book and a bookmark).
*Lots of cute, nerdy things for all us bookworms (mugs, blankets, book bags, etc)
Cons:
*SO CROWDED!!! It took us over one hour to find parking and walk to the event — which took longer than it took for us to drive from south OC to USC. What!
*Slightly disorganized and way too crowded. We both got frustrated fast
Overall, this place has a lot of potential. I’d come back again, but only if we come right when they open to relieve some of the annoyance of parking and the crowds.
They are here every year, entrance is free, but you do have to pay $ 10 for parking for the day.
Cheers!

I love reading books. I love reading great books. I love reading great books on discount.
Being a bookworm but a teacher at the same time, I rarely have time to relax and leisurely read except during the summer and occasionally every now and then during the school year.
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is a time when I get to purchase books to read during my summer break! Yay! It’s a great event to find great deals for books. I was able to find 5 great, interesting books for about $ 20 dollars.
The only downside to the event is the parking – very packed and difficult to find. Once you’re there, there are so many different book stands to browse, performances to watch, speakers and panels to enjoy, etc.
Thank you to my wonderful boyfriend (who is not an avid reader) who brought me to the event and was able to accompany me the entire time waiting for me while I browsed books and read the summaries and browsed some more.
*sigh* How I love books.

The 2015 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was another great experience to see the new vendors and revisit those we’ve seen in the past. The Trader Joe’s Cook Books was something we always visit, as my wife is collecting their entire collection. I enjoy visiting the LA Times Photo Booth, where you can have a photo of yourself with a special backdrop for the event. This year, it is Disneyland, celebrating their 60^th anniversary/​birthday. Other notable vendors included Toyota, as a sponsor, replacing GM for the first time. The school itself is something to visit and learn about, as we visited the various buildings and bookstore with all the USC swag. The school is like an oasis in Los Angeles, and has a safe feel within its confines. I did not see many celebrities though, like I had in the past, possibly because it was still early and on a Sunday. I might have missed Channel 5 celebrities, as they are usually there…

A must-​do for any book-​lover! As a USC grad student, I just adore the festival and I hope that USC continues to host it for the future. I attended for a couple hours both last year and this year and was not disappointed either time.
There are like a bajillion things to do at the festival — really, it takes over the entire campus. There are speakers, presentations, musical acts, celebrity appearances, demonstrations, panels, book stores, games, food, you name it! Even though I only spend a few hours there, you could easily spend an entire day (or two!) at the festival if you’re a true literary fiend.
As far as transportation, the metro is definitely your best bet since it drops off literally right at campus. There are some parking lots (I think about $ 10) and if you’re really really lucky, street parking.
The festival has a phenomenal website that they post weeks before the event, so my #1 tip would be to take a look at it and plan your day before you arrive — you can see an entire schedule of the speakers and events, which enables you to pick and choose, and guarantee that you see your favorites! Otherwise you might just be rambling around and miss a lot of the big acts (which is totally fine, too!) Be aware that some of the events require pre-​purchased ticketing — it’s not all free.
Both years I’ve left the festival with an arm of books — I really try to scope out worthwhile reads from the tents that only charge you $ 3-​$ 7/​book — can’t be beat!

I attended the Festival Books at USC a few years ago. It was exciting to have a literary extravaganza on campus. I didn’t participate much in the festival; mostly I perused a used book store that set up shop. They had a fantastic selection and amazing prices — often in the low– to mid– single dollar range. I picked up quite a few hardcover biographies and some giant coffee table books (e.g. photos of the ocean, aerial photography of landscapes). Since the USC campus is compact, you can get to everything by walking. If you’re visiting town, consider stopping by — it takes place in the spring, when the city and the campus are absolutely beautiful.

Beyond expectations!
Bought several books, was given several free books, and wish I had more time to stroll around and learn about the different vendors! The festival was extremely comprehensive and had topics ranging from cooking, poetry, intellectual patenting, religion — you name it, they got it.
There were so many families and people of all ages — it’s absolutely wonderful. Loved being there every moment — if only I had more time.
One special booth that I’d like to call out to is writers muse. I met Dr. James Hawkes, the founder for the app, Spice, which is a very well-​thoughout app that aids you with any writer’s block you may have with phrases that have been cited already. So, that was pretty awesome.
Next time, I’m definitely going to plan a whole-​day excursion to this festival — let the enlightenment commence!

This event is so fun if you love books!!! There are such amazing guests! This year there was Levar Burton (Reading Rainbow), Rachel Zoe, Pau Gasol, Roy Choi, John Green (Fault in our stars) just to name a few! Amazing! My childhood dream of having Levar read a story to me came true haha! So exciting!
There are so many booths and things to look at. Definitely wear comfortable shoes! They even have huge crossword puzzles around and people can just come up to them and try to solve them! It’s amazing how groups of strangers will just work together to solve a crossword. Very fun!
The best part aside from the guests is probably the $ 5 bookstores. There are lots of places with books $ 10 and under! These are really good quality books too not those random books that you’ll never read. Most are very popular such as (girl with the dragon tattoo, pursuit of happyness, the soloist, etc.)
Oh yah and they also have food trucks which is awesome :] The lines are super long for those though but that’s expected!

This yearly tradition not only kicks off my summer but gets better every time. And their relocating to my alma mater campus has been the best decision yet — it belongs in the heart of Los Angeles!
It’s a nice weekend to bring your family and friends out for all kinds of literary activities. Most of the local bookshops come out to showcase their new releases and wares. There are panels held for specific discussions. There are author signings and readings as well as live music on different stages (shoutout to the Pop & Hiss stage this year). There are a host of food trucks for when you’ve worked up an appetite. You can load up on freebies from so many cool organizations. Everyone’s there to talk about what they love and it’s nice to connect with new people and discover new things. I always troll through the used bookshelf tents and load up on $ 3-​$ 5 paperback and hardcover classics. I never forget to make out with a new tote from Vroman’s because they typically have a fun selection when it comes to Out of Print merchandise.
Park locally on a residential street and enjoy the walk over. Don’t get tangled in the mess that is our parking structures. And as Richard Hughes once said, «Do your bit to save humanity from lapsing back into barbarity by reading all the novels you can.» Happy reading!

Overdue update.
Someone UFCed my 2010 review and I thought, «Uh oh. The festival isn’t even at UCLA anymore.»
I mentioned this to the hubby and he wanted to go since we hadn’t been to the festival since it moved to USC.
There’s several options to getting there.
There’s 5 or 6 $ 10 parking lots.
You can come in on the Metro line which drops you off right between the campus and Exposition Park.
On Sundays, there’s free street parking available if you go early. (We arrived a half hour before opening and scored a spot a block away)
The festival areas are spread through the campus and is less walking than the former venue.
It felt much more spacious in the aisles. (But then again, we were there early.)
One complaint– Porta-​potties. I’ve got an aversion to them. I waited until we went across to the museums.
Heads up (or down) — Look ahead on your walking path. I was tripping on those electrical wire bridge covers the entire time. Saw an elderly lady faceplant.
We had fun!
Started off being serenaded by the Trojan marching band.
Accumulated lots of free reusable shopping bags.
Listened to the various musical groups,
Took advantage of the free health screens offered by the USC school of medicine and a dermatologist looked at some worrisome spots. (Just age spots. *sigh*)
Had a wonderful chat with my favorite local news reporter, Gayle Anderson from KTLA.
Saw Weird Al Yankovich doing a book signing.
Added my own graffiti to this very cool display.
The hubby bought some cool T-​shirts.
Practiced selfies with some of the cool art & photos. (No, not gonna share those. I did one that looked like Aaron Paul was photobombing me & sent it to the kids.)
What really made me smile was a gentleman leading a group of enthusiastic children in a lesson on how to make their sockpuppets more expressive.
For a spur-​of-​the-​moment adventure, this was a good time.
Glad we went!

I went today with a friend. I had never heard of the event prior to today! I’m so glad I could make it out. I ended up taking public transportation through the metro link then taking the shuttle to the FOB through the USC shuttle. It was a free shuttle that USC provided to get to the event. It was so convenient! No parking and the weekend metrolink pass was only 10 bucks.
The first thing we did was check out the FREE conversations offered by the event. We snagged free tickets to the Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series. It was held in a huge auditorium! The event was very well managed with USC staff guiding us the whole way. The talk was great!
We also headed over to the LA Times stage to see Katherine Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. Katherine wrote a book about advice to newly graduated college students. It was really lovely to see the candor between the daughter and mother. The stage had seating right in front and plenty of standing room.
There are a variety of booths! Ranging from big publishers to small, booths simply giving info, selling items, or crafts for children! There is something for everyone. I ended up picking up some books from the $ 5 tent! What a steal. There’s also an area specifically for children. Great arts and crafts for the kiddies! Also some tents were handing out snacks and balloons.
There’s a whole section also dedicated to food! There are vendors who sell food and loads of food trucks. A really great selection for everyone’s palate.
Overall, I had such a great time at the event! An awesome FREE thing to do with the family on a nice spring day. Def wanna come back next year!

It’s is claim to be largest book fair in the west coast. All I can say is it really a huge books festival. You can literally spend all day here if u one of those ppl who are into reading and like to scout for bargain books. 3 for 10 $ or 3 – 5 $ bargain books.
BEST PART about the festival — ITS FREE ! No entrance fees.
Information booth is at every entrance to the festival, so plan ahead and ask for directions if u are new to the USC campus and don’t know where u want to go or where to start.
There a section just dedicated to children’s book with story telling stage and authors of popular children book station signing autographs.
Young adult section with fantasy authors and for 2014, Author of a Divergent was out signing autograph. Even though I was not one of those people waiting in Line, I can tell it was organized with a booth where u can buy the book first and wait in line at the author signing station. Think it would help if they have a bigger sign out front letting people know which author is at the particular station. cuz walking buy I didn’t know it was the line for divergent author Veronica Roth until I saw ppl coming out happy and excited holding the divergent book.
There are other stages set up e. g USC stage with an line up of artists playing modern pop rock music. So there not just books but entertainments. The stage right next to the food court area so I enjoyed the music during lunch.
For those who like to hear discussion and panels of authors discussing about their books go online early in the month before the festival starts to sign up for various discussion panels, ranging from children genre, poetry to economics. There even free movie screenings at the theatre on campus. They fill up or sold out quickly so sign up early when the website ready to accepts RSVP.
If u plan to spend all day there, check out food trunks roll, or the campus dining area near the Trojan sculpture. Check out Lemonade for some healthy eats salads. There was various booth selling soda and water through the festival area.
Parking is 10 $ on campus parking structure, go on a Sunday and find street parking around campus.

This is pretty disorganized (more signs outside of as well as inside of buildings, and building-​specific schedules posted in the buildings would be helpful). It also gets very crowded. And parking, and traffic are a pain (but there’s nothing unusual about that in LA).
Overall it’s a fun event: art, books, music, food trucks, readings, and informative panels are staples of the Festival of Books. It has everything! If you’re a bibliophile this event is a must.

I’ve gone to the Festival of Books for a few years now, it’s free, fun, and you’re bound to find a few books or items that you’ve always wanted. And swag. They have special presentations, live music, panels, and famous authors signing their latest tomes.
My friend and I have a tradition of using public transportation once a year for the Festival of Books, taking the Universal City subway to the Union Station ($ 1.50 each way) and then hopping on the free shuttle provided to USC (it’s usually there, but one year it was at UCLA).
There are good deals to be had on books and brands not directly related to books are there as well offering giveaways and swag– from Pirate’s Dinner Adventure to Chevy (free sunglasses!) to American Red Cross. The drawbacks? There’s also quite a few cringe-​worthy booths hawking religions, timeshares, and other questionable services/​goods. While I guess this is hard to avoid for a free festival and it’s buyer beware, I wish they were able to regulate this a bit and keep it more focused on the literary aspect of the event.
Even with that drawback, it’s worth visiting and you’ll inevitably come home with a bag of flyers, magnets, bookmarks, «healthy» snack bars, and maybe even a few books.

I’m actually going to finish my review for the Book Festival today because I’m going to it again for the third year in a row this upcoming Sunday… whoo-​hoo! I love coming here because it’s something really fun and different that you can do in LA, it’s outside on the beautiful USC campus and it’s great for kids. We’ve been meeting up with our friends and their toddler for the past few years here and he loves it… there’s a great section of children’s books and activities and also a lot of children’s book characters roaming around ready to give hugs (squeeze from Curious George or the Llama in Pajamas, anyone?!)
Be aware that this event gets CROWDED and parking can really be an issue because there’s only crowded pay lots at the event itself. Through trial and error, we’ve learned to do street parking a few blocks away and walk in. There’s also a free parking garage just down the street, too, and that’s pretty easy as long as you get there fairly early. We took the free shuttle bus in the first year, but it was pretty disorganized and lots of long waits, especially because it’s starting to get pretty hot out by mid-​April.
This event could easily keep you busy all day long and it’s entirely free! There’s a performance stage where a lot of high school bands come out to show off their stuff and there are lots of random celebrity panels, too. Levar Burton from «Reading Rainbow» (SWOON!!) is going to be there this year and last year we saw Betty White! Also thrown into that mix: Rodney King (he wrote a book last year… random!) and also Hilary Duff (I don’t think she wrote a book, so even more random!) I totally nerded out one time when I was there because there was a foody book panel going on that had both Jonathan Gold and Gustavo Arellano as speakers…(MORE SWOON!) Be sure to check the calendar before you go to plan what kind of panels you want to see (most speakers don’t come both Saturday and Sunday).
It’s kind of a weird mix of booths because there are a lot of books by special interest groups (religious groups, alternative healing, etc.) or by people who have self-​published their latest mystery novel, but there are lots of «legitimate» tents that have comic books, children’s books, or merchandise from actual book stores and schools. There’s so much to look at! I like that there are comic books at this festival and even some artists just starting out that have cute little freebies or fan art… for instance the guy who does the Mr. Toast series is always there and he does small watercolors of the characters and sells Mr. Toast books and merchandise. We have a watercolor of Shaky Bacon in our kitchen thanks to him – yay!
As far as I know, you’re allowed to bring your own food in if you want to try and picnic, but there aren’t too many lawn areas to sit because everything’s taken up by booths. There are some food trucks and some of the on-​campus eateries are open, but they’re usually expensive and all kinds of crowded. We usually just eat somewhere right off campus before we come in and then just eat snacks we bring in throughout the day.
In any case, this is fun for the whole family and is a great way to learn about some new reading material and see some awesome speakers. Plus, it’s so fun to wander around and look at everything there is to offer… the LA Times Festival of Books is a treat for sure!

I love that the LA Times Festival of Books moved to USC! It is accessible to a lot more people. The festival is both educational and fun; for those with and without little ones. Although the children’s section is the most popular, there is lots for others to do.
Navigating the festival on the USC campus is easy and I must say easier than when it was on the UCLA campus. Parking is free at the Parking Structure which is off Jefferson next to the 101 freeway; and either walk or take the shuttle to the campus. Walking to/​from is an easy 10; shuttle ride 5 minutes.
Information booths with maps are located at every corner of the festival; however, the week before the festival in the Sunday edition of the times, there is also a map.

Nerd heaven! I love the Book festival. It normally happens the same weekend as Coachella, so have missed a few due to that. They used to have it at UCLA, but now they have it at USC. I love this, because I can catch the Expo line in Culver City and get dropped off right in front. No parking hassles or fees!
So, many author’s to meet, panels to see, cooking demonstrations, food trucks, music and of course lots and lots of books! It’s free to boot! One of my favorite LA events, glad they have kept it going for this long.

Heaven on earth for bookworms like me!
It was pretty chaotic since there were tents every-​which way but I didn’t care, I just jumped right and and started exploring! Found some great deals on books from my favorite authors and it was right here on the USC campus =D Amazing!

I always enjoy a good book, even a great book fair. A book festival that fits both of these needs is right here in Los Angeles. The Festival of Books has everything from great book booths, to food and drink. You will also enjoy the beauty of hearing great authors such as Paul Anka
who will share his experience with the artist he has had the pleasure of working with though the years. If you enjoy books on everything from fiction, non fictions, different languages, countries, cooking, music, writing, etc… you will not be disappointed in this festival. You will also hear some great music that will keep you entertained throughout the day from the bands that are playing on multiple stages throughout the USC campus. The authors that share their experiences with you will also give you the honor of a signature on their latest work.
There are so many different things to enjoy in Los Angeles, and this is a gem that is a must for anyone that is a lover of books.