Festival of Books 2007

So we made it to the Festival of Books this year. Last year was the first time we went and we had a really great time. This year we went with some friends from Bakersfield who drove down for the day to go with us. We had a great time again this year. My favorite booth, although it was entirely unassuming, was the Chronicle Books booth. I think as a publisher as a whole they create a great body of books. They have a great sense of design and and just a great feel to them overall. Last year I got a sneak peek at the Art of Cars book and this year was no letdown. I was able to flip through the The Art of Ratatouille book and it was amazing. I have plenty of "Art of" books and many of the Art of Pixar's films books themselves but this one was by far the best I have seen. The quality and the variety of artwork represented was fantastic. I also came across The Spider-Man Chronicles book which was both a making of and a art of book for Spider-Man 3. For some reason I'm not particularly excited about this movie. I wasn't even planning on seeing it in theaters. While I loved Spider-Man 2 I felt the exact opposite about the first and I don't have a particular affinity for the character like I do Batman. Back to the book though, I found that looking through the book actually made me a more interested in seeing the film than the bazillion trailers and commercials did. It seemed pretty fascinating from what little I saw of it and its certainly something I'd like to have in the future. The film is rumored to be the most expensive film ever made costing more than 300 million to make, which makes reading and looking through the book all the more interesting.

We also had the opportunity to listen to Don Cheadle and John Prendergast talk about their book Not on Our Watch. The book is about, as the subtitle says, The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond. I'm glad we took th time to listen to what they had to say and to hear about what is being done to try to end this tragedy that is occurring. I hope and pray that our government will have the courage and dignity to diplomatically assist in bringing this tragedy to an end. You can find out more about what is going on and what you can do to help here: savedarfur.org.