HoodedHawk

The boys and I attempted to go to the Navy History Museum at the Naval Shipyards in DC, but I got lost (who knew there was more than one 6th street in DC, and 50 S is actually 50 W – and turns into New York Ave)? No wonder I normally take the Metro in to DC (and I’ve been here > 5 years!). Anyway, we ended up close to the Library of Congress, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, so we stopped in the Folger. The Library itself is closed to the general public, but they do have a long corridor with some exhibits. One of the permanent exhibits is a First Folio of Shakespeare, from 1623. Turns out the Folger holds one-third of the existing copies of the First Folios of Shakespeare’s plays. One of them they keep on permanent display. I didn’t have a mono or tripod with me, but I took a couple of pictures. As a book collector, it was cool to be this close to the first printed edition of some of the greatest works in English. The kids were less impressed, at least until I told them it was almost 400 years old. Later in the day as Dylan was telling Kirsten about the visit, he mentioned “and we saw this really old book, like 100,000 years old”. Close enough.

We didn’t go into the Library of Congress (one Library a day for the kids). That’s for another trip.

   
This Saturday I went to see author Matt Bondurant reading “The Third Translation” at Politics and Prose bookstore, Washington, D.C.
This was my first time at this bookstore; nice store with a good cafe in the lower level.

I recorded parts of the reading. Have a listen!

Leslie Silbert (author of The Intelligencer ) was among the authors at the Bethesday Literary Festival (Bethesda, MD) this past weekend. It was a rather rainy day, so I only made it to the Barnes and Noble bookstore – but they had a slew of authors in attendance. Also had books signed by

Katherine Neville (The Eight) and Catherine Asaro (Schism)

I went to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. (right on the National Mall) and with the help of a friend was able to purchase a copy of Frederick Pohl’s new book, “The Boy Who Would Live Forever” and get him to sign it for me. Cool! Pohl is a GrandMaster Science Fiction author. His new book is the fourth in the Gateway series – the first book, “Gateway”, came out in 1975.