Why the Festival of Books needs to stay at USC
Library truck for days
Every year, the Los Angeles Times puts on the Festival of Books, housed right on USC’s campus. This year, it was just as big and exciting as ever.
Despite a rainy first day, the festival had a large turnout this weekend. People in the community were drawn in by delicious food trucks, amazing guest speakers like Arianna Huffington, Buzz Aldrin and Rainn Wilson, and of course rows upon rows of tents filled with books.
Among the hundreds of exhibitors featured were booksellers, publishers, and other community builders such as non-profit 862LA. There were also hours upon hours of special programming like discussions and readings of newly published works. The LA Times is touting this weekend’s festival as a success, “rain or shine.”
Despite the fun that anytime of festival can guarantee, there is something very special about the Festival of Books, and we at USC are pretty lucky that it happens right here on our campus.
Me and my mom with signed copies of Carrie Brownstein’s new book
Maybe it’s just me because I’m a huge book nerd, but I’ve found literature can get swept under the rug. In a city and at a school that celebrates the storytelling power of not only cinema and television, but also new forms of media like Virtual Reality and video games, it’s easy to forget about literature. As a Creative Writing major, I hear a lot of people saying “oh wow that’s cool, it’s kind of a dying art form.”
With so many new and dynamic modes of storytelling on the upswing, and living in their capital, LA, it’s easy to feel like this is completely true. But it isn’t. Contemporary Literature is a thriving and experimental community, it’s just somewhat less accessible than others. It’s easy to forget about lit that wasn’t required reading in High School.
USC’s investment in the Festival of Books is a reminder not only to book-lovers that we aren’t extinct, but also a reminder to the community as a whole what an important aspect of our culture literature holds. The breadth alone of this festival, its wide-range of activities and vendors that sprawl across our whole campus, is testament to the fact that literature is an important bonding factor in our society.
Seeing children dragging their parents by the arm, playing with giant volleyballs, faces covered in cinnamon sugar from churros, and toting their favorite picture books is testament to a fact that it is easy to forget sometimes. The written word isn’t being edged out at all. It remains a hearty and important part to all of our development. It’s artistic expression, as is testament to the Spoken Word tent that had someone yelling poetry at passers-by. It’s academic and intellectual expansion for those reading up on new communities, cultures and religions at booths they’ve never heard of.
And of course it’s important social and communal bonding for everyone huddled under ta bookseller’s tent, hungrily pawing at new books, showing them to their loved ones and exclaiming praise for authors they know. While the weekend was a fun celebration, it was also a hearty reminder of why we read and how it brings us together, even in an increasingly digital age.