Savannah Book Festival 2023

     As usual, the Savannah Book Festival on February 18 2023 was a great event, our favorite book event of all. What's not to like? Thirty to forty authors of all genres present book talks, answer questions from readers, and sign books in multiple venues in beautiful, historic downtown Savannah, Georgia, and the weather is almost always perfect - sunny and 60 degrees this year.  Although we were somewhat disappointed by our hotel and one of the food/history tours we booked, it was another great weekend.

    We checked in Friday. The Festival includes ticketed addresses and gatherings on Thursday night, Friday night, and Sunday afternoon, but all of the events on Saturday are free.  Thursday evening we booked a True Crime Pub Crawl with Mad Cat Tours ( https://madcattours.com/ ), and it was quite an enjoyable walk, hearing a few stories and stopping in a few bars on the way.  The tour Guide Connor was excellent, and we would book other Mad Cat tours in the future. (Be aware that you're likely to trip over tour groups and bachelorette parties if you spend any time walking around downtown Savannah. Be careful.)

    Then, it was up bright and early for a short 20 minute drive into downtown and a quick breakfast before stopping in at the Book Sale tent to stock up on the authors' books. (They are not supposed to sign books not purchased on site that day.) As usual, we split up for the day, with my wife more interested in the fiction authors and myself more interested in non fiction. Also as usual, one has to make choices because there will be conflicting sessions.

Here's the schedule to give you an idea.

    I attended Stacy Schiff's session first. A fan of her Cleopatra and The Witches Salem, 1692, I wanted to hear more about her new biography about The Father of The American Revolution," Samuel Adams. Her talk did not disappoint. Next was journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, whom I was not familiar with, but his talk made me want to read his previous books in addition to Rogues, and listen to his recent podcast ("The Wind of Change"- Highly recommended). Gayle Jessup White spoke about her family history journey, the discovery that she was descended from not only Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but another person enslaved by Jefferson. Ilyon Woo had already written The Great Divorce, a fascinating story of a woman's fight against the religious group called the Shakers over custody of her children, We listened to the audio version of the book on our drive to Savannah, and I can't wait to read her new book about the famous couple Ellen and William Craft who ingeniously escaped from slavery in Macon Georgia. (Unfortunately, copies of that book were sold out in the book tent.) I took the time to meet Dr. Woo and ask her to sign a copy of Divorce nevertheless, and it was a lovely conversation.  We wrapped up the day together hearing from British-American documentarian and journalist Marcel Theroux. Theroux has written in multiple genres, and his latest book, a novel called The Sorcerer of Pyongyang.  He spoke about his trip to North Korea a few years ago which inspired the novel, and his talk inspired me to give it a read and maybe catch up on his fiction and documentaries.

    An exhausting but thoroughly fun weekend. We can't wait until next February.  If you're into books and people who love books in a beautiful setting, make plans to join us! They start announcing authors in October on their website https://www.savannahbookfestival.org/ .