Friday Favorites: The Harbor Springs Festival of the Book

Oct 4, 2019 |

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 4th annual Harbor Springs Festival of the Book in Michigan–as a fan rather than an author. What a delight! Harbor is a lovely town on Lake Michigan, offering many restaurants and shops, including an indie bookstore. Turns out the town is full of friendly bibliophiles, too! For this post I’ll share a few highlights in hopes of attracting you to next year’s festival…


A high point for me was seeing Cathleen Schine in Saturday morning’s “Beautiful Messiness of Family” panel at the Lyric Theatre. (EVERY seat was full!) Back in the early 90s when I worked at an independent bookstore in Milwaukee, nearly the entire staff became obsessed with Schine’s The Love Letter. I gave it as a gift to just about everyone I knew–whether they wanted it or not! I so enjoyed chatting with Schine, and I’m very much looking forward to reading my signed copy of her latest novel, The Grammarians.


For lunch on Saturday we had tickets to “Sister Pie & Ice Cream with Lisa Ludwinski,” and no joke, each table shared a pie made from a recipe in Sister Pie: Recipes & Stories from a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit. Delicious! And now you know where to go for pie next time you’re in Detroit. (Above you see JK grinning at the prospect of tucking into our table’s Honey Lemon Meringue pie–wow, was it good!)


Sunday morning we enjoyed “Perspectives on the Female Voice” at the History Museum. This was a smaller, more intimate venue, and the panel felt more like a discussion group than a promotional event. All the panels were thoughtfully moderated, and no matter the topic or venue, everyone was friendly and helpful. I ended up chatting with so many charming people–and I’m a cranky introvert! There was just such a positive vibe at this festival.

Next we scurried back to the Lyric Theatre to see James Mustich talk about his new book, 1000 Books to Read Before You Die. I was delighted to learn that Mustich, a former bookseller, was the founder of A Common Reader. My mom and I used to read each edition cover-to-cover and add our favorites to birthday and Christmas wishlists. Mustich was a very engaging speaker, and later that night we enjoyed paging through his recommendations. (We spent more than an hour with the book and barely made a dent in his list.)


Our time at the Book Festival came to a stunning conclusion with a luncheon to celebrate Pria Krishna’s new cookbook, Indian-ish, with our meal prepared from Krishna’s recipes. Delicious food + inspirational talk from Krishna = a delicious and emotionally satisfying conclusion for this lovely festival.

AUTHORS! Keep your eye on this one–you may wish to submit your name for a panel at next year’s festival. You’ll LOVE it. Here’s the URL one more time: https://www.hsfotb.org

Follow By Email

Categories

Archives

My Blog List