A great excuse to go to Brooklyn

I don't think I wrote about this last year but I attended the Brooklyn Book Festival for the first time and really enjoyed it. I wouldn't even have gone except a college friend gave me the heads-up, and we sat on the steps of Borough Hall on a warm fall afternoon and were glad.

The schedule of this year's festival isn't out yet, but here are a few of the (MANY) authors I'd like to see there:

Joan Didion -- I imagine people are going to be camping out for the venerable essayist, who to my knowledge doesn't make many public appearances.
Jonathan Franzen -- One of many literary Jonathans I like.
Lily Koppel -- A first-time author whose book THE RED LEATHER DIARY chronicles her real-life explorations into the writer of a diary she found in the trash.
Sandra Tsing Loh -- Amazing and funny essayist and NPR commentator. She's L.A.-based but coming in for a special appearance.
Cecily von Ziegesar -- Ahem.

It would be great if I caught Chuck Klosterman and Ed Park as well, whom I saw at last year's fest on a panel with Rob Sheffield (who wrote the absolutely heartbreaking memoir LOVE IS A MIX TAPE). Yet two more authors, Richard Price and Charles Bock, would be on this list except I'm planning to see them read on Thursday night in Central Park for free. Check and check!