Thousands of book lovers attended the Boston Book Festival on Oct. 26, getting the chance to connect with fellow readers and famous authors by attending sessions spread out in multiple buildings near Copley Square.
The festival was first launched in 2009 by Deborah Porter, who saw the lack of a book festival as an opportunity to create something new. It was an immediate success and has since grown even more popular.
This year’s festival featured over 200 authors and moderators speaking in more than 70 sessions that ran back-to-back throughout the day, giving attendees an overwhelmingly large amount of freedom to tailor the festival to their interests. Many of the panels featured multiple authors, selected based on the genre and thematic content in their books.
In addition to the sessions, Copley Square was filled with musical performances on the Berklee Music Stage and exhibitor booths, creating a lively central hub that was reminiscent of a street fair. These booths included vendors selling books or book-related merchandise, in addition to nonprofit organizations that support literature.
One booth, run by Mass Poetry, featured an activity where festival attendees could create blackout poems, which were hung on a clothesline over a walkway to become a communal work of art. At the Boston Public Library’s booth, attendees got the chance to vote on their favorite book genre. These interactive booths highlighted the sense of community that is at the heart of the Boston Book Festival.
This sense of community was also amplified by the festival’s organized sessions. In the session “Marc Levy: Writing Secrets,” moderated by journalist Jean Christian Agidheld in the French Library, author Marc Levy spoke about the unique ability of books to make a distant issue or event extremely personal. Levy is one of the most popular contemporary French authors, having published 26 novels that have been translated into 50 languages with combined sales surpassing 50 million copies. His newest novel, “The Symphony of Monsters” (2023), tells the fictionalized story of a mother searching for her missing child, inspired by the Russian abduction of approximately 20,000 Ukrainian children in recent years. Levy said that after he learned about the kidnappings, he wanted to draw attention to the tragic issue rather than ignoring it.
Unsurprisingly, the Russian government banned sales of “The Symphony of Monsters.” Levy told the audience about his decision to make the Russian translation of the book available for free on multiple platforms online, making the book accessible in Russia. Levy then expanded on the idea of book censorship, saying that it indicates a fear of the power books have as they have always been used to spread new ideas. This means reading, especially reading banned books, is crucial in being exposed to important new perspectives on issues.
Levy also discussed the intimacy associated with reading books. The audience laughed with recognition, as Levy described the universal tendency for readers to try to hide the book they’re reading when approached by others. Unlike other forms of media, people tend to read books alone, developing a very personal relationship with their books.
“The Poetry of Nature” session, moderated by Julia Cort and featuring authors Renée Bergland and Alan Lightman, focused on the interconnection between science and art as depicted in the authors’ newest books. Bergland’s book, “Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin and the Dawn of Modern Science,” discusses the relationship between Dickinson’s poetry and Darwin’s scientific theories, as much of Dickinson’s poetry was influenced by her scientific studies. Lightman’s book, “The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature,” contains scientific explanations of natural phenomena next to beautiful pictures of the same phenomena.
The authors discussed the similarities between their two texts, both emphasizing that scientific knowledge can add to the beauty of nature and literature rather than taking away the sense of mythology. Bergman said that during the 1800s, when Dickinson and Darwin were alive, there was a desire to separate science and art, yet there was an inherent connection between the two as highlighted in Dickinson and Darwin’s work. Lightman read a passage from his book out loud, which focused on the science behind spider webs. According to Lightman, spiders can be seen as both chemists and engineers, as their silk is both extremely strong and very flexible.
At a time when different forms of media, such as social media and television, seem to be becoming more popular than books, the fact that the Boston Book Festival attracted a massive crowd demonstrates that books continue to create a big impact on readers. Although reading is a solitary activity, events such as the Boston Book Festival play a part in forming community.
