8 May 2014

UPDATE + HAUL: Clunes Booktown Festival 2014

So this previous weekend, I went to the Clunes Booktown Festival. Clunes is this beautiful little town about an hour and a half away from Melbourne that hosts the Booktown Festival in the first weekend of May every year. I've visited Clunes before, but this was my first time at the festival.

My parents and I stayed from Friday through to Sunday, but we only attended the festival on the Saturday but I managed to pick up a total of 17 books all pretty cheap. If you want to see which books I got, then you can watch the haul video I've included at the end. The festival is all about secondhand and new books and while most of them were adult, I managed to pick up some YA books too.

As for the actual festival, it was amazing. They close off the entire street, and all the beautiful old buildings are opened and everywhere is just filled with books. I didn't take a lot of photo's on the day, but I thought I'd include these three- this is Clunes before the festival (back in November, to be exact) and then for the festival. The photos really don't do justice for how amazing it was.

I picked up a few books early in the morning, but then I went off to the only talk I attended. The talk was called 'Pushing the Boundaries of the Novel' and the two authors were Kirsten Krauth and Nicki Greenberg. Kristen's debut is just_a_girl which is an adult novel (I mention this because it's shelved as YA on Goodreads, but also because Kristen made it clear that it is an adult novel), and Nicki is the writer/illustrator of two graphic novel adaptations (and some children's picture books)- The Great Gatsby and Hamlet.


I've never really been to an author event like this, usually the YA author events I've been to just talk generally about their books and then there's a signing (which is great), but I loved how in-depth this was. I learnt a lot about the books and how they were created and what they meant to the authors, (especially as I've only read The Great Gatsby so far) and I think they even managed to convince my mum to read them (and considering they're both out of her comfort zone, that's a pretty big deal). After, I got to meet Kristen and Nicki and they both signed my books- they were both incredibly lovely people.

Afterwards, I picked up some more books and had some seriously amazing food- donuts and a bagel burger (soooooo good!) Then as the weather started to turn, mum and I headed back to the hotel to start on some of our new books. All in all, it was an amazing time and I'm so excited for all my new books!




2 comments:

  1. It looked like an awesome day, it's amazing how bright and cheerful the town looks with a brilliant blue sky. The author event looked amazing, with the big city book signings and meet and greets, you don't get much of that one on on interaction. I'll check out the clip, I might have to write in on my calender to attend next year. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. It was wonderful Kelly :) You definitely need to attend next year- it's so much fun! (AND THE BOOOOOOKS!)

      x Ely

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