I got the news a few weeks ago - Dutton's book store has scheduled for me to sign copies of my book You've Got Heat - The Vegas Card Counting Adventures of LV Pro at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
This annual book fair is always held during an April weekend on the UCLA campus. It's the biggest book festival that Los Angeles has to offer, and one of the premier literary events in the country. Last year, 130,000 book fans showed up over that Saturday and Sunday. This year, authors like Ray Bradbury, Herbert Gold, Mary Higgins Clark and Walter Mosley will be signing their latest books. Michael Konik will be there. Also there will be several celeb-type authors like Carrie Fisher, Jason Alexander, Jeff Bridges, Arianna Huffington, Carl Reiner and Ron Kovic, all signing copies of their newest books.
And now joining them for the first time is some irreverent nut named Barfarkel
So now America's literary elite will be distressed to find me in their midst, happily signing my book with a disguise on (hey - can't be too careful - casino spies are everywhere). The blurb on the www.Youvegotheat.com website has the details:
MEET BARFARKEL
Barfarkel will be signing copies of his book You've Got Heat - The Vegas Card Counting Adventures of LV Pro at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held annually on the UCLA campus on Saturday April 23, 2005. He'll be signing between 1m and 2m on behalf of Dutton's Bookstore at their main booth #334 - across from Royce Hall. If you're in Los Angeles, and plan to go to the Festival of Books that day, feel free to drop by to meet and chat with Barfarkel, who will be glad to sign your copy or just converse.
It's ironic that L.A. Times staff writer Richard Fausset used me and my book as the lead four paragraphs of his article (below) about last year's L.A. Times Festival of Books.
April 26, 2004
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LINK: (Dead link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-books26apr26,1,1211817.story)
LOS ANGELES - April 26, 2004
Authors Share Views With Fans on Final Day of Book Festival
Attendance reaches an estimated 130,000 for event that brings readers and writers together.
By Richard Fausset, Times Staff Writer
The self-described Las Vegas card-counter who calls himself Barfarkel was sitting in the shade at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, munching on a sandwich as he waited for novelist Elmore Leonard to take the stage for a conversation about his craft.
Barfarkel - who for obvious reasons refused to give his real name - said he admired Leonard's work. But he had also come to soak up some of the details of the publishing game, seeing as how his memoir of life at the tables, "You've Got Heat," is due out soon from a little publisher in Alabama.
This last detail was too much for a stranger, who quipped that Barfarkel seemed more like an Elmore Leonard character than an Elmore Leonard fan.
The man took a thoughtful chew of sandwich. "Thank you," he said.
Sunday was the second day of the annual Festival of Books, where - amid balloons and barbecue and rock singers - the real draw was the promise that the barriers between reader and author would temporarily dissolve.
The authors argued, compared notes, signed autographs and talked about their politics and passions. Approximately 60,000 readers came to the UCLA campus to join them, bringing the two-day attendance for the ninth-annual event to an estimated 130,000.
The fair offered household names, up-and-coming niche writers, the gravest of foreign policy matters and the lightest of children's confections. Attendees learned about rotisserie chickens and African American politics. They studied the ways to construct biographies and crime fiction. And they sang along with Barney, the purple dinosaur.
Personal politics - and the novelist's tools in mapping them - were the subject of a conversation with Elmore Leonard.
The author of "Get Shorty" said his characters must be believable. And they must be good conversationalists.
"If the character can't talk," Leonard said, "then he'll be demoted" in the plot.
Sometimes that demotion can be lethal: the terminally dull, Leonard said, often have a better chance of being killed early on.
Later in the afternoon, radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger delivered a feisty talk loosely based on her new book, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands." Some fans waited over an hour in the heat to get a good seat.
With her trademark bluntness, Schlessinger said she found many wives didn't realize "how insensitive and hurtful" they were being to their husbands. The conversation also drifted to some of Schlessinger's other themes, including her concern that American mothers are chasing money and careers at the expense of a rewarding motherhood.
"When we tell people the essence of something as beautiful as child-rearing or marriage are one of a zillion options and they're all equivalent ... I think that's a travesty," she said.
Authors and booksellers also seemed to relish seeing their readers in the flesh. Bob Holzapfel, 57, of the Tennessee-based Book Publishing Co., was busy selling books like "Becoming Vegan" and "Wheat Grass: Nature's Finest Medicine," at the tent he shared with another publisher.
"We usually deal with distributors and stores," he said. "We hardly ever get a chance to hang out with the people who buy the books."
A few hours later, author Glen David Gold was signing copies of his well-received novel "Carter Beats the Devil" at the Hi De Ho Comics tent. Gold said he wrote four really bad novels before he found success with "Carter," and he said he always promised himself he'd try not to act like "a jerk" when he became an attraction at book fairs.
A few minutes later, he had a chance to keep his word when a woman mistook him for fellow novelist Michael Chabon.
Gold sweet-talked his way out of an awkward situation. The woman ended up buying his book and asking him to sign it.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
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This annual book fair is always held during an April weekend on the UCLA campus. It's the biggest book festival that Los Angeles has to offer, and one of the premier literary events in the country. Last year, 130,000 book fans showed up over that Saturday and Sunday. This year, authors like Ray Bradbury, Herbert Gold, Mary Higgins Clark and Walter Mosley will be signing their latest books. Michael Konik will be there. Also there will be several celeb-type authors like Carrie Fisher, Jason Alexander, Jeff Bridges, Arianna Huffington, Carl Reiner and Ron Kovic, all signing copies of their newest books.
And now joining them for the first time is some irreverent nut named Barfarkel
So now America's literary elite will be distressed to find me in their midst, happily signing my book with a disguise on (hey - can't be too careful - casino spies are everywhere). The blurb on the www.Youvegotheat.com website has the details:
MEET BARFARKEL
Barfarkel will be signing copies of his book You've Got Heat - The Vegas Card Counting Adventures of LV Pro at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held annually on the UCLA campus on Saturday April 23, 2005. He'll be signing between 1
m and 2m on behalf of Dutton's Bookstore at their main booth #334 - across from Royce Hall. If you're in Los Angeles, and plan to go to the Festival of Books that day, feel free to drop by to meet and chat with Barfarkel, who will be glad to sign your copy or just converse.It's ironic that L.A. Times staff writer Richard Fausset used me and my book as the lead four paragraphs of his article (below) about last year's L.A. Times Festival of Books.
April 26, 2004
E-mail story
LINK: (Dead link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-books26apr26,1,1211817.story)
LOS ANGELES - April 26, 2004
Authors Share Views With Fans on Final Day of Book Festival
Attendance reaches an estimated 130,000 for event that brings readers and writers together.
By Richard Fausset, Times Staff Writer
The self-described Las Vegas card-counter who calls himself Barfarkel was sitting in the shade at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, munching on a sandwich as he waited for novelist Elmore Leonard to take the stage for a conversation about his craft.
Barfarkel - who for obvious reasons refused to give his real name - said he admired Leonard's work. But he had also come to soak up some of the details of the publishing game, seeing as how his memoir of life at the tables, "You've Got Heat," is due out soon from a little publisher in Alabama.
This last detail was too much for a stranger, who quipped that Barfarkel seemed more like an Elmore Leonard character than an Elmore Leonard fan.
The man took a thoughtful chew of sandwich. "Thank you," he said.
Sunday was the second day of the annual Festival of Books, where - amid balloons and barbecue and rock singers - the real draw was the promise that the barriers between reader and author would temporarily dissolve.
The authors argued, compared notes, signed autographs and talked about their politics and passions. Approximately 60,000 readers came to the UCLA campus to join them, bringing the two-day attendance for the ninth-annual event to an estimated 130,000.
The fair offered household names, up-and-coming niche writers, the gravest of foreign policy matters and the lightest of children's confections. Attendees learned about rotisserie chickens and African American politics. They studied the ways to construct biographies and crime fiction. And they sang along with Barney, the purple dinosaur.
Personal politics - and the novelist's tools in mapping them - were the subject of a conversation with Elmore Leonard.
The author of "Get Shorty" said his characters must be believable. And they must be good conversationalists.
"If the character can't talk," Leonard said, "then he'll be demoted" in the plot.
Sometimes that demotion can be lethal: the terminally dull, Leonard said, often have a better chance of being killed early on.
Later in the afternoon, radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger delivered a feisty talk loosely based on her new book, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands." Some fans waited over an hour in the heat to get a good seat.
With her trademark bluntness, Schlessinger said she found many wives didn't realize "how insensitive and hurtful" they were being to their husbands. The conversation also drifted to some of Schlessinger's other themes, including her concern that American mothers are chasing money and careers at the expense of a rewarding motherhood.
"When we tell people the essence of something as beautiful as child-rearing or marriage are one of a zillion options and they're all equivalent ... I think that's a travesty," she said.
Authors and booksellers also seemed to relish seeing their readers in the flesh. Bob Holzapfel, 57, of the Tennessee-based Book Publishing Co., was busy selling books like "Becoming Vegan" and "Wheat Grass: Nature's Finest Medicine," at the tent he shared with another publisher.
"We usually deal with distributors and stores," he said. "We hardly ever get a chance to hang out with the people who buy the books."
A few hours later, author Glen David Gold was signing copies of his well-received novel "Carter Beats the Devil" at the Hi De Ho Comics tent. Gold said he wrote four really bad novels before he found success with "Carter," and he said he always promised himself he'd try not to act like "a jerk" when he became an attraction at book fairs.
A few minutes later, he had a chance to keep his word when a woman mistook him for fellow novelist Michael Chabon.
Gold sweet-talked his way out of an awkward situation. The woman ended up buying his book and asking him to sign it.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
Article licensing and reprint options
