National Book Festival

The National Book Festival is an autumn organized annually since 2001 by the Library of Congress literary event in Washington, DC on the National Mall. Another major feature is the Institute of Museum and Library Services ( IMSL ) involved. Patron and co-founder was the former First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, who already had experience with the festival from her 1995 co-founded Texas Book, since 2009 after the First Lady Michelle Obama.

Theme Pavilions

The festival, which is not a book fair is to bring together readers and authors. It is divided into themed pavilions, each of which is sponsored by the private sector in 2010 with the following topics: Children ( children's books ), Fiction & Mystery, Contemporary Life, History & Biography, Poetry and Prose, Teens & Children. An exception is the seal, which is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts since 2005.

The festival offers in addition to author readings about Festival Video Festival Webcasts and audio podcasts also possible via the Internet voting on the best American writers and poets. 2010 were the chosen top ten:

• Diana Gabaldon
• John Grisham
• Karin Slaughter
• David Baldacci
• David McCullough
• Suzanne Collins
• Dana Stabenow
• Neil Gaiman
• Lois Bujold
• George Martin

International author participation

Only in recent years, in addition to approximately 70 American authors and internationally controversial writers like Salman Rushdie (2008 ) and Orhan Pamuk (2010 ) will be invited. On September 25, 2010 the 10th Festival, also Isabel Allende, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, Jane Smiley, Scott Turow and Gordon S. Wood were represented.

Number of

The festival started in 2001 with around 30,000 visitors. 2010, the number of visitors around 150,000 visitors.