Baltimore Book

Twelve-year-old Katherine Lippincott wasn't even born when "The Brady Bunch" went off the air in 1974, but Sunday afternoon she was first in line to get Maureen "Marcia Brady" McCormick's autograph at the Baltimore Book Festival. Lippincott of Baltimore County became a fan when watching DVDs of the sitcom while carpooling to school. The seventh-grader was less interested in McCormick's autobiography, "Here's the Story," that the actress was promoting and more eager to ask McCormick a question about one of the episodes.

James McBride had no idea Maryland's Eastern Shore would be the setting for his next novel when he first headed there about seven years ago. In fact, he says, he was on his way to Washington to research a book on the death of Abraham Lincoln when he impulsively decided to turn left on U.S. 50 instead of right. "I wanted to visit the house where Lincoln died," says McBride, a Brooklyn native with homes in New York and Bucks County, Pa. "I started driving down that way, but then I just veered off at Annapolis and started heading in the other direction."

When Boston-based playwright, poet and Simmons College English professor Afaa Michael Weaver returns home to Baltimore, he often can be found doing tai chi under the trees at Lake Montebello. The martial art, which he has practiced for 20 years, is representative of his life and work, which seamlessly bring together different worlds - Chinese culture, the African-American experience and poetry. Weaver's 10th collection of poetry, The Plum Flower Dance (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007)

For most of the authors sitting pensively in the stalls of the Baltimore Book Festival, attracting passers-by to their titles was hard work. But not for Clifford the Big Red Dog, star of the children's book series of the same name. While strutting around Mount Vernon Square near sundown yesterday, Clifford suddenly came face to face with a sugar-fueled fan named Rhavyn Vines. Thrilled to be celebrating her sixth birthday, Rhavyn - her tongue painted blue from Italian water ice - charged and clamped her excited arms around his big red right leg. "CLIFFORD!"

On a Tuesday night, about a dozen people have taken refuge from the cold in a Fells Point restaurant to discuss a 1970s book by a dissident Czech writer. Some in the group hadn't quite made it all the way through The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera. But that doesn't stop them from debating whether they should laugh or maybe cry about this tale of a communist Czechoslovakia now vanished into history. Oprah Winfrey may have put book clubs in the news, but while she has been creating best-sellers and taking James Frey to task for making up stories, Maryland book clubs ranging from the Dear Sisters Book Club of Upper Marlboro to the Ruth Enlow Libraries in Garrett County, have long been quietly selecting, dissecting and endorsing their favorite reads.

Hundreds of people in Mount Vernon were shopping. They were eating. They were dancing - some of them in puddles. But at the Baltimore Book Festival yesterday, Holger Staude was reading. The used book that the Princeton sophomore had picked up was too good not to pause and flip through. "It's How to Do Just About Anything, and it's actually very interesting," Staude said. He'd stopped at a chapter called "How to Ease Family Tension at Your Wedding," even though the German native visiting a friend in Baltimore had no immediate plans to marry.

The 11th annual Baltimore Book Festival continues from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. today and tomorrow at Mount Vernon Place, 600 block of N. Charles St. Admission is free. Today and tomorrow's highlights are below. For a complete list, see baltimorebookfestival.com. MUSIC STAGE TODAY Noon Elliot Levin, funk 1:30 p.m. Dr. Steve Kraemer, blues 3 p.m. The Crawdaddies, zydeco 4:30 p.m. Rude Dogs Rhythm Revue, blues 6 p.m. Cafe Red, R&B/soul TOMORROW Noon Junkyard Saints, zydeco 1:30 p.m. Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Players, blues 3 p.m. NowChild Nation, funk 4:30 p.m. Chopteeth, Afro-funk 6 p.m. The Players, ska/reggae LITERARY SALON TODAY 1 p.m. Jason Miccolo Johnson, Soul Sanctuary 2 p.m. Gayle Danley, Pretty Swingin': A musical journey of poems and stories 3 p.m. Patricia Carrington, Julia Collins, Claudia Gerbasi, Ann Haynes, Love You, Mean It: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Friendship 4 p.m. Eleanor Herman, Sex With the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers and Passionate Politics 5 p.m. Joseph C. Phillips, He Talk Like a White Boy 6 p.m. Only In America!

Nearly 50 years ago, Arthur Frommer self-published 5,000 copies of a tiny book called Europe on $5 A Day, which he wrote while stationed with the U.S. Army in West Germany. Frommer earned nothing on that first printing because his distributor -- "a friend with a truck" -- went bankrupt. Nonetheless, the company born of Frommer's endeavor quickly grew and is now the world's preeminent publisher of travel guides with 2,000 titles in print. But the publishing business -- on display yesterday at the Baltimore Book Festival in downtown's Mount Vernon neighborhood -- is a tricky trade.

SCHEDULE HIGHLIGHTS This weekend's events run the gamut from spoken-word poetry to book signings to musical performances and more. For a complete list, see baltimorebookfestival.com. MUSIC STAGE Tomorrow 5 p.m. -- LVT, acoustic rock 6:15 p.m. -- David Bach, contemporary jazz 7:45 p.m. -- Unity Reggae Band, reggae Saturday 11:30 a.m. -- Mambo Combo, soco/sambo 1 p.m. -- Almost Recess, a cappella 2:30 p.m. -- Charles "Big Daddy" Stallings, blues 4 p.m. -- Marc A. Evans, R&B/soul 5:45 p.m. -- The Players, ska/reggae Sunday 11:30 a.m. -- Rude Dog, blues 1:30 p.m. -- Chopteeth, Afro-funk 3 p.m. -- Melanie Mason, acoustic blues 4:30 p.m. -- Junkyard Saints, zydeco 6 p.m. -- The Carl Filipiak Group, contemporary jazz CITY LIT STAGE Tomorrow 5 p.m. -- Reception 6 p.m. -- "Camera Stories: Photographs & Narratives" featuring t.p. Luce, thaBloc, John Slaughter, Brother in the Bush Saturday 11 a.m. -- Maryland Writers Association Novel and Short Works Contest Winners 12:15 p.m. -- Jack Fruchtman, Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends 1 p.m. -- Paul Mandelbaum, Garrett in Wedlock 1:45 p.m. -- Buzz Williams, Spare Parts 2:30 p.m. -- Masha Hamilton, The Distance Between Us and Staircase of a Thousand Steps 3:15 p.m. -- Writers on Publishing 4:30 p.m. -- Matt Bondurant, The Third Translation 5:15 p.m. -- Litapalooza, music and reading Sunday 11 a.m. -- Nurturing the Culture of Literature: What Is CityLit?

Three former state correctional officers were arrested yesterday after a Baltimore grand jury indicted them on second-degree murder charges in the stomping death of a 51-year-old man jailed at the Central Booking and Intake Center. The death of Raymond K. Smoot in May came during a brutal melee that spurred federal and state investigations and cast a glaring spotlight on troubles at the beleaguered facility, which holds people who have been charged with crimes but not yet tried in court.