Book Festival

Picture this: You stumble across that old, dusty book buried inside a cast-off dresser in your grandmother's attic. The book belonged to a long-dead ancestor. Your grandmother says to take it, and you consider tossing it in the Goodwill box. Yet something stops you.Hmmm. Flipping it open reveals it to be a first edition, and in pretty good shape at that. Hey! This could be worth something. Or maybe not. What to do, what to do?You could try "the Book Guys."They would be Allan Stypeck and Mike Cuthbert.

The art of literature took center stage yesterday in the heart of Baltimore's arts and cultural district.For thousands of book lovers, the Baltimore Book Festival in Mount Vernon Place offered a rare opportunity to meet lots of authors, buy lots of books and revel in all things having to do with words."

As thousands of Maryland book lovers descended on Mount Vernon Place yesterday, Dexter Durant settled on a shady bench with 6-year-old son Daniel for the main purpose of the Baltimore Book Festival -- reading.Opening a copy of "Bermuda's Sidney the Sailboat" purchased minutes earlier at a used-books tent, the father and son enjoyed a few minutes of their nightly at-home ritual. The elder Durant read while the younger one smiled and turned the pages."By the end of the weekend, we'll have read all of these books," the elder Durant said, showing off the three children's books he had just bought for $3.Similar scenes were repeated throughout the streets adjacent to Baltimore's Washington Monument yesterday as readers found empty patches of grass or sidewalk to sit down and explore their purchases.

Jamie Hunt steps out of the shadow of the Washington Monument and into the warm, bright September sun like an explorer about to cross the Sahara on foot.He's the Indiana Jones of the Baltimore Book Festival. The director of the Mount Vernon Cultural District, Hunt leads the Great Book Hoof, which may not be as exciting as the search for the Temple of Doom, but it's a lot more literate. And you don't usually have to contend with any snakes.The Book Hoof is the literary tour Hunt leads each year at the book festival, which opens for the third year on Saturday and runs through Sunday, all around the base of the monument at Mount Vernon Place.

ONE PROMOTION for this weekend's Baltimore Book Festival II is a recipe for a mythical ''Festival Melange.'' It goes: Take two days of sunshine, seven storybook characters, 20 poetry readings, 10 arts and crafts, dozens of author signings, etc., put it all together in Mount Vernon Place and serve 35,000 people. That's what happened last year, and it certainly made for an appetizing concoction, even with the occasional sprinkle.This year's festival should be even better, especially in attendance, as word has spread throughout the region about the first affair.

Three blocks from the Baltimore Book Festival II, the city's literary set had little to cheer about yesterday.A demolition contractor hired by the city chose yesterday to begin tearing down the historic Peabody Book Shop and Beer Stube at 913 N. Charles St., a former speakeasy and gathering place patronized by such writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald and H. L. Mencken."

Book festival was even better than the lastThe Baltimore Office of Promotion deserves three cheers for another wonderful book festival. The first one last year was good. This year the fair was better.There were more vendors with a larger variety of books for sale. The music at the main stage was mostly appropriate. It was fun seeing all the different book characters painted on faces.The 10 (?) foot-high Cat in the Hat balloon behind the main stage was fabulous. Hope my picture with the Washington Monument as a backdrop develops properly.

Stanley "Bunjo" Butler is a natural-born storyteller. But it wasn't until 13 years ago that he became a professional one."I have found it an art form that allows me to be my creative self," says Butler. "And I have a commitment to perpetuate the African oral tradition."Butler will be spinning his tales, along with other storytellers, at Baltimore Book Festival II, going on this weekend at Mount Vernon Place.Storytelling wasn't too much of a leap from Bunjo's more traditional profession, a librarian and branch manager of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Traffic on Charles Street at Mount Vernon will be diverted during the rush hour tomorrow, starting at 6 p.m. until Monday at 6 a.m., because of the second Baltimore Book Festival.Friday night commuters are advised to use Calvert Street as an alternate route north, according to the city's Department of Public Works.The two-day book festival will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Outdoor booths on Mount Vernon will be set up for readings, book browsing and cooking demonstrations.

Call it an inspiration. What better place to launch a celebration of books than in Baltimore, where the motto is "The City That Reads"?It all began a few years ago when Mayor Kurt Schmoke pulled together a broad range of people for a brainstorming session on ways to improve the city. Bill Gilmore, who sat on the committee for tourism and culture, participated in that economic incentive task force."It was the mayor's suggestion to create an annual event at a time when discretionary tourism is over because the kids are back in school and before the big conventions start in October," says Gilmore, who is the executive director for the city's office of promotion.

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.

Here's the story, of a woman named Maureen, who went from being America's perfect older sister to TV's weight-loss champion, then wrote a book about all the events in-between. "I had been asked for years to write a book," says Maureen McCormick, who parlayed a five-season stint on "The Brady Bunch" as apple-cheeked Marcia into pop-icon status, then spent big chunks of the next four decades dealing with the all-too-familiar fallout: few good follow-up roles, frustration over not being able to escape a character she played as a child, failed marriages, drugs, bleak future.

The serious readers who attend the Baltimore Book Festival hunger, of course, for knowledge. But in their quest for intellectual improvement, they don't mind treating their taste buds, sampling something savory or sweet as they listen to learned authors. So the question posed to a number of cookbook authors who are scheduled to appear at the festival this weekend in downtown Baltimore is, "What's cooking?" What are they serving on the Food for Thought stage set up on the 600 block of N. Charles St., and why did they pick these particular dishes?

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."

A daylong book festival is scheduled for Saturday at the Waverly branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 E. 33rd St. The event, sponsored by Friends of the Waverly Branch, will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. A variety of activities are planned, including stories, crafts and face painting for children from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., a writing workshop for teens from noon to 2 p.m., a presentation of telling stories through poetry from Maryland poet laureate Michael...

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 wraps up today, running 11 a.m.-7 p.m. at Mount Vernon Place, 600 block of N. Charles St. Admission is free. Today's highlights are below. For a complete list, see baltimorebookfestival.com. TODAY MUSIC STAGE 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 11 a.m. Kevin Clash, My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud 1 p.m. Amy Goodman, Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back 2 p.m. Hill Harper, Letters to a Young Brother - MANifest Your Destiny 3 p.m. Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go To Birmingham - 1963, Baltimore's Book 2006.

The 11th annual Baltimore Book Festival kicks off today, running 5 p.m.-9 p.m. today and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday at Mount Vernon Place, 600 block of N. Charles St. Admission is free. Tonight's and tomorrow's highlights are below. For a complete list, see baltimorebookfestival.com. TODAY MUSIC STAGE 5 p.m. Pale Stars, indie rock 6:30 p.m. Jah Works, reggae 8 p.m. Mary Lou & the Untouchables, rock 'n' roll LITERARY SALON 6:30 p.m. Ladies' Night Out, a panel discussion about love, life and fashion moderated by Kate White, editor-in-chief, Cosmopolitan magazine.

Ladies, it's time for a night out. With wine, martinis and the perfect combination of conversationalists, tomorrow's Ladies' Night Out event at the Baltimore Book Festival is the time to dish about life, love, sex and fashion. And oh yes - the books. Six of literature's fearless women will appear at the event, held by Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Kate White, also the author of How to Set His Thighs on Fire. "We've got women who cover so much about dealing with men and the dynamics of relationships," White says.

The annual Annapolis Book Festival, only three years old, is expected to be a banner event next month when three well-known journalists and authors participate as the main speakers. Veteran reporter and syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, considered the grande dame of White House correspondents; Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert; and Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, will speak and sign their books May 6 at the Key School campus event. The festival is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Joann Vaughan, an organizer of the private school's book fair, said a festive atmosphere truly prevails and attracts hundreds from around the area.