It’s that time of year again… BookExpo America! Three days of bookish ballyhoo, featuring an assorted cast of publishers, buyers, and book nerds from across the country…

And so we put on our sensible shoes and headed off to the ginormous glass monstrosity that is the Javits Center for our annual dose of destiny and power books. (If you missed BookExpo but fancy a trip to the Javits Center anyway, I’m sure there are still tickets available for future Javitsian expos of the non-literary variety… Plastics Today or Cannabis World Congress, anyone?)

Your tote bag game was strong this year, BEA! Well done. And we can’t wait to take a look at all the intriguing catalogs we happily toted home; nothing gives us more pleasure than contemplating our upcoming orders from brilliant indie presses like Biblioasis, New York Review of Books, and Graywolf Press.

Of particular interest—three fantastic titles coming up from San Francisco’s City Lights, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Keep an eye out for I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career (correspondence between Allen Ginsberg and City Lights’ founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti); Pictures of the Gone World (a limited edition reprint of City Lights’ first book, a collection of poetry by Ferlinghetti); and Shock Treatment (a 25th anniversary edition of the first book by iconoclastic performance artist/poet Karen Finley).

If it’s not already obvious, we love small, independent presses! Even really small presses.

Of course, the publishing giants were out in full force (is it just me, or was the Ellora’s Cave booth surprisingly low on be-thonged spokespeople this year?) and they had some… interesting offerings lined up. No, we won’t be stocking any of the three titles pictured above—but a taco cleanse does sound pretty fun.