THE new telephone directory must be about the only new blockbuster that won't have its authors in town this weekend. "Books" is the buzz word as over 700 representatives from the major publishing houses and booksellers, as well as authors from Britain and Ireland, congregate to do business, do lunch, do deals and, let's face it, gossip at, the AGM for the Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland.
Odds are that none of the important contacts (and contracts) will be made in the business arena at all but on the K Club's golf course when Little, Brown publishing house whisks 150 of the delegates and authors off to Kildare for the first official session, of the conference tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow evening, the cooks of, London's prestigious River Cafe are presenting a supper at Jurys for Roddy Doyle, Naomi Wolf, Seamus Deane, Brian Keenan, biographers Michael Holroyd and Stella Tillyard, among others. The Ballsbridge hotel is the location for most of the hullabaloo but the authors, who obviously need a bit of artistic calm, will be staying at the Shelbourne.
Meanwhile, publishers are tripping over themselves to provide the most novel (excuse the pun) way to introduce their authors and entertain the booksellers. Monday's hottest ticket is the hooley in the hills to introduce John Banville's The Untouchable to the press. Buses will gather up the guests from the city's hotels and bring them up to Johnnie Fox's pub in the Dublin mountains for a rumbustious evening of seafood and Guinness.
Penguin has been sending out hot dogs fashioned out of cardboard to announce that they're turning the sombre Grosvenor room at the Berkeley Court into a funky Penguin Diner. The New York scene will introduce Janet Evanovitch, author of zany detective novels that are the paperbacks to pose with in the US, and her heroine, the irrepressible Stephanie Plum, to the hordes.
Hodder Children's Books has been busy seeking out six different types of bacon for a slightly cannibalistic breakfast with Mike Inkpen, author of the celebrated Wibbly Pig books, at which W. Pig himself will be present, presumably to bid adieu to his brothers.
Finally, Gordon Snell is hard at work removing all the doors from his and Maeve Binchy's Dalkey home, which will be the venue for Orion Publishing Company's bash. Without doors, the publisher's guests will be free to wander and enjoy the food provided by Della O'Clery.