Celebrate With Penguin Random House and Algonquin Books at Hotel ABA

All ABA member booksellers at BookExpo America are invited to two evening celebrations at Hotel ABA, the Grand Hyatt New York.

On Tuesday, May 27, Penguin Random House will be marking its inaugural BEA with informal nightcaps from 9:00 p.m. to midnight in the Grand Hyatt's Gallery on Lex.

Booksellers are invited to mingle with PRH staff who will be on hand to discuss everything from their favorite books on the fall 2014 lists to the company’s planned warehouse and customer-service integration, which are scheduled for next year.

Then, on Wednesday, May 28, from 9:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Algonquin Books will be hosting The Algonquin Buzzed Panel, featuring the “You Can’t Do This at a Trade Show Buzz Bowl,” also in the Gallery on Lex.

Four teams, composed of one Algonquin author and two booksellers who are versed in literature, ’70s soft rock, bookselling lore, and oddities of the universe, will compete against each other in this off-kilter trivia contest.

Participants will also be competing against a one-man team made up solely by eight-time Jeopardy! champion Tom Nissley, who will be opening Phinney Books in Seattle this summer and is the recipient of an Indies Choice Honor Award for A Reader’s Book of Days: True Tales From the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year (W.W. Norton).

World Book Night U.S. Executive Director Carl Lennertz will be the official trivia master and emcee, and Len Vlahos, executive director of the Book Industry Study Group and author of The Scar Boys (Egmont), will serve as the official scorekeeper and judge.

Booksellers at the event will enjoy whiskey tasting sponsored by High West Distillery of Park City, Utah; handcrafted beers from Nantucket’s Cisco Brewers; and appearances by authors Edward Hemingway (Of All the Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History), Bill Roorbach (The Remedy for Love), Brock Clarke (The Happiest People in the World), and Lin Enger (The High Divide).

Both events are open to all ABA member booksellers, whether or not they are staying at the hotel. (Please note that an ABA bookseller badge is required for entry.)