With more than 100 authors and an array of activities, planning your day at the National Book Festival can be a pleasantly daunting task. To simplify things, here are a few sample itineraries. But feel free to choose your own adventure!
Breakfast
at Buttercream Bakeshop, 1250 Ninth St. NW
9:30 a.m.
R.J. Palacio, “Wonder”
Check out the children’s activities on the Expo floor: Meet Maisy Mouse, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Captain Underpants. Pose with cutouts of Jane Austen, Frederick Douglass and Alexander Hamilton. Visit the Pavilion of the States to learn the literary heritage of every state (and collect swag). At the Washington Post booth, listen to authors Megan Wagner Lloyd (“Finding Wild”) and Lulu Delacre “¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! Olinguito, from A to Z!; Us, in Progress: Short Stories About Young Latinos”) read from their books.
Lunch
at Busboys & Poets, 1025 Fifth St. NW
12:50 p.m.
Nap
4:30 p.m.
Cynthia Levinson and Sanford Levinson, “Fault Lines in the Constitution”
5:30 p.m.
Gene Luen Yang, national ambassador for young people’s literature and author of “American Born Chinese,” “Secret Coders,” “Boxers & Saints”
6:55 p.m.
Lincoln Peirce, “Big Nate”
12 p.m.
Margot Lee Shetterly, “Hidden Figures”
Lunch
at Fruitive, 11th Street NW & Palmer Alley
2:25 p.m.
Kathleen Glasgow, “Girl in Pieces”
3:30 p.m.
Book signing with Angie Thomas, “The Hate U Give”
4 p.m.
Roxane Gay, “Hunger”
5:50 p.m.
Ibram X. Kendi, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America”
Unwind
at Penn Social, 801 E St. NW
Get caffeinated
at Compass Coffee, 1535 Seventh St. NW
10 a.m.
David McCullough, “The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For”
11:25 a.m.
Diana Gabaldon, “Seven Stones to Stand or Fall: A Collection of Outlander Fiction”
Lunch
at A Baked Joint, 440 K St. NW
2:15 p.m.
Thomas L. Friedman, “Thank You for Being Late”
3:30 p.m.
John Scalzi, “The Collapsing Empire”
5:05 p.m.
Condoleezza Rice, “Democracy: Stories From the Long Road to Freedom”
Drinks
at High Velocity (specialty is Moscow mule), 901 Massachusetts Ave. NW
10:20 a.m.
Elizabeth Strout, “Anything is Possible”
Book shopping
at Politics & Prose pop-up store on the lower level
1:05 p.m.
Gelato and coffee
at Dolcezza , 904 Palmer Alley NW
3 p.m.
Jesmyn Ward, “Sing, Unburied, Sing”
4:55 p.m.
Claire Me ssud , “The Burning Girl”
6:45 p.m.
Amor Towles, “A Gentleman in Moscow”
Dinner
at Momofuku, 1090 I St. NW
10 a.m.
John F. Kennedy 100th anniversary panel with Steven Levingston, “Kennedy and King”; Kathy McKeon, “Jackie’s Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family”; and Thomas Oliphant, “The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign”
Lunch
at Farmers & Distillers,
600 Massachusetts Ave. NW
1 p.m.
Ronald C. White, “American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant”
3 p.m.
Helene Cooper, “Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”
5 p.m.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, “The Roots of a Thousand Embraces: Dialogues”
6 p.m.
Poetry slam
Late bite and drinks
at Daikaya, 705 Sixth St. NW