The Javits Center is like an airport with no scheduled departures and much more carpeting. It is hot and cold, somehow, at the same time, and it smells like the sad turkey wraps you’ll see hungry souls clutching as they crouch in the corners of the main convention floor eating hurriedly between meetings. There is not quite enough oxygen. It’s actually a lot less like being in an airport, actually, than it is like being on a plane. But like being on a plane that, if you have been in or around the book industry in some professional capacity, is filled with everyone you have ever met in a professional capacity. So it’s sort of like a high school reunion. On a plane. Ugh, fuck it, it’s like a giant trade show, okay? That’s what it’s like.
-Emily Gould on Book Expo America, in “Four Hours in the Tote Bag Capital of the World”
