I did not pick up much swag this year, much less than previous years. I did get some more Book TV bags from C-Span, my 9 year old likes them, and a great black bag with lots of sidepockets from Wiley. My favorite get was the Harry Potter cloth bag from Scholastic! It's gorgeous, with the jacket art on it and long shoulder straps. It's big enough to hold the huge bag of bagels I picked up from H&H on the Upper West Side Sunday night before my Monday flight home to Minny. I got home, and my daughter took it from me, though. Oh well.

My favorite bag in size, wearability, and closure was the Puff the Magic Dragon bag. Unfortunately, it was quite odiferous and I have had it outside for 6 days to get rid of the plastic odor. Books autographed by favorite authors were the best "gets". Thank you Elinor Lipman and Joyce Carol Oates for great memories. And to all the authors who signed their arms off, this new bookstore owner is grateful for the boost of energy you gave me after the long winter doldrums.

If anyone happened to swing by the Globe Pequot Press booth, you’d have found an assortment of fun swag given out by the friendly and energetic people in the company’s new women’s imprint, skirt! books. They had fruity lip gloss, scented candles, hand sanitizer, chewing gum, water bottles, hair brush/compact mirror combos, and, of course…the ever popular tote bag (red and white with cute little handles—even the guys were going nuts over them!)

I was only at BEA for Friday and part of Saturday.I did well all day Friday, determined to be frugal in my collecting (except pens--I love them, they are usable, and they are easy and light to carry). I went very easy on the tote bags (as a veteran ABA/BEA attendee I have dozens) and the galleys and even was particular with the actual books I collected. But Saturday morning a friend and I made a final sweep and I went kind of last minute wild, everything looked desireable. My favorite item had to be the Morimoto chopsticks.

What most people stopped me in the aisles to ask where I got it was a yellow bag from Welcome Books.

My 70-year-old mother swiped the decks of cards I got from Ellora's Cave. Hmmmmmmm.

Also a veteran ABA/BEA attendee, I give away a lot of tote bags to colleagues and friends so am always on the alert for good new ones. This year my favorite was the red and black DK bag with a zipper, a nice change from their traditional black bag. Our secretary loved the light blue Harlequin tote bag, also conveniently equipped with a zipper. With the Javits Center so warm this year, special kudos to all booths that gave away much needed bottles of water!

Weiser gave out Ankh pendents and 'Honk if You Love Weiser Books' bumper stickers. I even got to meet the venerable Donald Weiser himself.

A colleague directed me to the simple, yet iconic black tote from Penguin, with the Penguin Classics logo on the side. I also saw a number of people wearing metallic green carabiner keychains from First Book, the nonprofit behind the What Book Got You Hooked? campaign. The keychains were hooked from the belt loops of everyone- from cameramen to janitors to authors and their fans.

My best swag is a silk tie from Lightning Source. It's a bit gawdy, a bright yellow tie with the LSI logo repeatedly all over it, but with their lightning bolt in a book all over it and our flying pen nub as a tie tac, it makes a pretty good statement of what our company is doing. This is swag I will use often, much to my wife's disdain. --David Rozansky, Publisher, Flying Pen Press.

This was my first BEA, so I stocked up on the tote bags. The Puff the Magic Dragon one is gorgeous, but did make my entire suitcase stink. The Harry Potter bag is beautiful as well and will make a great gift for an HP-fan friend. But the best sawg is the memory of speaking casually to some of my favorite authors: Jan Brett was just hanging out when I stopped to get a Three Snow Bears tote; Peter Yarrow kissed my hand when I got my autographed copy of Puff (along with the tote).

I know that I am getting in on this late, but I was not about bags at BEA... I was there for books. I was a tad disappointed with the autographers that were ANNOUNCED, some great ones but also lacked some talented new voices who have recently released debuts or follow-ups. I was extremely annoyed at missing Richard Russo in the RH booth; and one too many overlaps of upstairs booth vs. downstairs tables. Call me crazy, but a BIG author should never be in a booth unless the booth is not on the show floor, too much chaos (see Steven Colbert, James Patterson etc) As for swag: The Art Thief, Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes of New England, Ann Patchet, Alice Sebold, Ha Jin to name a few. Even the Gregory MacGuire looks good. What were some of your galley picks?