And of course fan gatherings of a genre are about books and authors and people who love books, but in a different way. Hmm.

Hey, I like big long thinky discussions about awesome things! (It was threatening to become long and confusing, but then I thought of a more concise way to say it.)

The Internet is a powerful force for book-finding, but it can be easy to only stay within one's direct community for book recommendations, and panels at cons are good ways to get outside of that, or to the books that no one talks about because everyone assumes everyone's read them, I've found.