With all that October has going for it, there’s little wonder why it’s one of the best months of the year. Maybe, the best month.

Cooler temperatures. Colorful foliage. Playoff baseball. High school, college and pro football. Halloween. Oktoberfest. The Jackson County Fair. (A Mississippi, sentimental favorite I seldom make it to anymore.) And, since the first one in 1989, Nashville’s premier annual event: the Southern Festival of Books.

Yes, premier.

It returns next week, Oct. 21-22, but I’ve been looking forward to it pretty much since last year’s festival closed. The homework starts with poring over the list of authors who will be there, looking first for people I have some familiarity with.

This year’s fest has almost a dozen of those, including my former Tennessean newspaper colleagues Tim Ghianni and Bill Carey; former New York Times colleague Tim Egan; political reporters Joel Ebert and Erik Schelzig; the local restaurateur Randy Rayburn; the author and columnist Keel Hunt; the hilarious Florida writer Carl Hiaasen; the historian Charles Reagan Wilson; and the local treasures Ann Patchett and Margaret Renkl.

I might or might not be interested in the books they’re pitching at this festival, but they get the first shot at my attention. I suspect that other people who plan to attend do the same author scan, and then look over the schedule of their appearances to plot out how best to allocate their time.

Speaking of the schedule: The festival folks really should put me in charge because it never fails that I’ll have conflicts and have to choose one author over another. Right off the bat, for instance, Carl Hiaasen is on the bill at 10 a.m. Saturday, the same time as Joel Ebert and Erick Schelzig.

Arguing in Ebert and Schelzig’s favor is the fact that their book is about scandals in Tennessee politics. Arguing in Hiaasen’s favor is that ... he’s Carl Hiaasen. Then again, his latest book is apparently geared toward young adults, with a 15-year-old lead character. I don’t read children’s or young adult books. Nor, as a general rule, poetry. Or sports. Or “graphic novels,” which don’t fool me. They’re comic books.

People who are likely to say funny stuff onstage get preferred status with me, a list that includes Renkl and Patchett. I still fondly recall Patchett’s talk at The Tennessean’s Book & Author Dinner in 1992. As a comic would say, she killed. And there’s actually a comic on the festival bill, Gary Gulman, whose memoir the festival describes as being “about the perilous journey from kindergarten to 12th grade and beyond.” I would hope it goes well beyond 12th grade.

Southern culture and history rate high for me, as well, which is why I’m interested in the Saturday panel discussion about two books: “A New History of the American South” and “The Southern Way of Life.” A caveat: I found “A New History” entirely too dry and academic for my taste. But I’m hoping the panel discussion will be more entertaining.

I’ll pick a couple of nits: The Sunday lineup starts too early, 10 a.m., which conflicts with church time. I can’t remember if it’s done so in the past, but either way, it shouldn’t.

Another drawback, as I see it, is this year’s location: Legislative Plaza and the Downtown Library are out, replaced by Bicentennial Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. I wondered why, so I asked the people at Humanities Tennessee, which stages the festival.

“Uncertainty about the timing of renovations at Legislative Plaza caused us to feel we would be more secure in a different location,” says Serenity Gerbman, director of literature and language programs for Humanities. “In addition, the openings of the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library and Archives in the last few years have created great options for our indoor/outdoor festival.”

“The archives and museum both have beautiful facilities, including conference centers on the ground floor that are easily accessible to the general public. For authors who are attending from around the country, we are extremely proud to use these two places that showcase the best of Tennessee history and culture.”

OK, that’s the official line, and I’ll try to keep an open mind. But I’ll also hope that the library returns as a host for future festival events, as Gerbman suggested it might.

Meanwhile, you can do your own research by visiting www.sofestofbooks.org. The Oct. 5-11 Nashville Scene has a nice spread on the festival, too, which points up some authors not on my radar screen but who may be on yours. See you there.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.