Robin Agnew
With a title like that, it's kind of hard to resist reading onward, isn't it? Never the less...
Fought with my bookfest board over whether booking Jeffrey Deaver was a good idea (of course it is, and he is coming to the bookfest September 13. Yay!) Some of the board members thought he was too "famous" and would take away from the more local talent...but a better known talent lifts all boats, usually. I like the mixture.
Fought with a certain publisher who lost a signing event order not once but three times, and then told me the book was out of stock. Then backtracked and said there was a "secret stash" of books in New York, and perhaps they could get permission to release some. My store is now filled with (more) boxes of books so obviously the stash was accessed, but really, ordering books should not be that difficult.
Sold LOTS of books by Reed Farrell Coleman thanks to a review on NPR's Fresh Air. That couldn't be nicer - a wonderful writer being discovered by more readers. Because he is with a small press, was able to order more copies immediately...
Discovered a new writer msyelf, something I love doing. So many of my guy customers had mentioned Matt Beynon Rees that I finally picked up his first book, The Collaborator of Bethlehem. Wow. This guy writes like a dream, he has a wonderful central character, and because he was bureau chief for Time in Jerusalem, his grasp of the area is complex. I'm looking forward to reading the next two in the series.
And something funny...two very nice, slightly older female customers were browsing around and buying one morning, and they came up to the desk to pay. The first one paid, and then her friend took her money out of her pants pocket, accompanied by the sound of velcro being ripped aprt. Her friend said, "You have locked pockets? At my age, if someone wants to root around in my pockets, I'd let 'em." They left the store giggling away (me too).
And how was your week?
