Roving Borders

On a visit to Michigan during this Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., I visited Borders on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham. I know, I know, I recently said I would not be going into bookstores to check on stock, but hey, this is the first book I’ve ever written that’s been available in the U.S.

Indeed, they had copies of my latest book, BlackBerry. I spoke to a clerk and offered to autograph stock. She produced a Sharpie for me to use but, before I began, I asked:  “Don’t you want to check the author photo to make sure I am who I say I am?” She looked at me and said: “I don’t think anyone has ever come in here claiming to be an author he wasn’t just to sign books.” I guess on the Richter scale of frauds, this one does not rank.

Later, as I looked around, I realized that everyone in the Bush administration has a book out or has one on the way even though they just left the White House less than 18 months ago. Laura Bush’s book is available and the memoir by George W. Bush is already being publicized with posters even though it won’t be in stores until November 9. Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to Bush, had recently visited this store to autograph his new book, Courage and Consequence.

I bought the Rove book. That’s the real problem with going into bookstores looking for your book. It’s an expensive pastime.