Author Margaret Atwood used to come by the bookstore where I worked in Toronto. It was always slightly surreal selling books to her, but certainly no more so than watching her on YouTube (YouTube!) deliver a great keynote speech at O’Reilly’s recent TOC Conference:
Atwood expands on her talk in this interview with Gretchen Giles:
I used to work for the Children’s Book Store in Toronto and I remember working the cash one busy Sunday and looked up and Atwood was the next customer.
Another story about authors and book stores occurred when my sister was working at Abbey Books, also in Toronto, around the same time. A heavy bearded man went up to her and complained that the book he was holding was a bit under priced. After he left the store she realized it was Robertson Davies and that the book he had been referring to was one of his own – Fifth Business.
Hey, thanks, David. I always found it slightly odd selling books to Margaret Atwood. I mean, I know she has to buy her books somewhere and she was always nothing if not charming to me (unlike at least one lesser author who springs to mind), but it was still peculiar. I am sorry never to have had the Robertson Davies experience!
I do remember once though selling a stack of books to an American customer during the film festival and agreeing to ship them to him Chicago. I didn’t think anything of it until a colleague saw the box of books and asked “you’re sending books to Roger Ebert?” Being new to North America I hadn’t a clue who he was. My loss I suspect…
Margaret comes across as such a wonderful, eloquent and funny person. And so informed too. I feel a little more positive my job has some kind of a future now … well, somewhat positive.
I’m dying to design a few Atwood novels, I’m a massive fan. Not long finished The Handmaid’s Tale and I’m about started The Year of the Flood.