 
| Close Encounters
with....
Your Favorite
Authors |
By Robb
Fink
I was a bookseller. Once you are one it is in your blood for the rest of
your life, much like a true love never leaves your heart whereever she may go.
It was in the late 1980s and I had just read one of his books. (I'll let you
wonder who he was until the end to add a little suspense to this story) and the
"buzz " was that this talk, with this author, would be memorable. As it turned
out, for once rumor was correct, on the Marist College campus in Poughkeepsie,
NY.
The auditorium lights were dimmed as I entered, and found my way to a
seat near the front of the room. There were a number of faculty and staff in
attendance that night along with students and alumni of the college. The room
rapidly filled and there was a murmur of excitement from the crowd. A few
moments later, the floodlight blazed and he walked out onto the stage. You could
have heard a pin drop, from that point on.
As he spoke, I had the feeling he was speaking directly to me (I found
out later everyone I knew felt that way too) and he covered topics from books,
to something not many people were even remotely familiar with at the time--
computers and electronic books.
During his talk, he stated that nothing would ever replace books as we
know them today -- yes computers would change the way we read, but books, covers
and pages bound together would always be the primary way people would read. For
a man so immersed in technology and the future, this came as a pleasant
surprise.
After his talk, he signed copies of his books in the lounge near
the auditorium. People gathered around as he continued to captivate his audience
for another half hour or so and then he said his goodbyes to us all. It was an
evening I'll never forget. Isaac Asimov--the writer I met--left his mark on the world of books, and
I consider myself lucky to have met him that night, long ago, on a college
campus not far from an IBM plant where components for computers are made...a
part of his world, that he made a part of every one of his readers' over the
years, and a part of a future he envisioned that has become a reality in many
ways...It leaves one asking...will more of his futuristic world come to pass?
The shame is, he will never know.....or will he?
Have you had a
close encounter with your favorite author? If so, please contact us at ReadersRoom2@aol.com We'd
LOVE to hear your story!
Copyright 2004 by
Robb Fink for ReadersRoom, LLC. All rights reserved.
