Checking Orson Scott Card’s recent blog entry, I see he talks about walking around downtown Charlotte, North Carolina and stopping in Barnes & Noble.

In fact, I was in walking distance. Sidewalks everywhere. Safe to walk from the hotel to a Barnes & Noble, to a large shopping mall, to some fine restaurants and also some cheap and middle-sized ones.

When I, the road warrior, stay in strange cities and there is a Barnes & Noble nearby, I stop in. I don’t always buy stuff, book store mooch that I am, but I stop in and enjoy myself. Browsing in a bookstore has always been a favorite of mine, and I still think back to the days of Waldenbooks at the Chautauqua Mall in 1975, buying books like Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund.

I wonder what it would be like to amble down the Science Fiction isle in Barnes & Noble and bumping into Orson Scott Card. Neat, yes. Truth be told, as it likely is with authors, I would not recognize him and walk right on.

Who recognizes an author, anyway? Unless, maybe, it was Stephen King.