Robert J. Sawyer

Carolyn drove us 650 km today to get from New Hampshire to the Barnes and Noble in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, while I poked at my next novel Wake on my laptop. It was a day of tight schedules, so it was just fast food: Wendy's for lunch (their new chicken salad sandwich is quite good); Arby's for dinner (hey, I didn't know they had mozzarella sticks -- one of my secret vices).

We picked this Barnes and Noble store for a stop on the Rollback tour because my friend Walter Hunt recommended it, based on a successful event he'd had there -- the store has an active SF reading group called "Watch the Skies." Jeff of B&N organizes it, and was my terrific host for the evening.

As it happened, tonight was the reading-groups regular meeting, and they came out in force. All in all, a very pleasant evening that started with me signing at the front of the store for 45 minutes, then moving to the back to address the reading-group meeting. I did another reading, then we had a great Q&A. At the end, members of the club had thrown names of SF books into a bowl -- the titles being nominated for being the one everyone would read for their June meeting. I was asked to pick the winning title out of the bowl, and I did -- and I swear I didn't peek! The winner: Hominids by one Robert J. Sawyer. (Next month, they're doing Phobos by my pal Ty Drago.)

At the B&N, I bought a "Portable Professor" course on "Great Trials of the 20th Century" (Scopes, Sacco/Venzetti, Simpson, and 11 more) presented by Alan M. Dershowitz. I've long a big fan of the lectures packaged by The Teaching Company; I haven't tried Portable Professor yet, and am looking forward to it (both companies package university-level courses on audio).

After leaving B&N, Carolyn drove us another 150 km to our hotel, near Washington, DC, where I will give a talk at the Library of Congress tomorrow.