Khaled Hosseini
Over a 30 year period, I took these photographs of authors reading at Cody’s. I’m going to post some of them and try to conjure up my recollections. The photographs were all framed and resided on the walls of Cody’s . When Cody’s closed in June, 2008, they seemed to have disappeared. Happily they have been recovered recently and given to the Berkeley Public Library .
This photograph was taken while Khaled was signing books at a Cody’s event at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. At a previous Cody’s event, a conversation with Michael Krasney, he was asked a particularly incisive question. “The Kite Runner was imbued with these universal, epic, almost Wagnerian themes of sin and redemption, how did a first time writer conceive of such an audacious project?” Hosseini said that he really intended to write and intimate personal narrative. It somehow ended differently. And the rest is history. His themes resonated with the deepest feelings of the peoples all over the world and according gained a world audience.
Margaret Atwood
Circa 1980 at Cody’s Books. I don’t remember much about this event except that her travelling companion told me that Peggy thought I was cute.
Joseph Heller
I took this picture in 1979. This was one of the first photographs of the entire collection. When they set up the event, they said: “Don’t Publicize it.” So we didn’t and there were about 20 people there. Heller said he didn’t expect us to do such a great job of not publicizing. Fred Cody introduced him as a writer, who’s first novel, Catch 22, was modest book with some limited critical and commercial success. I wish my introductions had been that clever.
Ask the Agent 