In the New York Times’ cleverly titled article, “A Novel Is All the Rage Even Before It Is Sold“, (“rage” as in both “fad or craze” and “a fit of anger”), journo Julie Bosman relays the array of buzz surrounding the pending release of Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”.

Mary Flad points out this particularly Decatur-centric paragraph…

Next Wednesday, Mr. Franzen will plunge into an 18-city tour. In St. Paul, the primary setting of the book, an event on Sept. 21 featuring Mr. Franzen at the 1,000-seat Fitzgerald Theater sold out quickly. At the Eagle Eye Book Shop in Decatur, Ga., one of the stores that distributed tickets to a Franzen speech at the coming Decatur Book Festival, tickets were snapped up in two days.

“We had people calling from South Carolina and Florida” who were willing to make a trip to see Mr. Franzen, said Bob Munson, a bookseller.

I’m sure Mr. Wang was out mighty early this morning scavenging up every last copy of the New York Times in a 5-mile vicinity.  (I know because I had to chase him off my driveway around daybreak this morning.  Man, he can really move in those red shoes.)

Where would Atlanta be without Coca-Cola?  And where would Coca-Cola be without prohibition?

From the January 11, 1908 issue of The Atlanta Georgian.