What a Beautiful Day for a Party!

The afternoon with Alexander McCall Smith just ended and it was an amazing event!

Mr. McCall Smith arrived in full kilt promptly at 1pm to a crowd of over 100 people in the library's reading area. The large windows flooded the space with sunlight and the crowd enjoyed a southern reception provided by Western Supermarkets consisting of grilled polenta topped with shrimp, pork tenderloin with sundried tomato chutney on garlic cheese biscuits, vidalia onion tarts, raspberry lemon and blueberry key lime tarts, spiced pecans, and sweet tea.

Mr. McCall Smith mingled easily with the crowd, shaking hands and posing for photos. Shortly after 2pm everyone retired downstairs to the meeting room for his entertaining lecture where laughter and applause were the order of the day.

A booksigning capped the event and the line stretched more than 20 feet back into the meeting room as people waited to have a last chat with the gentleman from Scotland and get their favorite McCall Smith novel signed. Jonathan Benton Booksellers was on hand to make sure everyone had the opportunity to get an autographed copy of one of his books.

We had a great time with Mr. McCall Smith and we hope everyone took advantage of this great opportunity to meet a New York Times best-selling author. We would like to thank Western Supermarkets for providing the wonderful food at today's program and also remind you that Western's Annual Wine Festival plays a pivotal role in bringing great authors like Alexander McCall Smith, Khaled Hosseini, and John Berendt to the Emmet O'Neal Library.

So save the date, October 18, 2007, and join us at our new venue for the Festival, Soho in Homewood!

htw