Core77

As part of the publicity juggernaut for Buying In, Rob Walker chats with the SF Chronicle. If you've been reading about the book on the blogosphere, there may not be much new, but this snippet about the author himself was interesting (especially since the Chron ran the publicity shot on the first page of the article while this exchange happened on a later page).

Q: I read that you dislike having your picture taken, and even refused to use it on the book jacket.

A: I am guilty of getting a book and looking at the author. Then you have this picture of the author in your head and you're thinking about that when you're reading. I don't want that. I want the reader to not be thinking about what I look like or how old I am. I know that some of these things come up indirectly in the writing. But I feel like in the writing they come up when they are appropriate. I did acquiesce in the sense that there is a publicity photo of me. But I didn't want it on the book just because I feel like what I am doing is communicating in words on a page and I want to keep it that way.

We wonder how many authors/designs/directors/artists/architects/musicians we may recognize by face without being able to name or describe one of their works.