One of my biggest regrets about my undergraduate life (apart from studying a subject I didn't much care for in the deluded hope that it would improve my employment prospects, says she, laughing hollowly) was that I avoided Jilly Cooper.
I was shopping with a friend one Saturday. We drifted into W.H. Smith. There was Jilly Cooper, PR lady at her side, sitting at a table piled high with copies of her latest novel. My friend, a great fan, was very excited and decided to get a signed book for her mum's birthday present. At the time, I had never read any of her novels (this was at the peak of my Alistair MacLean phase). I felt so ashamed at the thought of coming face to face with a very famous author and admitting I'd never even read so much as a blurb that I bolted out of the shop and lurked outside until my friend reappeared, clutching her trophy.
Since then I've read and enjoyed Mrs Cooper's books (I can't call her Jilly, that would be presumptous, given my behaviour). Flatteringly, but ludicrously, Looking for Buttons has been compared to her early novels. Yesterday I read an interview with her in the Times (to which I can't link as it's a subscription-only site) in which she championed character and good writing and generally came across as a thoroughly good egg. I've been kicking myself about the W.H. Smith incident ever since.
Some years later, I saw Joanna Trollope sitting alone at a signing in my local Waterstone's. I'd read and enjoyed her books. I was too skint to buy one and too shy to approach her to say I loved her work, so I just scuttled off instead.
I am so very, very bad at treating published authors as human beings. It's just as well that Looking for Buttons is only available as an e-book. If I had a signing I'd be too embarrassed to turn up.
[This weekend, it's a Bank Holiday Bonanza! Get Looking for Buttons FREE from Amazon from Saturday 25th to Monday 27th August! It's the last giveaway I'll be holding for a while so make the most of it.]
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