February 2011 | Ellen F. Brown

Celebrity Encounter at A Cappella Books in Atlanta

luke wilson.jpg

While in Atlanta last week, I stopped by the wonderful A Cappella Books on Moreland Avenue. While admiring a signed first edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends, a strikingly tall man excused himself to get past me on his way to the back of the store. I thought he looked familiar but didn't give him much thought until he reappeared a few moments later asking storeowner Frank Reiss to open a locked case. That's when I realized I was standing a few feet away from Luke Wilson, star of films such as Old School, Legally Blonde, and The Royal Tenenbaums.  (You may also know him as the brother of actor Owen Wilson.)  


What to do? Part of me was dying to ask him for an autograph or for permission to take a photograph, but I chickened out. I'm consoling myself with the thought that it would have been decidedly un-cool to bother him in a bookstore. Somehow it just didn't seem the right place. 


Even sans souvenir, I am cheered by the encounter. It's somehow encouraging to know that a Hollywood hunk like Wilson--he's even better looking in person than on the big screen--has a bookish side. (A google search revealed that he has also been known to visit Left Bank Books in New York.)