Books and deaths

As just about everyone in the world knows, Tim Russert passed away the other day from a heart attack.

Now, working at Borders, deaths are only important to us if they've published a book or they have a book about them. Tim Russert has published two books: Wisdom of Our Fathers (a book Borders was pushing as a Father's Day gift last year) and Big Russ and Me. We had Big Russ and Me on our Bargain tables for a LONG time and they sold okay. Not fantastic, but they did okay. His other ones you'd get asked about every once in a while too, but nothing spectacular. With his death, though, his books have suddenly become THE in thing to read and buy! Our store is all sold out. The bookstores around us are sold out. We can't order them. The publisher is out! So the publisher is reprinting his books and customers are practically banging down the doors wanting a copy of his books! I had to have told, at least, 5 people that we didn't have the books and the situation with the books yesterday. On top of that, I know a number of my co-workers told many more people the situation.

Having worked at Borders for 4 years this July, when someone dies...they suddenly become the most popular person. Does that just seem wrong to anyone else? Why is it when someone dies, there's such a fascination with them? It's like until they die, the populace just doesn't care about their life or their work. As soon as you die, though, you seem to be worth more. Ironic since they can't create, contribute, etc anymore to society. Take Princess Diana as an example. Do we seriously need to write a new book on her almost every year? Are
we really going to gain THAT much more knowledge of her life or death? Let the poor lady die in peace, people! Presidents and political figures, to me, are a bit different since their "contribution" or "legacy" can't be felt until some years later and most times people won't even regard them in any fashion until they're dead (that's politics for you). That makes a bit more sense, but, at the same time, it'd be nice to be recognized for your work BEFORE your death.

I guess there's something in society that can't heap praises upon you until you die JUST IN CASE you do something completely stupid and ruin everything you've worked for. Course, in that regard, you'd have books written about you in a jiffy because it'd be a scandal of sorts. I dunno, though. I really have no opinion either way of why society does what it does, but I think it's funny and, sometimes, sad that Tim Russert is all of a sudden so popular (book wise) when he's dead than when he was alive. Does his work mean that much more now that he's dead compared to when he was alive?

With that thought, I'm off to eat.