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Where there is Anderson there must be Gawker. It's a law of physics. So we sent intrepid Intern Neel last night to A-Coop's big reading at the Union Square Barnes & Noble, hoping he'd catch a big enough eyeful of our hero for everyone. Alas, things did not go quite as planned. After the jump, Neel's report.

One would think arriving at 6:30 p.m. for a 7 o'clock book reading and signing would leave plenty of time to claim a seat or, at the very least, a view of the podium. Evidently, though, rational thinking is out the window when Anderson Cooper is in the building: "All 300 seats were gone by, like, 5:30," someone who had one told me. "People actually started coming in at quarter of 5." A B&N employee was overheard telling a coworker that the crowd was the largest he'd seen since James Frey. Good news for HarperCollins; bad news for your intrepid reporter, who was forced to watch the Silver Fox amidst throngs of seatless Chelsea boys and suburban-y looking housewives on a video feed set up at the opposite end of the room. (About 600 people showed up in total, one of whom was Cooper-mommy Gloria Vanderbilt and none of whom was Julio, at least according to my cursory scan of the front row).

Cooper, decked out in a crisp white shirt and navy blazer, seemed genuinely humbled by the turnout. Topics of conversation included Ann Coulter ("It's a bit surreal standing up here and having her stare at me from the bookshelf. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone"), the reason he didn't get an ABC News gig he wanted right out of college ("Yale — don't believe the hype"), and career advice from his mother ("Wear vertical stripes because they're slimming"). He also 'fessed up to keeping the Hardy Boy books of his youth on his bookshelf, which, all things considered, is preferable to admitting he hordes Nancy Drewes, I s'pose.

Alas, the length of the line negated the possibility of some face-to-face Cooper time, so this here cameraphone pic of a freshly signed copy will have to suffice. Dude's handwriting is positively dreamy.