De Botton’s airport diary launched at Heathrow today

Last month, we wrote about Heathrow Airport installing Alain de Botton as its writer in residence for a week. As tweeted by de Botton a few hours ago, the book he wrote at Heathrow was launched today, in the airport’s Terminal 5. As described on the author’s website: “Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the stories that inhabit this strange ‘non-place’ that we are usually eager to leave. Taking the reader through the departures lounge, ‘airside’ and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more useful and more revealing than we might think.” Heathrow doesn’t seem to have started handing out 10,000 copies as announced last month, but we expect that will happen soon. Meanwhile, it’s an admirable feat of speedy writing and publishing, and of innovative brand building. Update 25 Sept 2009 | Passengers can get one of 10,000 exclusive copies distributed for free at Costa Coffee stores in all 5 terminals. (Thanks, @airlinetrends!) Spotted by: airlinetrends.com